Wednesday 27 October 2010

Rock the boat (don't rock the boat baby)

So a couple of days ago I went white water rafting on the Shotover River in Queenstown. I'd been rafting before so I had a fairly good idea of what to expect although the highest class rapid I had ever tackled previously was a class 3, and this trip went all the way up to 5. And once again, the trip was brilliant. I whole-heartedly recommend anyone heading to Queenstown to do this trip, whatever the season.

The road to the actual rafting site is probably the most terrifying part of the journey though as you drive up the most dangerous road in New Zealand - not suitable for anything other than four wheel drives, and under no circumstance should you be towing a trailer. You traverse this 'road' of course, in a two wheel drive bus, towing a trailer full of rafts. O'rian, our guide and safety kayaker cheerfully pointed out the various edges of the road as 'seven rollers' - meaning it would take seven rolls to get the bottom of the canyon to the side of us, and 'zero rollers' - meaning it's just a sheer drop to the bottom. My personal favourite part of the journey was 'bus scratch corner' which is where the driver needs to throw the front right wheel of the bus off the road, out over the canyon in order to get the bus and trailer around the corner.

The whole tour was remarkably interesting in terms of a historical factor as it was once a mining area and the Shotover River was actually the second highest gold-yielding river in the world, producing around $50m of gold in its mining period. It's also one of the shortest rivers, which is why the Klondike was able to overtake it. The old mining equipment is still there, littering the edges of the river and there are lumps of metal and wood embedded in the rocks beneath the raft as you head downstream. Some of the equipment is so heavy that it hasn't moved since it was put there, despite horrendous floods tearing up the area in the past.

Our cheerful tour guide Tom kept us safe, and moderately dry for the duration of our trip. Considering we were going up against class 5 rapids this time there were a few more commands for me to learn than when I last went. The rapids were amazing, and despite the water having been snow on the mountains less than ten hours previously (and please do believe me, it was seriously cold), it was just ridiculously fun. The grand finale of the trip is by far the best part however, as you all huddle down in the middle of the boat while you go headlong into a 170m man-made tunnel, headed downwards towards your last, and by far best, rapid - Cascade. Cascade is apparently known for flipping rafts, and as soon as you're all out of the tunnel, you have around two seconds to get back on the side, aim it, and then back down and hold the fuck on. Our raft almost flipped, it went right over onto its side, dunking the Alva, the poor girl sat next to me completely under water. We all thought we were going over, Marty, our front guy said afterwards that he was getting ready to bail rather than flip, but we somehow righted ourselves before either of these things happened.

It was an absolutely fantastic trip and if you head to Queenstown at any stage, ever, then make sure you do this because I promise you won't regret it. The only negative factor for me was my own social awkwardness. I was in a boat filled incrediby nice, friendly, interesting people, and yet again my brain managed to employ its usual social function and shut down entirely. It's my most major annoyance that I'm such a social tard. What I should have done was exchange emails at the end of the trip or something like that, and I didn't, because for some reason I am incapable of attempting to make new friends. But on the bright side, that was my last straw. This is now a problem that has hindered me for too long, and it is one that will be getting dealt with.

The only other negative thing I'll say is that I've also got some kind of itchy rash where one of the wet suits touched me - that too is annoying.

If you don't believe me about the raft almost going over at the end by the way, I'll post the pictures and video up as soon as I can, unfortunately the disc they produce is not Mac-compatible. So it'll have to wait a few more days until i"m back in the UK.

Oh gash, I just realised I've pretty much only got today and tomorrow left. Shit.

Someone take me back to Queenstown please, I'm not ready to come home yet.

Taupo would be nice too.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Aquaman innit

Aquaman is friends to all the creatures of the sea. Right? Or was it just fish? I’ve never really read it to be honest and I think the only things I actually know about it are based on the film that was made in Entourage…anyway, I spent some of my day yesterday hanging out on some rocks with some New Zealand Fur Seals. They didn’t seem to mind much.

I was driving along the coast when my parents spotted a load of seals on the rocks so we pulled in at the next available area, to find that it was about a mile down from where we’d seen them. This doesn’t stop me. I walked all along the stones until I reached a stream about 6ft wide and deep enough to go just over my knees. After careful consideration of the fact that I am a fat bastard and in no way an athlete, it was decided that I could not jump it. Just as I was about to turn around and leave, a large female hauled herself out of the water and headed up the beach. Well I didn’t have my camera with me, but I was determined to see her close-up. So I rolled my jeans as far as they would go, left my nice new shoes and socks on the gravel and waded across. It was fantastic, absolutely amazing to be so close. I stumbled back across the beach all pleased with myself, not noticing that somewhere along the way I had cracked my big toe on a rock as well as cutting it under the nail, causing myself untold pain.

I would actually be fine with this, were it not for the fact that I drove us another 2km down the road to spot another load of seals all chilling on the rocks right by an actual pull-in. So we stopped and I spent an afternoon hopping about rocks with a bunch of seals who didn’t seem to mind. One of them actually seemed to like me, and spent quite a lot of time posing for the camera.

So yeah...I'm like Aquaman, friends to the creatures of the sea! Now if only I could fix my toe…

Saturday 16 October 2010

I declare war on those hiding onions

Right. That’s it. This is fucking war.

I have had enough of vile restaurateurs trying to poison me now. What have I done to deserve it? I have now officially taken umbrage at the food almost everywhere. They are clearly all devious, lying little bastards.

I don’t understand why any restaurant deems it necessary to list every ingredient involved in a dish, as well as what it is garnished with, yet they somehow omit onions every…single…time. Why? I can’t stand onions, they make me physically sick, so each time I get a menu I look for the vegetarian options, then I look to see what has onion in it. If it’s not listed I automatically get excited and order that dish.

Except every time I do there is always hidden onion. Tonight was the last straw – the dish I ordered listed everything involved from the types of tomatoes, to the bed of cress which would be served on top. It was such an extensive list of ingredients that I decided I was safe. But once again I get tongue-raped by them.

Let me make this clear to all of you, and anyone owning a restaurant take note: onions ARE an ingredient. Just because you put them in a lot of dishes does not make them a herb or a spice. They are a vegetable, and they should be treated like one. There are millions of people who won’t eat onion, so if your dish has onion in, fucking include that on the menu.

I find it both baffling and infuriating that I am now going to have to spend every day of my life asking someone “does this have onions in?” before ordering. So the next dish that I find hidden onions in, will be the onion dish to end all onion dishes. Because I will use it to batter the staff to death.

Hey onions, fuck you.

Wednesday 13 October 2010

I don't like my culture anymore

I want to be a Maori.

Seriously, why wasn’t I born into such an amazing culture?

Everything about it is so fantastic, it makes me feel that for everything England has (and I only admit that it has anything worthwhile very begrudgingly), we have no beauty in our culture.

The Maori performance I witnessed and the information I learned today astounded me. There is such a rich history, and as per usual, it was us that fucked things up. Up until the Europeans arrived, battles were fought in close combat with vicious weaponry, but when we came along, we brought guns and when Maori tribes got hold of them, things changed.

That aside, I was lucky enough to speak to some of them about various things afterwards including the crafting of canoes, and tattoos. The main guy I spoke to had a large tattoo on his back and he explained that the left side was for his fathers tribe, the right side was for his mothers, and they met in the middle with the bottom set aside for his siblings. He explained how he had the bulk of it done traditionally, which is incredibly painful – if you don’t know what a traditional Maori tattooing process looks like, I suggest you look back to last years blog on the London Tattoo Convention to see some pictures. He said that he had to get the rest filled in with a needle to save time, and it was much less painful. He said he was going to start the tattoos of his own life story on his arm soon.

In fact, most of the Maori’s I spoke to had tattoos for their families, the utmost in respect which is something else I think we lack, and I include myself in that most days. Everything about the culture is so rich and involving, I’m jealous.

I want some rich history attached to me. I wish I was a Maori. I’ll have to settle for just meeting them for now. Which was pretty damn good.

My SOA moment

I spent much of yesterday walking like a crab. Ambling up and down the street with my legs splayed at an absurd angle. I expect most passers by must have assumed I was pretending to be a cowboy. I wasn’t. This was in fact due to having spent the previous day on the back of a Harley Davidson.

On my first full day in new Zealand I was privileged enough to be given a fairly extensive tour of the North Island on the back of some amazing bikes. I’ve always been an avid Harley enthusiast, but I’d never ridden one and now I was finally on one. Obviously I didn’t get to drive as I’d need a valid license which I still lack. That won’t last long though.

We were split into three and each of us rode pillion on a guides bike. Our guides were Baz, Divot and Donkey. I was riding with Donkey – who I can safely tell you, likes to go really fucking fast. I was slightly hesitant when I asked why they called him Donkey, but he said that it wasn’t what I was thinking – “I’ve disappointed a lot of ladies that way” he laughed. He never offered an explanation as to the real reason behind his name though, although he had various donkey related items about him and covering his bike so the name obviously pre-dates Shrek.

The day was spent exploring the beautiful scenery around the North island and generally scaring me randomly as we went round corners grinding the foot plate and making me think I was about to shoot over the side of a cliff. But I didn’t, quite obviously, and at one glorious moment we reached a little over 140kmph on a stretch of clear road. There is no greater feeling than feeling the wind in your face on the back of one of these glorious machines. The only negative thing I take away from me from the experience is this: What, exactly, is going on with the roads here?

There will be a sign that informs you of a winding road for the next two kilometres, and then you’ll get two kilometres down the road to find another sign telling you there will be a winding road for the next five. It never ends. There is always another sign waiting for you just when you think you’re free and safe. Why don’t they just admit that the road will be winding until you reach your destination?

As much as I enjoyed it, I never really appreciated just how much physical effort goes into riding. The position, stance, the weight on your feet…it all adds up. My legs felt like I’ve been doing squat thrusts for a month and my upper arms still ache today from holding on to the sissy grip for dear life, even though I was in safe and capable hands. To make my day even better, we were joined by a journalist from a New Zealand magazine called Bikerider which we will be in next issue. This also gave me the opportunity to film from the back of the bike for some footage which will be going up on their site.

All in all, I can advice this as something to do if you’ve got a thing for bikes. We were taken around by Harley Tours New Zealand. I suggest you check out their website, cause they gave me a day I’ll always remember, as well as the determination to get my bike license when I get home. Well nice.

Oh yeah, this is Baz, Donkey, and Divot.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Red alert my arse

Considering that England is supposed to be on red alert, not simply because of our usual terrorism threat, but because of the current threat of the IRA. So with that in mind, just how easy is it to get through Heathrow customs with minimal checks, to board a flight going to America?

The answer is of course ‘piss easy’. If anything, the easiest customs check I have ever had in my life. The first person I encountered on a checkpoint asked for my boarding pass and when I produced it (with the details facing down) he waved me through. Apparently the mere presence of a boarding pass, whether it was for that airport or not, and I hasten to add that it was, was enough to get me through to the next check point.

At no stage during the process of having my luggage and my persons checked, was I asked any of the usual questions; ‘did you pack your bags yourself?’, ‘are there any sharp objects in your bag?’. In fact not only did they fail to ask me these questions, but as I walked through the metal detector I set it off. No idea why, but I put my arms up awaiting the magic wand scanning. It didn’t happen. I was lightly patted down and then told I was good to go. No scanning, no checking my shoes, nothing. The only things that were in my shoes were my feet, but without checking, how did they know that?

Ultimately I don’t think I really care, but not only was it astonishingly easy to get through the airport, but I was boarding a flight to LA. In America. Pretty much the number one terrorism target in the world. I was only in LA for two hours, on a stop-over. But I spent more than an hour of that queuing, having my photograph taken, retinas scanned, fingerprints collected, and answering questions such as “is this really you?”. When I finally got through their checks, I spent twenty minutes on a plastic seat in a small room with several other people willing themselves dead from the last ten hours of flying.

Another twelve hours of flying with a very good tail wind saw our arrival in New Zealand and with an exceptional amount of jet-lag. Considering we spent more than 26 hours in transit, we were a little bit tired, and then…we got lost. But luckily a local came to our rescue when he saw us reading a map in the car, knocked on the window to see if we were alright, and then drove us (we followed his car) about half an hour out of his way all the way to our hotel.

Hero of the day.

The fail of the day being the security at Heathrow, shortly followed by my dad leaving the keys to his suitcase at home.