Latest Articles on Year Out
Virtual Sheep Shearing in Wellington
For the last few days we’ve been enjoying the sites and sounds of Wellington. We’ve left Maisie on the outskirts of the city, having a rest herself and are currently staying at the YHA. Wellington is lovely place, with the weather not as changeable as Auckland, although it lives up to it’s local name of ‘Windy Wellington’.
We’ve taken the chance to enjoy some retail therapy, probably the last of the trip, plus some of the cultural attractions of the city including the national museum called Te Papa. The highlight of this trip was Lea “forcing” me to have a go on the sheep shearing simulator (see picture below), although both Dad and Norman will be disappointed to hear that according to the machine I “shear like a townie”. My excuse was that obviously a real sheep would struggle but that seemed to freak the spectators out more than reassure them
I won’t embarass Lea by including pictures of her efforts on the water skiing simulator
We’re going to be in the North Island for another couple of days before catching a ferry across Cook Strait to the South Island. The next week or so holds the prospect of tramping and sea kayaking in a couple of the national parks in the north of the south island, plus a tour of New Zealands major wine producing area
More news and photos as we go on but for the time being here are a couple of shots of Wellington
Grade 5 River Kayaking
Well today we both kayaked a grade 5 river including a 7m waterfall! What a fantastic trip although we both had loads of water injected into ears, nose and mouth so have slight headaches.
Before people think we’ve taken leave of our senses and jumped straight into white water rafting on a grade 5 river, well no fear we were both in tandem kayaks along with guides, not that it made the effort any easier. Especially in my kayak where I far out weighed my guide - poor Pete!
The route lasted an hour and the highlight was the 7m waterfall but also include numerous rapids and a couple of other smaller waterfalls at around 4m
Lea was fortunate to stay upright all the way but Pete and I couldn’t manage this under the largest fall. Despite numerous practices in calm water I wasn’t prepared for the violence of the water in the rapids. When we rolled I calmly followed the drill and dropped my paddle and bend double over the kayak and waited for Pete to right us. This he nearly managed to do but lost it at the last minute and we plunged under again. At this point I took a mouth full of water and it started to be less fun. Unfortunately the survival aspect of my brain kicked in and I forgot the drill meaning that we needed help to be righted and then had to empty to boat - sorry Pete!
That aside it was…
Campervan Roadtrip
Well we managed to find a campervan which Lea has christened as Maisie (don’t ask me why). She’s 16 years old but so are most of the campers round here being converted builders vans but apart from one small technical problem she’s been runing really well and fingers crossed will see us through the trip.
Since the last post we’ve headed north from Auckland and explored the Northland area including a couple of days in Russell in the Bay of Islands, followed by a couple of days camping practically on the beach at the most northern tip of New Zealand called Cape Reinga. This has been the highlight of the trip so far and we extended our stay here from one night to two and enjoyed a very hot walk along the coast to the Cape where you could watch the Pacfic Ocean and Tasman Sea meet with quite a force.
Yesterday we headed south through the Kauri Coast seeing the massive Kauri Trees on route. Today we have arrived in Rotorua and will spend a couple of days here exploring the thermal sites. I’m hoping to do some whitewater rafting but Lea might take some convincing. I may have to offer to throw in a Spa treatment, we’ll have to see
Anyway thats a brief update, more as it happens and we’ll try to get some pictures of both Maisie and the Cape uploaded soon
New Zealand at Last
Well after what seems like days of flying we finally arrived in Auckland last night. We were both shattered and hit the sack straight away and feel a bit better this morning after 10 hours kip. First job is for us to sort transport for our stay here in NZ. Ideally a camper van although a sleeper van could be a never option. First impressions are that NZ is just like the UK in many respects, its warm here (which is obviously diff) but it has rained twice since we’ve been here so in many ways its just like home!!
Once the transport is sorted then we hope to head north to explore the Bay of Islands and 90 mile beach before heading back south and onwards through the rest of NZ.
Singapore & Part 2 of the Longest Flight
Well we had a sleepy and sweaty day exploring Singapore and taking in higlights such as Chinatown. From there it was back to the airport and the 7 hour hop (!?) to Sydney which we arrived at 30 minutes ago. No Club Class this time but the economy seats we booked which weren’t bad I have to say. Its a beautiful day here in Sydney all be it very early in the morning and it looks like its going to be a lovely day weather wise.
Not that we’ll get to enjoy it as we board the flight for the final flight leg our journey in a couple of hours and will be in Auckland by lunchtime New Zealand time. And then the hunt for a camper van begins
The Longest Flight in the World - PART 1
Well we’re in Singapore after a 12 hour flight from the UK, made easier by the upgrade to Club Class that Leigh and John arranged for us - thanks guys! We arrived after dark and the heat hit us as soon as we walked out of the door. We caught the train into the city itself and took the 1km sweaty walk along the river to our hotel. First impressions are that it is an incredibly clean city and that the fines for infringements such as riding your bike through sub ways are pretty fierce - say $5000 !!!!!!
Plans today are to check out more of the city on foot before heading back to the airport to catch our onward flight to Sydney and Auckland.
Nepal Unclimbed
Unfortunately our Unclimbed Peak remains so ...........
Our trip started with an eventful bus journey with an 80km trip taking 12 hours starting in Kathmandu with 5 of us plus around 10 Sherpas/Porters and a whole lot of kit, finishing in Syrabubensi with a bus crammed full of people after picking up more Porters on the way.
The journey through the Nepal countryside was amazing, punctuated with small villages where we appeared to be a bit of a novelty. We were embarking on our trip on the first day of the Dasain Festival so there was a holiday atmosphere in most of the villages with people decorating their vehicles, houses and faces and playing games in the street.
Recent landslides lead to a few hairy moments on the road with us having to walk across numerous sections. Nepalise bureaucracy made for some long hold ups at various army checkpoints but much arm waving, telephone calls and raised voices safely saw us on our way.
We finally made it to Syrabubensi to find the intended guest house was full so tents it was on the local playing field.
The next day we started our trek into the Langtang National Park with our destination a small group of Guest Houses called the Llama Hotel. As we were still at quite a low altitude the temperatures were pretty high and there was plenty of colourful plant life not to mention monkeys in the trees.
The next day we continued our trek heading towards…
Kathmandu
Well we arrived safely in Kathmandu last night after a brief stop over in the Middle East. Today we’re busy doing last minute admin jobs and sorting kit out prior to our departure for Langtang tomorrow morning. Oh and also recovering from the drinking session last night
Its a fantastic place and a real sensory overload. Fingers crossed when we’re next online (prob 3 weeks time) we and the team will have successfully made the first ascent of our peak. We’ll upload some pictures then
Homeless Loafers in the French Alps
Well it’s been a while - we’ve just been so busy enjoying ‘not working’ that we haven’t had much time for updating our site!
We had a good week with John and Leigh, if a little troubled by the weather
I managed my first 4,000m peak, the Allalinhorn, with John, although unfortunately Giles and Leigh were forced to turn back and wait for us to finish as Giles was not well. (Therefore no photos of that one as I was too knackered to carry my camera and have yet to nab some photos from John).
A few days later we regrouped and all managed to get to the summit of Weismeiss, pictures below…
We said goodbye to John and Leigh, and we returned to Chamonix. Unfortunately the next 5 days saw us valley ridden with bad colds and then bad weather We eventually got fed up waiting for the weather to improve, so we found some valley cragging, and ventured out on to the Mer de Glace in the cloud for some ice climbing.
Finally the good weather arrived, and we headed up the Aiguille du Midi, to attempt the Midi-Plan traverse. Awesome views, the route not completed, but one hell of an adventure! Best save the details to be told over a pint some time
Needless to say we’ll be back next year to finish it off…
One week to go, and with the weather set good we’re planning to stay in Chamonix and make the most of it.…
The Long Drive South
Apologies for the lack of posts in the last month but surprisingly its been difficult to find public internet connections in the UK.
Well I am writing this from a bar in Chamonix enjoying the glorious sunshine. The drive south was hard with us leaving the Lakes at 10am yesterday and arriving in the Alps at lunchtime today. Following the sale of our house we decided to cement the image of homeless hobo’s by sleeping in the car last night. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds as we drove until 2am before grabbing a few hours kip. At least we’re here now.
Plans for the next few days? Well we’re heading up to the Mer de Glace tomorrow to introduce Lea to Glaciers and then hopefully will get a route in on Monday before John arrives on Tuesday. As already mentioned the weather is glorious and looks set to hold for the next fews at least, fingers crossed.
