ry tales

Mt Aspiring, Easter 08

2008-04-24T22:06:00.008+12:00

So its been a very long time between posts. I've had the odd person wanting me to put photos of summer up so I thought I'd put afew of myself and Mark Simpsons trip up the buttress on the NW ridge of Aspiring on for everyone to see. If you like mountains enjoy, if not this may be boring.

Me on the Bonar at sunset, we got lost in a large maze of crevasses and took most of the night finding the straightforward route across the flat bit of the glacier to the hut (go figure.)

Mark selling himself for a $50 bar tab in queenstown, he got best place for reading the Lakes District bulletin with this one.
On Shipowners ridge looking onto the Iso Glacier and on to the Tasman SeaA pretty good view of the buttress and winding NW ridge/Shipowner ridge below us.
Mark on the ice cap.
Me feeling chuffed at nearly having gotten to the top of Aspiring.

NZ sunsets always look like this....come and see for yourselves

The way up and down, spot Mark. hint: he's not on top..

Taking a look at our 19km walk out below Bevan Col

Rapping the waterfall slabs on the way out

Percy the possum didn't rap his descent, much to his personal detriment.

We're not "bringing home the cup", they'll just bring it to us in 4 years....

2007-10-07T15:55:00.000+13:00

The last time we lost the world cup i was there, watching with horror as Stirling Mortlock dotted down under the sticks at Stadium Australia about twenty metres from where i sat stone faced surrounded by geering, rapturous aussies. I'd invested $AU400 in this B class seat and had taken a tirad of abuse (mainly verbal and some physical) that night. I think collectively it was the worst night of my life and this morning as i watched the wheels fall off another "world beating" All Black campaign, that sick feeling kinda returned to my stomach. Sports a funny buisness, every world cup we've come from World No 1 ranking to losing, everytime since 87 with the possible exception of 91. If it hadn't been the world cup I wouldn't mind betting we'd have put 50 points on this French side. But this is now the centre stage in the act of rugby drama, teams lift big time playing the All Blacks and can get away with throwing caution to the wind when playing the AB's because they are "never expected to win." We've never quite managed to cope with this and this morning was just another tick to the "chokers" box we've earned over the past 16 years. There's enough analysis of this game going on around the country to bore anyone interested so my little pitch is just adding to the sense of gloom our dear Aoteoroa, land of the long, bleak, grey cloud is feeling right now. I just hope it lifts fairly quickly, its just sport right....?

Here is something I read off the "stuff" website. a little sarcastic kiwi rhetoric. we're sounding more like the English by the day don't you think?

10 reasons why it's "not so bad"

1) Richie McCaw's freshly cut hair put in a great performance.
2) They only won by two points.
3) Only one person lost $A5 million ($NZ5.89 million) by betting on us winning.
4) France could still lose the final.
5) We could have lost to Georgia.
6) Blue will never look as cool as black on a uniform.
7) What doesn't kill us can only make us stronger.
8) If it wasn't for the ref, it would have been different.
9) You can still drink your beer stockpile on New Year's Eve.
10) The French have never won an Oscar for best picture.

I've grown up living in the belief the All Blacks are by right, the best and one of the closest things sport has to invincibles. We won in 1987 when I was 4, 1991 was "a blip in the radar" and we put 1995 down to food poisoning and South Africa uniting as a post apartheid nation behind Francois Pienaars team. However 99, 03 and today I think has shaken this belief of mine and i'm sure many fellow New Zealanders hard enough that we can no longer say by right, "we are the best."

We're not bringing home our rightfully owned piece of silverware. it'll have to be bought out by someone else in 4 years time.

Lunar Rosa

2007-09-02T17:13:00.000+12:00

We've been in the dark in southern New Zealand for the majority of the 24 hour day these past few months. This has led to a hive of inactivity most of the time, driving to work in the dark, driving home in the dark. But one thing that does stand out brilliantly in the winter months is the night sky, mainly because you don't have to make a concerted effort to see it as its just there, but given my geographical location this particular point in the globe is rather, well...flat. It means the horizons are quite expansive and unobstructed.

Dad being a keen astronomer has gotten back into his star gazing hobby this winter and has been taking many a picture of the moon and jupiter mainly on a calm clear night.

While I'm not the most avid of stargazers we've had acouple of treats this year thus far in McNaughts Comet which comes once every thousand years or so and the much more frequent "Lunar Rosa" eclipse which appears around about every seven years. We had a good enough night on Tuesday to get a good view of the lunar rosa as the moon disappeared and then reappeared in a reddish hue. It was quite a sight to behold!!

I always enjoy taking myself back half a millenia or more and imagine what it must having been like for people in those times watching these events without the knowledge we have now. Such events were linked with Black death and terrible wars such as Napoleons Russian conquest (to name one). I think the one that would have unsettled me the most however would have been watching a solar eclipse, the earths life source disappearing before your eyes. ahhh

Ditto

2007-06-29T18:34:00.000+12:00

It seems a lot of my friends are writing about weddings of their own or friends that are getting married at the moment, well I'm now the same. Off tomorrow for my friend Blake Hannas wedding in glorious Gore and my sister as of last w/e is engaged and is planning on getting married early in the new year to her man Ben Johnstone. Long has she suffered the surname Lobb and has been wanting to get rid of it for ages (i happen to quite like the name). We'd always given her stick saying she'd end up with "Mr Smelly" or suchlike but Esther will now become Mrs Johnstone, quite the harmless name, although Ben may yet take Lobb as a surname....

Life continues to clip along alright but flippin heck, how does one save to pay off a student loan? its getting ridiculous....I've been learning things such as this recently. When a cow is being fed winter feed it must eat plenty of hay when their diet consists mainly of swede as the high sugar content can cause blood acidosis and the cow moos its last mooooo

Enjoying Audioslaves Revelations recently, pity they broke up but hey, RATM is back!!

Pics are Ben and Esther at my grad dinner last year, perhaps a little inebriated and yours truly crossing the finish line on the routeburn, a little slower than I'd hoped.

April

2007-05-04T20:08:00.000+12:00

April was a month of continuing to settle in to the new life of stability and normality, a new job that is 40 hours a week, NZ losing the cricket and Liverpool coming into their own in Europe again. It's nice being in one place for a prolonged period of time now, i realised that I never stayed in one place for more than 7 weeks for the entire year last year.

I've managed one last autumn trip into the hills before the snow and I have been foolish enough to enter myself in the Routeburn Classic next Saturday with 10 days to train and get myself ready, its only 38km i spose....

My boarding family from last year have had their first baby, Joshua, he now occupies my old room, bathed in Liverpool kit...funny. So picks are of him and on traversing the Barrier knob to peak last w/e.

March

2007-04-02T21:23:00.000+12:00

Its been awhile since I last put up a post. I've started work now. Its all been pretty full on getting into the swing of things after 6 months of not thinking physio but I'm getting there...slowly. I've also been to my first wedding for the year, Jeremy & Alice Callander. Big Ups you guys, it was a great day and if either of you ever read this I want you to know in light of Selwyn Yeomans speech, I have a B!!! Feel free to use it any time.

The pictures are of my last mountain trip with Ollie and Johnny up Rob Roy. We climbed this 2,650m via the South ridge and bivved out high just under the glacier, it was up there with the best trips this summer. Am hoping to go for a tramp with afew guys from uni during the Easter break. should be great!!

Have a safe and happy Easter, a great time to reflect on Jesus sacrifice for us.

Pics are: Rob Roy and Rob Roy glacier

Winding thru some crevasses UNROPED, whao!

The rest are pretty obvious, the last being walking up the summit ridge. Great stuff!!

Terra Nova

2007-03-06T10:24:00.000+13:00

Terra Nova was the ship of Capt Robert Falcon Scotts that he took down to the ice in his ill fated polar attempt in 1911/12, translated in Latin it means "new land", it is also the name of our family boat, a 7.6m twin engined Image boat that I have spent my last week on in Fiordland with Dad.

Its the first time I've been "over the hill" into Doubtful Sound since Easter 2004, the time before that being form 2 camp at Deep Cove so it was quite a special week. We started in Doubtful Sound but spent alot of the week also up in Charles and Caswell Sounds. I really love that place its all got quite a history, both geologically and maritime hardman styles of 19th and early 20th century. Each sound has its charms and a uniqueness.

Doubtful Sound; named Doubtful harbour by Cook due to the fact he was unsure whether navigation into the sound was possible by sail. Its one of the larger Fiords including its connected sister sounds of Bradshaw and Thompson sounds and is the site where the manapouri power station tailrace finishes in at Deep Cove. Hence the good access over the Wilmot Pass.

Charles Sound; home to the two monarches of western Fiordland as John Hall Jones puts it. Mt Irene (1,879m) and Mt Coronation (1,765m). Charles Sound -named after Capt Charles McLaren of the Sydney Cove in 1810- branches into two arms, Emelius Arm to the north and Gold Arm to the south (no gold was ever found in this stretch of water.) The Irene river runs into Emelius Arm and we spent part of a day wandering up there to catch a glimpse of Mt Irene who was swathed in cloud...We also spent alot of time in Charles fishing and cray diving catching cod, a groper and one or two shark.

Caswell Sound; this precipitous sound was first surveyed by a commander of the Acheron and an overland route from Te Anau to Caswell was found by Quintin MacKinnon (of MacKinnon pass fame on the Milford) in 1887. Himself and his exploring companion George Tucker never actually got to Caswell Sound however, getting to Lake Marchant and assuming it was Caswell Sound. It is infact near sea level and about 1 hours walk from the sound itself as we found out for ourselves, its quite a beautiful spot. Caswell Sound was also the site of the Caswell Sound Mining Company which mined marble there but only lasted around 5 years before falling to bits.

In all it was a marvellous week, so relaxing letting some motors do all the hard yards your legs normally do.....

Pictures are (from top to bottom).

Doubtful from the Wilmot Pass

Dad holding a fine Hapuka (Groper)

Sea/Sun etc

Myself at Lake Marchant eating Ripples Ready Salted chips

Terra Nova pointing up Emelius Arm towards the Irene river

Looking south down the coast and a nice display of some lenticular cloud

McPherson - Talbot traverse via Talbots Ladder

2007-02-14T10:27:00.000+13:00

Great day in the hills with Jonway on Tuesday. This was Fiordland at its finest, nothing like a nice gentle southerly to clear out west of the divide. We had an early start from Homer tunnel and climbed Talbots ladder, once "the postmans route" to Milford and reached McPhersons summit around 10:30. Traversed across the snow to Talbots rock ridge and spent afew hours picking our way up the ridge, climbing and scrambling to the summit about 2pm. A nice top of 2100m, not particularly high but its only around 15km from the coast so its pretty impressive.

Walked off its north face and down to Gertrude saddle and Black Lake, out Gertrude Valley to Homer hut well before dark, afew kms from where we left the car. Its pretty hard to beat a warm sunny day high on the tops in Fiordland. I'm still buzzing looking at the pictures.

Pics are:

ry on the ladder

Jonway on Talbot with a backdrop of Sabre

Jonway rapping off Talbot

Us at Black Lake looking back on Talbot

A 24hr "adventure race" style

2007-02-14T08:37:00.000+13:00

I haven't been out with Ollie this summer but this was quite the mission. He had 1 day off on Sunday from PE school pracs which he is helping run up in Paradise for two weeks so we made the most of it doing a traverse of Somnus (which he hasn't climbed and has really wanted to) from the Rockburn over into the Nth Routeburn. Started on Saturday night at about 11pm headtorching into near on theatre flat by 2:30am, bivvied under some trees til 6 and were up and off again up a route we weren't sure of but thought we'd give a crack. It was way more rocky going up the northern side and the mountain had lost an incredible amount of snow since I'd been up there a month and a half ago. So it was alot of alpine rock scrambling and climbing, some grade 12-13 rock climbs here and there. Summited about 1pm and the whole of the surrounding valleys were still blanketed with cloud, peaks poking their heads up thru it. Started to descend but we again had to use a different route than the couloir which is now not in condition to climb. Route finding proved slow and at times difficult but we made the nth routeburn valley at around 7pm and from there walked out. Arrived back at the shelter by headtorch at 11:20pm. 24 hrs, 20 mins, 3.5 hrs sleep. And I forgot my camera...

Mt Earnslaw, east peak

2007-02-07T22:22:00.000+13:00

Its been a month since I've been out and this was a great trip. Did it with Jude, Viv, Hamlin and the Anna/Miri team. Was great for Miri to get a top climb before heading to Vanuatu for the year. Climbed the easiest route up the central gully of the North face of Earnslaws east peak topping out at 2830m. We'd been worried it would reject us due to the fact that part of the face was still frozen from the storm two days previous but with a late morning start from Esquilent biv the upper part of the mountain was well on its way to thawing and we happily made the top for lunch before descending to the valley floor, a drop of 2,200m. A long day but what a way to spend Waitangi day!!! Again, superb weather to melt all that frost off the mountain

Photos are: Sunset travel across Wright Cole towards Pluto and Esquilent biv.

Chopper on the summit

Summit: L-R, Hamlin, Viv, Anna, Jude, Miri, Ryan

A successful climb of Somnus

2007-01-05T12:47:00.000+13:00

Climbed Somnus on the 2nd of January, a peak of 2,300m in the Humboldt Range of Mt Aspiring NP. The weather was fab and snow was still fairly good. Myself, Ruari and Jono climbed it while Emerson ended up doing Emily pass that day due to crampon difficulties....We accessed it via the couloir and it was still reasonably good due to the cold spring we've had but i think in the next few weeks it'll start to open up pretty significantly. Beaut day on the tops, sunny, no wind, great company and "great success," praise the Lord!!!

Vietnam, Cambodia, in a frame

2006-12-11T12:32:00.000+13:00

Pride in our Nations past, Ho Chi Minh City
Sunset along the river in Hoi An

Pedalling home from school The terraced hills & valleys of the Sapa Region

Flower Hmong child

I thought i'd put just afew photos of my 3 weeks of Vietnam and Cambodia onto the web for those of you who are interested and don't get the chance to have a good look through the rest of them. Most are off my camera and acouple come courtesy of tim. Hope you like them and as always, click to enlarge it.

Motorbiking the mountain passes between Lai Chau province and Sapa
Junk boat on Halong Bay R & T on a boat at sunset, Halong Bay

900 year old over grown temple, Ankor Cambodia Sunrise over Ankor Wat, Cambodia

Justin "the centurion" Latif

2006-12-04T13:34:00.000+13:00

On Saturday the 2nd of December I went out to watch two of Aucklands top club cricket sides square off in day two of their two day test match. Not alot happened in the morning, ho hum batting, ho hum bowling with the odd flash of brilliance every so often. But it wasn't until the afternoon that I was given a real spectators treat from none other than the prolific scoring machine Justin Latif. Opening for Eden Roskill he assumed the role of supporting batsmen as his fellow opener plundered the early opening attack. He soon became the anchor of the Roskill innings and played the complete openers innings. Patiently dispatching bad balls, keeping the runs ticking over with a number of singles without creating any chances for the Waitakere field, batting so levelheadedly, calm and collected and not even letting a bouncer to the head affect his game. Completely unphasable. Wow!!

It was an incredible display of batting and one of the most complete innings I have seen from a batsmen. He was finally dismissed with a superb c & b for the grand total of 105 having faced 182 deliveries after 4 hours at the crease. Those not at the game missed a treat as the NZherald will tell you and of course all the adoring female fans at the game....if only I'd had my bat at the game to get signed by him, he wouldn't sign my chest. PS: the photos may not actually be of Justin but the similarities are quite striking.

A quick overview of whats been happening

2006-11-06T01:58:00.000+13:00

I'm writing this from an email spot in Siem Rep. The tourist destination of Cambodia and it is indeed a real crowd of tourists this weekend due to the fact that its the festival of water here in Cambodia celebrating the war between the Khymer and Cham i think who fought a big battle on the lake tonle sap centuries ago. So all of cambodia seems to have come here for the weekend. Siem Rep is the town closest to the Ankor ruins, the most famous being Ankor wat. Myself and Tim have spent the past few days here. Before that we were Vietnam for around 12 days and we have 4 days left here before flying back to brunei and then back home to sweet New Zealand on the 12th.
So I've included a map and i'll write our progress up to now briefly and you can follow if you so wish. The map can enlarge with a click.

We flew into Ho Chi Minh City on the 23rd of Oct and spent one night there. We then flew with Tims parents to Hoi An which is central coast Vietnam 30km from Danang and fairly famous for its taylor shops. I did a little bit of buying there so I can look all flash sometimes when I get home and spent time chilling around this nice small town. Following that we flew to Hanoi which is huge but has some nice lakes dotted around the city which prevents it being an ugly concrete jungle and spent two days there fitting in a game of soccer, the All White vs Vietnam infact. The All Whites, need i say it were a digrace. We then took a night train to Lao Cai which borders with China and went to a lovely town an hours drive away called Sapa. This is the most mountainous region of Vietnam and has peaks up to 3100m, quite high. All this mountainous country is carved out with terraced rice paddies and is the home to a large number of indigenous mountain tribes which we met afew of, the most notable being a girl called San May who comes from the Red Dzao people. She deserves a whole post to herself, maybe i'll write one later. We then trained back to Hanoi 4 days later and went about 3 hours east of the city and took a cruise on Halong Bay for two nights and three days on a junk boat, great fun, great people and great water. From there we came down and into Cambodia to where you find me now.

Borneo in 3 pictures

2006-10-20T03:41:00.000+13:00

Tims parents flew to Vietnam today. Quite exciting...We'll be meeting them for the first part of our trip in Ho chi Minh city and Hanoi on Sunday. Johns taken his USB reading pen drive so the pics are afew weeks old. The ominous turtle pic is there but the monkeys and monitor lizard will have to wait for another time. The other pics are from a weekend where we went roaming conflagrantly round a bit of Borneo jungle for the day and found ourselves this cool swimming hole near Labi. We were the only ones there but apparently according to locals its got a lot of myths, such as the Labi crocodile, numerous drownings and is an area highly populated with pythons....the beauty of ignorance eh? We had a great time. We have a farewell party curtesy of the phili's tomorrow night, lots of charioke i predict. Will hope to post acouple of times in Vietnam. This is it for now anyhow.

I would've posted some photos

2006-10-18T05:20:00.000+13:00

Well its striking midnight here as i write...i haven't been able to even get this far on the blogspot pages for some reason or other for over a week...? I dunno, anyway I tried on the off chance now and I'm in so i'll write a quick bit. Sorry, again no photos. I have them here but again they aren't uploading, so....use your imagination, thats always better anyway. I would have posted a picture I have of the monitor lizard that lives in our backyard sometimes staying the night in the compost heap before heading back to the jungle stream thru the fence and is about 150cm long maybe, i would have posted a picture of monkeys that play in the trees most of the day by the carpark of our local supermarket and i would have posted a picture of a turtle on the edge of a pond with a crocs beady eye eyeing it up from behind.
I've just finished my last assignment tonight, now nothing stands between me and a BPHTY. cool!! thats been afew years work i spose. I've been reading "The Idiot" by Dostoevsky while i've been here too. I've really enjoyed it and enjoyed the window into 19th century Russia its given me, as well as the wonderful character of Myshkin that he paints.
So, Saturday is my last day of work, then we fly to Ho Chi Minh City the following morning for our "holiday". We'll probably spend a fair portion of our time in the north, hopefully get to the Chinese border. Then down to Cambodia from about Nov 1st. I'm looking forward to it and am interested to see how i respond to what I see. I'd say Vietnam and Cambodia will be the poorest countries I've been to. sweat shops and poverty have been something thats been on my mind a bit more since being here. has also been the topic of afew conversations around here too.

Oh for Blue Sky!!!

2006-10-05T16:51:00.000+13:00

Its been about two weeks since I've seen sky above me now. A thick layer of haze has settled over Borneo and isn't shifting. Some airports have been closed due to poor visibility and there isn't even blood red sunsets. I haven't seen the sun at all the last few days. For you geographers the worst it has gotten so far is 171 on the PSI scale.
So whys it happening? Kalimantan is the major problem and Sarawak to a lesser extent. People in these areas burn off jungle to plant rubber and palm olive trees mainly i think, and so huge amounts of deforestation has occurred, the temperature here has been rising for a number of years now due to less jungle and when you live where there is basically no wind all the smoke just goes up and then hangs there. This is apparently the worst episode Brunei has had since 1998 when for two month the haze was so thick visiblity was a mere 50m. From this I'd say Indo is not going to be getting any carbon credits in a hurry, but whether the govt likes it or not I think it will be a hard for them to stamp out all these people who continually burn off another bit of jungle for themselves.
So it needs to rain and to rain really hard for acouple of days over the whole of Borneo for this haze to go away. I do long to see some blue sky again.
As a side note I watched a documentary on the palne on the way over here called "An inconvieniant truth", its put together by Al Gore about Global warming and all the issues surrounding it. Its a little bit bias in parts and focuses mainly on America but I think its well worth the watch as it is very good at explaining the issues facing us concisely and for the most part quite accurately. Reading the papers about the world being the hottest its been for a million years, the ozone hole reaching record diameters and seeing all this smog makes me a bit gittery.

Jungle trek in Sarawak

2006-09-26T02:41:00.000+12:00

Was a long weekend here in Brunei so we decided it time to hit some sweet borneo jungle action!! Myself and Tim did the trip to Niah Cave which is the biggest cave in the world and you access it by jungle trekking, ie: walking along a boardwalk for 4.5km in jungle. This sounds pretty easy and it was, only it was about 35 degrees and 99% humidity. We spent about 4 hours getting to and from the caves with some exploring in between of a wee local village, then drove back to Miri. Saw one monkey having a scream at us from his perch high up a tree, loads of butterflys the size of small birds and so colourful. B/c they have such large wings they fly alot of the time gliding like a sea bird. Didn't see any Orangutan unfortunately. Tim says they are only in Sabah province now. I was pretty stuffed by the end of the day and ready for a good big makan (feed). Great day though.
We stayed the w/e in this coastal town in Sarawak called Miri, maybe twice the size of dtown in a resort hotel with a sweet pool and all the trimmings of a hotel. Really nice weekend. Before heading home on the Monday we visited a Crocodile farm near the border. This place would make Steve Irwin turn in his grave. Crocodile skins and eggs etc all for sale, stuffed baby crocs too. This place had so many crocs to a pool/enclosure they were all having to lie on top of eachother. "We have over 2000 crocodile on our farm lah." I left amazed at seeing so many crocodiles at once but a bit sick that i'd paid to fund their farming project. I hadn't realised it was really a "crocodile farm."
Ramadhan has started now which means i'll have to work a whole 6 hours a day now, from 8 to 2. I'm not complaining...

Brunei Pub

2006-09-16T15:24:00.000+12:00

Thursday night here is like Friday night in NZ, its the weekend!! But what to do when in Brunei there is not a place in sight that retails alcohol due to the law? Malaysia sells alcohol, in fact its 15 mins drive from Tims house to Sarawak province so we did a little border hop on Thursday night. For us Tim told me about the best chicken wings in the world being sold over the border and we thought we'd have acouple of beers too.
So we parked the car 500m from the border and stamped the passport and walked over the line into Malaysia with a huge throng of Bruneians. You literally step across the line and the street is full of "pubs" in the middle of the jungle. Pubs meaning, tarpolin and corrigated iron rooves to keep the rain off and plastic tables and chairs on a dirt floor with big floodlights, TV's and fridges. These places are on both sides of the road and run for about 300m each side, then its back to plain road and jungle before you reach any sort of village of size 1/2 an hours drive away. So we sat down, had acouple of Carlsbergs each, $1/bottle and tucked into acouple of baskets of the "best chicken wings in the world," and they were pretty good. At 10pm the border closes so we joined the rush back across the border to Brunei and drove home following some pretty topsy turvy, swervy drivers. I don't think there is a single breathaliser machine in the whole country.
It was quite refreshing going to the pub, rather earthy in comparison to the gold laced, fluro lights image Brunei projects. Cheap night too, $2 for beer, $5 for chicken wings and 53c a litre for petrol.

Istana Nurul Iman

2006-09-12T15:50:00.000+12:00

I'm currently sitting on the 4th floor of the hospital looking out a window that overlooks this palace, the largest residential palace in the world. We drove past it on the way to Tims from the airport and just the front gate is lit brighter than around 100 christmas trees in a small cupboard. Here's some entertaining facts about this monstrosity of a building.
Although the palace is hidden from public view through artful landscaping, satellite views provided by programs such as Google Earth, have increased the public knowledge of the palace's layout. Such images have relayed the existence of two large buildings in the center of the palace and five smaller buildings either adjacent to or nearby the palace center.
Istana Nurul Iman contains 1,788 rooms, 257 bathrooms, and a floor area of 2,152,782 square feet (200,000 m²). Amenities include 5 swimming pools, an air conditioned stable for the Sultan's 200 polo ponies, a 110-car garage, a banquet hall that can be expanded to accommodate up to 5,000 guests, and a mosque accommodating 1,500 people. The palace was built in 1984 at a cost of around $400 million USD and has 564 chandeliers, 51,000 light bulbs, 44 stairwells, and 18 elevators. It is also a home to a car collection that includes custom-made Ferraris and Bentleys as well as 165 Rolls Royces. Its golden domes, designed by Filipino architect Leandro V. Locsin, and vaulted roofs echo Islamic and Malay architectural influences.
Anyone care to become a lightbulb fitter for their first job out of uni? Surely it pays alright.

Arise from the Dead oh blog!!

2006-08-24T22:41:00.000+12:00

Yes tis been about 6 months since I wrote something of substance and I notice my last post sayd I'm going to Khon Kaen in Thailand in afew weeks time. Well no I'm not going there anymore for my last physio placement. It would have been nice but after that post we got given the tuition fee which was just a little unexpected and large. So myself and Tim formulated plan number two. Brunei. Yes it is an oil state with free public service and no tax but it is not Dubai!! Duabi is in the UAE in the Middle East while Brunei is on the island of Borneo in the South China Sea. Dubai has a king, Brunei has a sultan, Dubai is made up of arabians and ex pats while Brunei is made up of Malay mainly and ex pats. Dubai is built on sand while Brunei is built in jungle. Ok enough broad sweeping comparisons, just getting the point across that these two places are different and hopefully I won't get so many "oh Ryan I hear your off to Dubai"
So I leave on the 10th from AKL and have 6 weeks of placement there. Then both Tim and myself will fly to Saigon aka Ho Chi Min and have 3 weeks of ticky touring around before coming back home in mid Nov, in time for grad, U2 and Tim's shoulder op. goodtimes. theres news

Adventures await us in September!!

2006-03-21T17:48:00.000+12:00

Well i spent the weekend a bit disconsilate that i was not at U2 and in fact i had booked my return flight for the wrong day and so i was not going to get any compensation or allowed flight change for that flight...However I did send away an email to Khon Kaen and have accomodation in a hotel for $200 baht or NZ$8 a night. I'll be living it up. Something that both my self and Tim are very keen to see while we are there is Angkor Wat. The giant ancient temple in Cambodia, afew hours motorbike riding away. Heres acouple of pics of it.

1st Update 06

2006-02-26T18:38:00.000+13:00

Hey'all
Yes well it has been since last year since i posted anything so i shall fill you in a little about the previous few months
Holidays: So I spent my summer in Invers doing a bit of surfing although that wasn't much as i seemed to have terrible luck picking the right conditions, educated guesses weren't good enough this year. Spent a month and a half at Spotlight selling fabrics to all the lovely young ladies in Invercargill and doing some climbing here and there as you have seen in the couple of previous posts. Acouple of highlight from the "holiday period between Xmas and NY stick out though and they were Lake J SU camp. Check out the blog on www.lakejohnson.blogspot.com . Secondly was a week holiday in Kinloch at the Nth end of Lake Wakatipu with my family.
School: Yes i had to come back to school again this summer for specials again but this time only for two. Against the odds I overcame once again and am now in the final stretch to becoming Mr Ryan Lobb BPhty!!
Now: I'm working at the hospital for free now which is all part of getting my degree. I am on the cardiopulmonary placement which involves alot of yucky fluids and smells etc, not recommended. although the nurses have the most delightful challenges.
Here you will see afew pictures as a snapshot of the later half of the hols til now. cheers ry

Another wee excursion

2005-12-14T16:43:00.000+13:00

For those who are interested i thought i'd put something up about my latest mountain stroll. Was in Mt Aspiring NP with Jonway and Blake and we headtorched (without headtorches) into Aspiring hut on Friday under the stars. Got there at about 1-2 am set up camp, slept and got up again at 6 and were on the track by 7. Climbed Cascade saddle in the sun and got a primo view of Aspiring the whole way up finally reaching the top overlooking Dart Glacier and the Dart Valley. Myself and Blake carried on to Islington and Liverpool but didn't quite make Liverpool b/c of the time and we were getting dehyg.
Came back down and got back to Aspiring hut around 10 (just as the sunlight disappered) and Jonway had a mean feed for us. By this stage i couldn't feel my feet and was very sunburnt and sore, actually I've had pins and needles in my deep peroneal nerve distribution ever since Saturday to now...(deep peroneal nerve is between the 1st and 2nd toe) Another awesome w/e and some nice mountains, pretty good weather, with great people. A most excellent combination.

Click on images to enlarge. Photos are: 1) Jonway and Ry with Aspiring behind, 2) Blake looking along the ridge to Islington, 3) Ry & Blake looking back at Islington from the pylon

GOING TO U2!!!!

2005-12-14T16:17:00.000+13:00

Yes. its an exciting time in the life of probably most people when they get to go to their first U2 show. I for one am at the moment now awaiting with baited breath the Saturday 18th of March concert. I actually managed to get a ticket via the Yeoman boys for the Friday night show. This was marvellous only it is going to be my last day on my first placement. I was going to have to ask permission to leave my last day 2 hrs early as my plane i would need to catch was at 4:05 and didn't arrive in AKL til 6:50 (40mins to get to Ericsson from the airport was cutting it fine).....Getting a "yes you can go, not a problem" was about as likely to be the response as a cat to brocolli, so i had decided in this instance it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission and take the punishment later (some people just don't understand that maybe a rock concert is a life or death situation...poor souls)
As it so happened Sir Justin the Bold txted me on my way back home from Aspiring NP to see if i wanted a Saturday night ticket? I was like "hmmm.....this would solve being late and getting a right hard spanking from physio school, yes i'll get one" so Justin along with Sir Michael the Dedicated, they staked themselves out on Queen St the night while I slept off some weiry legs...thanks boys. your the shiz and i'll be seeing you in March. yeeeehhhaaaa.
I'm also looking forward to meeting a certain Hannah too, although it is not my reason for the trip....

Giffords Crack and more...

2005-11-08T10:52:00.000+13:00

I thought I should write something about my little adventure at the weekend. Myself, Jude, Andy and Ollie drove into the Hollyford Valley on Friday morning and proceeded to walk our way through the bush and alpine terrain for 9 hours in the pouring rain. We managed just before dusk to find our rock bivvy -at the head of Lake Adelaide- for the night (sleeping under a tent fly would not have been fun) and crashed there the night.
Saturday proved to be more miserable than Friday weather wise so we sat in the bivy for the day and enjoyed The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe for the day. We all took turns as pretending to be the school teacher reading aloud and then went back to sleep once we had finished.
Sunday ended up being a "Sun"day and we climbed Giffords crack onto Adelaide Saddle, climbed a peak called the Sentinal then climbed up a ridge to Barrier knob. From there we descended onto Gertrude Saddle and down past Black Lake into the Gertrude Valley back to the Milford road.
Pictures from top to bottom are: Adelaide Saddle, Judo and Myself on Sentinal, Ridge to Barrier Knob looking towards Milford.

A dandy little invite

2005-10-21T13:37:00.000+13:00

On Thursday the 27th of October two exciting events will take place. firstly i will finish exams and therefore my holidays begin, meaning that i will go surfing that evening for the first time this summer!! Since i have friends who surf and also happen to be bloggers some of them I thought I'd put the invite out and say, "who wants to come?" (surfing that is, not to my last exam) Pictures are of ryan this week, and then ryan next week.

Should we go here for a wave?

11 months to the day

2005-10-07T11:22:00.000+13:00

Ok, so i've been away for awhile but i thought today a good day to write something interesting. Today is the 7th of October and on the 7th of Nov last year I departed these fine shores to the distant land of Turkey. I had myself waiting there a team of like minded individuals who love God and want more people to know him. So to the fair city of Istanbul I did travel, a place of superlatives. Its history near unchallengable by anywhere: standing in the same church as Justinian, walking around the hippodrome where they once raced the chariots, climbing battlements on the Rumeli Hasari where Mehmet the Conquerer staged his invasion of Constantinople back in 1453, the list goes on. Its also one of the key points where so much tradition and culture has passed through and even found its roots. Its seems amazing that one city/country has been the point of so much controversy and bickering for so long.
This controversy continues, Turkey for a long time has been keen to enter the EU, only the rest of Europe isn't so enthusiastic about the issue. Turkey has afew problems for starters. Its as usual still a crossroads and landbridge. A landbridge in the sense that hundreds of thousands of refugees use Turkey as their staging point for illegally entering Europe every year. EU membership would make this even easier for these people. A crossroads for the drug cartels that operate in getting the hard drugs from the likes of Afganistan into the lucrative markets of Europe, Turkey is its highways. Most importantly though, its Muslim and would in ten years time be the largest (in population) of all the countries in the EU -surpassing Germany-, giving it alot of political clout. There are mixed reactions in Europe but mainly negativity towards the proposals. Hungarys general populus for example are in support by about 53% while the likes of Germany and France sit at about 22-23% in favour of Turkey joining. (a BBC poll) Time however is running out. While Turks are keen to join they have been waiting a long time. They first lodged an application in 1959, in the past few years debate has been rife and "conditional entry" type ideas thrown around. Turks are now starting to get sick of the waiting and being played with, public support is dropping.

For me there seems to be acouple of issues. Firstly the current EU members want a joining of Turkey in the sense that they will be able to widen their circle of influence and strengthen their borders, but at what cost? While Europe is religiously tolerant, Turkey is not. If it came to the crunch would Turkey back Europe or jump back in the "middle eastern" boat? One thing i think is certain, Turkeys input can't be underestimated. For Turkey the economic and relational benefits will be of most importance. Their economy is and has for a long time struggled due to its own corruptness and the not so open trading in the richer Europe. However, while it is a secular state it also is part of an understanding with its muslim brother states, would joining the EU betray some of that understanding/allegance? For me I hope Turkey does get a look in in Europe. I'm not entirely sure where it would take things but i think trying to bridge afew differences and mend some relations is a healthy and worthwhile agenda. What do you think? This is a rather different tack than my last post but rather more macro i think you'll agree, lets see if people find world issues more important/interesting than our celebrity couple.

Indian love story on MY blog!!!

2005-09-16T14:58:00.000+12:00

Justin is probably my closest Indian friend and as of late I've been fortunate enough to be involved in just a little bit of his Indian love story.
So the saga starts with Justin returning from a Student Life conference saying he's met a girl who "scoops and dumps" and talks touch jargon with his touch rep mates. Naturally being the friend I am, I'm interested in this new interest and this is where the online saga begins....I now quote a bunch a comments left on my own and justins blog

Justin: here is a website which will inform you further after our conversation in your car. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=9929357&Mytoken

Ryan: interesting and commendable link. Low melanin concentration though, how will you live with that?

Lilhannah: hmmm. i wonder why on earth ryan would be interested in THAT website? i'm flummoxed!

next we had a little conversation on my "back to invers" post

Justin: Did you see what lilhannah wrote, maybe she likes me! funny eh!

this was in reference to a comment posted on his blog about Top 5 christian pickups by lilhannah which read

Lilhannah: Hmm ....... I hope you don't assume that any and every use of numbers 5 and 4 [or 3 even] always have 'underlying romantic agendas'. I can assure you I have used all of those lines [3,4,5] with the opposite sex at various times, and I did not necessarily have a romantic agenda. Although, it is possible that at times I did. Knowing me, it's probable, actually. By the way, I've been studying Proverbs 31, 1 Corinthians 7 and 13, and I was just wondering if you'd want to be my memorizing partner for these chapters ...:P

so then i wrote to justin on my blog...

Ryan: yes i saw what lilhannah wrote, i think she does like you. how are you going to respond to such a forward, balsy proposition? then again, maybe she was taking the piss.

Lilhannah: BUSTED! both of you! I will neither confirm nor deny either of those conjectures on my motives for writing such a 'balsy proposition'. I'll leave you two to talk amongst yourselves about it.

So the question has to be asked, was this really a genuine busting or had Justy the sly dogg planned it like this all along? Anyhow, the comments did carry on if your particularly interested you can read them. Seems this little manouvre by Justy has worked a treat and the question remains....will it be a "happily ever after" Indian love story???

Picture: Justy moving in for the first kiss.

Katrina continued

2005-09-12T16:37:00.000+12:00

Here's the rest of the pictures. for some reason it wouldn't allow all of them on one post.

Awesome Katrina

2005-09-12T16:08:00.000+12:00

Here are some pictures I took while visiting Louisiana just two weeks ago. If you hadn't already guessed, this is hurricane Katrina just as it came within sight of land. I think most of them (these are my best pictures) are also just before it hit New Orleans. Pictures like this make you realise the extent of the storm and why the damage was so severe. Nature can be very beautiful but also very angry, this is it at its most angry.
Also, I thought as a side note we have really outused the word "awesome". Awesome can describe as little as going shopping for chewing gum these days, so when pictures like this come your way awesome just doesn't quite cut it as an adequate adjective anymore.

Dark day for Liverpool FC

2005-08-31T19:27:00.000+12:00

Today I am rather gutted to announce Michael Owens return to the premiership. Gutted because Owen will not be gracing the Reds on the Merseyside but will be scoring alot of goals for a certain Newcastle on the Tyneside instead. Owen for years has been my favourite striker in the world because of his speed, agility, finishing touch and his temperament on the pitch. He's an alround nice guy and a fantastic soccer player and happened to play for the Reds. So, this I think is the first significant blunder that Rafa Benetez has made since taking on managing Liverpool, why? Because firstly Owen wanted a return to the Reds and secondly he is a prolific goalscorer averaging about 20 goals a year, 8 more than last years top score for the red shirt. But what a situation: Owen one of the worlds best strikers finds himself without first team action due to Guti, Raul, Ronaldo and now Robinho as choices ahead of him at Real. To add to the frustration Sven has given an ultimatum that England players must be playing first team football to make his world cup squad. So naturally Owen wants to move to a club he will get 1st team footy only to find that all the English powerhouses have closed their checkbooks for the summer and he can't even get Champions League soccer back in England (the reason he left the European champions for Real in the first place) What a miserable situation for poor Owen, i feel for him but I'm also sad for Liverpool, they just didn't get in in time. In the words of Steven Gerrard (they may well be infamous in the near future) "Of course I want Michael to return, he's worth at least 20 goals a season. Imagine him returning to Anfield and scoring against us, it would be a nightmare!!" Those words will probably be lived down this season. However, my best wishes do go out to Owen as he was rather short on options . I hope to see him scoring for England at the World Cup next year.

In all this Real come away the fat cats again with about a 10 million pound profit on the player alone for a years worth of service to the club as Newcastle bought him for an estimated 17million.

Back to Invers

2005-08-29T16:55:00.000+12:00

A family history
So i'm back in Invercargill with my family for the holiday week. Why there you might ask? I'm actually a 5th generation Southlander, my great great grandfather coming to Gabriels Gully in the goldrush from England. He managed to get enough gold to buy some land in Nightcaps (western southland) and find a wife to bear his children, one of whom became a butcher I think, and he doth begot my grandfather. Grandpa married grandma who grew up in green island (dunedin) and then mum and dad both grew up in Invers, went to uni got married and came back here. So what is it that keeps them here/makes them come back? I actually looked up what Invercargill had to say for itself on the net and it was quite insightful.

Here's an exert, from the tourism website

"New Zealand's southernmost city, Invercargill, is still arguably one of the country's most intact from our early development period. While in more recent times a number of fine old buildings have bowed to new structures, Invercargill remains much the city of consequence it became in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The once swampy site, which initially attracted European settlers eager to set up a flax-milling industry" and also, "Invercargill's early prosperity resulted not only in the construction of many fine commercial buildings, predominantly of brick and plaster, but also of some very notable churches."

I don't know about anyone else who reads this but it seems to say "hello I'm Invercargill, I flourished 100 years ago for about 50 years, we're more than just flax millers now. Come visit."

There are still plenty of reasons I love this little spot but I do get depressed at its lack of life and vibrance that it claims it has but doesn't. So to my friends who haven't been to invercargill what is the place like?

Here's my most honest account of the place. Invercargill lacks much but is so close to so much that isn't lacking. This includes countless National parks, Fiordland and Catlins are of significant note. Adventure capital Queenstown is only and hour and half away and the rest of the central otago which is actually faster to get to from Invers than Dunners. Stewart Is is just across the strait and all in all I would say that these are some of the worlds most beautiful, untouched areas.

So I'm by no means gutted about being bought up here, but as my horizons have broadened a little the only real drawcard to return is family and friends, then getting out of the place to the places I just mentioned. In a sense the southern south island is my soul country/homeland, not so much this funny wee city.

the pictures: a cockatoo that is under the "attractions" on the website? and then the Watertower which stands tall and proud by itself.

EMG and quadracep recruitment

2005-08-23T14:21:00.000+12:00

Well since i'm a physio I have to put some interesting stuff about the body on my blog sometime. So I've been part of the control group in a study done my Gisela Sole at the physio school on recruitment of hamstrings after hamstring injury. To blow confidenciality I was subject number 8, so in the next 6 months to a year I shall be in a reputable medical journal as subject 8 in the control group. The study involved me getting parts of my leg and elsewhere shaved and electrodes put over different muscle groups like the young lady in the picture here. The electrode read how much electrical activity my muscles are getting sent via my nerves (recruitment). I was then put on the Kin Com machine which assesses muscle strength of leg muscles. It was found that in my left leg I have a very good balance between hamstrings and quads while in my right side I have hamstrings which are too strong, out of balanced . This has interesting implications as I have had a hamstring injury (grd 2 muscle tear) in 1st year. The fact that it is stronger is due to overstrengthening during rehab since injury which means the body actually starts to use it (the hamstring) more in functional activities such as running more than it should, creating more strain and a higher likelihood of reinjury due to this dominance. So as it works out I could have fitted perfectly into Giselas subject group only my injury is too old. She is hypothesising that too much rehab prediposes you to reinjury of your hamstring. If you find this interesting let me know and I'll tell you the journal to find the article is in once it is published.

Huge Sporting W/E

2005-08-15T11:19:00.000+12:00

Well we started the weekend with England again off to a flyer against the aussies in the ashes, lets hope they can finish and the characteristic bad weather of the UK be kept at bay til day 6. Saturday found the big game of the season for the AB's at the den in sydney against an aussie side that is in an appauling state. Thankfully the night was complete with a solid win but the first 60mins were very frustrating given our dominace that wasn't materialising in points. Wasn't it good to see Joe back!?
And then finally this weekend kicked off another premiership season in England. My Liverpool started with a quote "limp" performance in a nil all draw with Borough. I think the premiership although its great to have the top flight playing again, the off season could have been longer, you don't quite get enough time to miss it before its back. Pics are Joe Roko beating David Lyons (no contest there) and Gerrard missing one of his 3 chances on Saturday.

Finally my photos start to flow!!

2005-08-10T14:58:00.000+12:00

Hello, there we go, we have pickies capablitly now. This is me and Ols having a cheese and tomato relish sandwich for lunch in the Rockburn valley, Mt Aspiring National Park on your left. we stayed under a rock biv that night but were rained out the next morning, so no glacier climbs for us that time. bummer. This shot to the right is Wakatipu and the Remarkables at the height of summer from Closeburn at a wedding I attended. nice view for your big day

Blog networking

2005-08-04T15:48:00.000+12:00

Well I've decided its time to add another posting since I'm now part of the wider blogging community. His majesty Darren "blog" Hight who gets thousands of hits on his blog and numerous comments has put me on his list of other people with blogs. So I decided that today might be a nice day to put some photos on of some of the lovely places I've been in recent months. these are turkey, mt aspiring national park and port pegasus on stewart is. justin once taught me but after awhile of fiddling in the templating section for awhile gave up, so no interesting eye candy on this site for awhile longer. As for the comment Darren about coming to see you for World Cups and hint hint....well I might not make the soccer one, but I'm pretty keen for the rugby one the following year, it seems a little more attainable for me so maybe Switzerland later in 2007 might be my best bet, unless of course i get a break from physio for a bit and get lots of money, then your wedding will be on the cards

Why I like holidays

2005-05-27T12:32:00.000+12:00

I have for a long time decided that holidays are some of the best times in my life. I don't like a job that makes you work for 48 weeks a year but I'm sort of half resigned to the fact that some day I'll have to do it for awhile at least. Regardless of this the reason why I like my holidays so much is that 1) I work reasonably hard when I'm not on holiday, therefore making a holiday something out of the ordinary and 2) because I always have such good fun when I do have one. This semester break is going to be no exception with a trip to Stewart Is and Port Pegasus with Dad and Ols. Here's some pictures from a cool website www.cleangreen.co.nz that has a whole bunch of awesome photos of beautiful South Island NZ including Stewart Island. All by a cool guy called Gilbert Van Reenen whose quite a photographer. (This picture inserted months later is from that great trip to Port Pegasus, this is from atop Bald Cone.)
In other news isn't it great to see the mighty reds lift the Champions League trophy for the first time in 21 years. For those of you who think I'm a tag along with the successful club then you are mistaken. Liverpool have been my team for over 8 years. In that time the only times I've really had something to cheer about were the treble season of 2001 and of course yesterday. Given that in the last 8 years really the in teams or the very successful teams have been Man U or Arsenal and then of course most recently Chelsea I would therefore label myself a committed (despite results and public opinion) Liverpool fan. Now I finally have something to cheer about again along with the rest of the hoard of Liverpool fans out there. I like supporting winners, there's no question, and a team of winners I do indeed support.

a beginning...

2005-04-26T22:05:00.000+12:00

Well its about 10pm and I'm off up to QT tomorrow for a big tramp with the ollieman. Looking at doing Rockburn and hopefully park pass glacier if the snow at the weekend hasn't covered the crevasses up!! Have been at home in Invers for the last couple of days enjoying warmth and shelter as winters fingers start to flex and grab at your chilli spots (places that have no clothing cover)