Monthly Archives: February 2013

7. Christchurch – Invercargill

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Tina & Tony M, Gladstone Tce, Invercargill, via airbnb
Saturday, February 9: Christchurch: A little chilly, fog, drizzle
Dunedin and Invercargill: Sunny and warm
Outside the Railway Station, Dunedin

Outside the Railway Station, Dunedin

Up at 6:00 to throw everything into the suitcase; Matt was up at half past and after loading L. still asleep into the children’s seat, we were off just after 7:00. I left the fire cans at Matt’s, who thinks he might improve on them by the next visit.

Fog was rolling into Hagley Park, and as there was not much traffic, everything was eerily quiet. We were in good time despite one false turn, and I had to wait around a bit before the bus decided to turn up. Continue reading →

6. Auckland – Christchurch

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Matt T., Manning Place, Christchurch, via airbnb
Friday, February 8: Auckland: Warm and fairly sunny
Christchurch: Pretty much the same, a bit cooler

I was up as the first one this morning and got through the bathroom before everyone else. While the others were having breakfast, I finished my packing, and when I saw I. coming down I went up and took my leave of Chinara, who was very much hugs this morning.

Then it was time for my breakfast, washing up and doing the final checks. Took a couple of photographs from the deck and one of the house but noticed that I had packed the wrong camera into the rucksack. Anyhow, soon after that I was on my way to the bus stop which I reached in very good time for the first bus that I had envisaged. Continue reading →

5. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Quite cloudy but still dry and warm

After breakfast this morning there were a couple of mission critical software issues that had to be dealt with urgently. Raw conversion of images in PPP seems to have a major glitch – the blue channel seems to have taken over. The current version uses ufraw, so the strategy was: 1) exchange ufraw for dcraw and test if it works; 2) should dcraw also fail, the attempt an option of using the jpegs for stacking, advanced tone mapping and thumbnailing; 3) try a reinstall of ufraw 0.18 or an older version; try to determine when the deterioration of ufraw set in. But that was the second problem. Continue reading →

4. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Wednesday, February 6: A little cold at first, but very sunny with clear skies
GPS Tour
Happy Trampers. Auckland Guided Hikers’ Meetup, at Huia

Happy Trampers. Auckland Guided Hikers’ Meetup, at Huia

Up very early for the hike but Camila was up even earlier so she was through with breakfast almost before I started. Made my lunch and packed some bits of apple and a banana as my hiking provisions and was down at the intersection at 8:20. Mike turned up about ten minutes later and we were fairly quickly in Huia for the hike. Quite friendly bloke about my age, and meeting up with the other people showed that all ages were present. A brief round of introductions followed and then the tour leader Stephen had a couple of words to say about the hike. This was to be a bush bash, a wild hike through the undergrowth, with occasional getting lost. Continue reading →

3. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Tuesday, February 5: Sunny with a few clouds and very windy
GPS Tour
Estuary, Le Roys Bush

Estuary, Le Roys Bush

Chinara had gotten into her mind to buy a Canon 450D for $100 and wanted to pick me up around lunchtime and see if the camera was performing OK so I had pretty much a free morning. Spotted a monarch braving the winds and got the camera running and succeeded in taking a few shots. As I was getting hungry I made avail of one of the apples. Continue reading →

2. Auckland

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Chinara’s
Monday, February 4: Raining, clearing briefly around lunchtime, but returning in the evening.
Monarch on Feijoa

Monarch on Feijoa

Slept a good eight hours until the cars were removed from the garages; then waited until the bathroom was free (and everyone out of the house) to make myself some breakfast (coffee, muesli, toast).

Then I decided I needed a couple of extra slides for tonight, so I got those done & practised the presentation once. Now the blog had to be updated, as there had been no publication last Friday. First that gap was filled, and then the blog for tomorrow was scheduled. Continue reading →

1. Sydney – Auckland

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Chinara S., Mahara Ave, Birkenhead, Auckland 0626, via airbnb.
Sunday, February 3: Sydney: overcast.

We were in Sydney on time, and I had had a bit of a sleep after the beef with fried rice, and The Words with Jeremy Irons and John Malkovitch, a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

After security and a random exam of me for explosive remains, there was an extra long wait for the further boarding pass to Auckland, which was with LAN on its way to Santiago de Chile. Had a bit of a surf on the internet and have managed to get most things ready for a quick pass through arrivals at AKL (otherwise I might have to wait an hour for the next bus connection). Continue reading →

0. Hannover – Frankfurt – Singapore

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Friday, February 1: Frankfurt: Rain and cold

I was up rather early and did one last washing machine load while stripping the bed and getting everything packed. Called into the language centre for brief farewells, then it was back without any lunch and I ended up throwing everything I could into the suitcase to weigh in at 23 kg. This time the laptop is in there, so it doesn’t have to be carted out of the rucksack each time at security. Continue reading →