Who wears the pants?

The local twilight netball season came to an end last night (of which I have been participating in a team made up of teachers from the school.)  Traditionally the last round is a dress up round... Perhaps trying to indulge in the ultimate cliche our team decided we would cross dress.  Now it may suprise, being the life of the party that I am, that I actually was persuaded to wear a dress to this final netball outing.  Luckily the schools drama department had a nice number in my size.  No photos unfortunately - it was some relief that I opened todays local paper and found the event wasn't rated as news worthy.  To add insult to injury, after the final game their was a somewhat informal league award ceremony where I took out the coveted 'most improved' award (AKA the you are a retard at this sport award).

Mt Alexander Tramp

Last weekend I did a tramp up to the Mt Alexander tops. Walked 3 hours into a hut on Friday night, day trip up to the tops on Saturday and then from the hut to the car on Sunday. Have to say the slog up to the tops was hard work - the valley floor at the car was around 200 metres, on Saturday we got up to around 1400-1500 metres. Both my tramping companions were at least 15 years older than me (perhaps 20, but it seemed a bit impolite to ask). Worryingly they were both more sprightly and fit than me.


View Larger Map

The ridge we took to get up to the tops on Saturday was really steep, and a lot of the time it was more climbing up ladders of tree roots and using shrubs to haul ourselves up rather than actually walking. I found the whole thing rather unnerving at times - some sections were rather exposed with steep drop offs. To make things worse, Saturday was cloudy. We hoped to climb above the clouds but unfortunately we never managed to get above it. This had the annoying side effect that navigation on the tops was difficult (so much so that we abandoned our original goal of climbing to the low summit). We explored a little and waited for an hour or so for the clouds to clear, but to no avail.

The trip back down to the hut wasn't as bad as I'd feared (going up the ridge in the morning I was thinking from time to time that going down would be even more dangerous). I did make it back to the hut in one piece and found the descent not too bad. On a side note the hut was really nice - used to be a field research station but has just been opened up to the public in the last year.

Wildfoods Festival Report

So the town has swelled to around 20000 (up from the normal 5000) for the Wildfoods Festival. First off I'll dispense with the boring formalities - I played in the Greymouth Big Band and conducted the Westland District Brass Band (as a last minute ring in) at the festival.

Well, what to make of the Wildfoods Festival? It probably best reminds me of a cross between the Melbourne Cup, one day Cricket Internationals, The Melbourne Show and perhaps with a bit of the Seymour Alternative Farming Expo thrown in. Suffice to say few people come for the food. The steady flood of bogans into town started yesterday. I'd gone out for a ride and saw several run down houses that inexplicably now had old couches on their front lawns. On said couches were large groups of 15-25 year olds drinking. This was just a preview of what was to come:

Bogan of the day award went to this guy: (Julie swears she feared for her life capturing this image). Incidentally I found out the following information today - NZer's do use the word bogan, however it is mainly a West Coast term. Apparently everywhere else in NZ the term used instead of bogan is 'West Coasters'... so yeah, draw your own conclusions from that one.

So what about the food? Here's a list of some of the notable food stands from the program:

"Everything but the Squeal" - Pig parts done in different ways
"Tasty Titties" - Cow's udder BBQ and seasoned to your delight
"Cow Meat Lovers" - Cow Tripe, Cow Intestines, Cow Tongue and Cow Feet
"Hoki Hocki Huhu Grubs" - Huhu grubs, live and BBQed
"The Startled Worm Cafe" - Worm Sushi, Chocolate Worm Truffles, Worm Dukah
"Crouching Grasshopper" - Deep fried locusts, crickets, jelly grasshoppers, wasp larvae ice cream

There were also many stands doing the obligatory Wild Pork, Venison (Deer), Thar, Bison (I was not aware there was wild Bison in NZ but anyway). There was even an Aussie stand selling Kangaroo and Crocodile.

I'm afraid to say that I ate much less than I desired, both in variety and quantity. I was rather conservative with a Venison Burger, some crepes and finally some strawberries and ice cream. Unfortunately from 10.30 -4 I was more or less tied up with the Greymouth Big Band 'Just Jazz' and conducting the Westland District Brass Band.

Julie on the other hand had a rather rollicking time, after meeting several of my work colleagues she disappeared for some hours and returned rather drunk (along with the also drunk teachers I work with).

After her return I was given a lesson in both the joys of living in a small town and in bad timing during a break in the brass band conducting frivolity. Agreeing to hold her beer, along with the one I had been dutifully handed by afore mentioned work colleagues I was spotted by several of my students who decided that because I was holding two beers that I must be having a particularly good time. Questions of 'are you old enough to drink' and 'can I have one of those' were asked. Being the good teacher I am, and wanting to fulfill their thirst for knowledge I dutifully educated with the answers 'yes' and 'no'. I hope I gave them in that order. The students then stole/borrowed my camera and took this photo:

I got particularly sunburn today too, which in itself is a mystery given that it was only 20 degrees and I was only not in undercover areas for about. Some more pictures to round out this update:

DePreston

So I spent my spare period on Tuesday looking at available properties to rent in the Preston/Thornbury/Coburg area... It appears as homesickness has set it.  

I now have to admit that I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing in this country, why I gave up a great and affordable rental property in Melbourne and why I choose to give up the really good jobs that I had to come and teach in a rural school where I spend 80% of my lessons dealing with 'classroom management' related issues.  Unfortunately the charm I once associated with NZ has been replaced by the tedium of working everyday in these conditions.

So I miss Preston, the house, the market, the McDonalds and Nandos in walking distance, the 24hr Safeway, the large collection of decent takeaway, Northland and the Northcote Plaza, cinemas, a decent bacon and egg sandwich (and the other important food groups, potato chips and donuts of which both the NZ versions are very sub par) .  Oh and I really miss the Pancake Parlour - no more will be getting me some f'ing pancakes.  Yes, besides the food, I also miss my friends, work colleagues, musicians etc... But I really do miss those pancakes.  

Oh and miss decent burgers - for some reason 'salad' in a burger here equals coleslaw.  Not into it.

I will also admit to missing my pet rabbits: Aragorn, Ripley and Daughter of Gavin.

Anyways, I'm hoping if I actually get some outdoors/tramping trips off the ground soon it might temper these feelings somewhat...  I was hoping to do a whitewater kayaking course in the first term holidays, but I don't think I 'll have the money unfortunately.  Anyway, worse case scenario only 10 months to go and I'll be back home.  Though it seems somewhat of a waste of effort to move for only year.

Hokitika Wildfoods Festival is this weekend - the town swells from 5000ish to over 20000.  Lots of 'wild' food on offer.  Bring me two of every animal as they say... could be good.  Though I have been roped into conducting the local brass band - not sure how that happened.  Will report after the weekend.

First Tramp

I have now experienced my first tramp. I have included the wikipedia link so the first sentence may not be interpreted that I have had sex with my first prostitute.

Given the opportunity to spend two days in the wilderness with the Yr 12 outdoor Ed class or do my regular teaching job, I choose to brave the outdoors. This adventure took place a couple of weeks back now (been a while in updating the blog).

So I arrived at school with pack on a Thursday morning and was told I was to be driving one of the minibuses. This was not previously advertised, but not particularly worrying. I had walked to school, and was told the hire place was only 5 minutes walk away so I choose to continuing walking, sans pack, instead of getting a lift down. Unfortunately 5 minutes walk was actually 20 minutes at a fast pace (the unfortunateness will become more clear...)

Upon arriving at the bus hire place I was somewhat bemused to realise that I didn't in fact have my wallet, and therefore my licence with me. No problem, I'll ring the school, get them to send someone down. But no, the school office doesn't open to 8.30 and it's still only around 8.05. So after a long walk back to school and then a subsequent lift back to the hire place I picked up a vehicle that was somewhere between a large van and a small-mini-bus.

After all this misadventure we finally headed about 50 minutes north east towards Arthur’s pass. Asides from the kids drawing penises on fogged up windows in the bus and generally mocking the poor bastards that got stuck behind us on the road, the were, well, generally badly behaved on the trip up. The joys of driving a school bus.

The track we were walking was through the Taramakau valley, onto Lake Kaurapatka and then finally through to some hot springs located on the Otehake River:

View Larger Map

The trip was supposed to take 4-5 hours, but took us 7 (the joys of moving in large group!) After passing Lake Kaurapataka we climbed to a short saddle and came upon a track junction. The plan here was to take the flood route down the valley so the students could see what a med-hard track was like as opposed to the easy-med track we had walked on to that point. This section of the track was only 500m but took us about an hour and a half. The track was generally no wider than a foot and often covered with tree fall. It was also very exposed - we were walking about 100 vertical metres above the valley floor, on a slope that dropped off on a rather abrupt angle. A slip of the track probably would've resulted in slipping/falling/rolling a fair way down the valley, along with serious injury. No pictures of this section unfortunately as the camera had to go into my pack so I had both hands to grab roots, trees and what ever else on the track that would aid balance! Eventually we made it through this section and down to the valley floor where we had a relatively easy 1km of travel up the river bed, including quite a few (shallow) river crossings before reaching the campsite and the hot springs.

Some quick snaps from on route:

After we had made our camp there was some concern about the weather possibly deteriorating overnight. Out came the mountain radio (which if you've never seen one before is a rather interesting contraption). Weather forecast was for heavy falls starting around 1.00am in the morning. This caused some concern as if the river was to rise overnight we would be stuck at our camping site and forced to wait for it to return to a safe level for crossing. Apparently several people die each year in NZ attempting river crossings, so it seems to be a somewhat serious business. The decision was made to move camp downstream a few hundred metres and to the opposite bank. This gave us access to the flood route in the morning if the river was uncrossable. Given what a bitch it was getting down the flood route into the valley, no one really relished the prospect of doing it in reverse in the morning.

Rain started on cue around 1.00am, but to our pleasant surprise we woke at 7.00am to find the river had not risen much (but it was still raining heavily). The decision was made to take the normal route out and not take the flood route we'd taken the day before. This involved several river crossings, the last of which was over chest deep. (probably swimming would've been easier) A final scramble/crawl for about 20 minutes up a rather steep and muddy track up the valley brought us back to the track junction on the saddle just east of the lake. From here walking was a relatively mild affair, but the track had in large parts turned to mud meaning a messy time for all (the rain continued throughout). We finally reached the Otira River again, and to some relief it had also risen only slightly and was still easily crossable. The alternative would've been another track/flood route that would've meant another 3 hours walking to a swing bridge.

Incidentally, the area had around 150mm of rain in 24 hours leading up to the Saturday morning. I imagine come Saturday the rivers were certainly no longer crossable. This has also had the annoying side effect of making it impossible to dry my boots, which were as damp as ever 48 hours later. Eventually the sun returned an now my boots are dry... but unfortunately not odorless.

After this first successful outing I was keen for more - so out went the group email to all staff: 'what are you doing this weekend, want to come tramping with me?' I had a trip planned and all, but the silence was deafening. Maybe it's the smell of my boots, or me, or perhaps I'm just too boring for people to consider 2 days of enforced close contact. On the upside the vice principal has given me details of the West Coast Alpine Club of which his wife is president. He has also promised to hook me up with a couple of keen outdoors people out of school so perhaps I will have more trips soon.

I also attended a staff cocktail party last weekend. Being me, I didn't drink (chose to drive so I had an escape route if things turned for the worse). I left just after one staff member (who is a PE teacher... no further comment), who claimed they were sober, attempted (and failed) to walk through a closed glass screen door. Result: no more door, and (luckily) a minor scratch on their hand. The damage did look like someone should have bled out on the floor, so said staff member was particularly lucky.

My last confession of this rather long-winded post: I have taken up playing netball in a mixed team on monday nights with some other staff members... Apparently in this country it's a perfectly masculine thing to do.