It’s time for the preparations to draw to a close, after ten months. Of course, there’ll be stuff that still has to be bought because it was forgotten back at the ranch. I’m still wrangling with the car hirer about whether a larger suitcase than the current one will fit into the boot of the car I’m hiring, and that may continue for several days. I’ll at least try to pack the existing case, but I suspect that, with all the camping gear, too much will be left for the pack.

For the eventuality that the camera were rendered inoperable, I decided to buy a couple of reserves, and pretty soon found what I wanted on ebay. In one auction I was just too late (although I got there in the final seconds of the auction), and in another later that evening I was pipped at the post. It turned out that that pipper was some kind of joker, so I was offered the camera a couple of days later for my highest bid, which was €19. Around the same time there was a pair of cameras (Canon A460 as well as an A470) on offer for just on €20 together having sat in the cupboard for the last few months.

When they arrived I put CHDK to action and read out how many pictures each of these three had taken. I was considering taking bets as to whether any of them had taken more than 1,000 pictures and was right in two of three cases. For the pair of cameras sold together, the A470 had taken 524, and the A460 all of 26. The other A470 had taken 1,633. For comparison, my A470 has taken 137,520, mainly in the last year in timelapse preparation. OK, the exteriors were a little scratched, and they had been carried around quite a bit, but hey, these are brand new, even if dispensable items. I think I’ll save the A460 for the “Four Seasons” time lapse project at the end of 2015.

The only fly in the ointment is that these A470s have 3 different firmwares, and there is no way of actually downloading firmware and bringing them all up to one level. However, the CHDK for two is identical, so they will be the cameras I take on the Whanganui, and the other I will take on the sunset tour (February 13th) to Rangitoto, just in case the waves take their toll.

Speaking of the Whanganui, I got myself a partner. I had signed up via Yeti Tours in Ohakune for the 5 day trip starting February 16th, as they had a pair of canoeists starting on that day. I had asked Yeti to establish contact for me, but I haven’t heard anything from them yet, and neither has Yeti. In any case just on two weeks ago, a person from Nuremberg reported for duty, and since then there has been a tsunami of chats and emails, now continuing within the two windows of opportunity allowed by 12 hours’ time difference. Will introduce her at the suitable time.

Which leads to a problem that shouldn’t have been one, but needed solving anyhow. I know that public transport in Auckland is a bit of an oxymoron, but in my experience, buses do run every now and then, and I was therefore trying to work out how I might get from my airport hotel to Chinara’s place on day 1, a Wednesday. But I didn’t reckon with at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry and a most bizarre way of dealing with local time. In fact they have achieved what Deutsche Bahn can only dream of achieving: They have restructured time, space, and meaning.

I entered my details: The hotel’s road to start, “Onewa Rd” as destination, the date of the Wednesday, and 10:00 am as starting time.

The results that were offered were very disappointing; the only buses ran too late at night to be of any help. I thought I must have chosen a gummy bus stop, and eventually just gave up and left it to when I would be at the hotel, and they might have a better idea of when the buses ran.

But then I needed a bus to get into town on Friday afternoon for the kayak tour, and then a bus early on Saturday morning to connect with the bus to Ohakune. Again the same weird results with waiting times of about 12 hours.

And then it clicked. The site was correcting for the time zone of the enquirer. In effect it was saying, “If you want to leave the hotel at 10:00 am on Wednesday CET, the next bus is at 10:20 pm NZDT.” And sure enough if I put in leaving Chinara’s at 7:00 pm on Friday (CET), I got the buses that left after 7:00 am on Saturday (NZDT).

Whhaaaaatttt! Methinks someone in pure kindness to their horse has buttered the horse’s hay. I suppose this serves well to take the mickey out of Aussies who, getting slightly weird result, would not consider it so weird as to be unbelievable, and might wait around at a bus stop for 3-4 hours expecting a bus.

It’s time for the time zones to coalesce.