Glaciers & parrots, of course

Last week we did the avalanche peak hike at Arthur's Pass, in the Southern Alps on the south island. The "town" of Arthur's pass (40 permanent residents) is about a 90 minute drive from Christchurch, and it's definitely worth it if you get some nice weather. We got quite lucky and got a beautiful day for the hike, made all the more important by the dire warnings against attempting the hike in poor weather. The ridge lines certainly could be dangerous in poor visibility or high winds.

After you climb the 3600 vertical feet up avalanche peak, you're greeted by two spectacles: Crow Glacier



and perhaps 30 highly-entertaining kea. The kea is an intelligent and curious mountain parrot, and they've definitely figured out that it's in their interest to visit the top of the mountain at lunch time, when all the hikers stop to eat. They will definitely take any food (or perhaps rubber) that you leave unattended, using a very loose definition of "unattended". As long as they only try to nibble your boots, though, they're very entertaining.

(in)flexible flight search

I've come to rely heavily on websites which advertise various flexible flight search options, like nearby alternate airports and flexible date options. For just these reasons, plus nearly always the lowest-price result, I've been recommending kayak.com unreservedly. At least for international searches, there are serious shortcomings with both kayak, and my second-favorite site, orbitz.com. Yesterday, I did a flight search on kayak, and I've repeated it today, for which ticking the "include nearby airports" box results in the lowest-priced result being $900 more expensive. Surely including additional airports shouldn't omit the original search! Similar things happen, unfortunately, with the flexible date option.

I suspect I understand the problem, which is that properly searching for flexible dates and/or airports is a very time consuming process, and your average user simply doesn't have the patience to wait for good results. So the sites don't bother with that, they just return mediocre results quickly. The point is easily illustrated on orbitz. They've got a very handy, in theory, feature: search for a flights which result in a trip of a flexible length, across a range of days. Perfect! Tragically, it simply doesn't return good results. When I searched for a 10-12 day trip from SEA-AKL, between 15 Jun 09 and 15 Jul 09, Orbitz flexible date search feature dutifully (and quickly) returned a lowest price of $1819. However, by doing a traditional search (i.e. departing on a fixed date and returning on a fixed date), on orbitz, and repeat it across the dates which were part of the flexible search, you get much improved results, by about $250! The moral of the story is that if you're thinking of visiting NZ (or the UK, and you should be!), you'd look at the former, rather than the latter... Hopefully at some point there is a flight search site which can do flexible and accurate searches quickly, or perhaps just one which takes a while but emails you the results later?

dates 06/15/2009 to 06/26/2009, price $1,826
[...]
dates 06/16/2009 to 06/28/2009, price $1,819
dates 06/16/2009 to 06/29/2009, price $1,586
dates 06/17/2009 to 06/28/2009, price $1,819
dates 06/17/2009 to 06/29/2009, price $1,568
dates 06/17/2009 to 06/30/2009, price $1,826
dates 06/18/2009 to 06/29/2009, price $1,599
dates 06/18/2009 to 06/30/2009, price $1,826
[...]
dates 06/20/2009 to 07/02/2009, price $1,826
dates 06/20/2009 to 07/03/2009, price $1,599
dates 06/21/2009 to 07/02/2009, price $1,826
[...]
dates 06/23/2009 to 07/04/2009, price $1,826
dates 06/23/2009 to 07/05/2009, price $1,617
dates 06/23/2009 to 07/06/2009, price $1,586
dates 06/24/2009 to 07/05/2009, price $1,599
dates 06/24/2009 to 07/06/2009, price $1,568
dates 06/24/2009 to 07/07/2009, price $1,826
dates 06/25/2009 to 07/06/2009, price $1,599
dates 06/25/2009 to 07/07/2009, price $1,826
[...]
dates 06/30/2009 to 07/11/2009, price $1,826
dates 07/02/2009 to 07/15/2009, price $1,827
dates 07/03/2009 to 07/14/2009, price $1,820
dates 07/03/2009 to 07/15/2009, price $1,820
dates 06/30/2009 to 07/12/2009, price $1,618
dates 06/30/2009 to 07/13/2009, price $1,587
dates 07/01/2009 to 07/12/2009, price $1,600
dates 07/01/2009 to 07/13/2009, price $1,569
dates 07/01/2009 to 07/14/2009, price $1,827
dates 07/02/2009 to 07/13/2009, price $1,600
dates 07/02/2009 to 07/14/2009, price $1,827
[...]
dates 07/04/2009 to 07/15/2009, price $1,827

Labo(u)r-day weekend

We'd been planning for some time to spend the first bank holiday weekend we've had here hiking in the Coromandel, a penisula about two hours drive to the east of Auckland. We'd been told the traffic over there would be really awful, so decided just to do two days, avoiding the Friday night/Saturday morning traffic. This turned out to be a rather good plan, due to heavy rain most of Saturday. The rain continued into Sunday, making our drive out of Auckland less than pleasant. However, the forecast was for the weather to clear, so we continued on undaunted.

The nice man in the Kauaeranga Visitor Centre was clearly very bored, but he promised us the weather would clear, so we collected our hut passes and started on our way. The hike up was fairly steep, with many steps hewn into the rock, and we got a little damp, but by the time we arrived at the Pinnacles Hut all forecasts were correct and the sky was beautifully blue.


After a quick cup of soup in the hut, we made our way up to the top of the Pinnacles themselves. More a scramble than a hike, the last portion of the walk was well worth it - at the top was a secluded spot with wonderful views, fit for any very special occasion...

Long-distance voting

I sent in my absentee ballot for the US election this morning, doing my small part. Not that it will make any difference. I've linked to pollster because they have state-by-state pages, which cannot be said of the otherwise superior fivethirtyeight, which currently projects WA to Obama by 14.6. Not exactly a squeaker. Speaking of your vote mattering though, those same clever guys at 538 have an interesting analysis of how likely it is that your vote will matter. Tragically, for some of the most strongly-opinionated people I know, that chance is identically zero, as many of those most interested in the outcome aren't US citizens at all...

Disclaimer: geological activity may affect features on this map

The New Zealand ski season is surprisingly long, so last weekend we headed down to Mount Ruapehu for a weekend of skiing on an (active) volcano. The weather the first day needed a little improvement - visibility was low, to say the least. But on the second day the forecast of unlimited visibility held true and much good skiing was there to be had:





There are several differences between skiing on the Alps or the Rockies, and skiing on an active volcano. First of all, especially this late in the season, when much of the snow has melted, it looks somewhat like you're skiing on the moon. There are warnings signs about what one should do in the case of an eruption (the last major eruption was in about 1995), and you have in the back of your mind the strange knowledge that the aforementioned geological activity is not on the timescale to which we are usually accustomed.

Our chariot

Photos have been promised to many -- at long last, here they are.




One of our early tasks was to find a car. While we don't need it for commuting, as the ferry is much easier, we decided that a car is by far the easiest way to explore the island. We (and by "we", I mean "I") settled on this 01 Toyota Corolla. Glamorous it isn't, but I'm satisfied we made an excellent choice. Besides, it's not easy finding a manual in NZ!

Golf

I've read or been told that New Zealand has the highest per capita rate of golf courses in the world, and it doesn't surprise me. A bit of research/googling seems to indicate that NZ is second, or perhaps tied for first, though there are lots of claims to the highest rate. Anyhow, the result is a good situation, lots of good, cheap golf. The Waitakere Golf Club is a nice spot to play -- the course is in reasonable shape, very affordable, none too crowded and about a half-hour drive from the city. The scenery is pretty impressive, though you can certainly get your workout walking up and down all the hills.



Now if only I could hit the ball from an uphill lie...

The sad, sad Chicago Cubs

I have to say the cubs have managed to exceed even my expectations for ineptitude in their inevitable failure. While some might accuse me of bitterness as a fan of the second-worst team in baseball, I have to say that the cubs just wouldn't be the cubs if they didn't do this sort of thing.

I am slightly disappointed that they did so poorly that I can't even espouse my conspiracy theory involving the trib and the potential sale of the cubs. That involved losing in the NLCS in 6.

That said, I think the BoSox are going to regret having shown Manny the door, I'm taking the dodgers over the rays in 6.

The wild west

After Graham's very successful car-buying adventures last week, we decided to take it out for a little spin on Saturday and do some exploring. We made our way out into the Waitakere ranges, west of Auckland, towards the beaches of Piha and Karekare. After illegally climbing higher than we were supposed to on Lion's Rock on Piha beach,


we did a short hike up into the hills, to the isolated White's beach, only accessible by boat or foot (gmap). We then made our way round to Karekare, where some scenes of the film "The Piano" where filmed:

Canyonzzzzz

It's well known that the Kiwis are prone to doing crazy and extreme outdoor adventurey-type things, and on Saturday we experienced this for ourselves first-hand. We signed up with Canyonz for their Blue Canyon trip - a full day in the Waitakere mountains promising "maximum fun". Our guide Neil was very much a "dude" and after driving us from Auckland to the hills, had us kitted up in identikit wetsuits, harnesses and helmets and out into the woods. After a short hike up to the top of the river, we were ready to go...

Jumping...


leaping...


sliding...


and abseiling...


our way to the bottom.

Tree planting

The Maths Department here is wonderfully laid back and friendly. Last week, we got a license to take Friday off work when the head of department suggested a tree-planting day on Wahieke Island. This actually seems quite a common Kiwi event - they realise that their carbon footprint is huge, but have no intention to travel less, so just plant trees instead.

Anyway, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon running up and down a hill with a wheelbarrow full (on the way down, at least) of mulch. The shovelling of which is demonstrated by these two energetic members of the department:


After the tree-planting was finished, we walked around the coast and ended, as is becoming very normal for a Friday evening in Auckland, with drinks, courtesy of the Maths Department.

Blood red sky

One thing it's very hard to miss when you arrive in Auckland is the newest volcano on the block, Rangitoto:


Only 600 years old, the name derives from the Maori phrase Te Rangi totongia a Tamatekapua, meaning `the day the blood of Tamatekapua was shed'. Tamatekapua was the chief of one of the first Maori canoes to arrive on New Zealand with Polynesian settlers. Apparantely they thought his death more violent than perhaps it was...

Anyway, ever since we'd arrived, I'd been itching to climb it, so last Sunday we headed out on an early morning ferry. Although from afar the island appears to be covered in quite heavy woodland, being such a new bit of land, there are lots of areas of bare lava field, and apparently the forest is only about 200 years old.

The hike to the top took less than an hour; on the way we got to explore some lava caves - nothing too claustrophobic but you definitely needed to take a torch.

The views from the top were amazing, both back towards the city:


and out the other way into the bay:

"winter"

I'd hoped to find kite surfing here, after seeing some at the Oregon coast. As it happens, it didn't take long. Even in winter, about 6 blocks from home:

I've also been told about a local place that rents gear and gives lessons, which brings me to another item. Kiwis are absurdly friendly. It's fantastic. My running tally so far: days in NZ = 19, unfriendly kiwis = 0.

Shaxspere

The previously mentioned visit to "Shakespear Park" piqued my curiosity about the missing "e". A bit of research/googling seems to indicate that not only was lack of spelling standardization a bit of an issue at the time, but that many of the alternate spellings propagated outside of London. See this for the surprisingly long list of alternatives.

Of course, considering I've used the word "googling" and the googol/google story, a bit of spelling variation really shouldn't be surprising.

Shakespear Park

As the day for returning our hire car was rapidly approaching, on Sunday we decided to drive out of Auckland a little bit. We found ourselves at Shakespear Park, at the end of the Whangaparoa penisula.



It's unclear if the Kiwis just can't spell, or whether they are referring to someone other than the great bard. Either way, the park was just the place for a quiet stroll on a Sunday afternoon. It had something of an English feel about it - gentle rolling hills, and of course, as we knew had to happen sooner or later, sheep:


What was less expected was the appearance of some incredibly tame peacocks, including this one, who decided he was most definitely going to `shake his tailfeathers' at us.

Extreme edge

Faced with a rainy and wintry Saturday afternoon, we decided to try out Extreme Edge - which claims to be the largest climbing gym in Australasia. And it is indeed large, with a wide selection of difficulties of routes to try (very handily colour coded) and large sections of overhangs specifically for lead climbing, which would be quite impressive to watch. They have an extremely foolproof belay system, which is nice for beginners, allowing almost no possible way for you to drop your friends off the wall. The grading system of difficulty of climbs here is different from the US, which was my first excuse for giving up halfway up the wall on several occasions, but in the end it just turns out that after two months of doing nothing, my arms just can't take it anymore.

Two days, two volcanoes

Hello and welcome to our blog. We're hoping to use this to write about all our adventures in New Zealand - hiking, biking, skiing and the like. Hopefully this will keep some of you back home up to date on what we've been up to and may also be useful for those of you who come to visit!

As yet, our main adventure has been house-hunting, but we've had time to do a little walking. Auckland is built on more than 50 volcanoes, and in the past two days we've been up two of them.

This is the view from the top of Mount Victoria in Devonport across to Rangitoto - Auckland's newest volcano. The strange mushroom things we believe to be airvents from underneath... for something...



And this is the view from the top of Mount Eden, across the town where you can see several more volcanoes sticking up above the houses.


Let's just hope none of them suddenly decide to become active again...

On our way...