Sydney to Gong ride 2008

Rob arrived 5:37, we missed the 5:49 at Mortdale. Train stopped at StPeters, in spite of timetable. Arrived around 6:30 took 40 minutes to get started due to huge crowd.
>> Next year - get there around 6am
Ride was very congested due to surge in riders. Over 12,000 reportedly.
Left around 7:10, arrived 10:15. Around 3hrs 5min riding time - a personal best. Avg speed = 29km.
Odometer not working whole trip.
Maintained good momentum on a lot of the hills and passed a lot of people on the uphill sections. Training leading up was about 3 times a week for 6 weeks.
Wore riding shorts with bib - couldn't stop for a pee
>> Next year - wear normal shorts
Used goo well. Had a light cereal breakfast then 1 goo after 1 hr, another after another hour. Had no cramps and despite feeling tired on hills at the end, had enough energy for full ride.
Train fare back was $9 each. Train didn't stop at Mortdale, had to get train back from Hurstville, wasted half an hour.
>> Next year - get train from Hurstville - park at supercentre.
Sat in spa for an hour when I got home - very good therapy!

Bankstown 7.5 k in 33:07.. getting faster

Average of 4min 25secs per k.
Charlie and Wally ran. Charlie injured groin.
Wally 33:18.

Bankstown 7.5 k in 34mins

Just did the run below with Wally. Still waiting on Charlie's excuse. Running speed was 4mins 32 secs, although it felt a lot faster than that!

Hollyford Valley Trip report - Part 2 - Day #1

The weather forecast said that the temperature was going to vary between a maximum of 5 degrees C and 3 degrees C with a “feels like” rating of minus 5 degrees C, due to the high wind and rain forecast for most of the time we were there. As I wrote in an email to Rob, “Maaaate, it’s going to be f*cking COLD”.

The flight from a rainy and cold Sydney was mostly uneventful. On arrival to Dunedin however, we both faced the traveller’s worst nightmare. The humiliation of being busted by Customs for a crime more devious than the Bali 9 and more blatantly stupid than Schapelle Corby’s hash body board. Yes, I am sorry to admit that I tried to get into New Zealand with….. muddy boots! Rob was also busted for the same thing. We waited anxiously in socks for 10 minutes while our boots were cleaned of dangerous foreign dog poo and other unknown nasties; quietly fearing all the while that a cavity search by a fat fingered Maori would be next as punishment for our deliberate attempt to contaminate the NZ ecology.

Eventually with cavities in tact, we cleared customs and went through to the terminal where Pete Steele was expected to meet us brandishing a “PDS Marine” sign. We were both so distressed by the muddy boots incident that neither of us noticed Pete near the exit and walked straight past him. After 10 minutes of waiting as the passengers, waiting families and taxis slowly dissipated from the arrivals area, it dawned on me that if Peter Steel was not the honest and considerate person we found him to be, he could easily have taken our full payments and never turned up at the airport, effectively leaving us “screwed”. A final sweep of the terminal and we spotted each-other. Matthew and Gavin, also from Sydney were already with Pete.

In addition to meeting Matthew and Gavin, the father and son team from Sydney, we were soon introduced to Peter’s pride and joy, a 15 foot something aluminium hull, fibreglass top Jet Boat with a 5.7 litre fuel injected, V8 Chevy pumping 400 horsepower, through a modified Scott jet motor. Built by Pete himself, it had 2 bucket seats at the front and a 2 seater bench in the middle. Pete and his boat were soon to show us that there was only way through a 4 inch deep section of the river …..flat out!

Travelling from Dunedin to Te Anau via Gore is virtually traversing from one side of the country to the other. While only a 3 hour drive, we were soon to discover that what the country lacked in size, it well and truly made up for it in character and diversity.

The central Otago and Southland countryside is mostly flat with sheep, sheep and more sheep, occasionally separated by a well trimmed row of 30ft high hedges. Chatting on the way, Pete helped us to get used to the Kiwi speech and Kiwi names for common objects. Every description of distance, size and difficulty was preceded with “a wee bit”. The esky was a “Cooly bun” or “Chully bun” and vowels were to be randomly transposed, sometimes but not always with the next available alphabetically. “Six” became “sex” but “ten” became “tin”. “Rib” and “Given” were equally confused with the order of vowel transposition.

Pete had arranged to meet the others at 6pm, having left at 3:30pm, we were going to be a “wee bit” late but it didn’t seem to faze Pete.

Arriving at the hotel around 6:30pm we met Mark, Peter Porsche, Jeff, Sean, Hamish, Dave, Nick, Kelvin, Lawrence, Denise, Logan, John and Beryl. Before dinner we stocked up on beverages as the next 4 nights at the lodge would be sans shops, cars and communications. Rob and I decided to stick to a rigid diet of New Zealand Pinot Noir’s. One bottle per night per person…a strong and steady drinking pace but we were feeling up for it!

Wine prices were a “wee bit” high. A Cloudy Bay, one of my favourite NZ Pinots was $52.50NZ compared to around $35 Aussie at Dan Murphy’s. While the cost difference was high, it was still a “nit” by comparison to the fortune we had paid in marital equivalency, and subsequently did not deter us from choosing a quality range of “fruit of the vine” to enjoy.

Dinner at “The Ranch” was typical pub food; I went for the pub standard rib eye steak with salad and fries, Rob and Gavin ventured for lamb shanks and, despite tasting ok, both suffered indigestion for several days afterwards. Matthew opted for Venison, a choice that the rest of us declined in optimism that we may get to eat it fresh if the hunters on this trip were as good as those in the magazine article from last year.

At dinner we found out that this was Pete Steele’s sixth Jet boat sortie to the Hollyford and that he had worked in the area for around 10 years, managing a lodge on the river. Most of the others were on their third or fourth trip with the exception of the boats of Lawrence, Jeff and Dave who were first timers. While the Aussie tagalongs were apprehensive about everything from weather to the unknown elements of jet boating, the Kiwis were just cool about everything.

There was little opportunity for rivalry amongst the group as no clear distinctions of origin, creed or beliefs existed. The kiwi contingent had come together from North and South Islands, Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown and nobody in the Aussie contingent were actually “Australians”. Yours truly hailing from London town, Rob from Mauritius and Gavin and Matt were originally Polish. With little opportunity for any easy sledging, a long day of travelling and an average age of mid to late forties, this group was destined for an early night! The hotel manager graciously offered to drive us back to the motel which came as a great alternative to a long walk in cold rain carrying a fragile carton of fine wine.

Hollyford Valley Trip report - Part 1 - The lead up

One early Sunday morning in October 2007, while crunching a bowl of cereal I first read an article in a boating magazine about a trip the author had taken with a mate and a group of Jet-boat enthusiasts to the remote Hollyford River in the Fiordland, South Island of New Zealand.

I’d been looking of an opportunity for an adventure holiday and there were 3 aspects of this trip that had me ready to book on the spot. Firstly the adventure aspect. The prospect of ripping along a shallow river at breakneck speed atop a thundering V8 Jet boat, dodging tree stumps and rocks sounded like the kind of adrenalin rush I love. The second attraction was the wilderness and nature aspect. A chance to get out of the city, see a beautiful part of the world, not too far to travel and to appreciate being outdoors for a while. The third and final clincher for the trip was actually presented as a problem for some, but was a bonus in my view that for 4 nights I would be out of range of all telecommunications, save for a VHF radio in the lodge! This to me meant that I would have no option but to switch off mentally and digitally and have no option but to be absorbed by the scenery and the excitement of it all.

In hindsight it does seem ludicrous that while regularly forking out to be connected via mobile phone and Internet access I was now ready to fork out more money for the luxury of being disconnected for a change.

The deposit was paid after confirming that my mate Rob was going to join me. The trip was not one of your run-of-the-mill tourist events. The article made it clear that this was a trip organised for NZ Jet boat enthusiasts and that only 2-4 places were available on application for each trip for those without their own Jet boat.

Having locked it in, the great part then was the lead up, or at least, so I thought. The trip did not start until April 2008 so we had 5 months to look forward to it. As married fellas with kids, this was something out of the ordinary. I later found out there is a word for it;

“Mancation” - A mancation is a getaway for the guys. The term is used for a vacation for men only, doing the kinds of things men like to do without their wives, girlfriends or mistresses. The term was originally used by Vince Vaughn’s character in the movie “The Break-Up”.

While this sounds like the sort of thing that ‘blokes’ should just do, we both knew that freedom comes at a price! Our liberated wives with a keen sense of marital equivalence would undoubtedly seek payback! The prospect of getting away from home and work and having fun was going to exceed the normal amount of ‘fun quota’ that a mid forties married guy was allowed in a year or two. For a while, we both wondered anxiously whether payment currency would be extracted in emotional (made to feel guilty) stress, equivalent time away (a “Womcation”?) or the easiest option of all, money spent on jewellery or accessories.

Rob’s wife Linda struck early (and hard) with an emotional barrage of guilt and probing motivational questions. Rob countered with the purchase of an overdue Eternity ring, which placated his situation for a while. My wife Julie seized the opportunity to take the Womcation option and headed off for a long weekend at the Hunter Valley with a group of girls. She later followed it up with a shopping trip to Las Vegas for a week with her friend Jenny who was on a conference.

A soon realised downside of the long lead time to the vacation for Rob was that Linda’s memory of the Eternity ring soon faded and the emotional barrage restarted. Pretty soon he was re-decorating, had booked a weekend in the city, spent the whole time shopping and ultimately bought his wife a new car. Arguably the car was for other reasons but all up, the women were undoubtedly winning with amassed costs of close to $100,000 and 13 days of Womcation in payback vs. the rather paltry $3500 it was costing each of us to go to NZ on our 6 day Mancation.

When the day finally came, we were like 2 excited kids going to Disneyland. Apprehension of jet-boating was however balanced by the memory of the equivalent price we had both paid to be there. This trip had better be bloody good! We both vowed to give less notice next time.

Of my plans to write on the weekends.....

Just sat down outside. Perfect Sunday, clear skies, light breeze warm. Birds tweetering, no machine noises or nasty smells from the neighbours. Mobile rings - mate needs some help. Jodie calls, her culinary masterpiece is going cold.... just not to be today.

Complicate or Simplify

WARNING: Rambling blog - starts nowhere, finishes nowhere, means nothing.
Read at your peril - or just skip to the next blog!

Sometimes I long for a more simple life. But then is simplicity just another thing that I want to add to all the other things I have already and thereby really making things just a bit more complicated?

When you have so much stuff that you can't find anything, does it stop you from buying more stuff? Or does it mean that you just have to go and buy something you know you already have somewhere but you can't find it. Time is money, why waste 2 hours looking for something that would only take 15 minutes to earn enough to buy another one?

The 24 minute rule will get you! 24 minutes is the average time that it takes for something to turn up after you just purchased its replacement. The trouble with the 24 minute rule is that the 24 minutes only starts after you complete the purchase of a non-refundable, non-transferable, non-returnable item. Any attempts to cheat the 24 minute rule are futile, causing the original item to remain unfound. The 24 minute rule also works in reverse. Ask anyone who has had a Garage Sale and they will confirm that 24 minutes is also the average time that it takes to find an undeniably critical need for something that you have just got rid of.

Whether losing or selling, the 24 minute rule, like advertising and social pressure is forcing us all to get more stuff. The more stuff we have, the more complicated our lives. The more stuff we have, the more we have to spend time fixing it, cleaning it, or looking for it.

My family are all in favour of mass production, planned obsolescence and regularly changing fashions. Buy it, use it, get rid of it. If you have the time to fix, clean and find the stuff you have then you are probably missing out on doing something really important. This approach is not good for the greenies - leads to mass consumption, lots of carbon emissions and apparently, water will soon be lapping at my doorstep if global warming takes hold and moves the ocean to my house.

The answer may be to abstain from adding stuff in any way. Do without it. If what you are going to do requires you to buy or get something else, find something else to do. Use what you have in different ways or just do nothing. Think of the carbon emissions you will save and the time. Trouble is that this ultimately leads to doing nothing all the time which is a waste of time.

In the end it's probably better to just stay as you are. Get used to living with too much stuff and spending too much time looking after it or replacing it. The alternative is that you'll have nothing to do and get bored. QED.