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One of the suggestions at a “jobs summit” a few months ago was a cycleway down the length of New Zealand. Absolutely brilliant idea, but it looks as though it won’t quite work out like that. Instead there will be a network of “Great Rides” that eventually will all link up. I think this is actually a much more practical way of going about it.

The Finance Minister didn’t want to cough up the $50m, but the Prime Minister, who is also the Tourism Minister, seems to have put the hard word on him. Good stuff. But this article from The Press had a great quote in it:

“The Government will put $50 million into a national cycleway as part of a plan to take tourism upmarket, ditching the focus on backbackers and package tourists.”

Are they serious? Cycle tourist are upmarket? Apparently they stay more than twice as long as the average tourist, but only spend 1.6 times as much – i.e. they’re spending less each day. It is easy to cut accommodation costs when you sleep in abandoned buildings. But would you seriously describe these guys as upmarket?

It was a fairly poorly kept secret, but at long last the company I work for has a proper brand – 2degrees. We had been known as “NZ Communications” – a pretty bland name, that didn’t really mean anything. People asked me if NZ Comms was a PR firm or something. If we were, we couldn’t have been a very good one. But anyway, now maybe we will have a bit of an increased profile, even more so when we launch in August. But will I be happy to say I work for them then? Well obviously that depends a bit on how the launch goes, but I think we’ll be OK. If nothing else, we’ll bring down the cost of mobile telecommunications for New Zealanders. During an economic downturn may not be the ideal time to launch a business, but then again, there’s probably plenty of people out there looking to reduce their costs.

Sadly work is a decent chunk of my life at the moment. I’m still a little way off being able to just ride around on my bike, sleeping in ditches, eating anywhere and everywhere. For now, I need to put away a little cash, and plan the next trip. Fatten myself up a bit too – I’m nearly 10kg heavier than a year ago. Fear not gentle readers, for it is mainly muscle. I’ve been having some interesting times working out with a personal trainer, doing quite different exercises to traditional gym work. Working harder than I ever did when I worked out by myself.

Last workout ended with me sprawled out on the floor, in no particular hurry to get up. All good. Tomorrow will be more balance, co-ordination and control work. Before you think I’m taking the easy option, you should know I’ll probably be sweating more after that than a strength workout.

Still diving too, although the water’s cooling down. Last weekend was stormy, and I was hoping diving would be cancelled, so I could head up north to see Jackson, but Goat Island was miraculously sheltered, and so we had a long day out diving, with an Open Water course group. This meant that I ended up driving up to Goat Island, back to Auckland, then up north to Whangarei. Too much damn time in the car. I think I need to make up for it with some bike time this weekend – Woodhill should be looking good after all the rain.

But luckily not for me. One of the things that has been keeping me busy recently is attending weddings. Firstly Karen and Hamish’s wedding over Easter, down in Napier. This was a good chance to do a bit of a road trip, and take the bikes out on some different trails. This means mountain bikes though, not the tourer. We took the mountain bikes, and managed to go riding at Taupo (Craters of the Moon), Napier (Eskdale) and Rotorua (Whakarewarewa of course) on the way home. Awesome biking, if not quite bike touring.

As we were pulling out of Taupo, at the start of a long stretch of not much, we saw a cyclist rolling down the last few kms into Taupo. He would have been feeling pretty happy with himself, after over 100km of rugged, beautiful, but empty land. I miss that feeling. But the trails in Napier and Rotorua were pretty good.

But back to the wedding – absolutely stunning weather in Napier, and a lovely wedding. I must make particular comment on the choice of wine, and the food – both were fantastic, and I did my best in fully sampling them. It was good to see Karen and Hamish finally get married, after many years together. Also a good chance to catch up with Paul, a fellow engineer from university days.

Two other friends who’ve been together for a long time are Bruce and Tanika. And finally they too are married. This was another road trip, but not so far – just to the Coromandel Peninsula. No bikes this time, because it was pouring down all day on Saturday, and besides, we were both tired. The rain had rather affected the plans for an outdoors wedding, and there was a hasty change on venue for the ceremony, but no-one really let it bother them. Everyone was very much having a good time – although I think that they guy who was throwing up before the speeches might have been overdoing it… Great to catch up with Allen though, who reminded me of a few stories about Bruce I thought I’d forgotten. Probably just as well neither of us stood up to say any words.

Someone watching my diving over the last few days would have been thinking that he’s a right plonker, and shouldn’t be allowed in the water. I’ve failed to disconnect my low pressure inflator hose, I’ve put the snorkel on the wrong side, I even had my tank on backwards yesterday. Then once I got into the water, I had more mishaps. I ran out of air, I panicked, I cut my leg, I cut my arm, I went catatonic. I’ve been hauled out of the water at least 10 times, I’ve had rescue breathing and I’ve been on oxygen. Emergency medical services were called out more times than I can remember. Truly, a shocking performance.

But fear not, for while my diving skills still needs A LOT of practice, they’re not quite THAT bad. I have been assisting on a PADI Rescue Diver course. This is a great course, where you get to learn how to handle incidents. A couple of students had pulled out, leaving just the one student. And you can’t have a rescue course without victims, right? So I was called upon to assist with the course – and this meant being the victim. Steven had to calm me down, bring me to the surface, get me out of the water – and then I’d just go and do something silly again. Lots of fun.

It made for a busy weekend, in the classroom yesterday morning, then the pool all afternoon, then out to the Lake today. Unfortunately it was a bit windy, so we couldn’t go out to Matheson Bay, like we had hoped too. But that was OK being in the lake, because then we were near an Open Water course that was doing their last dive. Because wouldn’t you know it, there were two instructors there, and one of them lost the other! So we had to go searching for Colin, recover him, and bring him back to the shore. It was a bit tough on Steven, as when you’ve got a few other students on the course you don’t have to remember everything yourself. When you’re the only one there, then the instructor/DM will only jog your memory a bit, if you need it. But he did really well.

The only problem was that all the ascents and descents got to me, and on one of the descents I had a sharp pain in my sinus, that I’ve never experienced before. So I put in a real incident, just to mix things up. Then of course you have to make it clear that this is not a drill… It’s still a little bit sore, but when I stuck my head down a few metres later on it seemed OK, so I’ll just have to watch it. It had better be OK this week, as I’ve got pool sessions on Monday and Thursday, and then all weekend I’ll be at the Poor Knights.

Last weekend I went to a “pre-wedding celebration” for my friend Karen, who is getting married this Easter. Let’s see, group of women, going out for a party, just before a wedding…well that would make it a Hen night, wouldn’t it? But aren’t those usually for women only? So how did I end up going? And aren’t they rather raucous affairs, involving screaming women, dare games, and foot-long novelty penises, not to mention the always popular game “Pin the Penis on the Groom”?

Well, according to that Wikipedia link, it seems that the party may be a “normal party…in the style that is common to that social circle.” I have known Karen since my first days at university, where we were living on the same floor at O’Rorke Hall. We subsequently flatted together for several years at 196 Hobson St. Over those years, I can recall fewer than 5 parties with Karen that involved novelty penises, so maybe there was a valid reason for the party being a quite civilised affair, with no Pecker Pops involved. Turns out they’d sold out of those anyway.

Since this was not going to be a stereotypical hen night, and because I’ve known Karen for a long time, I was invited to join them. I was unsure about it, but when told that I would not be the only male, I agreed to attend. I thought I would be safe enough, and could avoid being roped into being a stripper if there was another man there. However, late in the piece, someone, and I’m not naming names, but it starts with P and rhymes with wall, came up with some rubbish excuse about having to go to India for work. That sounds all well and good, but how many fridges does Fisher and Paykel sell in India? Eh? Bollocks. So I was the only male.

Not to worry though, for Suzie and Anna had organised a lovely day out. Auckland had turned on one of those days that make you forget about any problems the place might have, and want to tell any Jafa-haters to **** off. Blue skies, almost no wind, calm waters, thousands out on the water in boats of all manner, etc. We caught a ferry over to Waiheke Island, where we went on a tour of wineries. with an interlude of lunch on the beach. So there was a little bit of drinking, but it was all of a civilised manner. You can’t just quickly down glasses when you’re pretending to be interested in whatever nonsense the winery people are rabbiting on about.

I must make a special mention of the lunch nibbles that Suzie had prepared – she had outdone herself, with an outstanding array of treats. It was all a bit tough sitting under a tree, on the beach, drinking bubbly and eating from an exotic assortment of hordeuvres.

One of the wineries we visited was Obsidian. This was my favourite winery, for both the wine and the relaxed atmosphere. Janet, who had cooked our lovely BBQ lunch the previous weekend, was one of the people who ran the place. It was great to be able to return the favour, by visiting her winery and buying wine there. Not that I did it for anything other than selfish reasons – it’s good wine! Nice to complete the circle.

In the end I only had to deal with a few comments about being the stripper, and it turned out to be a really nice day. Tucked up in bed early I was too. Think it could be a bit bigger night at the wedding mind you…

No excuse for not putting updates on here in anything like a timely fashion. But what are you gonna do about it? Well I suppose you could stop reading. And I would miss that. But hopefully you’re all using RSS, so keeping up with infrequent updates is easy.

The most noteworthy thing going on in my life right now is Dive Master training. This is a fairly large piece of work, but luckily things are pretty flexible with how and when you can do it. It covers a range of areas, including theoretical knowledge, application of that knowledge, developing practical skills to demonstration quality, and assisting with dive courses, both in the pool and in open water. Lugging heavy tanks around for students, writing exams, mapping out underwater topography, all sorts of things.

I’m only just getting underway with it. I’ve passed 3 exams (out of a total of 8), assisted out with an Open Water course, and read a heap of stuff in the DM manual, and the (surprisingly interesting) “Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving.” I’ve also been practising the 20 skills I need to perform to demonstration quality. I’m afraid I’ve got a long way to go with some of those. I’ve also started swimming, to try and improve my swimming times to somewhere near the required times. Again…a fair way to go. But that’s OK. I’ve got time to work on it, and Anna is at a similar level to me, so at least I’ve got company on the journey.

I was assisting with an Open Water course on Sunday, which was good fun, if a little tiring. It’s quite a different take on the course, watching other people. I think that seeing demonstrations of all skills repeatedly will help my own technique. Watching others shows you typical mistakes too.

It’s not all diving though. On Saturday the Auckland MTB Club organised a ride to Waiheke, an island in the Hauraki Gulf here. It was a great day – I could ride from my house to the ferry terminal, onto the ferry, ride around Waiheke, then get a ferry home. No need for the car. We went on a bit of a tour, then rode around the MTB track, before having a nice BBQ and beers in the park. Then over to a beach, a swim, and home! Superb.

I’ll be back at Waiheke this weekend too, for a Hens party, of all things. Very strange.