Last weekend offered me up ANOTHER 4 day weekend due to a paid holiday on a Tuesday and a slight case of "goddaclimbitis" on Monday. A 2 car caravan of us went back up to the Whaepapa South region, north of Taupo. We stayed at "Castle Rock Adventure" lodge, which is a very flash hostel/ retreat/ get-away place literally across the street from one of the ignimbrite climbing areas. The place had a full living room, full kitchen,5 bunk houses, a tennis court, a pool and a HOT TUB!!!! Perhaps a bit to flashy for a bunch of dirtbag climbers.... but we were able to make do!
To be honest, as different as the ignimbrite climbing is, my main crew (Claydon and Jenna) were pretty sick of pulling on sharp volcanic pockets after the first day (although we did manage to squeeze in a new route or 2 at Froggert), so we made the 45 minute drive to go bouldering at the limestone boulders of the Airstrtip (my favorite bouldering spot in the whole North island). The pictures we took that day were so good that the whole group came on day 3. Tuesday was a rain day, so on the way home we stopped at the free natural hot pools in Taupo for a god 2 hour soak.... ahh, nothing like an almost boiling sulfer river an a few COLD beers to cure what ails you after a weekend of climbing!
The week was mostly unproductive, but only 3 days long, which I must admit I quite like! This past weekend I was scheduled to lead an advanced trad climbing course with MUAC, but thankfully no one signed up and it rained.... so Claydon and I went up to Maganapopo (a cool mtn LOADED with good cliffs 2 hours north of Palmy) and did a bit of aid climbing and a bit of exploring. Aid climbing (again, for the masses) is not rock climbing per say, it is climbing up a rock by means of small rope or webbing ladders hung of pieces of gear stuffed into fractures in the rock. It offers a much mor mental challange than free climbing does, and it CAN be done on wet rock. Man, I really do love this stuff, eh?

Happy Easter Y'all! I can only hope that everyone who is reading this had even HALF as good an Easter Weekend as I did! I set out with my buddies Claydon and Jenna (full time climbing partners) on a "new rock" finding mission. Over the course of the 4 day weekend (2 of which where paid vacation days!) we/ I : got lost, drank good scotch, skinned knees and/ or elbows, got wet (not on purpose), ate GREAT food, got sunburned, bush wacked for hours at a time, found some super cool rock, found some really BAD rock, climbed some cool old routes and did heaps of cool NEW routes!
Oh sure..... some of that may not sound great, but a cushy weekend with out a little dirt does NOT make an adventure! We had a great time exploring (driving and hiking) around the east coast of the North island. We laughed, we cried (more a hollar than a cry really), we drank good beer and stayed in the the comfort of a real house even. Thankfully for us, Jenna's parents needed their house watched and we were just the 3 to do it.
The icing on the cake is that we DID find an extrodinary climbing area that had NEVER been developed at all. We put up a total of 12 ner routes and boulder problems. We are currently in the process of getting permission to install safety bolts and then we may even go so far as to crank out a guide for it.... it is just that good. The rocks are set in a small sandy harbor. There are seals and Blue Penguins swimming around in the ocean below the rocks. There is a cool lighthouse. There are surfers. There is a beautiful, sandy beach. There is good fishing. Hell.... this place is really just awesome.
Besides that... well, I am still "trapped" in New Zealand. Life is good. Hope y'all are well and remembering to enjoy yourselves as much as possible!

Ok, so alive and well. Uhm... nothing to exiting to report (exept that I am in New Zealand, which is STILL pretty exiting). The new issue of "Climber," New Zealands's climbing magazine distributed by the NZ Alpine Club... and low and behold there is a picture of ME in it! Ok, I guess that IS pretty exiting. It was a picture from one of the boulder comps I was at, apparently looking quite passionate about the problem I was working on. Go figure... ME, passionate about climbing.... must have been a once in a life time photo opertunity (hehe)!
Work is still good, new pad is getting better every day, my on going development of NZ rock is going GREAT! I have a whole band of MUAC members keen to help me with enhancing the climbing scene around Palmerston... which is a real treat. I love getting out there and doing it... the scrubbing, bolting, trail creating, vertical gardening... but it is that much beeter having a bunch of mates there plugging along with me. We get a lot accomplished and everyone gets a satisfied feeling at the end of the day (of course the beer helps with that!).

I know I've been threatening this quite a bit.... but I am officially back on line. Now that I am nice and cozy in my new pad, I figured it was time to suck it up and shell out the dough for a real i-net account. I was hopefull that I would luck out with another piratable (arrr) wireless site somewhere in the area surrounding my new place... but it seems that was wishful thinking.
So living in New Zealand, one would hope there was more exitement in my life than just getting an internet account. Duh, of course there is! Obviously I've been climbing quite a bit. I recently joined MUAC (Massey University Alpine Club) as a way of meeting like minded outdoorsy folk as well as getting myself envolved in cool trips around the country. I was asked along on their "Basic Rock" weekend, and was quickly put to work as an instructor..... s'all good, instructors get the weekend events for free, so it turned out to be a pretty cool gig. My job was to set topropes (oh no, I have to lead them to get the rope set up!) and then give pointers, teach basic belay skills and help boost overall moral.
I brought along 2 of the guys I work with (who have both gone out and bought there own climbing gear already) so they cound get a taste of non-tree climbing. I have to say, I was really exited to see how quickly EVERYONE in the group picked up the basics and how much enthusiasm there was to push (as well as support)one another. By half way through the first day of climbing, everyone was getting on well enough that a few of the other instructors and I were able to sneak off and do some "big boy" climbs as well as trow up a few new bolted lines and snag the first ascents. I must admit I had an absoulute blast.
The work weeks have been.... standard. Up days and down days, but generally no complaints. For play this weekend I did some bouldering on Saturday and today (sunday) I grabbed a bunch of MUACers and we did a HUGE amount of developement on a big limestone outcrop I've been setting some new routes in the Manawatu Gorge, just outside of Palmy. We created some good belay spots (level standing areas, some with good rocks to sit on even) and made the access paths a bit more user friendly. Again, I pretty damm good weekend!
So that's news I guess. Now that I am back on line, look for me on instant messanger again. I will try and be on (my) mornings 6:30-7:30 which I think is 12:30- 1:30 back home. Hope to see y'all there now and again!