The 1000 Day Holiday

Well just now I have oficially handed my notice in to work that I am leaving.

Woot! Damn that feels good!

14 months of travelling sounds very good to me

A kitesurfer gets lofted for 37 seconds.. Very lucky to come out of this with just bruises.

oh, and some funky snow kiting clips! the first one is amazing.

I had 5 hours out kiting at brighton today. the wind was north east, so I decided to do a run to Kurnell. I guess around 10kms 1 way. got back to brighton le sands and decided to do it again.

The second time on the way back, about 2 kms from the beach my chicken loop snapped/exploded (this holds the front two lines of the kite to my harness). This resulted in the kite being fully powered up, and all tension on my arms without any warning, so it basically ripped the bar from my hands.

so I’m dead in the water knowing something of my gear has failed and now I have to self rescue. I retrieve my bar & wind up my lines. A jetskier comes out and checks Im Ok, he takes my board back to shore.

The coast guard boat also cruised past, didnt offer help, just checking I was breathing. Boat rescues are a biartch anyway..

So I got the kite acting as a sail and eventually made it to the beach. What an adventure. only 1 or 2 of the kiters saw it happen. but said it was pretty impressive.

Really should get around to putting my contact details on my board, and fixing my leash

Now this is a very cool, and thus very $$ idea.

http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com

cred for his idea, 400~k USD in approx 2 months. well worthy!

I arrived in Auckland 00:20 Saturday morning. picked up my hire car and was on the motorway at 1am.

Arrived at Ohakune 5am. The next lesson being that its pretty much impossible to sleep comfortably in a hatchback!

A full day boarding, the afternoon being spent out west on turoa hitting a kicker with Jamos Dave & Mike.

Sunday we had a few runs and 11:30 we started the hike for the summit. 475m vertical & 1:15 later we sat atop the volcano summit. (highest point in the North Island)

We waited around in the hope of the clouds lifting/dropping so we could see the crater lake etc. but after an hour and a half called it quits and headed down the front face, then over and down the glacier enjoying fresh lines and great conditions.
Trail Map

Low and behold when we got back to the lifts the mountain was completely clear. :{

We then headed out west to the lahar chute. Mike hit the waterfall again, and was lucky to make the hole at the bottom by about a foot!

standing above the waterfall, one of the Jeremys took his board off and proceeded to loose grip and watch it plummet into said waterfall hole. Mike ended venturing into the waterfall to retrieve.

See pics, as its pretty self explanatory
what an adventure.
Turoa Oct o5 Pics

mt Ruapehu has had 70cms of snow in the last 5 days.
although its now melting fast, Im doing a weekend run for the mountain from auckland tonight.

lets hope for some great spring conditions.

working in Auckland mon-wed

28th October
Tickets at moshtix $40ish

edit:
DOH! sold out.. grr should have been organised and bought them.. grr

Well post the conference this is what I’ve been up to.

Wednesday night:
Went out w julie to a bar, watched the red sox loose, was a good night if you weren’t a bostonite.

Thurs:
Not shelling out the crazy $$ for the hotel I head for the closest hostel. To find out that boston has a total of three hostels in the entire greater boston cdb area, all booked out.

So I end up in a hostel in a suburb called everett. This is worse than upper hutt!

Points of note:
You have to call them from the closest tram station to be picked up. The dude turns up, he’s 47, fat, comb over and on the ride to the hostel has decided my name is Joe. Directly after asking if craig was spelt with a c, g or k.

Then as driving around these suburban streets he keeps pointing out every watchewsky for “at large” which from my converstaions sounds like a member of parliament.
It turns out that is him, and he’s made it thru the first round of voting.

This guy is just seedy/odd really really odd.

The hostel itself is ok. Get chatiing to a few of the others, then head for the local bar.

This turns out to be a bar with boarded up windows a bathroom with dried blood in all sorts of places, and almost every local is missing multiple teeth. We played some darts for a while. Note: a beer was $1.25! Vodka was $3 haha!

I then headed into town to catch up w julie and regale her of my experiences in suburbian boston.

Got back to the hostel, the guys from earlier were having some beers, so I discovered alcohol is cheeap in everett. $13 for a dozen heineken from the bottle store!

There on proceeded to be a large poker night.

Fri:
The Mapparium had been recommended to me as a must do.

Its a 3 storey high scale model of the earth made of stained glass in 1935. Difference is that you walk inside it.

Its really cool, quite surreal to be surronded like that, the added kook is that you can hear the whispers of people standing in the opposed position in the globe. And if you stand in the middle you hear yourself with a large amplification.
–
Friday afternoon I headed north to meet julie and head to the beach. Even passed thru salem, where the hangings for witchcraft happened

Alas about 5knots of wind, however we persisted and performed graceful running launches to give the kite its apparent wind

Had some great italian for dinner and headed back to boston.

On the way back we came across a country fair. you know. silly carnival rides, best pumpkin contests, best quilt and apple pie etc.

Highlights of this:
Talking to a dude from the NRA about guns and meeting his 10yr old son who had a crazy keen interest in 20gauge shotguns.
Watching the announcement of the apple pie contest awarded by the “mrs housewife/shire queen” wearing a plastic tiara and sash
finding New Englands largest pumpkin @ 1300 pounds
Watching fat americans eat such things as fried dough. lumps of dough slow fried and dripping with fat, covered in sugar.

Sat:
7am we headed to Cape cod, it was overcast, blowing avg of 30knots and occasional rain, straight onshore wind (!) kiting on a 12 takoon, it was very scary and in fact had only half a run before coming back in and waiting for the wind to die.

Then Tyler who was one of Julies friends hurt his foot doing a rail slide, and offered me his gear, So I got out on a 9m for a great session! Totally made my holiday.

Sunday: New York
Well after getting my bags from Laguardia to JFK I got into Manhattan.
I decided to walk 5th ave from grand central terminal to battery park.
well I got a km or so into it and realised that manhattan is huge.

Notes: I’ve never seen so many handbags for sale in my life. All the street hawkers selling ‘orfentic prada, gucci etc…’

checked out MOMA: the museum of modern art. they had some cool stuff. they also have an affiliated site for contemporary art but I ran out of time to see that.

Then headed to SOHO for a couple of cocktails. NYC seems to be very multicutltural. And the subways are a godsend, if very hot.

unfortunately my photos are all corrupted on the SD Card, so I only have a few from the fair.
Yank Land Pics

Well the death by powerpoint conference has now finished

I will try to find a college ice hockey game today.
And tomorrow and Saturday I am hoping to go down to cape cod and get some kitesurfing in with Julie, who I met on the plane.

Sunday I have the day in NY before heading back for sydney.

Today was my speed tour of LA.

Highlights: venice beach, I even saw the rollerblading guitar playing dude from the old primo ad!

Pity the beach was completely engulfed in fog. So not too many hotties out blading or sunning etc.

Went to the getty centre. to learn me some culture. I have decided I’m more of a contemporary art fan.

Now on a bus headed back to LAX and we drove through fresh prince’s neighbourhood – Bel Air

Choice