A Golden Bay Recipe......

Howdy all, by now im sure you all know im back home, hope all is well where ever you may be. Heres a quick run through of the summer I just had in the paradise of Golden Bay........ (in recipe form)

Ingredients;

A handfull of random climbing dirtbags.

A campsite for said dirtbags to live in.

A heaped Tablespoon of limestone.

A few birthdays, garnished with much alcohol.

A large amount of incredible boulders that have barely been climbed.

Season with a large walk in the bush.

Throw in an incredible amount of effort made by dirtbags for a festive treat.

Add a pinch of alcohol for the end of year, leave dirtbags to settle on limestone,and gradually watch them climb.

Add a degree of espionage to gain entry to a festival, and get lost for around 5 hours.

Bake in the sun, whilst preparing a cardboard boat, lose the race and win the token trophy.

1 heaped teaspoon of bribery,flattery and climbing, to make a competition.

Add no experience of building to create the uper tier of the fire pit.

And finally,

1 truly amazing night with all the people who make golden bay beautiful and say goodbye with the aid of some gas cannisters on the fire.....

I'll miss you all guys

much love

tom

x

1 Fearless Vampire killer on Fearless Vampire Killers. (20)

Mea Culpa (27)

Said dirtbags. Helpful hint; when purchasing alcohol for the pub to effectively make your night cheaper, dont ask bar staff to open these purchases for you....(not a good look)

Sick hard mantles at Brooklyn.

Double arete (V4?) Unleashing the walrus move....It takes years to be able to pull this move off. :-)

Shaky Paul on the same problem.

The brooklyn boulders

Hitching on the back of a truck to get to the start of the walk.

Views from the heaphy track. 6 days till xmas and just 130km in my way.

My one night abode in the gouland downs forrest.

Walking to west coast beach


Xmas with around 80 odd people bringing a random dish to the table no one was left hungry...

Dinner time!!



Shaky paul, showing us how to drink and tie a knot at the same time!


A large rope swing over moving traffic should be a feature of every climbing comp.

Dirtbag central

The crew, getting ready to sink there vessel.

Hot chicks on the beach

Nice work sinking the boat lads, heres the winning trophy!!!!

My last hangdog project.

Until the next time Golden Bay, chao!

x

Why? Wye, thats Why!!!!!!!

Woooh, check this out a blog thats about 2 weeks apart from the last update, dont expect this to much in the future!!!


So yea, its a rainy day and not too much else to do. So here I am where I started...... back in Golden Bay. Let me tell you how I got here.


Myself and Zef set off on a wee road trip, after a long and sad goodbye to Wanaka we finally leave the winter behind us and go sun searching. But first things first you cant start a good road trip without an awsome climbing venue to get too. And so just south of Queenstown lies Wye Creek. Truly awsome!!


Firstly you must tackle the walk in, an hour of windy upward dirt track then escalating into a rugged forrest track following a large pipeline. To then cross the creek you must cruise along a dodgey looking pipeline bridge which cuts through the contour of the creek and then eventually leaves you at the base of the main cliff.


Super impressive lines usually containing an average of a 2 stars going up at on average around 25metres. Ace!


However the day was the 13th and misfortune took its toll. The platform to walk along the crag is fairly steep and you really wouldnt want to drop anything like a bag with the car keys in down into the abyss below. Oops we did! Luckily it got caught in the thick tussick not too far down, so I took on the retrieval mission and return the bag to a secure locations. Its not over yet....
We done some nice cruisey lines and then finished on a real sweet super long 17 grade route, I thought the guide said it was 25m's long but in fact it said 28. A slight problem for the abseil, espesicailly after you realise your rope is only 46m's long in total. Luckily I pulled off some Tom Cruise style mission impossibe 2 moves and sorted the situation....... Always an epic with Quick Thinking Tom......Just makes it all slightly more memorable and fun.

So after 2 days of cragging, we make our way down south, to some familiar places from my last tour down but also visiting some new places. We arrive at Waipapa point, where a lighthouse on the edge of the island is a haven for sealions, and camera trigger happy tourists. On to various other points of interest (please refer to nicandtom.blogspot.com/road tripping for more details hahaha) and up too nugget point which is a super cool destination on the coast, you walk to another light house on the edge of a cliff to get a view of nugget shaped rocks pertruding out of rough oceans below. We also checked out a real cool waterfall, namely McClean Falls, whiched housed a small trek through the 'rainforest' and leads you to a reallly impressive dump of water spewing out from above......
And so we cruised up the East coast through Dunedin and Christchurch and eventually arriving at Golden Bay, my summer destination, Hangdog.... Brilliant!
Not sure if iv told some of you guys but I applied to run the camp ground as they were looking for new owners but applied just slightly too late, bummer, but all is not lost. After having a chat with the owner I have managed to score a job as Public relations Manager (hahaha just trying to come up with a fancy name for my new role) basically im the guy who answers peoples questions about the area and doing a little bit of guiding and teaching on the side with probably a bit of maintainanc around the camp too...... I am so stoked, I no longer pay camp fees and still get heaps of Climbing time. Cant ask for more really......
Untill the next time my good friends
much love
Tom

xReminiscing Crib Times.

One of the many impressive lines at Wye Creek, 'Dream Thing' 21

This looks like a good clib to have an epic on....

The pipeline bridge

Wye creek, the main clif is the rock on the far right,next to the creek.

Waipapa action

Porpoise Bay, dolphin watching. If you see one please let me know....

The awsome McClean Falls.

Some more moreki boulders..

Nugget Point..

One Sesaon in the Life of a Wok Chef....

Howdy folks, well it must be around 3-4 months since the last update but im sure you all know what im like with this by now.....so heres a run-down of what a first winter season has been filling my life with.

So as you know i scored a job as a wok chef at the noodle bar at the ski resort known as 'Cardrona'. With a shift rotation of 4 days on 2 days off you'd think alot of snowboarding was to be had for me over the last 3 months, unfortunatly not as much as what I would have liked (mainly due to weather, and little bit of lack of effort) but still a fair amount and I think a wee bit of improvement has been made on the board. So an average day up the hill would be, wake up at around 6:30ish get ready and then get aride with a fellow cardronian to town, to get a ride up the mountain with the staff vans. This was usually an uneventful/good time to catch some z's ride, however sometimes the road conditions were terrible but Cardrona is the mountain that only closes when only certain death is iminant. One particular ride coming down the mountain involved super icy,white out conditions and with a particularly reckless driver we spun out and was left in the van with its back side looking down the rocky drop of one of the corners! Brilliant.


Anyways, so assuming you have made it up the hill alive you then start your working day. For me this was working out what prep was to be done and prepping it. Chopping veg, making sauces, blanching noodles and meat (which was skanky as hell). Whilst at the same time taking full advantage of the barista girls and consuming a fair amount of coffee, also learning to barrista myself, which is something ive been wanting to know for some time. (making coffee right is alot harder than it looks).


And so then we would open. We started off super quiet not having many customers in these times we would go on ride breaks, trade food with other departments and various other not work type of things. But when it got busy it went manic, a shed load of wokking was to be done, luckily for cardrona they employed a samurai jedi wok master!! So that was an average working day for myself, the rest of the season was taken up by many a party, and of course climbing.


I got a little tired of snowboarding and focused alot on climbing but at that time of year both sports are tempermental mainly due to the weather. However I have found I am definatly more of a summer rock person than a winter snow person, dont get me wrong snowboarding is a super enjoyable sport and im guessing another winter season somewhere will happen, but over not to much contemplating I have come to the conclusion that Climbing is a much more superior sport.


And so heres the end of the season, with a large final party at the Crib and a few more nights out on the town its all over in Wanaka. It will be very sad to leave, espsecially seeing good friends go. But thats the way it goes, am very much looking forward to the summer months to come. I was planning on a few walks in the bush but thats been temporarily cancelled due to the track conditions so looks like theres only one thing to do....... that'l be more climbing (shame).





Untill the next time my friends, hope all is well, much love tom x

the noodle bar crew...

good times all the time in wanaka...

cribb fashion....

The return of agent Delta....

The back garden of my former workplace...

Anger management taken out on swedes.

Ninja training school...
Apres drinking amusement.....

We had absolutely nothing to do with the shopping trolley suspended above the ground.......

:-)

Getting ready for winter!

alright, super sorry once again for the slack effort im putting in on the blog. but this is a quick run down of whats been happening 12000 miles away from all of you!!!

Right so left the bay at the end of April with Nic, Ben, and a canadian guy who almost killed us from boredom, and steadily made our way down to wanaka, of course havin a wee stop off at castle hill for a session on the boulders for a couple of days. During this I made a side trip into Christchurch to catch up with some mates from hangdog, and a seriously heavy night followed involving myself persuading a bouncer to not kick me out of the bar for having fun (starting mosh pits is not cool!!!).

We got ourselves into wanaka, grabbed a few more guys we knew and started the house hunt. Which turned out to be an absolute mission! for about 2 months we looked around properties getting our hopes high then being let down. We stayed in numerous 'free camping' areas around the wanaka area keeping ourselves amused with firearms, explosives, and of course climbing (but mainly the former hehehe).

Finally we had some luck, on our usual wednesday mornings at the cafe hunting through the local rag we find an ad for a wee batch out on a motor camp up for grabs, no hesitations in calling. We got our viewing and left we positive feedback, and like all the other places now we just wait.....and it paid off, alright so now we have a house, next mission find a job as my card wont even let me buy a cookie!!!

Iv been going through quite a few jobs whilst being here, firstly picking grapes which sucked big time!!! although was paid off quite well with the vineyard giving us around 8 cases of beer and a place to stay for free!!! good times! I then done a little bit of labouring for a plumber, lagging pipes and what not, only a few days there. For a little while I helped set up stages for a home show in the local town hall, that was fun. After that came more vineyard work, this time pruning, truly soul destroying but it helps put the pennies in the pocket none the less. I helped out on the campsite chopping wood which was awsome, good honest work. I then managed to blag my way into one of the local ski resorts, which is where i remain, with a free lift pass and loads of discounts in town my non-existing chefing skills seem to be payiong off. At the moment im apparently a wok chef and work in the noodle bar at the Cradrona resort. Awsome!

Not too much riding going on at the moment, but the weather is bringing a nice layer of snow in, and a day out with all the folks at the house is on the cards tomorrow, cant wait..

Once again all is well on the hippy front my friends...

much love as always

t
xx

At the top off my last 27 completed in the bay. Alongside MR Happy Happens.

Just past the crux of Creative Confusion.

Bouldering at the hill.

The hill as beautiful as always.

Waiting for a house at one of our exclusive wasteland retreats.

Wax bombs past the time quite effectively.

And also brushing up on our sniper skills.

Wanaka rock...

Home sweet home, finally...

Welcome to the cribb..... Ithink nic is putting more house pics up on his facebook page so check em out....