Just Imagine...

Sat 20 Nov 2004, 01:33 GMT

Tripreport: 2004-08-09 - 2004-08-24: Do Not Disturb; Trees Growing.

Driving away from Lake Tekapo that afternoon was weird. On my two previous visits, I'd left Lake Tekapo by traveling further south. And all three times I'd arrived in Lake Tekapo, I came from Christchurch, traveling out of the Canterbury Plains, up through Geraldine, with the scenery becoming slightly interesting as the road became windy, dipping down to Fairlie, and then up, up and away to Burkes Pass and the astounding views of the MacKenzie Country.
And now for the first time I took this journey in the reverse direction - seeing the interesting bits fade away one by one. I'll have to try and avoid doing that in the future; it's too weird.

The flight from Christchurch to Auckland was, as all flights are, boring. There was a token effort for security, but luckily New Zealand seems to be quite impervious to paranoia.
Christchurch airport has one major benefit over the rest of Christchurch, in that it sits at the edge of the city, and thus offers unimpeded views all the way to the Southern Alps. Added to that a very clear sky, and just looking out of the windows at the airport already promised the goodness that was indeed awaiting me - views over the Southern Alps on the way north. Not the highest or most spectacular mountains, to be sure, but still good to see.

Looking at the price of the airport shuttle upon arrival in Auckland, I decided to be stubborn and walk a short bit closer to the city so I could catch a regular bus for a quarter of the price. Setting out over the broad sidewalks, everything went smoothly for the first 15 minutes. And then, about a kilometer away from the bus stop, the sidewalk disappeared, and all that was left was highway. Which is not something generally suitable for walking upon. *grumble mutter grumble* And to add injury to insult, the airport shuttle - when I'd finally walked back - gave me a decent discount for having a YHA card as well. *mutter grumble mutter*
That'll teach me being independent and cost-aware.

After dropping off my bags and such at the all too familiar hostel, I dropped off my shiny new camera for maintenance (dust on the CCD had been evident pretty much from day one (you didn't notice this, as I've carefully photoshopped it away on all the pictures I've taken, but the grey blodges really were getting very annoying to me) - luckily covered under the warranty, and Nikon maintenance cleaned the camera completely (not just the CCD), so that the problem wouldn't be likely to reappear anytime soon either; good service).

Being back at work was good. I got to revisit a lot of problem areas that I didn't have time to rework properly before, being able to go for the right solution as the general thing to do for changing functionality as requested by the client. My original CSS wasn't fully taking advantage of the fixed width design (used as I was to setting up liquid layouts), and so had a lot of slightly clunky bits - all of which I could now happily rip out. (At heart I'm a simple man; easily pleased, really.) :P
Unfortunately I also had to deal a lot with not so very good code left behind by the girl who'd worked alongside me for a few weeks early on. In just ASP she was pretty good - reminding me of myself as I set things up a couple of years ago - but unfortunately she'd never been introduced to modern HTML design (or the more useful tricks of making server-side code maintainable), and so where introducing a new module in my own backend code took only 30 minutes, in hers it took me 3 hours, and required a lengthy ping-pong session afterward to smash all my frustrations away. (But oh well, at least work had that ping-pong table. I wouldn't have survived without it.) ^_^

During this week back at Auckland, I finally got to meet Tempus Vernum (also known as Master[\/]][[\][) to a few of you). We'd tried to set up a meet a few times before when I'd been in Auckland, but nothing had ever come of that, and I suddenly realized I was almost leaving the country again, and that it'd be really pathetic if I managed not to have met him at all.
I don't even remember anymore which movie we went to see (Hellboy I think?), but it was fun. Hell, just by being one of my Vienna Teng victims, he'd already proven to have above average good taste and thus be a good person to hang out with. ;)

After finishing up the week back in Auckland with properly wrapping up an introduction to the benefits of modern web design to the fulltime programmer guy and helping out with fixing up the last few layout problems for a really massive site going live that day, I once more set out to southernly parts. Pangs for home were felt driving through such places as Hamilton, as there were lots of early spring flowers to be seen there. The pangs for home bit was caused by the "lots" being obviously calculated, with the flowers spaced carefully to give the impression of there being veritable seas of them, without these seas actually being there. (In comparison: early spring in the Netherlands gives the impression of entire oceans of flowers having been haphazardly dropped on top of any likely looking patch of grass, just to get rid of all the bulbs. There's no pattern or spacing at all; only fields of colors everywhere.)
The Newmans bus this time actually stopped for a photo opportunity of Mt. Ruapehu. The cloud cover was kinda bad (though not as bad as 5 minutes further down the road, where it was raining), but the idea was still highly appreciated.



The goal of this trip to southernly parts was, once more, the ever exciting Palmerston North, to meet back up with damon, as well as bandit - the same smarch gal who I'd failed to meet back when I was driving through California - who was vacationing in the country for a few weeks. I think that's one of the coolest thing about traveling: being from one remote part of the world, knowing someone living in another remote part, and meeting up in a completely unrelated third remote part.
Hanging out with bandit and damon for the following two days was a great goodness. This was true for obvious reasons (having a fellow non-kiwi in bandit to compare notes with, we could quickly settle upon such inevitable conclusions as beetroot being the root of all evil), but also for not-obvious and just plain fun and silly reasons, such as the goodness in weird hanging out activities like being threatened by secret stalker-swans (and an assortment of ducks and geese) under the guise of feeding them, and for playing Settlers of Catan (at which damon is far too good for his own good).
I swear though, if damon had said everyone loves berries one more time...
*grins broadly* Aye... good fun. Hanging out with friends has probably been the thing I've missed most at various times, here all by my lonesome at the other side of the world, and as such these two days were most welcome.
I also took one of the best pictures I've ever taken (even if it was also one of the most mundane and - at first sight - not very special ones), but unfortunately it features bandit, who has strongly requested not to have any of her pictures appear online (despite them being amongst the best people-pictures I've ever taken), and no matter how much I wish I wouldn't, I respect that wish. (I even understand it, as I had the same attitude before I started being someone who always wins camera-duels and could thus not really continue it.) Oh well, next time you meet me, ask me to see those pictures. That'll teach her! :P

The bus ride back to Auckland featured mostly bad weather - which was a good thing, as the bus was completely packed and I didn't have a window seat, and thus couldn't have been taking pictures anyway. A last few wrapping up activities were undertaken. I swapped my kiwi mobile phone for the exact same one (in slightly less pristine state) - but then usable in Australia - with another backpacker who'd just arrived in New Zealand, burned another DVD with backups of my pictures and sent it home in the company of recently collected books, converted all my remaining kiwi money (minus $25 to be allowed to leave the country) to australian money (at a pretty decent exchange rate), and set off to Joop & Tini to spend my last night there.


...and that, pretty much, was New Zealand. New Zealand, the country with the most beautiful scenery anywhere in the world. New Zealand, the country where the majority of people might passively be aware of this fact, but have never actually quite gotten around to confirming all (or even most) of it for themselves. New Zealand, the country with the most utterly annoying radio and tv commercials I have ever encountered anywhere - and that while I've watched tv and listened to the radio in the USA. (Seriously, the annoyingness factor in the USA is an order of magnitude less. You have not experienced pain until you've heard "john and adrian of magna spinrow", and don't even get me started on the boxing day sales at the warehouse.) New Zealand, the country which seems to be running really far behind the rest of the world in modern technology, until you visit Australia and recognize that things really aren't that bad in New Zealand after all. (I'm talking about things like internet access and mobile phone usage and such here; understandable because of the remoteness of these countries (and the vastness of Australia), but I still highly commiserate with the locals who have to deal with it all.) New Zealand, the country where world news might take up half a page in the newspaper, but never before page 5. New Zealand, the country where the frontpage of newspapers is instead given over entirely to the riveting intricacies of the foreshore and seabed issue. New Zealand, the country where you don't need to go on a single Lord of the Rings tour, because all the scenery is right there all around you. New Zealand, where in any given town or city you can set out and walk around its edge to come across any number of well maintained and worthwhile walking tracks. New Zealand, the country where stores put up notices saying things like "warning: alarm system present". (The word "warning" being what I have an issue with; seemingly accusing any reader of harboring thoughts of theft.) New Zealand, which has forever spoiled me with visions of the true beauty in nature. New Zealand, where the people - like most anywhere - are just people; often smallminded, and seemingly unaware, and yet at a deeper level always very much aware of that they really are quite exceedingly lucky to be living where they are, and how good they really have it. New Zealand, where the idea of a cold day very much agrees with me. New Zealand, where during the summer you sunburn in 15 minutes flat straight through a white t-shirt. New Zealand, where on the same winter day you see some people walking around in shorts and t-shirts, and others with scarves and gloves, and no one but the tourists think this is strange. New Zealand, of the pervasive greens, the soulsearing Blue, and the gorgeous whites. New Zealand, of the countless waterfalls, the rolling hills, the windswept mountaintops, and the endless visions of eternity.
Of many places in this world I have said, I want to live there for a year, someday. New Zealand is a country where I could see myself living for a lifetime.
In the end, I doubt I will. It's simply more efficient to return shortly once or twice a year to soak up tranquility at Lake Tekapo and then head back to the Netherlands for essentials (like king extra strong peppermint, new herring with onion, five hundred different kinds of black liquorice, real dutch cheese and more variety in cookies and meat than any kiwi supermarket can imagine (not to mention cheap internet access and far higher wages)), than it would be to do this the other way around. But yes, I can imagine it, can imagine myself actually making that decision to leave behind all the Netherlands has to offer and to trade it in for what New Zealand offers instead. Yet at the same time, I am highly in awe of people like my great-uncle and -aunt, Joop & Tini, who actually made that decision - and then some fifty years ago. To explain that awe, there's a quote from Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, which has resonated with me ever since I read it:

quote:

What I am seeking is not so much fulfilment of idle curiosity or of a hankering for worldly life, but experience without reservations. I do not want to go out into the world with insurance in my pocket, in case I am disappointed. I don't want to be a prudent traveller taking a bit of a look at the world. On the contrary, I crave risk, difficulty, and danger; I am hungry for reality, for tasks and deeds, and also for deprivations and suffering.

Yet despite the resonance, and despite my seemingly carefree nomad lifestyle nowadays, I am quite aware of all the levels of insurance that I have in my pocket. I am the very image of a prudent traveler. In this modern world, it's hard not to be, as home is never more than a (relatively) cheap planeflight away.
Fifty years ago though... Wow. What an adventure that must have been...

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Fri 12 Nov 2004, 08:37 GMT

See, this is the way things are supposed to go.

So for the past while I've been saying to Sam that he really should get himself a job (as if he didn't want that himself), because obviously that was required by the karmic balance of the universe to happen before I could get one. (Seeing as how he's been looking for way longer, and I've helped him become proficient in modern webdesign techniques along the way.)
Yesterday he was finally talking about this company wanting to make him an offer. This morning at 09:45 I got a phone call, and thus immediately knew that he indeed had the job.

Me, I went in for a talk just now at 16:00, and I start tomorrow. (Doing freelancing, so now I have to deal with all the finicky little challenges like an ABN (Australian Business Number) and such. I expect plenty of ranting yet to happen because of that. But hey, I've got work!) :)

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Tue 9 Nov 2004, 06:55 GMT

Firefox 1.0

A few hours from now, The Mozilla Foundation (also known as MoFo) will officially announce the release of Firefox 1.0, and the biggest marketing campaign any open source project has ever seen will be unleashed. The message will be simple and effective: download Firefox now, take back the web. Tens of thousands of firefox fanboys will ruthlessly converge upon the helpless internet, parroting a message they barely understand, talking about security and usability and a better browsing experience, working to convert millions of people. The underlying goal of MoFo's marketing people who'll be instigating this "community effort": to gain a significant amount of market share - for the gecko engine no longer to be a niche player, but for even the most clueless web designer out there to have to take it into account. Given this, mozilla.org (a different beast from the Mozilla Foundation, although the latter is working on behalf of the former) will hopefully finally be able to make some progress on its goals of advancing the state of web standards.

At heart, the intentions are laudable. The execution of it all, however, has - in my semi-informed opinion - some major flaws. The biggest of these is Firefox itself.

So, against the hordes of jabbering fanboys with their simple message will stand little ol' me, with a more complex message. I do not for a moment think I can alter the outcome of the battle. Firefox 1.0 will be a massive success. This lightweight browser will receive rave reviews, and advertisements like a full page ad in the New York Times will make Firefox a household name.
What I hope to accomplish with this message is to reach you, the few hundred people who I personally have introduced to Mozilla over the course of these last three years, so that when the smoke and mirrors disappear and the magical "can't do wrong" shine will leave Firefox harshly exposed in the cold daylight, this will hopefully not affect your opinion of Mozilla proper, and open source software in general.

Let's start with the complex message:
If you are currently using Internet Explorer as your web browser, I strongly urge you to start using a different browser, such as Mozilla 1.7.3, Netscape 7.2, Opera 7.x, or Firefox 1.0. All of these come by default with features such as tabbed browsing, popup blocking, banner blocking and much, much more - showing you just how outdated IE really is.
If you are currently using Mozilla, Netscape or Opera as your web browser, I just as strongly urge you not to be taken in by the upcoming hype, and to just stick with it. Firefox, to be sure, is a very nice browser. It's fast (though despite claims to the contrary, not in any way - other than startup - faster than Mozilla), reasonably secure, and very, very highly polished. This last is its major feature. Firefox specifically and ruthlessly targets the market segment of clueless computer users. It's the browser to recommend to your grandmother. (No offense to those grandmothers who aren't afraid of computers.) ;) Everything in Firefox is as simplified as computer geeks who can only envision using a browser in one specific way - their way - can make it.
What Firefox is, is a rebuilt front-end on top of a stripped down version of Mozilla. The entire backend - specifically the layout engine, "gecko" - is the same. This backend has been developing over the course of many years, and received a massive amount of testing. All code checked into this backend has been extensively reviewed, with the important parts receiving a lot of thought about security implications. This has resulted in an absolutely rock solid product (Mozilla), harboring the most advanced and most standards compliant layout engine out there. Firefox gains all the benefits from this.
Unfortunately, the Firefox frontend has not received a similar amount of scrutiny. Code review is not necessary for Firefox's few developers, and security is not their main focus. More, because of its very nature of being targeted to less knowledgeable users, the testing is receives can be expected to be more shallow. (It might be that its higher popularity is offsetting this, but as hardly anyone seems to be migrating up the usual path of bug reporter - bug triager - developer on the Firefox side of things, I doubt it.)
Yet the Firefox message soon going out to the internet on the wings of its many fanboys will focus heavily on security. After all, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has been revealed time and again as one of the most insecure bug-ridden pieces of crap in existence, and if there's anything that will convince people to switch, it's the chance to be free from the endless deluge of popups, spyware and adware sailing in unimpeded through these holes in this "vital integrated part of the Operating System."
Now, to be sure, chances are that Firefox will be more secure than IE. But amidst all the upcoming hype, it'll be hard to remember the following: it's not perfect. For that matter, neither is Mozilla or Opera, but any claims of security by those two will be brought a lot more balanced. (And personally I think it's a safe bet that in the fullness of time, Firefox will be revealed to have several more security vulnerabilities than Mozilla, despite the large overlap in backend code.) Any program with which you handle content existing on the internet will have security implications: the only way to be completely secure is to turn off the computer. :P
Knowledgeable people will not be claiming that Firefox is completely secure. But I'm very afraid that knowledgeable people will not be heard all that much in the upcoming days, and that if the message from the fanboys is going to get through to people, any subsequent security problems in Firefox which will be discovered (and they will be discovered, you can be sure of that), will not only reflect badly on Firefox itself, but also on Mozilla, and all of open source software.

The other relevant problem with Firefox (for I have a lot more problems with it all which are not relevant to this message) is the simplification that I've shortly touched upon before. Currently Firefox is mostly used and promoted by users who're still slightly tech-oriented. "Bloggers" in particular have been raving about it. Yet Firefox is not meant for them. Many features they (and, I suspect, a lot of you) consider essential could be axed just like that. Have, in fact, already partly been axed. Spending all my online time active in various official Mozilla IRC channels, I've already seen the disillusionment start to spread amongst the people who started out as its greatest fans. Yet before this phase, they were its biggest proponents. They are the kind of people who'll have most chance to reach most of you and convince you to switch. So, the second part of what I'm trying to say - in my own longwinded way - is to be aware. If you consider yourself reasonably unafraid of your computer, this browser is not intended for you. It might at present still appeal. If so: great, awesome! Go and use it. But also give Mozilla proper a try. With the MoFo in control of the mozilla.org website, you will not see Mozilla itself promoted. Hell, we had to fight to keep even the smallest mention of it on the front page. But for me, it's still the browser (and mail client. and chat client. and web development tool) of choice. It's not as polished, nor as pretty (though personally I'd prefer Mozilla's "modern" theme over Firefox's "winstripe" any day of the week). But it makes it a helluva lot easier to browse your way, no matter what that way is. Preferences to change behaviour of the browser are actually exposed. Features that don't get in the way but make all the difference for the 10% users who know how to use them... have not been ripped out (*gasp*), and in the long run you can rely on this remaining that way.

So, in conclusion:
If you consider yourself not very knowledgeable about computers, if you see a web browser as just a simple tool for viewing websites, if you prefer simplicity and elegance and just want to get on with the job: stick with or get Firefox, and love it. Remember it's not perfect, and be aware that you'll need to upgrade it every so often, and you'll be very happy using it.
If you consider yourself a power user, if your web browser is a hub of activity which you use to quickly and efficiently gain access to a complex network of information, spending more time in this program than in any other one, if you prefer be able to slightly change the way things work to best suit your personal workflow, and you're willing to live with some extra clutter or less pretty icons to gain this: stick with or get Mozilla, and love it. You'll already know that it's not perfect, and upgrading to gain new features will come natural, so don't worry, and be happy.
If you're anywhere in between, you'll probably want to try both to see which best suits your needs. If that sounds like too much work, my recommendation is to go with Mozilla - but then, you'd probably guessed that by now. :)




That said, if you find yourself caring, some additional unsorted notes and explanations:
* Mozilla is an integrated web suite. It holds a web browser, a mail/news client, a chat client, an HTML Editor, a javascript debugger, a tool for inspecting the DOM-tree of websites (essential for efficient web development) and various other features which are usually not thought of in a stand-alone mode. You can choose not to install most of these components when you install Mozilla, so that the (minimal) amount of clutter their existence would cause won't even bother you. Personally I recommend just doing a full install, and slowly growing into the entire suite. When I first used Mozilla, I used only the browser and mail client, yet nowadays I use all these tools except for the HTML Editor. If they hadn't already been present, I probably never would have, and would have to deal with inferior alternatives.
Firefox is purely a web browser. The chat client, DOM-inspector, and (I think) javascript debugger can be installed separately as extensions, but where with Mozilla you can count on the common install having them available, with Firefox you can count on the common install not having them available. For mail/news, Firefox has a companion product called Thunderbird (currently at 0.9, with a 1.0 release being scheduled to occur in a few weeks). Thunderbird is much closer to Mozilla mailnews than Firefox is to the Mozilla browser, and is heartily recommended as a stand-alone mail client. The integration of Firefox with Thunderbird is however vastly inferior (in my personal opinion) to the integration of the different parts of the suite in Mozilla. A stand-alone HTML Editor is also being developed under the name Nvu, but although the improvements there are supposed to come back to the Mozilla tree, this has (as far as I'm aware) not yet happened, and the existence of any integration of Nvu with Firefox and Thunderbird is doubtful.

* Why I care: Firefox does not suit my browsing needs. (This impression is based on trying out an old version of Firefox, and general knowledge of features developed for Firefox. To be completely fair, I will give it another (quite serious and honest) try now that it's reaching 1.0, but based on factual knowledge of changes made, expect it to be even less suitable.) I use every single component of Mozilla (excepting the HTML Editor), and find the integration of these components to be essential to an efficient workflow. Yet... Elements in MoFo have been agitating against Mozilla proper ever since Firefox was still known as Phoenix. They've publicly and repeatedly stated the intention of ditching Mozilla itself. I also happen to be involved in Mozilla development. I'm far from a core developer, but still consider my overall contributions to have mattered. Mozilla is essential to how I work, and I've loved being able to give back something for that. If the Firefox proponents manage to kill off Mozilla, however, I feel a lot of my work will have been wasted. More, the work of a lot of core developers will have been wasted. Additionally, I believe that killing off Mozilla will mean an end to the long standing tradition of bug reporters becoming bug triagers becoming developers. Mozilla appeals to the kind of geek willing to go that route, and Mozilla development invites outside contributions. Firefox on the other hand, doesn't, and Firefox development is nearly completely closed, with user contributed patches all but ignored. In the long run, I see nothing but death, destruction and corporately-controlled development on that path. And the best way I see to help prevent this from coming to pass is to keep alive a significantly large group of people using Mozilla. (To be completely honest, I do not think MoFo will ever succeed in killing off Mozilla, as some of the most essential backend developers simply cannot do their work anywhere near as efficiently with Firefox as they can with Mozilla, but I'd rather help prevent MoFo from ever seriously trying, as any such attempt runs the risk of alienating these essential developers. Bela knows that MoFo has a history of alienating contributors and of sucking at communication.)

* Mozilla development is a meritocracy. You gain responsibility, respect, and influence to change development decisions by showing you deserve these things. User comments are listened to, particularly when the users are contributors on the field of bug reporting and triaging. On the field of user interface design, this has led to the unfortunate side effect of any change leading to whining from people who liked the previous way better, and user interface changes thus for a large part stalling, but (from my point of view), overall more good than harm has been done.
Firefox development is a dictatorship. The MoFo has hired a small number of developers, and these are absolutely in charge of all decisions. Not wanting to be exposed to whine-fests was one of the main goals for the way Firefox responsibilities were originally set up, with the developer being the one and final authority, with no possibility of appeal. A lot of good has resulted from this - see the very polished and clean user interface - but at the cost of ruthlessly ripping out important functionality and ways to do things whenever this one developer could not personally envision a use for them. Sad to say, a lot of Mozilla compromises that a lot of thought have gone into, weighing security versus usability versus uses cases from different work flows, have been completely ripped out or simplified far beyond reasonable limits, simply because the developer didn't know how to use features to their full effect, and would not listen to people pointing out such use cases. (The end result, ironically enough, is that a few of the most atrocious Firefox UI changes have - after the fact - given rise to even bigger whine-fests, several of which have been so completely overwhelming in nature that the bad decisions have been very hastily reversed. All without acknowledging that the decisions were bad, of course.)

* A lot of what I've said above is not 100% completely accurate. I've simplified a lot of things - sometimes because I am not aware of the exact details, mostly because they are irrelevant. I do in all honesty believe that I have stated no outright falsehoods, and that I have not grossly misrepresented anything. Any corrections on what I've written will be gracefully accepted and quite probably subsequently ignored. :)

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Mon 8 Nov 2004, 05:29 GMT

Tripreport: 2004-07-29 - 2004-08-09: Jumping Fences

Christmas is approaching. *tears out hair* It's perfectly ridiculous to be aware of this at this point, but with over six weeks to go, I've already seen the first signs.
Okay, Hayley Westenra is not a good artist to listen to while trying to get into an actual writing mood. *skips ahead to Heather Nova*

Originally expressed by Heather Nova:

Life is something, set to music.
I can hear it when I'm sad.

Is it just me, or does "Not Only Human" have a very similar beat in the background to "Shelter for a Rainy Day"? (Which, despite being a "2 Unlimited" song (gosh, I'm really dating myself here) ;) I am not afraid to admit to being partial to. (I figure it's the musical equivalent of the monkey-typewriter phenomenon. Given the staggering amount of bad commercial bands out there, some of them are bound to have produced a few filler songs on their albums which turn out to be actually worthwhile.))
Now where was I? Oh yes, blathering into the void, trying to zone out on the rest of the lounge. So, christmas. I don't recall what commercial nonsense it was that brought it to my mind - probably some early store decoration somewhere - but I distinctly recall recoiling. Strange to consider that this will be the second christmas away from home. Worse, the second christmas in the middle of the summer. Not *looks outside* that summer - or even spring - is currently much in evidence. The sky is a delightful grey. (As I said on smarch a couple of days ago: it reminds me of home. And unrelated, but with very good timing, one of my friends from back home sent me photographic evidence that, yes indeed, it's raining there. Awesome!) :D Clouds and parakeets are racing loops around each other and, when it isn't raining, the light is the kind of light that any photographer would wish to have around in any and all locales which actually have stuff worth taking pictures of. Sad to say, Melbourne is not - for the most part - such a locale. You can only take so many pictures of the skyline from the other side of the Yarra River. And I'm not (yet?) someone who can just snap off pictures that show the culture, the always moving bustling everything, the interesting details in the grittiness of a big city. I need to be able to wander up and down a hill, pace back and forth next to a lake, constantly recomposing a shot until I see what it'll be. Landscapes are my friend; spur of the moment shots hardly ever work out for me. One of the benefits of having taking as many photographs as I have these past two years is that I've slowly learned to recognize when the possibility of a worthwhile shot is present. Mostly it's negative, in that I can instantly dismiss an opportunity as being wrong - the light too bright, the shadows too distinct, the composition lacking balance - but every so often it's positive. These are the annoying instances. I will wander around in tiny little circles, trying to see what it is that I should be seeing. There's a shot here, I can just feel it! Yet feeling not being the same as seeing. At times it's taken me days before I managed to become consciously aware. With landscapes, you can take that time. (These usually are not the instances where light is the determining factor.) With big city culture shots, you usually only have seconds. So even when the feeling comes over me, even when I recognize it 'swiftly', the opportunity is almost always gone again.
Given that, Melbourne - though a very nice place - has not been very productive for me on the photography front. (Relatively, at least. In the nearly two months I've been here so far I've taken 192 pictures which I haven't immediately deleted again - but I wouldn't class a single one of those as even remotely exceptional.)

Another way in which I've been aware that christmas/summer is approaching is that the amount of new job vacancies is going down, and that more new jobs are for shorter periods of time. This last week I've only applied for three jobs, only one of which in Melbourne itself. Of course, all it takes is a single job, and there are a few things running in the background - next to the regular job applications - which might net me some real work, but overall the chances of me actually swiftly earning a lot of money to continue traveling on seem to be getting worse rather than better.

Anyhoo, all that is the boring present. Much better to dwell in the past, in memories of what was, and what will yet be again. Starting with this entry, all pictures to appear will have been taken with my new digital camera. I am honestly curious if any of you think you can see that the pictures are technically better. Personally I don't think it'll be noticeable. I *know* which shots would have been impossible with the old camera, but I think that the end result looks very nearly indistinguishable. The main benefit of the new camera is that using it, I have more chance to successfully capture the 5% of pictures in really tough circumstances which have the potential to be good far beyond anything else. (A select few of the upcoming pictures in this entry might even show that already, although it's a hard call to make if they really do.)
To celebrate the new camera and its influence on how I compose pictures - it uses the traditional 3:2 format rather than the (for digital) common 4:3 - I'm introducing a new size for some of my pictures. Next to 600x800, 700x700, 800x600 and 1024x384, a select few pictures will appear in 1024x512. This allows me to show just a bit more vertical features where useful, without giving up the essential idea of a panorama format which works so well for New Zealand landscapes.

And so, one sunny Thursday, I woke up at some unbelaly hour, once more managed the astounding feat of repacking my backpack, and staggered to the bus terminal. As the bus pulled out of Auckland, memories came flooding back to me from the previous time I'd set out south. Little did I know back then of what was awaiting me, yet even this more experienced me could not yet foresee the astounding beauty that would soon be revealed. All the familiar rest stops passed me by; tea and sausage rolls, always accompanied by the glorious sounds from my Karma.
As the bus reached Lake Taupo, I was awarded once more with the sight of the mountains of Tongariro National Park. Or rather, with many clouds all but obscuring the mountains from sight. Yet hints of white were spotted, and my gaze remained solidly drawn. As we passed Mt. Ngauruhoe and began the long stretch of the desert road (Tongariro National Park harbors one of the wettest deserts in the world), the sky cleared, and Mt. Ruapehu revealed itself in all its glorious whiteness. (Considering that I was hardly aware of how to handle my camera, and that the bus (complete with reflecting windows) was hurtling down the highway as I was taking pictures, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. Slight fuzziness is in evidence, but not so you're really bothered by it.) Sooooo absolutely gorgeous to see in real life - much better than during the summer, when only a scattering of leftover snow near the top is present. This was Mt. Ruapehu as it truly deserves to be known.

Wellington was familiar as ever, with the annoying feature of the hostel so far away from the bus terminal, and the pleasing one of it being located across the road of a large supermarket. As I was expecting to return here in some two weeks, and had to leave early the next morning to catch a ferry, I didn't bother treating it as anything else but an overnight stop.
A boring ferry ride deposited me in Picton with some 45 minutes to spare before the bus would set out. Just enough time to hop over to the village bakery for some dutch buttercake!, my mind posited, and my body considered it a perfectly splendid idea. Both were sorely disappointed as the place was closed for two weeks.
Strangely enough, now, in the middle of the winter, the scenery around Picton was overflowing with yellow flowers, making this otherwise relatively dreary and drab part of the South Island look to be quite nearly pretty.
Christchurch became a resting place for two days to recover from the previous two days on the road. Though the weather was good, the city didn't look quite as pretty as during the summer, and was scarily cold at night (with the temperature dropping to within a degree or two of freezing, resolutely killing off lingering ideas about winters in New Zealand being better than summers, which I'd been harboring ever since Mt. Ruapehu).

And so, onward to the actual destination of this return to the south. Lake Tekapo.
The journey starts with the same neurotic Bus Driver, still unsuccessfully trying to get half-asleep bodies to go into the bus in an order which will have their luggage be within easy reach when they disembark, still unsuccessfully trying to score a few laughs. He makes me smile though, and feels as familiar as life itself. The hostel cat did not suddenly decide to stop being lazy, but continues living the good life. The hostel owner is the same sympathetic guy as ever; he gives me money. (As a "stay two days, get the third free" deal is running.)
I approve of people giving me money.
What strikes me most, drawn back to the lounge to sit down behind the big windows and gaze out, is the tranquility. How did I ever forget this? Silence, pure and whole. That it may forever dwell in me.
A previous guest has put up pictures of her stay back in May in the guestbook. Back then it snowed. I'm instantly jealous. And yet, that is but one more aspect of perfection - would I begrudge the sun its flares? (Ah, but I would, I would, if I truly feared I might never dwell within them.)
Lake Tekapo is not the same as I'd seen it previously. No trace of the Blue remains. The hills are grey, flecked with white, rather than brown. The trees brown, orange and red (yet leafless), rather than green. Even the blue sky above appears to have found a new hue to call its own. In short, everything is different. But this is only the surface. Below the surface, the same sense of eternity remains.
Aspects of perfection.

Someday you, precious reader, will visit this place. To think otherwise is folly. I shall not allow you to not see these sights for yourself. The Bus Driver, many months ago when I had yet to see this place for the first time, made a very profound remark as part of his ongoing narration over the 640 kays to Party Central City. It has resonated with me ever since, and on this day he repeated it. Beyond sheep farming, kiwis also do deer farming. Deer need a two meter fence, rather than the one meter fence for regular cattle, as they can easily jump that.
Deer can actually jump the two meter fence as well, but they do not realize this, as they have grown up behind it.
Thus, far too many of us, puny little humans. Always seeing the obstacles, thinking of what can not be done. We must realize (and I dearly love those who already do, who think of being behind the fence as the starting point, even while still growing up behind it) - fences are there to be jumped. Knowing this truth, it becomes self evident that you will indeed visit Lake Tekapo.
You hereby have my permission to rejoice in this truth. :)

As the day progresses, I wander around outside, remembering, and seeing again, as if for the first time. The light at the end of the day does not fail to impress, though no actual sunset worth the name can be seen. As the reds in the landscape nearly assault me in their vibrancy, I do not mind.

As in Christchurch, icy cold rushes in with the disappearance of the sun, yet I am loathe to go inside until the last rays of the sun have stopped kissing the mountains, and so as an arrow I speed to the one store in this tiny village which would be open and selling fingerless gloves (for my control of the camera must not be impaired).
As night draws over Lake Tekapo I return to the warmth of the hostel to pay obeisance to the hostel cat (The Most Beautiful - and impervious to threats of being renamed to The Most Fat). I explore the options of the software which came with my camera. Many of the options tempt me to disrupt my workflow. Luckily, now, many moons later, I can safely say that I resisted temptation and that Photoshop reigns supreme. Until I buy a larger memory card and start shooting in raw, that is...

On previous trips to this most wondrous of places, I have stood on top Mt. John and looked off into the distance. One feature which never failed to draw my gaze was Lake Alexandrina, just a short distance away (or so I judged when standing at that lofty viewpoint). Waking up on my second day in Lake Tekapo, the same blue skies of the previous day greeted me, and so I put into motion my plan to go and see this other lake for myself. After all, how far could it really be?
Going by the detailed map of the region, and the sketchy instructions on a leaflet about the walks of the same, both of which were hanging on the wall in the hostel, the path to Lake Alexandrina started on the other side of Mt. John. And so my day started with the welcomely familiar track up. Leftover patches of snow at times made my progress a sketchy business, slip-sliding away, but I could always drag myself forward on some sturdy patches of grass (or at least, come to think of it, I hope they were sturdy) ;) and so eventually I once more found myself coming out of the forest and overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place. When you near the top, every step you take opens up the view some more, and you usually spend more time twirling around in circles, trying to this time print it all in memory so you will never forget anymore how staggering large the place truly is, rather than actually walking forward. Needless to say, many pictures were taken, and the zoom capabilities of the extra lens I'd bought for my camera were duly put to work. (I hope you're all duly impressed by the silky smoothness of the white snow on the "detail of the Southern Alps" pictures, for you should be! Not a blown highlight in sight!</photography geek>)

I don't remember exactly how long it eventually took me to walk to Lake Alexandrina, but it can't have been more than two or three hours, so that wasn't too bad. In the summer, this Lake is a retreat away from the bustle (sic) of Lake Tekapo. Now, the few score vacation homes at the edge of the lake were deserted, and only a few black swans took note of my presence. Walking north along the lake, my plan was to find the stream flowing east, and to follow this to Lakes McGregor and Tekapo, which I'd then follow south back to the hostel. Given the rapid progress of the sun through the firmament, I was beginning to doubt if I could actually pull this off when suddenly the path I was following dead-ended at a barbed-wire fence. In these parts, usually there's a contraption to allow walkers to easily scale such a fence, as it only exists to keep sheep in or out, but nothing like that existed here, and the fence looked quite new and sturdy, besides being slightly too high to just step over. I pondered heading back the way I'd come, but instead decided to pretend the fence was the stream, and just head east. Going walkabout like that is quite possibly my favorite activity ever. Cross-country, with only yellow tussock grass, white snow, blue sky and a few distant mountains to keep me company. The sun was nice and warm (though in the shade of some hills, I was glad for my gloves), and the day was perfect. Eventually I ended up having to scale a fence anyway (but then, what are fences for, eh?) :) and found myself on a road leading back up to Mt. John.

It's amazing just how much beauty a place like Lake Tekapo can harbor, if you just recognize where to look for it.

The third day was one of those unique days in which Lake Tekapo did not look noteworthily attractive. The temperature was such that long walks outside were not particularly appealing, the sky was grey and featureless, and the light nothing special. Sitting inside behind the windows, gazing out, was as good as ever, and I used my time to good effect by sitting a few hours in the internet cafe, partitioning the server (at a theoretical $6/hr, though luckily afterward only charged at a very reasonable $2/hr), but overall the day was something of a loss.

To all outward appearances, the fourth day looked to be heading in the same direction. Yet, sitting beside the windows, reading a book and clutching a cup of hot tea (undoubtedly), I was noticing how the lake was quite quiet, lacking all but the smallest of ripples. Slowly, ever so slowly, stately clouds began coalescing in the sky, coming into existence like so many spaceships slipping out of hyperspace.
When the moment came, I was ready.
In the midst of the regular quietude of this place, a deeper hush fell over the world. For a few minutes, the sky was in perfect balance, and the lake turned an absolute mirrorlike silver. Interrupting my conversation with some of the other people sitting in the lounge, I rushed outside to the edge of the lake, barely remembering to grab my camera. Standing right there on the edge, I drank it all in, marveling at the perfection of the moment. Then I took a hasty few pictures, and ran off alongside the lake, hoping against hope to reach the Church of the Good Shepherd while the moment lasted. This was not to be, as but moments later the sun wrestled its way into view next to one of the newly formed clouds, disrupting the balance. Waves once more started up on the lake, and perfection was broken.
Though I finished walking to the church, no more pictures were taken on that day. Given what I experienced, what I saw, and what pictures I did manage to shoot, I didn't (and don't) mind a bit.

The day held yet more goodness, as I got an email from work, asking if they could please fly me over to come work for them for just one more week. Good for my ego, that. As my schedule held enough free time (barely), there wasn't anything besides Lake Tekapo here on the South Island that I really was desperate to see again right now, and my new camera had been quite expensive, I magnanimously agreed.

On the fifth day, I woke up quite unaware. A special somethingness was in the air, but I did not take notice. Luckily Lake Tekapo is such a place that it's impossible not to look out of the windows all the time, and so as soon as I walked out of my room, I saw. It was SNOWING! Gorgeous massive snowflakes were swirling around outside, and had evidently been doing just that for many hours already, as all was white. Was it only three days ago that I'd been strolling over the highlands under a blue sky, luxuriating in the warm sunshine? Such superb contrast.
Visibility was near zero, and the thick layer of snow made any trip outside go very slowly indeed, so other than a short jaunt off to the church (really, when there's a photo opportunity of that class within such easy reach, I am not nearly strong enough to resist), I mostly sat inside feeling very happy indeed. (Additionally, I will have you know that upon discovering that it was snowing, I behaved with admirable composure, and did not madly bounce about. Much.) ^_^


On the sixth day, the snow had mostly melted away from at least the roads and paths and around the lake, so that you could pretty much walk all over the village, even if going further afield was made unwise by a deep layer of snow. And so, me being who I am, I set out to go further afield, off to a viewpoint over the Lake up on the MacKenzie Country proper. The sky was mostly a uniform white, but here and there the clouds were breaking up, and through them absolutely pure white hills could be seen, glowing with an inner light. (It can't have been an outer light, as the sun was nowhere to be seen.)
Of the climb up to the viewpoint, two observations should be made, both of which made themselves known to me on that day with a crystal clear clarity. The first is that white really is an amazingly pretty color. The second is that any difference between snow and mud is completely superficial, except that snow is colder and has "seeping through" as its secret super power. :P

The destination, though with utter disdain for the necessities of life completely lacking in hot chocolate, was still well worth the walk. Yet perhaps the best thing about having set out on this day was that I was outside, looking around, and quietly noticing a persistent gap in the clouds, over in the west, just to the left of Mt. John. Surely such a gap would vanish swiftly, I knew, and so I did not dare to hope - but one does not need to hope to keep an eye on the sky, nor to notice that no vanishing was taking place. And so leaving the viewpoint was timed ever so innocently, so that I reached the Church of the Good Shepherd just as a fellow artist reached the gap in the clouds, making its presence known by lighting up the windows of this aforementioned church.

What follows can not be described by any words.

Luckily, words aren't always necessary. Pictures might not say everything - they might, in fact, fail to mention far too much of what was also there to be seen and experienced - but at least they are capable of saying something which might comes close to doing justice to the tiniest part of how it really was.

When at the start of this show I reached the Church, it was deserted; the few wandering tourists driven off by the threatening clouds. For the first few minutes, I was the only witness. Then the tourists rushed back in on the church-side of the canal - while on the other side I was swiftly joined by several people who I'll describe as photographers, on account of all of them carrying equipment at least as professional as my own, and knowing - as I did - that here was the place to be for the right composition. Yet though their tripods and lenses and filters might make me jealous, I alone had anticipated these moments.

It must be mentioned that although colors and shades appeared and disappeared as if on command by my very whim, causality is not always that easy to determine. It was my esteemed colleague and fellow artist who was ultimately responsible; I am but a chronicler of the works of this master of subtlety as he was jumping the fences of physics to stretch light in impossible way, mixing them on a palette as vast as imagination itself, creating hues that words can never hope to describe.

When the last stragglers of the entire species of pinks, blues and whites whose existence I had never suspected had passed before me, and I finally dared to breathe again, I slowly made my way back to the hostel. Chilled to the bone, and with shoes which had finally given up their resistance against the super seep, yet happier than anyone has any right to be.
Damn, this place is gorgeous.

And on the seventh day, I saw that things were much as on the sixth. The sunset was not quite as spectacular, but the light still very awesome indeed; darkly brooding, bringing out the deeper reds, and having me almost succeed in taking a picture similar to the one in the lounge of the YHA hostel, which I've been envious of ever since I saw it for the first time. Chilled once more as the sunset light faded away, I scurried over to the local pizzeria to warm me by the fire crackling in their hearth, and luxuriate in their truly delicious carbonara pizza.

And so the eight day began, bringing my time in Lake Tekapo to an end. Once more glorious blue skies had returned, and for a short while I harbored the hope of taking a helicopter flight over the Southern Alps in the few hours before my bus would show up, but it wasn't high season, and so no other people showed up wanting to do the same, while I by myself was nowhere near the required minimum complement for a flight. Oh well, you can't have everything - not that you'd know from me otherwise pretty much having had just that during this one week.

2 comments - add a comment

Tue 26 Oct 2004, 04:40 GMT

Tripreport: 2004-04-04 - 2004-07-28: Infinite moments

You know that feeling where you really feel like it's time to do one of those mindbending rollercoaster entries of tortured sentences and twisted parenthethicals again, as you feel it's been far too long since you last did that, but at the same time don't have any good leads to the top to get the necessary momentum from having your fingers turn into lemmings and gleefully hurl themselves upon the keyboard, for which you are secretly glad as you actually are hoping to cover some three odd months of a stay in Auckland, and although the rough 32k characters limit that you've set for your weblog entries so as to not scare away too many people (happily ignoring the fact that this is about 5000 words and that that is more than enough to scare away most anyone) does allow you some leeway, quite a few noteworthy things did happen in the aforementioned three months and a bit, and so not doing anything too rollercoasterly like is probably not that bad an idea after all, and yet, and yet...
Hmm? You don't know that feeling?
Strange... I have it all the time. :P

So, compared to the last entry, one slight change: I now, technically, have a job. Cleaning rooms in the hostel for a rough two hours a day in exchange for free accommodation. Not my ideal job, but it'll impressively stretch my cash reserves, allows me to wake up not too early (as cleaning rooms doesn't start until after checkout, which is 10 A.M.), and yet still gives me pretty much the entire day to myself to do such exciting things as continuing to look for a real job, checking my email, wandering the streets of the city, grocery shopping, laundry, cooking dinner and reading. Oh, and apparently come Thursday the woman who used to do the cleaning here for the last few months is moving on, and I'll be on my own, with all of four days of experience on the job. I wonder if I can get a raise out of that? Say... them adding free food? :P

Ah yes, the joys of jobsearching. I wonder how bad it is back home, as I don't actually have any experience jobhunting there at all. (My two internships were pretty much arranged for me. Getting a job at the local supermarket entailed jotting down my name and age - which, being 17 rather than the usual 16, netted me a job right away. And I rolled into website development during the dotcom days, calling in after a notice was put up at uni. No hunting ever.) Here, however, things are bad. For one, you never, ever get a reaction. I've learned that this is 'normal' here, but besides ultimately frustrating, I find it very rude. Because for about a week after applying for any given job, you hold yourself semi-ready to receive a phone call and find time for an interview at the drop of a hat. As I'm applying to at least a few jobs a week, this means constantly. (It's horrid - I have my mobile phone turned on for several hours a day! Me, the guy who never had a mobile phone, let alone wanted one.) If they'd just send a short email notification that I'm not under consideration, then that would be a lot more bearable. (Still frustrating, as dagnabbit, I'm supremely qualified for pretty much everything I'm applying to (even the asp.net jobs, as lack of experience there is completely offset by regular asp experience, as well as expertise in writing semantically meaningful code), but at least bearable.)
Slowly, ever so slowly, I find the relaxed attitude to not finding work slipping away. A few more months and I will need another batch of Lake Tekapo to have all my worries drained away. Luckily that's already in the planning. :)
*grins wryly* Ah yes, but for the first two weeks of jobsearching in Auckland I didn't get much of any reaction either. In comparison, I hardly applied for any jobs at all, but calling, being told that you'll be called back very swiftly, and then not being called back at all was still annoying. And then, some Wednesday afternoon, two and a half weeks after returning to Auckland with my parents, I spotted a job description which was just written for me. I applied, got a phone call on Thursday, had the interview on Friday, and started on Monday. See, that's the way these things are supposed to work!

First, however, shortly my activities back in Auckland during those two weeks:
Basically, that would be wandering around. After a few days I went to the airport to see my parents off, but other than that I stuck to exploring the city center, seeing parts of it that I hadn't been to before. Going on epic treks to the not-nearest supermarket, as the nearest supermarket (as I was to find out some two months later) had opened only recently and was tucked away in a corner of the city that didn't look very appealing and had thus been avoided by me. Moving between the two YHA hostels every seven days, as they had a stupid maximum stay of a week. These two hostels were only one street apart. Unfortunately that street was one of the steepest in all of Auckland. I can still feel my legs twinge in remembrance of the frequent climbs. Great views though, especially in the twilight.

We're now living in mid April, which by all rights should be comparable to mid October on the Northern hemisphere. Rainy and getting cold are the concepts associated in my mind with that time of year. And indeed, there was some rain in Auckland. Mostly however, there were absolutely glorious days that would put a dutch summer to shame. And so I went ever further afield, climbing Mt. Eden (one of the numerous volcanoes dotting the Auckland landscape) and following the coastline far to the northeast of the city center, being reminded of why Auckland is called the "City of Sails".

So, then work. Over in Botany Town Center, where I'd been to once before with Joop and Tini during my first few weeks in the country. It's an american style shopping center (some 45 minutes by bus away from the city center; in the Netherlands such a journey would put you in another province, but here it simply was a different neighbourhood of the same city) trying to look like a pretty village center or something. I don't know. Arriving just before all the shops open, ducking into an alley, up the stairs, through some doors, and arriving in a very large and open office. Sharing the space with the website development company were an advertising bureau, and a lingerie company.
You know how call centers here in Melbourne try to draw hapless backpackers into their clutches? They call themselves "young, vibrant and fun". I highly doubt it for them, but that description fits perfectly for work back in Auckland. A relaxed atmosphere, which is near ideal to work in. Then beyond that I was given the functional specification for the website I was to work on, and... get this... completely free to create it how I wanted. The end result mattered. Now, modern website development (at least client-side) focuses on two ideas: 1) semantics (use the most meaningful html element possible to describe what it contains) and 2) separation of content and layout (use html only to describe the content - completely disregarding what the html will mean for how things will look - and then use css to determine what it looks like). Which are really only aspects of the same idea, but whatever. I've known this for some years, and was well versed in all the separate elements, teaching more than a few people the basics, explaining the massive benefits, showing the increase in efficiency developing this way, etc, etc. Yet what I'd never done was to set up a complete website from scratch using these techniques. Individual pages, yes, and mockups and tutorials and tests, but never something large from start to finish. And now, finally, I was offered this opportunity.
Three days later I was basically done with the front-end of the (not small) site. A week later the back-end was done. Now "done" here is relative of course, as all things are, specifically excluded any css work, as no visual design was yet approved, and several underspecified items from the functional specification were still up in the air, as was a massive amount of tweaking - but despite all that, I was slightly amazed. All my raving to other people about the benefits of this way of developing sites had actually always been understated.
The visual design, when it came in, had several conflicts with the functional specification, and then the IE Factor cropped up, causing more than one encounter between my head and various hard objects, so that added quite a few more days to how long I'd been working on the site, but still overall development went quite fast, and soon I could start work on another site.

--[ Off on a tangent for a minute: a while ago in weblogging circles it was the "done" thing to argue about requirements for the perfect weblogging system, and one of the things that would score you points were "cruft-free" and "logical" 'permalinks' (links to specific entries in a weblog which are guaranteed to be unique and never to change). As I myself wrote the system for this weblog of mine (rather than using one of the many free and never quite perfect off-the-shelf systems), all this was of theoretical interest to me, but I never could agree upon much of any of those suggestions, this one least of all. My entries simply use a postid, as this is 1) nearly as short as possible, 2) familiar to anyone frequenting any message board (that is, 90% of my audience), as manually editing urls on such is a common thing to do and 3) easiest to implement. :P However, just now looking up the url of that "IE factor" entry in my history, I for the first time do see some benefits to such a scheme (/log/2004/01/26/ie_factor.html - which apart from the ".html" follows what I remember as the optimum recommendation). Then again, at the same time I see displayed in my history the actual title of the entry, and that's what I really looked at. Oh well, it at least means I might rethink my position the next time I go fiddling with stuff in that area (which at some point I do have to go and do, as I both need and want some easily managed unique pointer to any part of my website from any other part of it, regardless of subdomain). It's easier to transition from unique id's of things stored in database to meaningful english words than it is the other way 'round, and as a last resort, mod_rewrite will always be there, so no bad decision does ever truly need to be regretted. ]--

Anyhoo, back to the time in Auckland again. As I was working fulltime, not much not-work-related stuff had time to happen. After several weeks of moving back and forth between the two YHAs (which was fun, as I was moving in step with several other people all doing the same, all recognizing each other and hanging out together), management caught on to us, and so I had to find other accommodation. (Which became another hostel closer to the bus stop, as I lacked the assurances that work would continue to be available for more than a few weeks and so getting some shared apartment somewhere would not be worth it (in hindsight I should've gone for that after all - it would have saved me a lot of money over the expensive single room in the crummy hostel I ended up in - but that's hindsight for ya...))
It was somewhere during this time that the Guildwars E3 demo hit the world, and caused me more enjoyment than I'd expected. As a MMORPG without monthly fees, and running decently on my laptop, I'm heavily leaning toward buying it when it's released early next year. (Note for the few of you who wouldn't know: there's another worldwide demo event coming up this weekend. If you at all enjoy playing computer games (or like me, used to several years ago before you found that lack of time and prioritizing meant that you never played any games at all anymore), I highly recommend you give it a try.)
The third noteworthy event was music. All the tourists having departed, New Zealand music stores became positively cheap, and so I went on several CD buying sprees. One of the best things which came from that was my discovery of Bic Runga. She'd been recommended to me on ecto, so I knew her name, but the very evening I bought one of her cd's, she became one of my favorite artists. Which was very fortunate timing, as the following day she had a concert in Auckland as part of her "Acoustic Church Tour", for which extra tickets had magically been made available that very day. As there wasn't any reserved seating, showing up some 40 minutes before the start of her concert at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity saw me standing at the back of a very long line, but still netting a more than decent seat somewhere on the sixth or seventh row.
Much as I'd enjoyed the cd, Bic Runga live was an order of magnitude better. She's got an absolutely gorgeous voice, which just flows perfectly and smoothly into the lower parts of heaven and then back to earth again to share the tales of what it's seen.
Three weeks later, I was attending my second Bic Runga concert. This time in the Baptist Tabernacle. The acoustics in this place weren't quite up to par with those in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, but in exchange for that, I'd arrived here an hour and a half in advance, thus had a front row seat, and managed to shoot at least one picture of surprising awesomeness. (Would you believe the following picture was shot handheld with an exposure time of something like 1/40 of a second?)

Although this second show was pretty much identical to the first one (including the same three song encore), by this time I was much more familiar with Bic's songs than during the first concert (as I'd bought the rest of her cds there), and so I think I possibly enjoyed it even more. This time, for example, I knew to look forward to "Ne Me Quitte Pas". *grins* Also, the opening act for both her shows was Tim Guy, who I definitely appreciated more the second time. He's... weird. In a good way. :)
Anyhoo, for the few music fans amongst you who'd like to get some idea of what a concert by Bic is like, here are some 30 second video clips of the two concerts (all but one from the second one, as I was sitting much closer to her and could thus take videos which actually show recognizable blurs). The usual disclaimers about absolutely crappy sound quality apply (do not judge her by what you hear here), and the files are all XViD-encoded, 3.5MB in size unless noted otherwise. Enjoy.
Bic Runga at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity:
Bursting Through (2.8 MB)
Bic Runga at the Baptist Tabernacle:
Beautiful Collision
She Left on a Monday
The Be All and End All
Ne Me Quitte Pas (2.95 MB)
Question (one of Tim Guy's songs, with Bic accompanying him)
Get Some Sleep
One More Cup of Coffee
Gravity

Weeks came and went, and a routine was settled into. My memory of myself during this time mostly involves me sitting in the bus to or from work, reading or writing. Auckland the city is a wondrous place, parklike for a large part, but even the parts that aren't come with an inherent beauty. Maybe it's just the early morning and early evening light that accompanied me during these trips to and fro', maybe it was my Rio Karma playing the most beautiful music and the scenery simply mirroring the sounds, maybe it's something indefinable having bad effects on a sleep-drunk brain, but in my memory, it was there all the same. A regular day would be: wake, eat breakfast and prepare lunch, drink tea (if gotten out of bed soon enough after the alarm clock to allow sufficient time for boiling water), walk to bus, greet driver (changing weekly, but by this time nearly all familiar), gaze outside at the familiar scenery and keep marveling at the many new sights to be seen, breathe in deeply from the morning air upon arrival before ducking into the shopping center itself, pretending to be awake, drink tea, wake up in reality, read email and forums, tackle topmost item on todo list for current site, refill tea periodically, look up, discover that it's lunch time, eat, browse forums, chat lightly in IRC, exhaust self going through the other items in the todo list, adding new ones occasionally, drink more tea, note day is over, do grocery shopping, marvel at sunset light, tumble back into bus, read Zindell and occasionally glance up at outside world, marveling at such beauty as can be found in a rainstorm, arrive back at city center, deposit grocery shopping stuff in hostel fridge, walk to food court for roast of the day, cross the street to internet cafe for serious catching up on the world, walk back to hostel just before the kitchen closes for a last infusion of tea, sleep.
Depending on what I'd done at work, this would be a good day (solving a hard problem in a nifty or innovative day) or a bad one (mindlessly filling in information on hundreds of products in the database). But of course, as shortly alluded to before, I reread Zindell during this time, and I believe one could easily live on just reading Zindell and nothing else. He's that good.
Kinda unusual for these weblog entries, but this is something I wrote while under his influence, looking out of the window of the bus to really see the beauty of the world. It's very unbalanced and pretty rough, and I was intending to refine it, but I never got around to that. At this point I think I would destroy its power if I so much as touched it, so you'll have to take it just the way it is. Take meaning from it in whatever way you please; it might even have been intended.

Originally expressed by me, under the influence of David Zindell:

Every so often one witnesses a moment - a scene, a setting, and atmosphere - which is so beautiful (often in its sheer mundaneness) that you are overcome with the need to share it, to affirm it. To wrap your arm around that special someone and behold it together as one, sharing the bond, or lacking someone like that, to at least affirm this moment in the company of good friends. It's not a perfect moment; but it is what I like to call, an infinite moment. A moment when you realize the inherent beauty of existence, the infinite possibilities spreading out before you. Traveling, such moments seem to come more often, for you are jarred out of the everyday rut and shocked into observing. Yet the very nature of traveling means the absence of people to share it with. Even if you have this tenacious impossible but irresistible hope about that special someone, you ache with the knowledge that she is not here. You cannot share, you cannot meet the other person's eye in full knowledge of shared observation. All you can do is observe, and ache for what isn't there.
A lesser person might think to himself that there is an otherworldly beauty in the aching itself, and in time even grow to love this.
A better person would *know* that all things simply are what they are, and that the aching and the absence are thus as hallowed and beautiful as the rest of existence.
I am neither of those people. I am only and ever just me, and so all I can do is observe, ache ...and hope.
I've been reading Zindell again. Can you tell? :)

Any attempts at a coherent chronology in this entry was left by the wayside a long time ago, and so jumping back about a month, I attended a concert by Sarah McLachlan. Sarah was one of the first ecto-ish artists I'd ever discovered, before I even knew what ecto was. She sings the most quiet and beautiful songs of heavenly perfection. Walking to the not-nearest supermarket many weeks before, I'd spotted a sign on her going to appear in Auckland, and acquired a ticket the very next day. I wrote about that many months and a few weblog entries ago. And so the time of her concert arrived, and after a thoroughly forgettable opening act by I don't remember who, Sarah took the stage. As did a drummer, four guitar players (one using a very weird kind of double guitar), someone on the piano, and I think one or two other people. A very shiny and pretty lightshow was performed. And a godawful deafening noise was produced by (mostly) the drums and the guitars, over which Sarah was quite literally screaming her way.
Beauty? What's that? Never heard of it.
Urgh. It might have been okay if I had earplugs (like everyone on stage), but this was a complete perversion. Very occasionally you could recognize that Sarah had a beautiful voice, as the general volume went down slightly for an outro or intro, but overall it was a massive disappointment, only marginally saved by the second encore, which was just Sarah on the piano singing Angel. That was the Sarah I came for, and if only half her show had been only half as good, I would now be doing a massive amount of raving about her. But sadly that one song was all that was truly good about the show. :(

So jumping a month ahead again, one last noteworthy event at work was the last day of one of the coworkers. For which a giant bouncy castle was set up, in the middle of the office! *shakes his head* Absolute crazy people; no wonder I enjoyed my time there as much as I did. :)
By late July, with the three months that I was legally allowed to work at one place over, I wasted a large part of my earnings on buying a new digital camera - a Nikon D70 - to put the old one to shame (if you think some of my pictures up to this point have been good: you ain't seen nuthin' yet!), and after taking it for a spin around Auckland, I set out to return to the most beautiful of locales ever, intending to dissolve utterly and completely in beauty, and to bring back proof. That, however, is a tale for another day. :P

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Fri 22 Oct 2004, 06:00 GMT

Tripreport: 2004-03-22 - 2004-04-03: Fastlaning in a campervan, part 2

So I've completely lost the routine of writing these things. Will my fingers remember? Probably - this is after all not the first time I'm returning to writing something after not doing so for a long time (for some definition of long). But still, I'll be rusty, so bear with me.
Very shortly, the present, and hope along with me that I might produce a veritable torrent of tripreport entries, so that you'll have come context of how I came here: Melbourne, Australia. Looking for work. As vaguely annoyed at the whole procedure of jobsearching (and the lack of reaction from companies where I apply) as I was in Auckland half a year ago, without actually being able to get worked up about it. After all, no worries, eh? Staying in a very nice and relaxed YHA situated in a quiet neighbourhood. Quiet, that is, except for the birds intent on twittering down the sky. Just walking around here on my way to the city center and the ridiculously expensive (for such a large city) internet cafe is enough to have me relax and any possible frustration to slide away.

Back when I last did a tripreport, I left off as the big monster of a campervan that we were driving brought me and my parents to the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
Two memories of this stretch of the journey remain clearly with me even now, so many months later. Rain, and more rain. From about the moment we left Haast Pass and thus reached the West Coast proper, all the way until we reached Greymouth, I don't think it ever was really dry. Any minutes when the rain seemed to let up were only traps to get us gullible fools to come out into the open for the rain to better reach us. Nice scenery around Knight's Point, and the inevitable sheep crossing the road (the only such I've encountered in all of ten months in New Zealand) were the other highlights of that day before we reached Franz Josef Glacier. The camping was set in the middle of a veritable patch of rain forest (all of five kilometers away from the glacier, one of the many wonders of this area).

The following morning we drove the short distance to the car park nearest the glacier, and then set out through the drizzling rain to catch a glimpse of this proper glacier. "Proper," I say, as unlike the Tasman Glacier over near Mt. Cook, this one actually shows snow and ice right up to where it ends. The rain, acting very much like fog, made this hard to see at first, but as we trundled ever closer, actual blue-ish looking ice was indeed seen.
Warnings put up near the glacier advised strongly not to venture too close without an experienced guide, as the entire area was undermined by melting ice and running water, so I didn't get to touch the glacier itself, but we still ventured quite close. Someday I hope to return on a day with blue skies and go on a guided glacier walk or something like that, but for now the inherent beauty of the place suffices as a happy memory.
Returning from the glacier, the rest of the day was spent driving up to west coast. A short stop was made in Hokitika, which harbors a number of workshops for glassblowing and carving jade. Earrings for my mother, as well as some glass penguins, were procured here. And then onward we went, to end the day in boring ol' Greymouth. Greymouth however has one massively good thing about it, namely the Point Elizabeth Walkway (mentioned previously). This then is where I steered my parents the following morning. Although muddier than before, and somewhat more derelict than during my previous visit due to the moving seasons, it was still one of the best really short walks. Point Elizabeth itself marks the start of the good bits of the West Coast. From thence on, all the way north until the road leaves the coast, you get to experience some of the most dramatic views on what the sea has to say about just how hard and enduring rock can be. Meanwhile, us puny humans happily create a road swerving left and right and up and down to either avoid these arguments, or p'rhaps to get a better view on them. Either way, a drive to rival the Pacific Coast Highway, and probably (although I haven't driven it yet), the Great Ocean Road. The splendor and endless energy of the Tasman Sea is best evidenced at the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. Luck was with us, as we arrived here around noon, some twenty minutes before high tide.
How to describe this? I guess in this instance, a picture probably does say more than a thousand words...

I hadn't expected this beforehand, but I was majorly impressed by these blowholes, and this was a very worthwhile stop. It's truly stunning to see the water thrown up so high, with so much force. And each time as gravity recovered from the shock and started exerting its influence, what was sea but a scant few seconds before became rain. Very, very salty rain, that is. I'm somewhat amazed my camera survived the ordeal.
After snapping a quick picture or two of weird walking birds crossing the car park with not a care in the world (I had seen one previously on the Queen Charlotte Track, and a local now revealed them to be Wekas), we once more set out over the wondrously narrow and winding roads of this part of the South Island, to eventually leave the coast and end up at the end of the day in Marahau, right at the entrance of the Abel Tasman National Park. The sky here at night was ultimately clear and dark, causing more than one minute to be wasted doing nothing but looking up.
The reason people come to Marahau, the only reason they come to Marahau, is to walk part (or all) of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of the Great Walks. Although I personally had at that point already grown quite jaded about this particular kind of bush landscape, I still recognize that I would have absolutely loved it if I had arrived there early on in my trip, and the golden sand beaches plus absolutely clear water still added something special to it all. Now if only the stupid sandflies would be so good as to not exist, I think I might've actually really liked the place. Anyhoo, as we were rushing all over the country in a mad dash to see as much as possible in the three weeks that we had the campervan for, walking all of the track was completely out of the question, so we contented ourselves with walking just the best part of it, from Onetahuti Beach (which loosely translates as beachbeach Beach) to Torrent Bay. As both these locations were somewhat north of Marahau, we took the watertaxi. I'm sad to say I never took a picture of this (I think my father did, but he's even better at slacking off than I am, so if he indeed did, I haven't seen it yet), but taking the watertaxi is a somewhat amusing affair. Basically you climb aboard a small boat - being dragged behind a big tractor. The tractor then drives around on land, and through many hundreds of meters of shallow water until it finally reaches a point where the boat actually becomes useful. As this is all one big tourist attraction, the boat then swerves in the wrong direction to have a look at the 'famous' Split Apple Rock, goes past Tonga Island to gawk at the resident seal colony (and the blue penguins! These aren't usually to be seen, but we spotted three before they could spot us and do a neatly choreographed hopping into the water exercise), and then finally comes semi-close to the beach to have you wade ashore onto the glorious golden sand.

The ensuing walk was nice (as was the weather - though by the end of the day when we were waiting for the water taxi to come and return us, it got kinda chilly), offering many startling views of picture perfect coves and bays - your typical tropical holiday brochure, right there in New Zealand - as well as some true beauty in the green water of Falls River, but otherwise could not be said to be anything spectacular. (For New Zealand standards.) :)

The following day we lazily made our way east, exploring Nelson for a few hours (a nice enough town, but on the small side, and with only one used bookstore in evidence), and settling down in boring Picton for the evening, so that the following day we might be on time for the ferry. Which, naturally enough, was late. Or rather, was completely canceled, meaning that we'd have to wait for the Lynx an hour and a half later. The one good thing that resulted from this is that we had a chance to stop by the Village Bakery (the one good thing about Picton) for some delicious dutch buttercake. ^_^
At the other side of the ditch, we settled down at a camping in Lower Hutt and then took the bus to Wellington. Leaving my parents to start exploring the city on their own, I made my way to an internet cafe (the first one since Queenstown, too many days ago). For dinner, the taramo at Theo's was as good as ever. :) The next day was spent entirely in Wellington, and after only five hours I was actually caught up with most things, while my parents had the chance to properly look around the city.

A bit of a bummer the next day, as bad weather was predicted for Tongariro National Park, which was supposed to have been our next stop. Instead we made our way to Hastings, one of the cities in this region of the North Island which were completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1931, to be subsequently rebuilt in Art Deco style. The lamp posts here are groovy, but otherwise I can't get very excited about Art Deco, and so as my parents did the touristy thing and went on some walk past all the highlights, I wandered around on my own to sniff up the atmosphere as it is, accidentally discovering some nice bookshops, and reveling in the goodness of being back on the North Island, where even in smaller cities like this it's perfectly normal to plug in a laptop (as opposed to the South Island, where half the people running internet cafes are afraid of technology and won't allow this because of "security reasons"). From Hastings we travel on, ending the day in Napier, the best known of the Art Deco cities.

As yet another day graces us with its presence, bringing along absolutely gorgeous weather, we explore Napier for a while. As far as cities go, this one seems nicer than Hastings, though it lacks the groovy lamp posts. Zooming around the North Island, we end up in Taupo, smack in the middle of the North Island's geothermally active area (Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand, is the result of a really massive volcanic eruption from about 25,000 years ago). Near Taupo, we visit the "Craters of the Moon" (a lot of steam coming from the ground in pretty desolate surroundings (probably desolate because of that very steam coming from the ground), and the Huka Falls, which is a massive torrent of water coming from Lake Taupo.
The village of Taupo itself is something of a disappointment, helped by everything being closed already by the time we get to explore (around 17:30).

As the weather in this part of New Zealand has improved a lot over the predictions from a few days ago, we decide to set out south from Taupo to go and visit Tongariro National Park after all.
Already visible from Taupo itself, the three main volcanoes of Tongariro National Park (being Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro) dominate the landscape more and more as we drive south into the National Park. After settling in at the camping in Whakapapa village, we book transport to the start and from the end of the Tongariro Crossing (billed as the finest one-day walk in New Zealand) for my father and myself for the following day, gather information on shorter walks for my mother, and then set out on one of these shorter walks, the Ridge Track, to nice views of Mt. Ruapehu.

I do not recall how early we woke up that next day, but it must have been early indeed, for a bus leaving Whakapapa at 07:30 deposited us at the start of the track at 08:00. This was the "early bird" service, enabling us to avoid encountering the largest amount of people who'd be walking the Crossing that day. I determined that at least one even earlier bird service had royally beaten us to it, as I (setting out swiftly to where the sun was barely cresting the mountains, easily succeeding in the goal of outpacing the rest of the bus) encountered the first stragglers from this group after about an hour. From that point on, for the rest of the walk I never was outside the sight of another human being again, but at least I had had the first hour to myself to revel in a sense of isolation, and marvel at the desolate beauty of the landscape. (I should mention that I'd also purposefully left behind my father, as on a walk of this magnitude you should never try to walk in any other pace than your own. I know where I obtained my fast walking genes from though, which together with frequent breaks meant that we kept encountering each other every so often during that day.)
The Tongariro Crossing starts out as a deceptively easy walk. There's barely any slope to contend with (though some climbing is necessary whenever the path crosses another area of bizarrely shaped reminders of the volcanism of this area), and firm rocky ground to walk on (strewn with at best ankle-height vegetation).
Shortly after making a detour to the deceptively named "Soda Springs" (which is just a not very impressive waterfall), the deceptiveness becomes apparent, as a grueling climb up to South Crater starts. Grueling is the exact word here, for after leaving the flat plane behind, it just goes on, and on, and on, at an incline that, although manageable, makes it almost necessary - and at the very least more efficient - to use your hands to assist the ascent. Finally reaching the end of the climb (which goes on so long that I doubt anyone has ever managed it without at least two or three breaks to catch their breath, and most need an order of magnitude more), you're rewarded with endless views back the way you came from, all the way to where Mt. Taranaki is standing by its lonesome self at the west coast of the North Island (a rough 150 kilometers away).
Interesting though the view back might be, reaching the summit of this climb you do not spend much time gazing thataways, for at this point the landscape is totally dominated by Mt. Ngauruhoe, the youngest of the volcanoes and thus still perfectly symmetrical. Not just Lord of the Rings aficionados should recognize it as Mt. Doom. After a few minutes mistakenly sojourning in its direction (like a moth to a flame), the right trail was discovered, leading down into massive South Crater.

Unfortunately the flat surface of South Crater was traversed far too swiftly, giving way to the climb up to Red Crater. Though not as lengthy or as steep as the previous climb, this one was worse, as being that high up, there's nothing stopping the wind from envisioning itself a full blown gale, chilling you right down to the bone. Somewhere around here a sidetrack to the summit of Mt. Tongariro should have been in evidence (much like the sidetrack to the summit of Mt. Ngauruhoe that had exerted such attraction shortly before), but even if I hadn't managed to completely miss it, the extreme wind-chill had removed any desire to go and explore.
Somehow surviving this climb, I reached the highest point of today's exercise, being rewarded with absolutely unreal views back to Mt. Ngauruhoe and South Crater, directly into the marvelously sculpted Red Crater, and down ahead to the Emerald Lakes.
The subsequent climb down was... interesting. To the left was a plunge to Central Crater. To the right was a plunge to Red Crater. On a narrow and steep descent straight ahead was a complete absence of any recognizably navigable trail, and an overabundance of scree. I have never descended a mountain quite that swiftly (in loooong sliiiiding striiiides), or been more not-quite-terrified (in a giddy adrenalin-rush-filled kinda way) doing so. I think I'd even call this descent... "fun". I'm strangely surprised that not a single entrepreneuring theme park owner has ever walked the Tongariro Crossing, but it must be so, for otherwise we'd long since have seen mountains of scree rise up to rival the most death-defying rollercoasters as the star attraction of many a theme park. ^_^

Having thrown its worst at us to no avail, the Tongariro Crossing grew positively complacent from here on. After traversing Central Crater, the climb out of said crater was short and gentle, and also the last climbing to be done for the day. Ahead was naught but a (admittedly quite long, but also very gentle) descent. Taking one last look back to where Red Crater and Mt. Ngauruhoe were quietly pretending to be perfectly innocent and harmless, I spotted the vanguards of the promised hordes who were also walking the Tongariro Crossing, only now reaching that highest summit in an admirable rendition of the cult-classic "Invasion of the Ant People". :P

Cresting the summit and decisively putting Mt. Ngauruhoe behind, the sight greeting me was not very hopeful. Clouds were tightly packed together beneath me, sure to envelop me shortly. Yet as I drew abreast, the clouds receded, and the marvelous blue skies that the day had been graced with so far managed to remain in effect.
There's not much to tell about the descent, other than that it went on for a long time, and was mostly boring (although there were some pretty colors (and a bad smell) near the Ketetahi hot springs, finished in a really boring stretch of bush (properly called "podocarp forest", btw), and had the same surreal lack of cheering crowds at its end as had already been encountered at the end of the Queen Charlotte Track.
The end of the Tongariro Crossing was reached at 13:30, five and a half hours after we set out (for a predicted 7 hour walk). A two hour wait for the bus back ensued, followed by a wait for people who'd walked more slowly than average which luckily lasted 'only' an extra 35 minutes. (Horror stories had been told about people who took transport to the start of the track, only to then set off in a different direction, never informing the bus driver about this, having him (along with all the other passengers in the bus) wait deep into the evening.)

As the next day rolled around, we were once more heading north, stopping for an hour or two at Wai-o-Tapu, 'famous' for its champagne pool and other creatively colored waters. Though I tried my best to see the beauty there, personally I think the bleakness in these geothermic regions completely overshadows the pretty colors, no matter how vivid. For certain it's a marvel to behold, but my life would have been no less complete if we'd have given it a complete miss. Luckily at least my mother did seem to enjoy the place a lot, so the stop wasn't a complete waste.

Early in the afternoon we settled down in Rotorua where we'd be spending what was already the last night together in the campervan. Souvenir shopping was done (unappealing though Rotorua might be, it does have a good range of souvenir shops), and my parents managed to seriously surprise me with a complete set of Lord of the Rings stamps. (A set of six stamps had been issued for each movie, and I'd let slip that I'd been eyeing the set for RotK (but hadn't bought it for fear of not managing to keep them in good condition while traveling), but never did I suspect that sets for the earlier movies could still be found anywhere. My parents (and thus I!) lucked out by spotting a store selling stamps which had exactly one set left. Best. Gift. Evar!) :)

Languidly we made our way to Auckland, arriving at Joop & Tini's early in the afternoon. My parents would be staying here for a few days before returning to the Netherlands, and I returned to a YHA in the city center with the goal to find myself a job Real Soon Now, as my travel funds had been reaching something of a low point. Before I left, however, I managed to stow nearly all books and cds acquired up to this point into my parents luggage, for safe conveyance back home. Useful that. :P


*reads over the above* Yes, that'll do for now. Definitely rusty, but at least there's still quantity. :D Luckily the next few months I spent in New Zealand were on the slightly boring side, so in my next few tripreport I should be able to quickly rush through that and catch up to the not quite present.

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