Holiday Queenstown (via Chch)

It seems like it may have been an eternity ago, but I realised I hadn't put up any info on the holiday to Queenstown I went on last year.

I stopped off in my beloved Chch on the way to say hello to my folks (and pick up a car). This is where my parents whisked us off for a big dose of Geocaching - this is my parents new hobby - and they both have fancy GPS units to feed their addiction!

We had a look around Hagley Park... In Lake Victoria people use these radio control yachts. Dad and I have a couple actually but they havent been used for a while. We used to do fun stuff like race them and play tag (which involved ramming the other yacht - as a little lad I always used to like that bit).

This next pic is was my sister's room. She probably doesn't want anyone to see this but it may not matter since I don't know if she still reads my blog anyway. Anyway, I hope her new years resolution 2009 includes tidying her room (as well as maintaining it! *hint hint*).

Anyway, we did make it to Queenstown and this was a typical breakfast (with a view).

K and I made a day trip out to Te Anau where we did the first mini section of the Kepler track (it's one of NZ's official Great Walks so I'm told). If you look carefully you may be able to spot me in the photo...

This one is pretty self explanatory

Amongst other activities, Katie and I climbed up Ben Lomond (not to be confused with Ben Lummis) which is a big mountain. Someone left this digger at the start of the track.

Although the views at the summit did distract me somewhat, I still got hungry.

The views while climbing up the mountain were pretty stunning. I thoroughly recommend doing this one next time you're in Queenstown. Its a day walk so you gotta be semi prepared and it gets kinda cold too - there was still snow around the place.

Jono Sets Foot on Rangitoto

Next March, my mountainbike and I are going to explore 50km of terrain over the islands of Rangitoto and Motutapu.

To get a preview of what may lie in store for me, I decided to take a trip on the ferry and check out the place. My mate Mark tagged along and we had a jolly good afternoon :)

Found a cave...

It was a cracker of a day and an amazing excursion considering its only 25 minutes via ferry from the Auckland Viaduct. I'm definitely looking forward to returning next March with my bike. However, I did notice the terrain is extremely rugged with lots of loose stuff and sharp jagged rocks that could pose a challenge. I think serious cuts are in order if you manage a fall...

The crowd at the top!

This was also the first trial off my awesome new Buff! (Thats the trendy thing that I'm wearing as a bandana in most of the pics). Although I was a bit sceptical at first that it might be a bit of a gimmick I have been mighty impressed with it. There are so many ways you can use it and it is real comfy to wear (its made of nice light moisture wicking fabric and has no seams) - a definite must for the budding Adventure Racer!! (stops the sweat getting in my eyes, really good for biking too) Katie was so jealous of how cool it looked on me, she even went out and got one herself...

See the full album of our Rangitoto excursion here:

Rangitoto Scouting

I have moved...

For the last 2 years I have lived on the outskirts of the city but that has now changed... After our flatmate moved out a timely opportunity arose with some friends of mine in Royal Oak, so we recently moved there. The room is big, the flatties are cool (well it appears that way so far) and we have this awesome park nearby with a big hill to run up and down.

There is of course a downside however. And if you haven't worked it out already its the fact that I live 9km from work. I have done an awful lot of thinking about how to manage this, but at the moment it seems variety is the spice of life. I've tried busing, driving, training as well as... running!
I've already done it twice and its an awesome way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. I get a decent dose of fitness for the day at the same time I commute. With the help of the awesome Map My Run site I can even show you my route :)



Another new addition you may have noticed is my training log (you can see the link to the right of this page). With K and I scheduled for quite a few events over Summer I'm introducing a bit more discipline to my routine. It's awesome to look back on what I've been up to and I suppose it means that you can too, good way to keep me motivated anyway :)

A Real Biking Adventure!

Now its been over a month since I had my eyes fixed so I am officially allowed to start adventuring again. I recently went for a trip to Tawharanui with my bike (still trying to think up a name, let me know if you have any suggestions). Had an awesome time except for the fact that my brakes sounded like a train whenever I used them (it has since been discovered that they were leaking hydraulic fluid, so they have now been replaced).
Anyway, the noise was been making me a bit self-conscious of using the brakes, which was probably a bit of a safety issue too. If I was near people/birds/animals and had to brake they'd all run away in fright. Okay, so maybe the people didn't run away, but they did give me sudden puzzled glances as I interrupted their enjoyment of the countryside.

Since I know you're itching to know, this is where I went:



View Larger Map

My bike and gear on the end of the peninsula.

It was a great track on predominantly farmland with a bushy bit near the end. Lots of hills which were sometimes a bit steep for my bike (she still needs a bit more practice) so I pushed her up, as well as fences which she hasn't learnt to jump over yet (so I carried her). it had been raining a bit so it was a bit boggy in parts but I'm a Mountainbiker so I'm not scared of mud (although I'm still not a fan or those deposits that farm animals leave behind. Anyway we still had an awesome time :)

Don't fall in!

The Tawharanui Conquerors.
My bike and I :)

Gotta look after her (there was lots of cow and sheep poos to be removed)

I think I now have the biking bug... I've even signed up for a 50km event over Rangitoto and Motutapu islands next year - The Dual, as well as an Adventure race with Katie in November (which will have running and water components as well). Gotta get training!

Optic Upgrades! (and some signage fun)

Its been almost a week now since I had my eyes fixed. (By the way I think I blame Mum for originally giving me sub-par eyesight, well it does seem to come from her side of the family.

A quick run down of the laser eye surgery process from a patients point of view....

When I got there I had to take a 2 or 3 different pills (painkillers and sedatives), and then the nurse cleaned my eye and squirted a bunch of different things into them.
Then I went into the room and lay down underneath this massive billion (ok, million) dollar marvel of human technological achievement (i.e. the laser thingee). During the procedure I had to look up in the middle of these big rings of light, and like I keep telling everyone, it reminded me of an alien abduction (well, the types you see in the movies, since I've never actually been abducted myself). then stuff happens and the laser does its thing. You can hear the laser pulsing (takes about 10 minutes per eye) but its all over pretty quick really. Then you get your girlfriend to take you home and you sleep while she takes care of you, makes you lunch, does the washing, dishes - that sort of thing.

Anyway I am doing well now, much better than I was last Friday...

I had to wear these hideous shields on my eyes, mainly to stop me accidently rubbing them after the surgery.

Katie was trying to tell me something....

My eyes are bit more sensitive at the moment too which means I need to wear sunnies a bit more than I'm used to. Anyway, while I was at it I grabbed the nearest shopping trolley for a photo op....

Time for Laser Eyes

As some of you may or may not know, this Friday I am going to have my eyes fixed by a big hulking laser. It's both exciting and bit scary at the same time. I have spent a loooong time thinking about this. They say your eyes have to be stable (over 3 years on the same prescription now) and Mum has told me to wait until my mid 20's (25... that fits the bill).

Here are some of the reasons why I feel glasses and contacts are really not for me...

Glasses

1. You have to clean them all the time
2. They get all foggy when its cold and you walk inside
3. They get all steamy when you eat hot noodles (this plus item 2. are a great laugh for onlookers though)
   
4. When you walk in the rain you get water droplets all over them
5. Some people think you look geeky
6. They can be uncomfortable (especially for sport)
7. They will eventually end up misplaced
8. Once 7. happens you will get frustrated having to spend time looking for them (and it is much harder to find them when you don't have them)
   
9. In the process of looking for them you might stand on them
10. They may get broken or permanently lost which is even more annoying
11. You can't swim in them (maybe they make prescription goggles, but I've never seen them myself)
    

Contacts

1. You can't swim in them
2. It can take ages to put them on and take them out (and it always take longer when you're in a hurry)
3. I didn't enjoy having an eye infection
4. You will eventually run out of them
5. When all you really want to do is drop on the bed, you have to muck around taking your contacts out (in order to avoid item 3.)
   

If you have any more that I should add to my list then let me know! So, this Friday all this is about to change. OK so it cost nearly $6k but if it has the potential to make my life that little bit simpler then it should be all worth it!!

Also I've had my flash new bike for a while now but it took a few months for it to get some decent use. Here's some photos of a recent trip out to Woodhill that I went on. Check out the cool racing top that K got me for my birthday... (although I'm just waiting till I have the shoes, shorts, gloves, skills etc. before I start wearing out on the track... :)

Quarter Century

I turned 25 last Monday and Katie thought it was important to create a cake that illustrated the perception that people have of me:

She made the WHOLE THING herself too. I was extremely impressed. It was such a lovely cake and yummy too!

A trip to Christchurch, although not quite as planned...

OK, so maybe it was 6 weeks or so ago, but its still worth mentioning the fateful trip to Christchurch. K and I went down on Queens Birthday weekend to say hi to my family. While we were down there I showed her around some of my haunts from back in the day.

This here was my second favourite climbing tree (my first favourite has since gone to climbing tree heaven :(

Catch me Katie!

I also took my sister ice skating so she could see what all the fuss was about. As an ice connoisseur I do have to say that the ice quality down there isn't quite up to standard. I'd give it a 4 out of 10. It's a bit tooo 'ice'y and kinda rough, rather than smooth and sleek.

Watch out sis! Strange, scary girl behind you!

Me and my favourite sis :)

Now here's where it all went a bit pear shaped. Katie was doing her thing and somehow she fell, doing a really good job of breaking her wrist. subsequently spent the rest of the afternoon (and evening) waiting at A & E as well as the hospital for the docs and nurses to do their thing.

The camera even managed to catch a split second where we were both smiling about the whole thing!

So.... that's the baddest of the bad news I've had a long time. I have to admit, in some way or another it has made updating my blog a lower priority. But as for the good news, her cast is now off, so life can nearly almost get back to normal again. It's been a bit of an eye opener for me. I never realised how much can change just coz of one broken wrist.

Some Happenings

Sorry I've been busy and preoccupied with quite a few things recently. Anyway thought I should post up a few of the happenings recently.

Katie and I hired some "soft-tail" mountain bikes from one of the stores in Auckland on Saturday a few weeks back to try them out on the tracks in Woodhill, so we did that, and it was a good morning down there.

Because that wasn't enough for us, we decided to go skiing in the afternoon, on the SAME day. Naturally being so cool, I was planning to snowboard. But unfortunately Snowplanet had run out of Snowboards so I ended up doing a lesson and then skiing with Katie instead. It was pretty fun, but I still think boarding is more my thing.

I had a 70's day at work which meant I had to hunt through my belongings for anything of relevance. Luckily i managed to find my "Peace" medallion that I had from party a couple years ago, and in storage I had an army helmet that I found on the side of the road one night. Anyway combined with some appropriate clothing (and aviators) I managed to achieve a pretty good 70's Vietname protester look :)

That's me on the right for those who aren't sure.

It's a Vegan Chocolate Cake!

Not too long ago I decided to bake a cake that I could share with my Vegan* (*who eats egg and fish) girlfriend. Coz you know, sometimes I wake up, and before getting fully dressed, I decide to bake a cake. This was one of those mornings:

I googled the mixture and then put it all together in a pan. Either I didnt have enough mixture, or the pan was too small because it ended up being a pretty shallow cake. I'll blame the pan, because I wasn't responsible for creating the pan and it can't defend itself...

Once the cake was baked I shared it around with myself, Katie and Saffron my lion buddy. He commented on how fantastic it was which was quite surprising because lions generally aren't into Vegan food.

yum yum :P

Oh and on the subject of lions and stuff like that, check out this video - Starring lions, buffalo AND a crocodile. Amazing footage and I've never seen anything like it.

Polystyrene Surfer Team

In the weekend Katie and I braved the lovely weather in Tawharanui to go Polystyrene Boarding with Nick and Tracey - that's using these really untrendy polystyrene boards - in the rain! But we had wetsuits so it was all good.

Short wetsuits vs long wetsuits

They float really well! It's actually much easier to use them than a boogieboard - so you have more fun (in my opinion) but you look like a dork (but none of us mind). You can't stand up on them despite their surfboard like appearance. Great fun :)

Katie's Hair...

OK, this post is going to be a bit different. Firstly it's not really going to be too much about me. Although everybody loves me, there are other people in this world. Because I'm considerate and she cooks me dinner quite a lot, I'm devoting this post to my (current) girlfriend, Katie... or more specifically, her hair :)

Katie's decided to contribute to this post as well so to avoid confusion, her words are shown in orange - I (Jono) have added a few comments, hair and there :)

OK, here's a mosaic of Katie's hair at various points in her life

Believe it or not, before I met Jono I wasn't always as styley as I am now. (but there's still oh so much to work on!!) I've had some pretty bad haircuts and styles in my day (and some weird colours but I couldn't find the photos of the time I had green hair or the play I was in where I had grey hair (don't worry, you're not too far away) and I couldn't seem to wash out the crap that they put in it so had to go to school like that!).

I was even put in the boys line of my class photo in 3rd form (hmmm thats a bit of a worry). To this day I'm not sure why since I was clearly a girl (*phew*) (I was wearing a different uniform for goodness sake!). But after that, although I dallied with short hair, I hated it but was too lazy to tie my hair back (one of our school's stupid rules) so I stuck with short until letting loose at uni.

Once at uni I became very unfamiliar with a bottle of shampoo or the hairdresser (who's that?) and could go several years without a visit (glad I didn't know you back then). Of course, they would lament at the state of my hair when I was finally dragged off to one and have to cut big chunks off just to put a brush through it!

But in order to attract the lofty heights of boys like Jono (too right!! this post can stay) I had to start looking at least vaguely presentable…and clearly it worked! But he demanded better than just presentable (sexy, sexy, sexy please!!) and marched me off to his personal hair stylist to be "Anna"gised!!

Much better :)
too bad it only lasted 5 days :(

Anyway, I have to admit Katie's hair does occupy a fairly significant amount of my time. It's a bit annoying how my fingers always get stuck in it, but it's also kinda cute how in it's normal state it gets these fun ringlets and flops around :)

Nick and Tracey's Wedding

My big buddy Nick got himself hitched over Easter.... So last month both my old flatmates took themselves off the market (but not with each other).

Anyway, this is a randomly selected archive photo of Nick:

Here he is, waiting at the altar with his mates, hoping Tracey will turn up.

It was a great ceremony with lots of nice touches as well as good doses of laughter.

Here's the team (me, Tracey, Nick and Katie):

The following day, Katie and I went to their place for a post wedding BBQ (being a vegetarian, Katie took some tofu). Anyway, the weather was really hot and sunny! So being the considerate boyfriend that I am, I carefully covered Katie's face with sunscreen:

I ate lots of meat such as the sausage below. Also check out the hotpants behind me.

Easter Tourney 2008

At this stage of my life, the Easter break is used to play a ludicrous amount of touch rugby. My touch team, Special Ops sent both mens and mixed teams all the way out to the Trusts Stadium in the Waitakeres to lay our claim as the best Chinese touch team in the (New Zea) land!!

A bit of on-field action:

Ten games over three days is damn hard work, as well as the socials that keep you up waaay later at night (er.. morning) than you really should be. Unfortunately, I was unable to take part our games on Sunday afternoon (reason explained in the next post!! :)
However, some disappointing and agonisingly close loses meant that our tournament ended on Sunday anyway (Finals were on the Monday).

So... maybe we didn't have the best touch team around, but we definitely had the best cheer squad ;)

Katie's Beach House

I went to Katie's beachhouse which was really cool. She spent a lot of time hanging out here while she was growing up. It's at Waikauri Bay (see the photo below) which is just south of Tawharanui (i.e. a few minutes walk).

While we were there there was an art exhibition going on which was a lot of fun. I found this shiny metal ball which was really good for taking self portraits...

Also some funny rings that I could stick my limbs through.

Katie found some wings to pose in front of...

It was a great weekend but I'm much more looking forward to the next visit as this one was slightly dampened by the fact we were both still a bit sick and didn't have the energy to venture too far. There was also an unfortunate incident where I flung a surfboard into Katie's face, giving her a blood nose but I've learnt not to do that again.