Leaving Las Auckland

For Vince this day came not more than a couple of weeks ago, but for myself and Julia it has just arrived. Tomorrow we pack up our bags(well tonight if we have any sense) and get on a plane to the South Island. Quenstown awaits, where we will meet up again with Vince, this time with Tamsin in tow, for a couple of days fun and laughter and then hopefully settle down for a few months with the serious business of putting together some sort of fund for the remaining NZ and Asia adventure. I just thought it was right to mark the occasion, in an end of tv series styley, with a blog entry that just paid homage to what had come before. Really this is just a way to chalk up another blog entry with little creative effort, in the hope that it brings us a little closer to the 100 entry mark. But in fairness, we've managed to let slip by 11 months in Auckland, and for the most part they've been pretty good ones. We've achieved our goal of working for a large amount of time, we've managed to see at least a little of the north island, and more importantly we've made some good friends along the way. Auckland itself hasn't been as gripping and exciting as hoped, but that's probably just big city living, but it has done a good job building up our anticipation for getting out there and seeing a bit more of the "real" New Zealand. Locals think of Auckland like those back home think of London, and we are assured it won't take too much time to understand what they mean(less sheep). Of what we know of our destination, well, I watched Billy Connolly's World Tour of New Zealand on the telly last week, and I've learned that he's not as funny as he used to be, and more importantly Queenstown looks quite nice with it's idilic setting next to a lake and surrounded by mountains. I think it's the home of many scenes from the Lord of the Rings, I'm just hoping it doesn't turn out to be Hobbitsville. In all seriousness though, that was turned into a tourist attraction about 2 hours south of Auckland. At present we don't know anyone in Queenstown but I dare say give it a couple of weeks in a shared house and that'l change, that's one of the great thing about travellers, they tend to huddle togther like a family of penguins, and friendships are made in record time. Of those we leave behind to their own adventures, Bon Voyage, unfortunately these people will most likely be seeing us again when we return to Auckland in aroun 4-5 months time. In the meantime we've got some skiing to do, yeeeaahh!

Labour of Love

Ever woken up in the morning and thought to yourself, "What the hell happened to me?". Well, this Monday thats when it hit, yep, for years I'd said to myself, I'm quite a rugid bloke, I've spent a number of years doing manual work in supermarkets, yep, if the worse comes to the worse I'll see myself right, I can always nip down the local construction site and get a job labouring.
Unfortunately two weeks ago, on my return from Tahiti, I had to live out my backup plan and don the hard hat and steel toe cap boots and test every extreme that I'd held up as an ideal. I'll tell you something, if someone is bending your ear on how much they're haiting their mundane office job and longing for something a little more physical and interactive, well I'd at least throw them a cautionary glance, for the reality is a little less rosy than protrade in the daydreams.
I wake at 5.00am in preparation for the 6.00am start, it's not the time I start work you understand, that detail hasn't been determined yet, it's the time I have to be down the docks for the gannet huddle. The gannet huddle is an interesting affair, where a mixure of local(tends to be large polynesians, paticularly good at huddling) blokes and travellers alike gather round a boarded pool table and pick up work as and when it's thrown to them. Most of the work tends to be heavy lifting, or if you're lucky as my "friend" on the health and safety course appears to be, 12 hours industrial drilling on a jack hammer, but beggars can't be choosers, as I'm rapidly finding out.
Vince wasn't lying, this appears to be a particularly dry part of the year as far as office temping goes but who could really argue with the fantastic lure of the 0800 labour complete pay and conditions package on offer. I've never missed my stapler so much.
So there I was jostling and fighting my way to the front, trying to look a little neady and a little nontionlaunt at the same time, I'm pretty sure the supervisor picked up on it, and there he was thinking, there's a guy who I want to give a job to, confident but not so much so it would interfere to the extent of a hard days work, and like a salmon tickled, he played right into my plan and he popped a timesheet into my hand and pointed me in the direction of a minibus which was waiting to wisk me away to my location for the day, and like a jackrabbit I flew across the converted warehouse floor and into my awaiting chariot. I was later to realise that 0800 labour have on average 40 jobs a day and on average 30 labourers, do the maths but all in all that adds up to a wasted few minutes looking a little neady yet still nontionlaunt, hey, we'll put that down to first day nerves.
As we drive away to our destination, a local marina, I ask my fellow worker a few probing questions, I think he picked up on my nervousness, as in a broken French accent "Don't worry piece of cake" We weren't even there yet and already my wellies were starting to chafe, and I noticed a few odd looks from the other guys as I sat there for duration of the ride in my bright orange hard hat. We turn up at the front gates to the site, "could be worse" I thought, sun is shining and and I'm working out on a marina, how hard can it be. Our foreman seemed nice, an experienced 65year old, who was waiting out his retirement and working on his own. He was welcoming and the job appeared straight forward enough, just fitting some plastic slabs into some wooden frames and then screwing them down. Straight forward enough unless you haven't previously used either an electric screwdriver or a ratchet wrench, but didn't want to come across as incompitant, and honestly how hard can it be, well hard enough to look stupid for the first few goes, hard enough for your colleague to tut at you and then in a particularly patrinising voice "doooo yooo want me to show you how it's done" Not being a proud man, "sure, it handles a little differently than the photocopier" "you just need to put a little weight down on it, like this" And he was right, next go did it fine. This went on for the whole day, and subsequently each day of my 10 days I was on site. Each day my body notched a step further to breakdown, and each day a new gapping wound somehow appeared. My hands now have a sandpaper quality and my hair is home to a large number of industrial glues and poxies. But strangely on the other hand, I feel quite proud of my efforts to diversify, I even feel a little more manly, I've learned new skills, well to some extent, and I now know if the worst comes to the worst, I can pop down the nearest construction site and pick up a job labouring.

City of Seils

"Whats with all the Helly Hansen?"

"What do you mean? You've got to look the part!"

"Gary, we're going abseiling!"

"ohhh"

Yeap, another day and another cazy extreme adventure. This time though I'm trading in the Sykjump's brightly coloured jump suit and swaping it for a very tightly fitting wet suit with additional plastic bum guard.

Come on everyone, let's go Canyoning!

Ahh, a whole day to strip away those years, and becoming a big kid again. Jumping, falling, climbing, slipping, yep, everything you'd ever want to create a large number of bruises over your limbs, and yet strangley not care too much. We'll at the time you don't care too much, I found that give it a few hours, let your body regain it's normal temperature, and that lax attitude to pain strangely transforms itself into a compelling urge to cry while soaking in a savlon bath.
But the inevitable future pain aside, I'd been looking forward to this one for quite a while. I mean com'on, who would turn down a chance to see Vince in rubber? However I do now understand the R18 rating given to this adventure sport, not for attached danger of falling to your death, no, purely for the potential psychological damage incurred by seeing close friends and loved ones without the mask of normal clothing, worse, wrapped up cling film tight in latex, kids please stay at home!
We're embarking on this one with a couple of friends, and in true turning a pretty mundain thing like turning up at an arranged meeting point at a certain meeting time, into the most complicated thing in the world, they're late and i've been instructed to delay the departure by whatever means deemed necessary. I've opted for the "I've lost my mummy" approach, and I've reached back into my past for a dark place from which to call upon tears. Turns out there waiting on someone else who's picking up the wetsuits from the laundry(expected something more complicated), but if the girls ask, it was fine acting performance that saved they're trip.
So all gathered, and with a hop and and skip in our stride we pile into the minivan and head towards our potential doom. A little melodramatic there, I'm assured by our guide that the safety record is spotless, apart from one lady who jumped off a cliff and hurt her back, but that was due to the fact "she was old" and I guess a little more fragile than the rest of us. I later arrived at the location where this said incident had occured, and realised that it wasn't because "she was old", but more to the fact she was jumping from a very great height into no more that 2ft of water. It cast my mind back to the Oxford Times front cover, the one after the annual 6am student jumpers, the one with the the girl with her leg going the wrong way. But don't worry that jump had subsequently been taken off the itinery and been replaced instead with an adseil, so there you go no danger at all.... I think Jules summed it up best when asked if she would like to attend: "no bloody way! Can't think of anything more stupid!
Over hills and dales we speed, and then stop at a house in the Whitakare ranges(big green mountains near Auckland) where in true back to nature fashion we strip off and adone our wetsuits. One thing I like about NZ, there's none of your hang ups, the whole place still retains a no fuss, just get on with it approach to life.
So suitably attired for lying in freezing cold river water, just for inforamtion purposes, a wet suit isn't a magical piece of clothing that stops cold water being cold, it's still bloody freezing, it just stops you dying after 15mins, we amble down the hill to find our chosen river. Unfotunately our chosen river turns out to be not at the bottom of the hill, but at the bottom of a hill which is three hills over, just for information purposes, wet suits aren't a magical piece of clothing when doned give you the grace of a dolphin, they happen to be very restrictive and certainly not designed for hill walking, but what choice do we have? we've already handed over the cash, it ended up looking like a a rather surreal full length remake of March of the Penguins minus the ice and replace penguin faces with very sweaty human ones.
You would therefore have thought at the end of our hike, we would be super ready to jump straight in and cool down. One footstep into the water, and we quickly realised that we wern't ready at all, no it would require the heat accumulated from a 3 day stagger through the Sahara to convince us that getting into the river was a good idea. Toes were turning blue all around us, what the situation required was a fool hardy soul to grab the bull by the horns and lead the way, someone to show no fear, be a leader of men and just jump straight in. As me and Vince took a couple of steps nearer the back of the group a 14 year old Australian child steps forward and hurls himself downwards into the rushing water.
"It's not so bad"
Myself and Vince share a look, mmmmm! Can't exactly back down now though can we, there's women present, can't be shown up by a boy, there's the honour of men to keep intact, so together, holding hands and whimpering we lower ourselves down.
"what's it like? Julie our companion asks.
Through chattering teeth, I muster the responce " nooooot soooooo baaaddd wwhhheeeenn yyyyou ggeett iiinn!"
The two girls seem unconvinced, but what choice do they have, they've paid they're money and there's only 4 hills between us and the house, so they tentatively get on they're hands and knees, and with no thought of masking they're feelings, together they scream
"It's bloody frreeeeezzzing!"
It was bloody freezing, no doubt about it, but there's still the realisation that you've got to spend the next 5 hours or so jumping in and out of it, so you grit your teeth and you do your best to acclimatise. But with every new entry into the water the same, "bugger", shout surges through your body and the same deperate hope that sometime in the next 20 seconds or so your lungs might want to get over the shock and start to bloody work.
But 5 hours we did manage, and there was even a nice stop off for lunch, which through pure luck and I think some kind of natural selection I had to carry down the river. But in the scale of days, I have to think this one ranks up there, what more could you ask for than childish fun, companionship through stupid shared experiences and getting to see Vince in rubber!