touristiko

Headed down to the Central Hawke’s Bay A&P Show this weekend in Waipukurau for some of the events on Saturday.  Missed the bullriding on Friday night, but it would certainly have been entertaining.  If you want to see more lawn mower racing and kiwi culture, click here!

I’m really enjoying the photography that can be found at Mercy Dudley’s blog “Day of the Blog“.  Click that link to check it out.

Made it up to Longview Hut in the Ruahines with some friends this weekend.  A summit of beekeepers on the summit!  A few more pictures here.

As an excuse to grow a moustache and scare off all females in the vicinity (they’re just everywhere here) I have decided to sprout some facial hairs for … charity, but more importantly, my ego.  You can check out Movember here: http://nz.movember.com/ and you can -  yes, I’m asking for money – donate through me to the kiwi cause at http://nz.movember.com/mospace/387944.  Of course I will post a picture towards the end of the month to prove my progress!

Different moods of Sydney Street.

A southerly steamrolling a line of clouds and a beautiful sunset in front of it.

They don’t mess around with industrial farming here.  Ask Fonterra, the milk cooperative that controls 30% of the world’s dairy exports.  This farmer runs 1300 cows, 500 of them taking about an hour and a half to run through the milking machine.  Holy crap.

Headed up to Maropea Hut this Labour Day weekend via Sunrise hut (the track of which can be seen here on the ridge in the centre of the above panorama.  Beautiful place overlooking Central Hawke’s Bay.

The old deer culler’s hut – built in the 60’s and 70’s when the deer population was so out of control in New Zealand that people were paid to simply go up into the bush and shoot them.  One older fellow up there told me he would regularly shoot up to 20 a day.

Well, time to float on again.

D being not at all as amazed by the glacier as by the tourists… who wouldn’t be.

I managed to hook up with four old friends from the glory days and we proved that those days are still happening.  Yoho National Park in BC was the place of our hangout, with Western Canada’s second highest waterfalls – Takakkaw providing a splendid backdrop.  We hiked the popular Iceline Trail with a night at Laughing Falls and continued up The Whaleback for stunning view of the Yoho and surrounding valleys.  For more pictures, as always, follow this link.

Despite Highway 20, this is still a beautiful place.