S. Island remix

Hey everybody. I realize it has been a while since I have posted anything. You'll have to wait on the edge of your seats a little longer, as I am headed back to the South Island once again. Sadly, Victoria isn't able to make it this time. Instead, I'll be traveling down there with a few climbing club "mates", or Kristin, Inga, Ingrid, Stephanie, Stephan (and his friend) and Owen. The plan is to do as much bouldering and mountaineering as is (super)humanly possible. While I want to shred some tips and crank some sic-gnar slopers (kids these days...sheesh), it will be nice to do some mountaineering. It hasn't been since I lived in Washington that I've done any large quantities of mountain climbing, and the people I'm going with are keen to do some cool summits. Even if that doesn't happen, the weather should be fine enough to do some bouldering. I'm hoping for a v5 outdoors, it hasn't happened for me yet.

Anyhow, I just got done with an animal behaviour field trip on sleep loss (tell you all about it later) and I'm about to do a whole lot more. Ugh. We'll be driving down to the South Island in Owen's rig, and taking the ferry across the cook straight after which we'll head straight down to the Arthur's pass area (See map, center of the S. Island). There are a lot of peaks and of course the legendary Castle Hill Basin. Should be a blast. Have fun guys!

Climbing Pics

Some climbing pictures from Frogatt Ledge, a place dear to my heart.

It's always nice to start with a scenery shot: Some tea shrubs above green pastures

Owen on Mr. Daddy Longlegs (22)

Terror from above (have I mentioned NZ is green?)

Claire with Andrew belaying, Ed working an impossible (for us mortals) boulder prob in the back

Owen belaying Inga

Inga on Zoomers (20)

Moony tearing it up on toprope

Some shelter for the belayer

Kenny working the pockets

Jules on the crux of Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter (hard 18)

Climber Jacob Gradek explaining to his belayer the moves he just did 2 seconds ago

Resting on Brontosaurus Theory (24)

The upper el cruxo, establishing a marginal pinch

On a thuggish 27 with sharp pockets

Kenny Belaying Jules at the end of the day

A couple of Jules on a 20, great climbing!

Very Food Oriented Post

This was taken a couple of months ago at a climbers party: Marty's website

Marty Blumen is getting his photography business off the ground, and his work is impressive to say the least. Check his site out if you get the chance, he'll appreciate the interest. In the pic we'd just finished some cake I'd made with a vanilla bean custard and some strawberry guava sauce. I'm going to miss having a guava tree in my backyard. The avocado tree is strictly off limits though, as my landlord harvests them for his personal use. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but my landlord is a retired Law professor and thus, we use the moniker "the professor" to refer to him. I have two other flatmates (not roommates here, which makes sense when you think about it) a Chinese fellow who goes by Tim and Argentinian Marianna. Here's a picture of our "Christmas Dinner" we had back in June. We are a multicultural group of cohabitants.

Timbo makes some good dumplings and the professor introduced me to his "should be famous" bread pudding with brandy butter.

I've heard the food here in "En Zed" described as bad English food, but living in Auckland has it's perks. You can ingest some pretty fine sushi here for dirt cheap thanks to a large Asian population. My favorite are the cheeses. The Brie, Gouda and Colby here are all scrumptious. Lamb is also easy to come by (go figure) but I'm not that into it. I haven't really met I pie I thoroughly enjoyed and I'm going to drink a whole jar of Salsa when I get home thanks to the lack of Mexican food. Damn, now I'm all hungry...

p.s. Wow I just noticed Carl Rove is resigning. These are crazy times back home to say the least.