Week in review: The palm trees were moved succesfully. The "small" on weighed in at 26 tons, the big one was a whopping 31 tons! I was otherwise involved in "real" tree work for most of the day, but we did happen to swing by to see if they needed a hand just as the big one was going into the hole. There is something wrong/ awesome about assisting a 31 ton palm tree into a hole as it dangles above your head! The trees were actaully so big that the moving company that we were involved with JUST bought the crane we used. A 250 ton capacity monster freshly imported from Germany at a cost of $1.7 million, WOW!!!!
I have been slowly showing my fellow Kiwi climbers about toys. I feel bad for them, because gear is really expensive here, but they obviously NEED to have all the cool things that I use. I may have them make up a list when I go stateside again... but we'll cross that bridge when I get there.
Cristin has left for the south island. She is doing a week of travelling with her father, who has been here for a week already and LOVES it. After Mike leaves, she will be doing her work study down there at a dairy farm... oooooooh! I appreciate the need for a large animal vet to seei and do it all... but putting "suckers" on the tits of 1000 cows twice a day just CAN't be very exiting, poor thing.
I certainly plan on visiting her. We are still working out LOTS of "us" details, but it still seems to be a worthwhile investment. Besides, even just as friends (and as a long time, kick ass climbing partner) there is a ton of adventures to be had down there.... including Castle Hill Basin, which is a world class bouldering/ climbing area of which I have a rather serious "thing" for. Besides just rocks, there are more mountains and fjiords down there than any one person can see in a lifetime, but we are cretainly going to give it a shot!
So that's it for now. I need to pack as that I am heading up to Taranaki (est coast of North island) to try and bag Mt Egmont. It is still snow capped, has some incredible alpine rock, and like most good Kiwi hikes, has a very posh hut mid hike to stay at. If any of you have seen the Tom Cruise movie "The Last Samurai"... Mt Egmont was the Mt Fuji "stunt double" as that the whole movie was shot in NZ.