Happy New year all!!! Although for all of the crew back home I was a good 18 hours ahead of y'all, I hope everyone had a great time. I ended up in Taupo for the big countdown, after spending the past 6 days travelling around central north island, climbing. So far, me and my travelling buddy Claydon have hit 6 different climbing areas, sent countless cool routes and boulder problems, and met heaps of cool new people. I am slowly bumping my climbing grades up and Claydon, who is fairly new to the sport is SREAMING up the technical ladder. We have also been hanging around with a travelling German gal we met at on of the climbing spots (actually also a Palmy resident) and she has decided that climbing with us for the next week is her best option..... cool as.
Anyways, we met up with a few of Claydon's mates in Taupo on New Year's eve, did some GOOD drinking, smoked stoggies at midnight, and then went to hang out in one of the local thermally heated rivers until 3 AM..... not a bad night! We then scored campsites at on of the city's FREE campsites and went to bed. Today (Jan 1, 2006!) we woke up and headed to a small ryolite crag just 15 minutes from town. There were both bolted sport lines and traditional climbs, but as that we were all pretty beat from the past week (and last night) we spent a lot of the day just goofing around.
Tomorrow is our first scheduled day of rest. I have never had to actually FORCE myself to stop climbing for a day, but all of us need it. We are sticking around Taupo and I plan on treating myself to a massage and a good nap! After tomorrow we are heading back towards the southern portion of the island, though we are really just winging it day to day.

Hey all. It as Thursday the 29th around 10 am and I have been climbing for 3 days solid! The trip is going great. It rained a bit yesterday where we have been climbing in the Whaepapa region just north of Lake Taupo. The rock is ignimbrite, which is a very hard pumice like material with lots of big pockets to grab. The friction is incredible and the holds are huge, so even in the rain we were able to goof around on some easier climbs.
When we arrived up here, we met up with a German gal who actually climbs at the same rock gym I go to in Palmy, so she is our newest partner on the trip. We are off to go do some limestone bouldering today as that ropes are getting to be a hassle and we are longing for some quick "ups" with out the constriction of ropes, gear or pre-established lines.

I'd write more, but I'm waisting valuable climb time. Hope everyone had a great x-mas!

Wow, what a week! For the first time here I did a full week of honest to god, blood, sweat and tears tree work! It felt really good. We had some BIG drops, we did a few really technical take downs, as well as a few good old medium prunes to just make things look "Damm good!" The company does a fair amount of tree work, usually, but the weeks building up to x-mas have been mostly yard preps so everyones properties looked spick and span for the holidays.
We have just been laid off for 3 weeks, so I am off on a mega climbing adventure. The boss was kind enough to offer up the company van, so I have housing as well as just transport now! I plan on meeting up with a few mates here and there and gettineg on as many cool climbs as possible. I will be bringing a camera this tyime, and hopefully I will figure out how to post the lot of them to the blog when I get them all developed!
Anyways, I wanted to use this as a general forum to say Merry X-mas and happy holidays to EVERYONE. It is weird doing the whole summer x-mas thing, but I think I may drive up to some of the remaining snow some time next week to make myself feel a bit more "at home" in the holidays. I was hoping to send everyone cards or something, which I may still do, but as of yesterday I was down to $30 in my account! I was fortunate enought to get a small loan to cover me for vacation and Immigration promises me I will be set to start actually getting PAID rather than doing volenteer work when I get back from vacation.
Anyways, I hope all are well... keep in the e-mails coming!

Ok, so a late week in review..... last week I did the usual work routine. There was a lot of rain, so I did the usual work routine and got wet. Friday I had planned on going out to the gorge to climb but it rained (again) so I went to a mates house who ended uo getting us invited to a dinner party where we went and ate or fill of home made kebabs and vodka gimlets.
Saturday morning I woke up, popped an aspirine, and made plans to get on with the day. I did my shopping, went to the library, played my didge in the park and made plans to go to the gorge. As I rounded the bend to the rocks in the gorge, the sky opened up and rained for almost an hour. I took advantage of the fact that I COULDN'T climb and hiked around in search of other cool stuff. After getting totally soaked (and a bit cold) I headed back home, a bit depresed. The evening involved a hot shower and a movie.
Sunday I had plans to go to Welly to go bouldering. My climb partner decided before climbing, he needed to jump out of a plane. He assured me it would not take to long as that he would be falling at 9.8 meters per second squared. We zipped down the road to a skydive jump spot and waited for him to get a spot on a plane. We waited and waited, then he got in flew up and jumped out. It is a bizarre activity, though I can't deny that it really does look pretty cool.
By 3 pm we had finished and FINALLY headed to the rocks. Due to the delays at the dropzone, we had to change our climbing destination. The spot we ended up going was actually quite cool and a good find as that it is only about an hour drive from Palmy. There was some pretty hard as bouldering there, along with a handful of decent bolted sport climbs.
All in all, it was not the MOST eventful weekend to date, but htey can't ALL be epics. I definitely had fun though. Pukerua Bay (the climbing spot), like many of the good climbing areas here, has loads of potential for establishing some new routes and the local alpine club is actually going to be offering a course this coming season on proper bolting technique.... which I hope to attend. So that's news........ plenty more to come!

Ahhhhh, arms of jello.... must have been another good climbing weekend! This Saturday a mate (Claydon) and I had plans to head to Turakirae Head, which is a point jutting out into the ocean just east of Wellington. Turakirae is THE bouldering destination for the North island although it has only really been developed within the past 2 years. It is a stretch of rocky beach simply LITTERED with massive boulders as far as the eye can see. There is SO MUCH rock there that there is heaps of potential for establishing new routes. I am already organising a group next week to go and do some more exploration.
For the non-climbers, boulders can offer a wealth of very short but intense climbing experiances. As with any new area however, the rock often needs to be cleaned to make it easier/ safer to climb. This usually involves scrubbing of dirt, sand, lichens, pieces of loose rock.... anything that may make the climb less safe. This is particularly important for boulder climbing as that the only real protection you often have is a foam pad to land on or a set of hands to catch you! So as it goes... you see a good line, you clean it, you figure out the moves and be the first one to MAKE all the moves.... you get to name the problem and go down in climbing history!
Anyways, to get on with the story.... the weather report looked like poop on Friday evening when I called Claydon to see if we were still going. As he put it, "the two hour drive to Wellington sucks, especially if the climbing mission is thwarted due to inclimate weather... but it still beats sitting around Palmy, besides..... the rocks MAY be dry!!! Spoken like a true climber. So Saturday morning we packed the car and drove for 2 hours through the nastiest rain I have seen since my arrival to NZ. I'm not sure if it was because of our relentless determination or pity, but the climbing gods and the weather goods smiled on us, and it appeared that JUST the sky over the strip of beach with all the boulders was blue. The beach was sunny and dry ALL DAY.
We met up with a few other determined souls who were locals and showed us some of the "always dry" climbing spots (overhangs and a small cave), in case we were not so fortunate with the weather the next time. They also gave us a really good tour of the area, although they were MUCH stronger than either Claydon or myself, so we mostly watched in awe at some of the lines they were working on. Needless to say we climbed until our fingers were so burnt out we could no longer even tie our shoe laces. We sat and watched fur seals basking on the rocks for a bit, then went into town for the obligitory post climbing beer and a bite to eat. All in all... not to shabby a day to be in New Zealand!

Fridays are always the company meeting day after work. The whole crew sits in the office to discuss what is on their minds...... it goes something like this.

"Jonus, will you take the minutes? Ok, who wants a beer? Blah blah blah good job blah blah, anyone need another beer? Blah blah cool new climbing toy, blah blah, chain saw, you aren't finished with that yet? Here, try this new beer...... it's Austalian. Blah blah blah prusik loop blah blah blake's hitch vs mechanical ascender blah blah.... anyone want to go to the pub?

I guess tree companies are the same everywhere around the world! Things are getting on quite well at work these days. The boss just bought me my own chainsaw pants and steel toed boots (both are required for any tree work). He wanted to know if he was going to get a 2 year commitment out of me so he could get his newer climbers up to snuff before I left...... although I did not give him a definite, it seems very likely that I will take him up on it. The general work contract (which he showed me the other day) listed the perks offered to a full time employee. They include 2 weeks paid vacation, 5 days paid sick leave, 11 paid holidays and a weekly clothing allowance. Other perks are the use of the company van (which is a shared right for anyone on the crew who needs it), not having to file taxes (companies accountant does it), Full use of company equipment for private work and, of course, the company meetings!

MMMMmmmmm..... yogurt and a hot cup of licorice tea, life is good. It's amost 10 PM Sunday night and I got home about an hour ago. I am sore. I am tired. I am SOOOO happy. I got to go climbing all weekend!
Whanganui Bay (pronounce the "wh" like an "f") is a climbing area located on Mauri land on the south west corner of lake Taupo. It is a collection of ignibrite (ryolite matrix) cliffs right on the lake side formed after a pyroclastic volcanic blast. Geologically this basicly means lots of pumis, ash and hot stuff got VIOLETLY blasted into the surrounding valleys and as it cooled, formed a mix of slow cooled, hard rock mixed with oodles of exploded gas pockets. What this means to me as a climber is loads of varied climbs ranging from perfect cracks (formed while the rock was cooling) for jamming variois bits of my appendages into, rippled slabs to delicately wind up, and best of all.... massive walls of pockets which look like swiss cheese!
Malcom, the nice climber who picked me up (rescued me) for the weekend on his way up fom Wellington, was definitely a stronger climber than me. This was a cool experiance as that I spent the whole weekend really pushing my limits and getting "spanked" by some seriously hard routes. I did on-sight sending a number of 18 through 20s (5.9 through 5.10d) on both trad gear and bolts. I also got the pleasure of thrashing around a bit on a 24 (5.11d!) which although I didn't get the crux (grabbing the very top), I did make it one move shy of the top! All in all, it was an incredible weekend..... now back to the real world!