It's anniversary time. 6 months have passed since I have finshed work and as a result, here is an update of my Facebook status' from the past month. Enjoy
Gibby Davis is sad to see many of the places he visited in Bangkok being burned down.
May 20 at 5:10pm
Gibby Davis would have appreciated the Australian Dollar tanking when he was spending AUD versus making AUD.
May 21 at 8:05am
Gibby Davis likes to go back through his website to see where he's been. Helps give him the perspective he needs.
May 24 at 11:00am
Gibby Davis wonders if his mobile will work in New Zealand. By the way, going to Auckland tomorrow.
May 24 at 5:51pm
Gibby Davis is immediately regretting his decision to spend most of his time in Australia instead of New Zealand. They have Wendy's here!
May 25 at 3:34pm
Gibby Davis has been wandering the streets of Auckland for 11 hours today and has taken over 500 photos.....so far.
May 26 at 6:16pm
Gibby Davis is enjoying his time in the 'Dude Shack' in Auckland.
May 27 at 9:21pm
Gibby Davis is pulling an all-nighter before flying back to Oz. This might be a bad idea.
May 28 at 9:58pm
Gibby Davis has survived another flight back to Oz. Just as exhausting but nowhere near as emotional, thankfully.
May 29 at 10:32am
Gibby Davis is thinking about going to footie tonight. Anyone care to join?
May 29 at 2:43pm
Gibby Davis figures his body is trying to tell him that it doesn't like running at elevation. He's not listening.
June 1 at 7:51am
Gibby Davis would like to make public note of Danny's phenomenal driving skills. Well done sir.
June 4 at 9:29pm
Gibby Davis survived 5 days without internet. Who won the Stanley Cup?
June 12 at 11:36am
Gibby Davis was supposed to go skiing on his day off. Instead he got +6, rain, 70km/h gusts and more work. Baaahhhh
June 16 at 3:09pm
Gibby Davis is wondering if the chairlifts will run during Category 1 wind gusts.
June 17 at 6:57am
Gibby Davis thinks that Mike Weir leading the US Open is going to drastically reduce the amount of sleep I'm going to get this weekend. Wish golf wasn't on at 2am.
June 18 at 6:43am
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Mt Buller, Victoria, Australia
I am back in Mt Buller and am now fully emersed in the Australian winter. The ski hill opened on June 12 and I've been working like mad since (and waaayy before). I've been lucky enough to find myself a job where I have got access to ski equipment and a free season pass. As a result I've been able to get out several times to ski on the not-nearly-enough snow base.
My job has been very interesting so far as I have now worked 20 straight days. I've also been promoted already so I must, somehow, being doing something right. Since I returned from New Zealand, I have become a qualified Alpine Technician and have also been working at creating Point of Sale systems. I've been lucky enough to be living and working with a great group of people and I've already made some great new friends.
That's about all that's new from me recently, so to fill the required content for this blog, I give you more Australian'isms.
Australia - Canada translation
Script – prescription
Gum Boots – rubber boots
Rock up - start work
Knock off - end work
Tea - supper
(Tomato) Sauce – ketchup
Reckon – to figure (ie I reckon you don't know what I'm talking about)
Hand ball – to pass something off to someone else
Stanley Knife – boxcutter or exacto-knife
Snowfield – ski hill
Winge - to complain
Bogan - redneck
Stuff All - little
Heaps - lots
____ as (cool as, weak as, sweet as, etc) - It's a saying that seems to reduce the need for swear words. Unheard of in Australia.
Mispronunciations
Aluminium - al-U-min-E-um
Foyer - foy-errrr
Pasties - past-eees
This post has been terribly unorgnized and random, so I'm going to stick with the trend. Here are some of the very few photos that I've been able to take since I've returned to the mountains. Enjoy
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Bright, Victoria, Australia
I write to you today from the Bright Chalet as I am nearly complete my first training course in Australia. I traveled to Bright with two co-workers as we are all going to be working in a ski hire shop and needed some knowledge on the ins and outs of skis, boards, bindings, etc. The course has been tremendously informative so far and I actually feel like every day I'm learning enough to be able to do my job, which is nice.
So far the most entertaining part of the trip was explaining to the instructors why we showed up 2.5 hours late the first day. It's a bit of a long story.
We were in staff training on Thursday and we were discussing how we would leave for the course sometime Friday evening because the course started on Saturday. I had a weird thought in my head that I had seen something that said the course started on Friday so I sent an email to the people running the course and sure enough, it began on Friday morning at 9am. So we decided there that we would get up nice and early and make the drive to Bright in the morning. We were told the drive would take us about an hour and a half.
Everything went fine Friday morning, we woke up on time, piled into the car and started off on the road. We turned on the GPS and punched in Bright. As we drove towards the first major town off of the mountain, the GPS indicated that we should be making a right turn and when we missed that turn, that we should be making a U-turn. So we turned around and followed the directions given to us. Very shortly after our turn-off the road we were travelling on turned from bitumen to dirt which all lead us to be suspicious but who were we to doubt the GPS. Eventually the road became more and more bumpy but we still figured that it would only be a for a short while before we ended up back on paved roads. At this point we are still travelling on course according to our GPS. Next thing we know we are travelling down a steep 4x4 track with cliffs on either side of the road. Luckily for us we were travelling in a Subaru that did a very admirable job scaling this track. The problem was that there was only a slim chance we'd ever get back up that hill if we needed to so we continued on following the GPS directions.
After following instructions for a little while longer we reached a fork in the road. At this point we are all seriously doubting the abilities of our GPS unit and decided to flip a coin to determine which way to go. The coin came up tails so we turned left traveled a few hundred metres (still on the GPS path) before we encountered a felled tree across the road. At this point the road is completely unpassable because of the tree. So we turned around and tried the other option. This took us down a decent track for a while past some day shacks in the forest before we found a creek crossing the road. We made it through the creek before making a ways up a muddy road before finally deciding that all our efforts to make it through this direction were going to be futile. The problem was our only option now was to get back up the extremely harsh and steep track that we barely successfully descended.
After negotiating a difficult U-turn (narrow roads) we turned back towards our first mistake (turn off the main road). We managed to actually make it back up the track with less difficulty than we expected, but that by no means we had no difficulty. I think we were just desensitzed to difficult driving at this point. So finally after about 90 minutes in the bush we managed to get back to a bitumen road and we decided to take the long circuitous (the correct) route to Bright from Mt Buller. Our next problem was that the drive to Bright actually takes two and a half hours instead of the one and a half we were anticipating. After adding it all up we were 2.5 hours late.
Now, on our first night the instrutors came over and started asking us where we got lost, because in all seriousnous, it's hard to get as lost as we did. So we began explaining to them how we were following the GPS and we thought the road might turn back to something passable and that we figured we weren't able to turn back (as we were explaining it, our reasoning began to appear as flawed to us as it really was). The instructors still were not quite buying our story (and later told us that they figured we stopped at a winery). That was of course until I brought out my camera and showed them the one photo we took of the entire fiasco. At this point there was uproarious laughter and finally some acceptance of our explanation. Good times.
So far the most entertaining part of the trip was explaining to the instructors why we showed up 2.5 hours late the first day. It's a bit of a long story.
We were in staff training on Thursday and we were discussing how we would leave for the course sometime Friday evening because the course started on Saturday. I had a weird thought in my head that I had seen something that said the course started on Friday so I sent an email to the people running the course and sure enough, it began on Friday morning at 9am. So we decided there that we would get up nice and early and make the drive to Bright in the morning. We were told the drive would take us about an hour and a half.
Everything went fine Friday morning, we woke up on time, piled into the car and started off on the road. We turned on the GPS and punched in Bright. As we drove towards the first major town off of the mountain, the GPS indicated that we should be making a right turn and when we missed that turn, that we should be making a U-turn. So we turned around and followed the directions given to us. Very shortly after our turn-off the road we were travelling on turned from bitumen to dirt which all lead us to be suspicious but who were we to doubt the GPS. Eventually the road became more and more bumpy but we still figured that it would only be a for a short while before we ended up back on paved roads. At this point we are still travelling on course according to our GPS. Next thing we know we are travelling down a steep 4x4 track with cliffs on either side of the road. Luckily for us we were travelling in a Subaru that did a very admirable job scaling this track. The problem was that there was only a slim chance we'd ever get back up that hill if we needed to so we continued on following the GPS directions.
After following instructions for a little while longer we reached a fork in the road. At this point we are all seriously doubting the abilities of our GPS unit and decided to flip a coin to determine which way to go. The coin came up tails so we turned left traveled a few hundred metres (still on the GPS path) before we encountered a felled tree across the road. At this point the road is completely unpassable because of the tree. So we turned around and tried the other option. This took us down a decent track for a while past some day shacks in the forest before we found a creek crossing the road. We made it through the creek before making a ways up a muddy road before finally deciding that all our efforts to make it through this direction were going to be futile. The problem was our only option now was to get back up the extremely harsh and steep track that we barely successfully descended.
After negotiating a difficult U-turn (narrow roads) we turned back towards our first mistake (turn off the main road). We managed to actually make it back up the track with less difficulty than we expected, but that by no means we had no difficulty. I think we were just desensitzed to difficult driving at this point. So finally after about 90 minutes in the bush we managed to get back to a bitumen road and we decided to take the long circuitous (the correct) route to Bright from Mt Buller. Our next problem was that the drive to Bright actually takes two and a half hours instead of the one and a half we were anticipating. After adding it all up we were 2.5 hours late.
Now, on our first night the instrutors came over and started asking us where we got lost, because in all seriousnous, it's hard to get as lost as we did. So we began explaining to them how we were following the GPS and we thought the road might turn back to something passable and that we figured we weren't able to turn back (as we were explaining it, our reasoning began to appear as flawed to us as it really was). The instructors still were not quite buying our story (and later told us that they figured we stopped at a winery). That was of course until I brought out my camera and showed them the one photo we took of the entire fiasco. At this point there was uproarious laughter and finally some acceptance of our explanation. Good times.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Auckland, New Zealand
As I am sure you have figured out by now, I made a significant detour in my travel plans this week. It has been a very eventful few days and I have found myself up to my eyeballs in photo editting. This has and is going to severely limit sleep in the next few days (currently pulling an all-nighter). I find that when I am really busy I tend to take lots of photos. And when I take lots of photos, I have no time to edit them because I'm busy all day. Anyways, here is a summary of what I've been up to in Auckland.
I arrived in Auckland on Tuesday without a single plan on what I was going to do for 4 days. I figured once I got into my hostel (which has free wifi) I could do some research. Well my plans to that went directly out the window when the airport shuttle dropped me off next to the first Wendy's I've seen in months. I walked to my hostel as quickly as I could, dropped off my things and immediately went back to Wendy's. That was the highlight of my day. I also took some night photos while walking to and from Wendy's.
On the second day (first full day) I grabbed my cameras and started walking at 9:30am. I wandered to the supermarket, the new wharf, the harbour, the arena, the old train station, the Auckland Domain, the Winter Garden, Mt Eden (volcanic cone), Sky Tower and back into the city for even more night photos. I returned to my hostel at 9:00pm after almost 12 hours on my feet and over 500 photos. I even went to a buffet which featured some fantastic singing...
The third day finally saw some structure to my life. I woke up nice and early in order to make it to the Victoria Park Markets. Unfortunately for me, my ability to wake up early prevented me from seeing the market open (too early) but it did allow me to catch the early ferry to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is a dormat volcano that is only 600 years old. The island itself is a bit of a wonder because a lot of the plant life is unique and mostly unspoiled by imported species. While on the island I hiked up to the peak, saw the crater, walked through the lava caves and then I walked over to the east to the next island. After that I stopped by the old WWII site that is in ruins. After viewing all the sites I wanted to see, I noticed that I had a long trail which was supposed to take 2 hours to complete and I had less than two hours before the last ferry left the island. Needless to say I was half walking/running all the way back which was a task in itself because the island is made up of volcanic rock (jagged, sharp) and sand (which because of rain was slippery mud). Made for an adventurous hike back but I made it with plenty of time to spare.
On my last day I took a tour over to the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park which is located a mear 30 minuntes from downtown Auckland. The ranges are the tallest mountains in the area (not very tall) but have exceptionally diverse fauna and black sand beaches. I found the most appealing place to be Piha which is a beach that sites between a few rock cliffs (similar to the Oregon coast).
That's all for now, and probably that's the last major update for the forseeable future. After this I go back to being a slave once again. I will be working until the end of August before I have some more fun. I will definitely keep you posted on everything up on the mountain and also provide some videos of skiing (and hopefully spills). Talk to you soon.
PS If you are wondering why there is no state/province in the title it's because their are no states or provinces in New Zealand.
I arrived in Auckland on Tuesday without a single plan on what I was going to do for 4 days. I figured once I got into my hostel (which has free wifi) I could do some research. Well my plans to that went directly out the window when the airport shuttle dropped me off next to the first Wendy's I've seen in months. I walked to my hostel as quickly as I could, dropped off my things and immediately went back to Wendy's. That was the highlight of my day. I also took some night photos while walking to and from Wendy's.
On the second day (first full day) I grabbed my cameras and started walking at 9:30am. I wandered to the supermarket, the new wharf, the harbour, the arena, the old train station, the Auckland Domain, the Winter Garden, Mt Eden (volcanic cone), Sky Tower and back into the city for even more night photos. I returned to my hostel at 9:00pm after almost 12 hours on my feet and over 500 photos. I even went to a buffet which featured some fantastic singing...
The third day finally saw some structure to my life. I woke up nice and early in order to make it to the Victoria Park Markets. Unfortunately for me, my ability to wake up early prevented me from seeing the market open (too early) but it did allow me to catch the early ferry to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is a dormat volcano that is only 600 years old. The island itself is a bit of a wonder because a lot of the plant life is unique and mostly unspoiled by imported species. While on the island I hiked up to the peak, saw the crater, walked through the lava caves and then I walked over to the east to the next island. After that I stopped by the old WWII site that is in ruins. After viewing all the sites I wanted to see, I noticed that I had a long trail which was supposed to take 2 hours to complete and I had less than two hours before the last ferry left the island. Needless to say I was half walking/running all the way back which was a task in itself because the island is made up of volcanic rock (jagged, sharp) and sand (which because of rain was slippery mud). Made for an adventurous hike back but I made it with plenty of time to spare.
On my last day I took a tour over to the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park which is located a mear 30 minuntes from downtown Auckland. The ranges are the tallest mountains in the area (not very tall) but have exceptionally diverse fauna and black sand beaches. I found the most appealing place to be Piha which is a beach that sites between a few rock cliffs (similar to the Oregon coast).
That's all for now, and probably that's the last major update for the forseeable future. After this I go back to being a slave once again. I will be working until the end of August before I have some more fun. I will definitely keep you posted on everything up on the mountain and also provide some videos of skiing (and hopefully spills). Talk to you soon.
PS If you are wondering why there is no state/province in the title it's because their are no states or provinces in New Zealand.
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