When the new site is done we’ll be dumping the existing news service and replacing it with this blog which will double as a blog and news updates.

In other MON team news Dex is currently overseas and I’m hoping he’ll post a trip report of his travels when he gets back.

Devslashtux has just got his new computer back from the shop for the third time so fingers crosses he’s worked through the kinks.

And I’ve just recently returned from a week at the snow which was awesome. If you’re interested I’ve posted a couple of photos at the bottom of this page.

It’s so exciting! Look forward to some trip reports when we return!

And this time we’re travelling together.

Three members of the MON team, together in a foreign country.

New Zealand won’t know what hit it!

Of course we’ll keep you all post with plenty of trip reports and photos when we return. (Which is a long way off since we aren’t leaving until August)

Read Part One, and Part Two.

Day 14: Milford Sound – Lake Ohau

This was the longest bus trip of the whole tour – covering a distance of almost 500KM. Curiously enough, we had to pass back through Queenstown to get to Lake Ohau.

To pass the time away, The Lord of the Rings was shown on the bus DVD. Looking at the DVD and out the window had the same view: lots of very large mountains.

During the evening the group decided to find out wether it was possible to climb the ‘mountain’ (read: very steep hill) behind our lodge before sunset and Josh was volunteered for the job – but not without dragging Chris along. They did admirably climbing about 3/4 of the way, but night soon came and they were forced to descend.

Day 15: Lake Ohau – Christchurch

First up this morning, a scenic flight over the Southern Alps and the glaciers. It was nice boarding a plane and knowing this time I didn’t have to jump from it.

The weather this day was perfect – a rare opportunity to see the Alps in all their glory. As part of this flight, we flew over both Franz-Josef and Fox Glaciers – in clear weather they are even more spectacular.

That night we had a farewell dinner – being the last night of the tour – at the Lone Star Cafe in Christchurch. It was a fun, but somewhat sad event knowing that the tour was over and the following day we’d be going our separate ways again.

Day 16: Christchurch – Dunedin

Another bus trip, this time to the city of Dunedin – the Edinburgh of the South – to attend linux.conf.au (see LCA Posts).

Dunedin is the furthest south I travelled on this trip – and the furthest south I’ve ever been – 45°. It was odd having the sun set at almost 10:00PM with twilight dragging on until almost midnight (or low-noon, if you prefer).

Dunedin is largely a university town – being home to the University of Otago (which happens to be the linux.conf.au venue).

Day 17-20: Dunedin

Read my LCA posts for these dates – although mind the technobabble.

Day 21-22: Dunedin – Timaru

We stopped at Timaru for two nights to visit my great-aunt.

Unfortunately, downtown Timaru is a real hive of activity… At 6PM being completely disserted. Thankfully we found a cafe that was actually open!

The following day we went for a walk around the town and back along the headland – loaded with cheese biscuits and date slice we had been provided with the preceding evening.

Day 23: Timaru – Christchurch

Back to Christchurch for a third time! There is nothing much to report on this day. Other than spend morning in Timaru with family, get on bus, get off bus, have dinner and go to bed. Excitement plus!

Day 24: Christchurch – Sydney

The last day of the holiday.

With an afternoon flight, we had enough time that we needed to do something, but not enough time to really go anywhere… So we visited the International Antarctic Centre – conveniently located at Christchurch Airport. The centre serves as the main gateway to Antarctica by air for most countries because Christchurch Airport is the nearest major airport to Antarctica.

We got to experience the bone-jarring fun of a Hagglund – these are those boxy little vehicles they use at the Antarctic research stations. 45 degree slopes are nothing for them! – Makes you want to hold on though…

They also had a room chilled down to -5°C and filled with snow and ice to simulate a ‘warm’ day in Antarctica.  They then add extra wind to simulate a normal day…  ‘Twas chilly.

Later that afternoon we had checked in to our flight at Christchurch Airport – which is a very busy place on a Wednesday afternoon. In the international terminal there was one flight on the indicator boards – both arriving and departing. That was our flight… As a result, the airport was quiet. Only punctuated by the roar of a domestic flight coming or going. Not that our flight was adding any significant numbers of passengers to the airport – we had barely 100 people aboard for our flight home (out of a possible 300 or so passengers…).

When we left the plane in Sydney the contrast in weather was harsh – during the time in NZ the hottest day we had was slightly over 30°C – but with low humidity. The conditions in Sydney this evening: 39°C with 95% humidity. There was water condensing and streaming off the airplane (having been chilled down to -50°C )

Anyway, that concludes my trip report. I hope I have suitably bored you!

Day 9: Christchurch to Fox Glacier

This was a very long day, involving a long drive (about 450km) from Christchurch on the East coast to Fox Glacier on the west via Arthur’s Pass – a road passing through the Southern Alps.

At dinner we were told not to touch the soup. Lest the soup nazi find out…

In the evening we had karaoke run by Foxy Joe – the gay maori guy. yup… Mike and Phil both performed admirably – along with other members of the group. The karaoke continued until late in the night slowly getting worse as the time passed.

Day 10: Fox Glacier to Queenstown

Our morning activity today was supposed to be a glacier helihike – a helicopter flight into the upper reaches of the glacier, several hours hiking then a helicopter back down again. Unfortunately, due to adverse weather the flights had been cancelled. On the upside, we did a glacier hike anyway – and it was $100 cheaper. There is no way to describe the scale of the glacier when seen up close – it is truly colossal. The only way to get more ice would be at the poles.

As we were approaching the glacier a large chunk of the terminal face broke loose – our guide estimated that it would have weighed at least 30 tonnes. Somewhat disconcerting when you are about to step foot on a glacier.

The afternoon was spent travelling inland to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world!

Travelling to the dinner that evening in Gondola Number 9 the beeping P.A. system managed to freak Andy, Mandy, Mike and I somewhat. As we ascended the mountain a beeping sound got faster and faster – as if it was counting down to something. The large blue canisters under the seats didn’t help either. The attendant at the top didn’t seem interested at the problems though…

I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything crazy here…

Day 11: Queenstown

Well, I didn’t eat anything for breakfast today – a 7:15am pickup from the hotel, a briefing in town, a drive to a private airfield had nothing to do with it of course… You get the idea. Anyway, it’s really cold at 12,000ft and rather windy on the way down

Day 12: Queenstown

Today was really xtreme – it fit well into the idea of Queenstown! I got up late, ate breakfast, did some washing, caught the shuttle bus into town to have lunch, get the bus back to have a nap… Excitement plus.

Lunch was good though, the world famous Fergburger (with swiss cheese).

A few of us took advantage of our gondola tickets and had a few rides on the luge – for those who don’t know, the luge is a concrete track which you ride a 3 wheeled cart down… It’s some good old fashioned gravity driven fun!

Day 13: Queenstown to Milford Sound

This morning the tour departed for Milford Sound making a slight detour to visit the world famous Kawarau Bridge – home of the worlds first bungy! It was great entertainment watching people jump. I was happy on the ground today…

At Milford Sound we boarded the Milford Wanderer a ship used for overnight cruises on the sound (which is actually a fiord and not a sound at all).

Josh and Andy bravely (and foolhardily) jumped into the frigid (but fresh) waters of the sound – only to climb aboard soon afterwards. My quick voyage aboard the tender vessel being far more interesting and warm. The air temperature was in the low teens, the water temperature wasn’t much warmer.
The evening was spent playing cards, board games and chatting whilst consuming warm cups of coffee.

Coming soon: Part 3 of the NZ Adventure!

This is the second of two MON Productions NZ trip reports. As Colonel (Matt) mentioned earlier, we both travelled to NZ completely independently of each other. Not only did we travel to the same country, we also visited many of the same places.

Since I was in NZ for about a month, this is part one of my adventure.
Day 1: Sydney to Auckland
Our flight out of Sydney was delayed by an hour and a half – we arrived in the middle of Auckland’s peak hour. For some logical reason Auckland airport isn’t directly linked to the city by any form of transport. The airport shuttle buses have to drive along a motorway, cut through residential streets and join another motorway to get to the city. Auckland’s roads make Sydney’s roads look organised.

Day 2: Auckland

Today we met some family friends who recently moved from Hawaii to NZ. We visited Kelly Tarltons Undersea World – it’s basically a big aquarium and drove around Auckland harbour.

First silly observation: shopping trolleys/carts are called trundlers in NZ. But this varies between supermarket chains.

Day 3: Auckland to Waitomo Caves

We began the morning by visiting Skytower which is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere (apparently). The views of Auckland and its surrounds were quite spectacular – and some nice Nightingale photos were taken.
At midday we joined our tour group to begin our ‘grand adventure’ of NZ. The first stop was Waitomo Caves. After dressing in wetsuits and being equipped with a giant rubber ring we walked, swimmed and jumped through a section of the caves. Sitting in a rubber ring as you float along a cave illuminated only by the faint green glow of glow-worms is an interesting day to spend an afternoon. Cold though…

Day 4: Rotorua

After leaving Waitomo, we headed over to the town of Rotorua. The town quite literally stinks – being in a volcanically active area the smell of sulfur would frequently waft over. At many places in and around the town steam would come from the ground – some places harnessing this for geothermal pools. Very relaxing.

Rotorua is also home to Zorbing. The point of this activity is to be stuffed into a large hollow plastic ball and roll down a large hill. It actually looked really boring! I chose not to do it. Those who did said it was fun though…

We also saw quite a few geysers, mud-pools and yet more steam vents. After seeing 5 of each they kind of lost their novelty (or was it the sulfur smell…)

Day 5: Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is the largest lake in NZ – although by world standards quite small. But it was nice to be away from the smell of sulfur and boiling mud pools.

The evening was spent on a lake cruise which included the catching (and consumption) of several very nice trout.

Day 6-7: Napier/Hastings

Today we left the tour – temporarily – to visit some family in Napier and Hastings. Napier was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930′s so it now contains many examples of Art Deco architecture. It is now contains some of the best examples of Art Deco in the world.

Day 8: Napier to Christchurch

This morning we are going to catch up with the tour – who have spent the last 3 days travelling by road and sea to Christchurch.

Napier airport is very cute, its a single building with 2 ticket desks. They have 5 gates, which are real gates in a wire fence – very technical – no airbridges here!

Our plane was a 50 seat Q300 – its the first turboprop I’ve been on in a very long time. On board with me was the Nightingale – my bag needed to be repacked.

It ended up being an eventful flight unfortunately… The plane developed a ‘technical problem’ and we were forced to divert to Wellington, windy boring Wellington.

We finally got to Christchurch about 2 hours late, but alive…

The main purpose of my trip (which I took with my family and some close family friends) was to complete the Milford track, a four day 53 kilometre walk.

We flew into Queenstown on the 6th over snow capped mountains. The plane only just skimmed over the top of the mountains. To the right of the airport are the massive Remarkables mountain range, over 2000 metres tall. Queenstown is one of the prettiest towns I’ve ever been too, rivalling some of the places I saw in Alaska.

We then travelled to Te Anau which was the starting point for our Milford track walk. We had one night there and left early morning the next day for the walk.

The Milford track walk takes four days and is 53 kilometres long. We had to carry all our food, clothes, utensils, everything. We stayed in huts with no showers, just a matress and a common area with gas cookers. There are 3 huts and 40 people stay in each hut each night. The walk was one of the best things I have ever done in my life. It follows a river up a magnificent valley with snow capped mountains walling you in. But the track itself travels through rain forest.

On the third day we climbed 500 metres out of the valley over a mountain pass 1100 m above sea level, between a two mountains 1700+ metres tall. Then we walked into another valley on the other side and descended 1000metres in to the floor of the other valley. Part way down we detoured to Sutherland falls, the largest permanent waterfall in NZ and the 5th tallest in the world.

The rivers were flooded from heavy rain and the water coming off this fall was unbelievable. To imagine what it was like to stand 20 metres away from the fall, imagine the heaviest storm you’ve been in and double it. The water was shooting off the rocks like rain so hard it hurt your eyes. None the less 6 of us worked our way around through a swollen creek and stood behind the fall, behind the main curtain of water. It was amazing. The closest thing I can imagine to being in a hurricane. There was so much water it soaked right through our water proof pants and rain coat.

(The above image is of Sutherland falls. On the day we stood behind it the falls were swollen with rain and there was far more water coming off the falls)

On the last day there was a massive storm. 250mm of rain fell in less then 24hours. We had to ford dozens of swollen creeks as the mountains flowed with hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls. The rain was so bad that the 50 guided walkers who stay in different huts and were walking 1 hour behind us had to be helicoptered out of the track past the flooded creeks. If we had left 1 hour later that day we would have had to have been helicoptered out as well.

The next day was perfectly clear. Its amazing how quickly the weather can change in one day when you’re in the mountains. One day an unbelievable storm that flooded the track and caused landslides on the road to doubtful sound (forcing our cruise today to be cancelled). The next day perfect clear weather without a cloud in the sky.

Because of the landslide we changed our Doubtful Sound cruise to one on Milford Sound. It was so different to see Milford Sound the next day. All the water falls that had been there the day before during the rain had dried up.

We spent that night in Te Anau before driving to Queenstown for two more nights. In Queenstown we went jet boating and bungy jumping which was great fun. We went on the Ledge Bungy which uses a body harness which allows you to take a running jump off the platform.

After our two nights in Queenstown we headed up to Franz Joseph glacier for two nights. There we stayed at the Glenfern Villas which I can highly recommend. The best accomodation of our trip (and we had some good accomodation I might add).

After those two nights we went onto Christchurch for one night then it was back home to Sydney.

This was the first time I’d been to New Zealand (which is a shame since it’s so close. I’ve been to many other countries but never before to NZ). I really loved the place. It’s scenery was amazing and the people were very down to earth. I’ll be travelling back there as soon as possible, hopefully to ski some of the great mountains we saw while over there.

Oh and before I sign off, I’ll leave you with my bungy photos:

Stay tuned for Devslashtux’s trip report which I’m sure he’ll post upon his return.

Cheers,

Colonel.