Drips and Drabs

Okay, it's day three of the Welly Adventure.

The weather is still pretty great, and I hauled up the load of stuff Ruthy had moved into storage here, so we have all the stuff we are going to import until we receive our Waikato family to stay around Easter.

That's probably a good thing as my feeble pipe cleaner arms are all floppy from grunting up to the second story with boxes.

As for the Capital itself, both together an apart, Ms Love and myself have begun cursory ambles about.

I found Graphics (the local comic book store,) and it made me miss the happy warm orange glow of MK1.
...Then I found there local supermarket and was AWED by the range and selection of things I didn't even knew I wanted!

But, enough jabber, I don't really have much to say, but thought I better make an entry.

I was going to take a picture of whats out our window, but grubby streets aren't super thrilling.
I'll just let Google do the broad strokes and you can fill in the rest with your amazing minds

(we are here-ish)

Heading south, Minus Ruth

My turn!
(Yeah, we all know it was my turn about 4 months ago, but anyway...)

So, most of you reading this might be aware that I was offered a job interview in Wellington out of the blue, which I, of course, jumped at!

Problem was it was so out of the blue I had very little time to think how the HELL I was going to get to Welly, let alone where I was going to stay... Needless to say this just added to the stress of the situation.

Luckily, I have an awesome Family.

It's true. My family is so awesome that not only are they able to bake amazing cakes, (which you may recall is the corner stone to everything good in the universe,) but they can also pull together amazing plans for such random occurrences in such a snap that it could make you dizzy.

So yeah, they totally saved my bacon.

The rest of the story is best told with a few pics I snapped on road trip to Welly.

Blues and greens.... EVERYWHERE!

The Ol' Desert Road, being all the seasons all at once.

I'm amazed how well these pics turned out considering they were shot on my phone at high speed!

If you asked some school kid to draw a volcano... this is what they would draw.

(well most of them would mouth off or eat crayons, but the good ones I mean...)

Lots of Miles actually passed... like TONNES... we got to Palmy from Hamilton in one pleasant day. And then we stayed in a castle...

...It turns out i can't prove it wasn't just a place that looked like a castle from the road as i forgot to take pictures... so just presume that it was... and that they made me King of NZ...

... It totally happened.
Moving on.

Right so, after a very nice stay at a very nice (real) castle, we hit the road again for the Capital!

After arriving with time to spare I did what any good job applicant would do and sussed out where I was to be well in advance, and then shopped around the area until it was time to make my slightly early appearance.

Man, I forget how neat Welly really is.
Haphazard and chaotic, but so full of character and secret twists and turns!
The Wind is worthy of the capital letter I just gave it, and I'm sure the charm wears off, but it's a kind of distinguishing mark that bonds the people there together... or so it seamed.

My only complaint, Mr W. Ington, is that your citizens have no concern for person space.

I do not inspire fear there, they just brush right up against you as you walk...
I must work on that for next time... maybe carry a spear or something.

ANYWAY...

So then came the interview... here:

(actually the building on the far right of this shot)

Its right beside the Inter-continental Hotel (which is amazing btw, but you might know that from a previous post... If I ever posted it...) if you turn about 130 degrees clockwise from the fist shot you'll see it here:

(that cart thingy sells snacky treats right outside whare I went for the interview.)

I might post about the actual interview if I get a call back... I will say I think (for a prelim interview) it went really well, I was confident and honest... I guess time will tell.

Yeah, so after that we caught up with some rellatives in the welly region and stayed at an awesome little motel right on the water front... I highly recommend it if your ever fleeing the law!
(Apparently the place has a gruesome little bit of history attached to it, but it had cozy beds, tasty snacks and sky tv, and you could see the sea! so I don't much care who fled there after doing what :D )

We crossed the road to have a walk on the wharf, and say hello to the seagulls.

You wouldn't believe that the sky would turn so grey just the next morning.

He could be my new neighbor if it all pans out.

Gosh, it all went by so fast, and we were out of there the next day, under looming clouds and massive winds.

Wellington calls to me all the time and just swinging by makes me want it even more...
Guess I just apply for more things while I wait to hear if I get a second interview.

zooming out of Welly, the place seems grumpy that I'm leaving.

My Detestable Day!

It's here!

One (incredibly long,) week and a day after placing an order, my game has turned up from "The Game Crafter"

The results are mixed, and interesting... heres the first stage of the unboxing:

This part was more or less what I expected.
The game ships in an envelope, its box is just a plain white card board box, (comic store/card store clerks of the world will recognize this as a standard cardboard card box, about a 500 count I think.)
Their are no bells and whistles, its plain and functional and contains all your bits.

Ok, heres where it gets interesting.
The print job is very nice and all my cards are present and accounted for.
The card backs are just as designed, and the contrast is actually a little stronger than I aimed for, which is so much better than if it had gone the other way!

A few minor niggles with the end result:

• The safe zone, (area that shouldn't be effected by the cut out,) might be a little less safe than I thought. This if more than likely me being reckless in my set up, and nothing to do with Thegamecrafter.com
• They printed my rules in black and white. This is a bit of a drag, my rules don't really need colour but a few of the helpful diagrams would be clearer if they weren't printed in black and white.
• The sticker they give you for the box is tiny and black and white. Once again, I didn't expect wonders with the packaging, but is colour that much more expensive? I would have paid for it too!
• I wonder if their punch/cutter has dulled a bit since they got it, as their are some nicks and scratches in the print finish around the edges of the cards.
• I'm really uncertain how well these will hold up to multiple plays... once again, this is my wonderings, not a fault of gamecrafter, and is totally unfounded at this point.

So yeah, there it is, the detestable deck, and the more i look at it, the more i could see this cleaned up as a marketable item.

Oh, and for more images and so forth, look here:
The Detestable Deck

-Scott

Scott blogs in a tent!

So, hands up if you knew that driving an automatic in “drive” down the highest road in the country would cause your brakes to emit plumes of smoke.

You may note there is no picture here of us with our hands up.

But we met a nice A.A. man who explained the rough points of this to us and assured me (Scott) that our car wasn’t about to catch fire and explode.

That was quiet a good part of the trip today after a particularly bad part.

So, back to the start of the day.

We awoke a little sore from a night on a deflated air mattress, but actually pretty well rested and super snugly, considering we could see snow from our little camp site in Franz Joseph.

We had “glaciered” the day before, (had I mentioned that?) and stuffed our self’s on Indian food then rugged up and hit the snoozy train.

So today we set of for Wanaka.

3 and a half hours used to seem like forever in a car, we are adapting quiet well.
We broke up the trip by visiting a salmon farm and feeding some EPICLY big fish!I felt a bit bad knowing they were destined for someones tummy, but consoled my self thinking that they had the best life a fish could have!
Off again in the direction of Wanaka.

Once there we had a look around for some accommodation, but it turns out the dire warning of our nice motel lady in Nelson had come to be true… the west coast was booked up.

Feeling a little hesitant about this Ruthy set my mind at easy by suggesting we “do Wanaka” properly and visit “puzzling world.”

It was, and I use this phrase with joy, RAD!

We mazed, laughed at the taunts to psychics, stared at holograms and plummeted headlong into tilted rooms… sweet!

With the MADNESS concluded, we sat in the car and munched down some tasty sammies we had built, before plugging Lee back in and setting our sites on Queenstown.

A world of driving (Captain Ruth at the helm,) and we were there.
Queenstown is simultaneously the apex and anus of the south.
It is a wonderful place to behold (and get stranded out side of waiting for the AA man,) and everything is rather well maintained… but… its full of very stupid rich, drunk people. Especially right now.

We bought some fish and chips and mussels and sat by the lake eating them and watching people get drunk by liquor ban signs, some one then stole my water bottle from right beside me.

With no chance of accommodation here either we once again turned to Lee and picked yet another destination. This time Scott called ahead for fear we spend all night on the road. “we are just leaving Queenstown now” …”Why?” Was the reply

We are currently typing away inside our tent in our second “top ten” holiday parks (that’s their name)
This time its in Invercargill.

That’s right. Invercargill

Today we crossed over ½ the south island.
We are truly heroes.

Bet your missing us already.

Hitting The Road

Well, to settle the argument as to how long it takes to travel from Hamilton to Welly, the answer is “a jolly long time!”
Well, to be fair, not that long really. The two of us taking turns got us safe and sound to our hotel in around seven and a half hours, and there is nothing like sitting on your but for the lions share of a day to really wear you out!

Denizens of the road beware, Scott has the wheel

We had a damn nice jaunt on the roads, smooth sailing through every season and what seamed like a million different environments, with the desert road being particularly alien and pretty.

Speaking of alien things, we just had to check out the local UFO once we got to our landing zone!

All checked in and driven by grumbling bellies we took to the streets to see what we could find to sustain us.
Footing it about failed to yield any results, mostly due to it being Boxing Day and every one pouring out of the capital for beechier locations.
So we instead popped back to our little hotel room and dialled up some room service, in the mean time we made our selves right at home.

the room, the food, the joy

And that was that… May not sound like much but it took a lot out of s both.
We are now reclining on the hotel bed, watching Wallace and gromit on the tube, plotting tomorrow’s endeavours.

And that’s the first update from on the road I guess… Scott and Ruth have indeed started to head south.

Peace!

Camp Practice

 

our campsite, front and back

So, our next big adventure begins with a little warm up.
In the heart of deepest darkest Thames, your intrepid heroes find themselves ready to practice being able to survive in the (fairly tame) wilds.

Armed with our little tent and tins of beans we set to work claiming our space and making ready our nook. 

(fun fact about our campsite, just beyond the trees on the left of the second picture up there, there is a river, it makes awesome natureish noises all night long... and also brings midges to keep us company all-the-live-long-day.)

  

  

A magic pixie floats into view as the tent magically self assembles

SHELTER!
Our ancient ancestors would be so proud! Especially as we then wrangled another necessity into place... FIRE! 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What i should be telling you, (mostly to make you ridiculously jealous,) was we arrived here, in this bristling kiwi wonderland, under the most gorgeous sunny weather... It works wonders in the department of making you believe that you are actually on holiday, and that its fine to stretch you at put on your best "ahhhhhhh" (silly looking,) faces.

 

 

one of these things is not like the other

Okay, to be fair, we did have a minor dash of pesky weather, but it wasn't that bad.

In fact it was the looming grey appearing in the evening that forced us to break out the trusty cooker nice and early.
and with its little flames valiantly holding back the first little spits as they came down, it was about time we put together the we fritters we had long trained for in secret rituals passed down through the generations in forbidden locales.

 

 

behold our utter pride, (this must be how parents feel... before they eat their kids)

At that point, we feasted and congratulated our selves on surviving our first day of crazy travels past dangerous Christian camps (woo, there's a whole other story,) GPS treasure hunting and living like little townie pioneers. 
Time for some kip!

 

Looking out, looking in.

Aww man, I'm a most awful story teller.
I forgot to mention that we actually took a jaunt to "OUR" swimming hole!
The first time, (of two,) we went there, if you'd been present, you would have witnessed something like a vision of a little dancing wood nymph skipping from stone to stone to find her way to the goal. This sight was followed (a good pace back) by something like a giant having an avalanche like epileptic fit and falling from painful spot to more painful spot.

Never the less. We arrived... And it looked, well, I think our faces say it all.

 

 

Ahhhhhhhh! Cool and soothing!

So, yeah, where was I...

Oh right, the next day!
We clambered awkwardly from our tangled sleeping knots into the shiny light of a shiny day!

And what did we have in mind for this unique gem of a time.

'Sploring!
Well, hiking really.

Drawstrings were pulled tight, laces were strapped down, and packs were made ready.
And after some fine heroic posing, we found a mountain, and started on up.

 

Pack + Pose

Aaaaaaaaaaand, we didn't die!

Though at times i thought we may have.
Turns out 4 hours of going only UP, is not what we were build for.
Still, it felt majestic to stumble all the way up that incline and come face to face with a solid structure build in glorious nowhere.

I'm sorry to say we didn't click many pics on the way up, as it drizzled all the way, and, to be fair, we were scared to stop moving forward!

But, after landing at the top, (and making a sprint through the icy cold mountain shower,) I clicked one or two of our home for the night, and a friendly Sherpa that taught me Gin Rummy.

 

 

Home, sweet, home for the night

Oh my how we started to hurt the next day!

But there was nothing for it, we had gone UP, and an old adage dictated our destiny, and no matter how forlornly I looked at the helipad, no choppery saviour came from on high.

Sustaining ourselves with a yummy combo of porridge's, we said good by to some Aussie friends we had made, (who had a magic bag that held THE ENTIRE WORLD,) Shouldered our packs once more and began our downward tumble under cerulean blue skies!

 

By now posing was pretty much our forte

 

 

The path out of shangrala!

This sign very nearly recived kisses from me.

 

Infact when ever I was nearly dead, signs would appear, and I would bound on!

 

The tippy top! and the place we stayed!

And that was that!

We nearly died on the trip down, but knocked an hour of our time!
We promptly fell into the icy stream and tried to regain the use of our shattered limbs, And then our little tent tucked us up once more and we went out like a light.

So thats the first really real adventure post on this blog, and its miles to long.

AAAAAAAND I'm cutting it short because I have to get to bed, because tomorrow, well, thats when the next adventure begins.

So stay tuned listners, and sorry for the spelling.

Sweet dreams, and look out for grinning natives!

Dangerous sort!