Windy Tops

  • A dusty evening

    Well last night I went to clean the remaining dirt of my shoes from a couple of weekends ago, and it was challenging to say the least. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been necessary to walk through a bog (thanks, Cows) to get back to the van. As it happened, I could have made good use of a chisel. The calm, evening air made for a very dusty time when wiping the dirt off, but I finally got it to the point where I could put a bit mroe wax stuff on them.

    It’s back to the Tararuas tonight. The plan is to leave Wellington about 5.30pm and walk to Field Hut tonight. Tomorrow we’ll make our way towards Kime, and head down Tregear Ridge, camp somewhere on Saturday night, and make our way back to Otaki Forks on Sunday.

  • Trip: Te Matawai Hut via Deception Spur

    The muddiest part of this trip might have been the first 10 minutes scrambling through the Moo paddock in the dark, as we made our way to the Tararuas entrance from Poads Road. Given that it was lined with an un-advertised electric fence, Enrique even managed to get shocked several times as he tripped and grabbed the fence, before he realised what was happening.

    Dates: 7th – 9th September, 2007
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Ohau Region.
    People: Alistair, Dirk, Enrique, and me.
    Huts visited: Te Matawai Hut (1 night).
    Intended route: Poads Road to Ohau River via Ohau Gorge, up Deception Spur to 865 metres, down to Girdlestone Saddle, then along the track to Te Matawai Hut, along Yeates Track to South Ohau river, back to the base of Deception Spur (via river), then out to Poads Road via river and track.
    Electric shocks: 3.
    [Photos]

    This was a medium-rated navigation trip with the Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering Club, and it was my first time back in the Tararuas since returning from overseas.

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • kubuntu and libdvdcss2

    This is a little confusing. I opted to install Kubuntu Feisty on my new Sony Vaio. Until now I’ve mostly been a Debian user, but I’ve wanted to try Ubuntu or Kubuntu for some time now, since it has such a great reputation. So far the only problems I’ve had after installation have been that the system won’t come back up after Suspend, and that DVDs haven’t wanted to play properly.

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  • I have a new toy

    I have a new toy (a Sony VAIO VGNSZ433NB), although the guy at the Sony shop in Wellington didn’t help much. I’d narrowed it down to three choices from Sony’s website, based on specifications. Not many places near the south end of the CBD seem to stock Sony laptops, and I thought I might actually be able to get a look at them. It turned out that my third choice was down to a display model, and the guy claimed that the first two models had been discontinued. He then tried to tell me that I’d be much better off getting its replacement (which wasn’t actually a replacement so much as the next model up), which cost an extra thousand dollars. When I mentioned I was planning to blow away Windows completely, he started practically trying to talk me out of it, and attempted to convince me how great Vista. (He reckoned there would be all sorts of driver problems, which I didn’t believe.)

    I then walked over to Noel Leeming, which didn’t have it but said they could get it on special order. Either way, it wasn’t available for me to actually play with. In the end I ordered it off Ascent late on Tuesday night, it arrived on Wednesday, and I’m really happy with it. I blew away Windows last night and installed Kububtu Linux. There are a few issues with the Suspend function, which so far I’m optimistic about, but otherwise it’s been working great. I’m now an owner of a Notebook produced by Sony, which incidentally is also one of the most evil media companies in the world. Yay for me.

    Off to the Tararuas this weekend.

  • My Dell is choking

    As of this evening, my old Dell Inspiron 5150 has started choking. It’s randomly rebooting, or putting itself into a half-asleep state, within a few minutes of switching on. This is a little sad, but in the back of my mind it’s quite exciting. It’s the first laptop I ever bought (in 2003), and there are plenty of things I’d do differently next time around. (I’d avoid Dell for one thing.) If it really is dying, it could be a convenient excuse to buy a new laptop.

    Meanwhile, I have to try and figure out if there’s any important data on it that I’ll need to try and get off.

  • Rusty red moon

    As I write this, I’m sitting out on the balcony under a relatively clear sky, with a Full Moon that’s unusually dark red, tapping away on my laptop. This is because of the total lunar eclipse that’s in progress right now, which is the first I’ve seen for seven years, and generally quite impressive. The thing that’s come to mind over and over again as I watch this is that it should be possible to estimate the Moon’s diameter by estimating the difference between the curvature of the Moon’s edge and that of the Earth’s shadow. I haven’t actually bothered to do this, though.

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  • Cheap movie night

    Stacey and I finally went to see The Simpsons Movie last night, at the cheap $6 Tuesday night at Hoyts. (Much cheaper than the cheap $10 Tuesday night at Reading.) My expectations weren’t too high, and they were met. It was good for a few cheap laughs.

  • Trip: Cattle Creek Hut

    Windy windy windy.

    Dates: 17th – 19th August, 2007
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park
    Huts visited: Stanfield Hut (0 nights), Cattle Creek Hut (1 night).
    People: Darren, Alex, Clinton, Matt, Michael, Patrick and Meeeee.
    [Photos]

    I think I probably ate something bad for lunch on the Friday that we left. All of that afternoon I had a headache, and this became a bit more of an issue when I got sick at 10.30pm Friday night after setting up my tent fly in the campground 200 metres from the Tamaki West road-end. Fortunately for me, though, I began to feel quite a lot better after that.

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

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  • Expensive compasses

    I went shopping for a compass at lunch time today, as I can’t find my old one since arriving back. It turns out that not much has changed: the cheapest basic base-plate compass in a tramping shop is $30, and the ones worth getting are at least $45. Fortunately I managed to get a Coleman compass identical to my old one from Rebel Sport, which as far as I can tell is just as good, except it’s not a fancy Suunto or Silva branded compass with shiny lights and mirrors all over it.

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  • Observations on getting back

    I’ve had a bit of a period without getting outdoors much lately, since getting back. This has mostly been a consequence of having gotten straight back into the flat-hunting routine, then moving in. (Yay, Stacey’s good at organising.) Work’s back in full swing, and I’ve found myself with plenty of additional things to do. The down-side has been that there hasn’t been much time for other stuff, and when there has, I’ve just felt a bit like not doing anything.

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