Tallypalooza 2010

[Talitha]

In an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Jeepfest and other meets, I announce the great Kiwi Meet of 2010. (I have had trouble thinking of a good name, so you may hear this thing also refered to as Kiwiblat, Kiwiesta, Tallython, etc...)

The dates are 6-13 January 2010 whenever you can make it (late Dec to mid Jan seems popular!)
Unless you're Australian or NZ, it's a long way to come, so you can stay longer if you want to make it worthwhile. Coming for the week prior is optional for all. Coming for the week afterwards is optional by arrangement with me.

I live in Palmerston North, New Zealand. All established GL and Mafiascum members are very welcome. I'll look after you, provide most meals, transport, etc. Depending on how many people come, it might not be the most luxurious vacation you ever had.. eg. bathroom shared with 17 others, sleeping in a tent in backyard. But it will be summer and it should be fun. You're welcome to make other accommodation arrangements if you want. Also, Amb lives very close by.

I'm hoping there will also be a trip to somewhere else for a few nights so you can see some more of the country. I'll try and figure this out soonish.

Re: getting here. You basically have 3 options.
1st and best for me: Palmerston North (Airport code = PMR)
2nd and 2 hours drive from here: Wellington (WLG)
3rd and likely cheapest for flying to: Auckland (AKL)

I can get a big people-mover and pick people from Auckland if they are all arriving within the same day or two. Otherwise you'd need to fly to Palmerston North or Wellington, or take an 8 hour bus or train to Palmerston North. (You can get some pretty cheap flights between Auckland and Palmerston North when they are on special, so consider booking this leg of the journey separately.) If you can find a good priced ticket to get you to Auckland, but a ticket to PN or Wellington costs lots more, just get the ticket to Auckland and then we can work out the best option to get you from Auckland to here. If it doesn't cost much more to get to Wellington, you should take that option, and I'll certainly pick you up. If your long haul flight happens to be with Air New Zealand or a partner airline of theirs, it might work out best to book with them all the way through to Palmerston North.

So, let me know if you are interested!

[j_s*]

/in! I ll get you my flight info as soon as I am able.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

The following post is largely for my amusement, but I figure I may as well share. Feel free to ignore everything contained herein.

[Talitha]

Yeah it doesn't seem like there's any great specials on at the moment. I would expect some significantly cheaper fares to appear sometime in the next few months.

If you book AKL to PMR separately though, right now you can get return flights (2nd and 16th January, airnewzealand.com) for NZ$170. At the current exchange rate that is about US$90 for AKL-PMR-AKL

[Tal*]

I have booked Sixtus Lodge for 8-10 January.

The farm over the road offers horse riding if we are interested.

[mole]

Don't pass up your chance to visit the home of the famous GL Kakapo!

[MNOWAX]

[MatthewV]

I appears to be costing around 2000-25000 round trip from Anchorage. I will consider this, depending on my employment status.

[Poisonium]

My age says no.
_________________
I tried apt-get install lifebut it only returned E: Couldn't find package life

[Amb*]

I will seriously consider filling my car up with petrol and driving over to Talithas place.

I potentially have a room or two available. It all depends on how many flatmates I have staying here at the time.

[Green Crayons]

I strongly support this happening again in a few years when I'm not already saving up for a vacation. I hope it's a success!

[Zag]

Not that I really think we'd be able to come, but just in case... We've always wanted to visit that part of the world.

How are you fixed for wheelchair access? There's no way I could go without bringing my lovely wife, and she is in a powered wheelchair, which means no stairs at all. We can optionally bring along her manual chair, which means we can handle a stair or two (counting on my strong back), but also means that she is completely dependent on others for locomotion over anything other than flat floor.

Zag

[Talitha]

Zag, there are a couple of steps up to my house, but nothing major. I believe most public places here are accessible for wheelchairs.
I'm positive there would be people willing to help you with lifting when needed. (I would be happy to help.)

[wordcross]

If one were inclined to pick up a date on the way...

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/hook-up-airway
_________________
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

[Talitha]

Anyone who wants to enter a draw for free flights to NZ, check out:
http://www.newzealand.com/thegreatkiwiinvite/

If you're interested PM me your email address and real name. The winners are drawn on 27th August.

[MatthewV]

Can we get Amb (or other Kiwis) to invite us also?

[Talitha]

Indubitably!

Just need to harrass him I would think.

[Amb]

I can invite you. *Invite*

I hear MatthewV is going to bike down.

[MatthewV]

I guess we didn't win.
I bicycled last time. I would have to do something crazy like kayak down this time.

[Tally*]

I checked the list of winners and none of my invitees were on there.

Kayaking or sailing are good ideas, but you'll have to leave now.

Failing that I suggest you practise folding yourself neatly in half. We may be able to slip you into groza's suitcase.

[Amb]

Incidentally, for anyone that comes there could be an optional trip to visit an Alpaca farm. Not strictly a standard kiwi tourism thing, but hey it is available...

[Talitha]

This farm?

[Tal*]

Update: In 2 months time groza is coming to NZ for 2 weeks!

Amb + Tally + groza definitely has the makings of a meetup.

[Talitha]

+1!

We have a dude called 'Primate' from Mafiascum coming.

[Amb*]

Thats 4! One more and we can have a round of mafia!

[Tally*]

And "PJ" (petroleumjelly from mafiascum) grants amb's wish!

This is who we have so far:

Amb (Is likely to be unavailable for 1 week, not sure actual dates)
Talitha
groza528 (In NZ from 31 December to 14 January)
petroleumjelly (In NZ from 30 December to 7 January)
Primate (In NZ from 31 December to 22 January, probably doing some independent travel during some of it)

[Tal*]

From the look of it I should go change the official dates from 6-13 Jan, to whenever-the-hell-you're-here-that's-when-it-is.

[groza528]

Kiwifest 2010, Day 1:

The party is a bit smaller than originally planned; there are only the three of us visiting, which as it turns out is exactly the right number to muck up my travel plans entirely.
When I booked my flight to New Zealand, I was the only one. For convenience to Tally I booked my flight basically to arrive at her front door (that is, if Kiwis had front doors-- more on that later). Little did I know that PJ and Primate of Mafiascum would completely overlook this courtesy and book to Auckland, a mere seven-hour-drive north, one before me and one after. On reflection, Auckland was the better choice anyway because it meant we got to visit some of the touristy parts of North Island on the drive home. To any extent, my flight had a layover in Auckland so I assumed I could simply cancel the last leg of the flight and join the rest of the group. Air New Zealand did not agree.
The Air New Zealand representative with whom I spoke informed me that because the trip was a single booking, they had no way of cancelling a single leg. "Missing" the flight was also not an option because they are in fact capable of cancelling *three* legs, namely the three that would return me home, and I promised my boss that I'd probably come back (though I nearly missed that flight legitimately because the LA-Auckland flight was delayed; I wonder if they would have been forced to rebook me on a flight I didn't want to take?) Long story short, it seemed the best option was to book a one-way return flight from Palmerston North *back* to Auckland 75 minutes after I arrived. Actually, I think that was cheaper than the cancellation fee too-- two flights for the price of none! As an added bit of humor, the ANZ representative had an accent I didn't recognize and pronounced 'Auckland' like 'Oakland.' I was sorely tempted to verify I was not being put on a 12-hour flight from Los Angeles to Oakland.
So I arrived in Auckland, said hello to Talitha and PJ and handed off my luggage, arrived in Palmerston North, said hello to Talitha's two daughters and their grandfather, then finally arrived in Auckland to ring in the New Year. In the meanwhile, PJ and Talitha went to the cinema and got a parking ticket.
That first day we had a brief walk along a small Auckland beach and went to a shopping mall to unsuccessfully search for a raincoat for my sister and a frisbee for the lot of us. The mall closed early due to the bank holiday, so we took a short walk on the beach and spent a bit of time at the home of Tally's cousin who was kind enough to put us up for two nights while she was celebrating elsewhere. For the moment of the New Year we watched the fireworks over Auckland's Sky Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the southern hemisphere-- I had to doublecheck when I read that, but Kuala Lumpur is indeed north of the equator. After that it was back to the Auckland airport to retrieve Primate.
Primate was able to locate us despite my cryptic rebus of a sign (Optimus Prime followed by the number eight; I still think [2357] 8 would have been better but I wasn't permitted to erase my drawing of Optimus once I'd done it). And with that, the gang was all there! Well, excepting Amb who was spending the New Year with his girlfriend, and whom I still haven't yet met. The four of us returned to Tally's cousin's home and tried to chat for a bit, but I for one was succumbing to jet lag and it was after 1am to boot.

[Courk]

So you went to Aukland, completed your journey to Palmerston, then at Palmerston got on a plane back to Aukland? How long did that take?

[groza528]

The round trip from Auckland to Palmerston North added about three and a half to four hours to my trip.

Kiwifest 2010, Day 2:

The morning of the second day was pretty uneventful. We slept a decent portion of it. I was the second up after Tally, which I suppose made me the most jet-lagged. I suppose it could mean I was the best rested... from... being the most jet-lagged the previous night...
We prepared (well, mostly Tally prepared) a picnic lunch of some ham sandwiches, World-Famous-in-New-Zealand L&P cola, Monteith's ale without a bottle opener, and some chips, which to my surprise *are* called chips in New Zealand, and not crisps like in the UK. Then we packed it all up with our dreams of a frisbee and went to a much larger beach than the previous day, at Piha.
PJ and Tally got their feet wet in the Tasman Sea a bit, but Primate and I were much more interested in ascending Lion Rock for a) the exercise and b) the view. The history lesson from the informative placard was an added bonus. There was quite a nice view from Lion Rock, though the actual summit was blocked off due to unstable rocks. We got to the permissible top just in time to turn a blind eye to a smallish child climbing over the padlocked wooden gate. After descending we clambered around the rocks at the base of Lion Rock a bit; I think Primate mainly wanted to see what was on the other side but I just enjoy hopping around dubious terrain.
Leaving the beach turned out to be more of an adventure than I expected, because it was here that I chose the worst possible venue for my debut to driving in New Zealand. For starters, in New Zealand cars drive on the left side of the road, which I am not accustomed to, so it took me a bit to figure out how the car is situated on the road. I had to calibrate myself by dropping the left wheel.* But that much would be true anywhere. What really made this interesting is that the road to Piha has more hills and curves than the entire state of North Dakota. It is also very narrow and has no shoulder to speak of. Finally, New Zealand drivers have a bad habit of riding or slipping over the center line, a practice which is counterintuitively and infuriatingly augmented around blind corners. My passengers became very quiet during this drive, and I respectfully restrained from disturbing their prayers.
Seeing as I was the only one to escape the beach without a sunburn --a feat I credit to my German training in skin-preservation-- we spent the rest of the day indoors. We played a game I brought called Party Poopers, which I had never played-- it was alright but probably better suited to a larger crowd and players who know one another a bit better. We also played a Scrabbloid game called Bananagrams that PJ is ridiculously good at. In the interest of fairness he imposed a restriction against two-letter words on himself. Finally we played some Euchre.
For dinner we atempted to grill some steaks from Talitha's uncle's dairy farm. We spent a good ten minutes trying to unstick the starter button before realizing it was all moot; we were out of propane. So Tally grilled the steaks on the stove. We had a traditional New Zealand meal of large quantities of meat and sparse vegetables, in part because the steaks were all frozen together and we had to cook about twice as many as we had originally intended to eat.

^{*That's my story and I'm sticking to it.}

[groza528]

Day 3:

After a lazy morning, we got on the road and began to head to Talitha's home in Palmerston North. We had three objectives for the day:
1 - Blackwater rafting at the famous Waitomo caves
2 - Meet up with Amb and his girlfriend fiancée in Hamilton if they were available
3 - Reach Rotorua before the youth hostel sold our room to somebody else.
The Waitomo caves are a fairly extensive system of caverns on North Island, but what they're really known for is their glowworms. Larvae of the genus Arachnocampa use their bioluminescent rear ends to attract prey to their sticky, silky "fishing lines." The worms themselves are about two to three centimeters (roughly an inch), but in the dark you just saw glowing green specks above you.
Blackwater rafting isn't quite what it sounds like; I was not the only one to infer that it was like whitewater rafting underground. In reality, they give you an inner tube and a wetsuit and you mostly float along in the dark-- we were given LED headlamps but turned them off for most of the journey. There certainly aren't many rapids, which is probably for the best, and really there wasn't even a strong current; for much of it we were pushing off of walls or trying to swim in our gumboots. Personally I had my own fun confusing the strangers behind me by bracing myself against both side walls and pushing up so they thought the water was only waist deep at that spot.
Now on to number two: Meeting up with Amb. We gave Amb a call from the Watiomo parking lot, as Hamilton would be backtracking a bit. Unfortunately, Amb's fiancée had wanted to go to Auckland that day-- we may well have passed him on the road that morning.
So we continued our drive to Rotorua. We made it to the hostel by about 18:30, a bit later than the 14:00 Tally had originally told them, but they were still holding the room for us. Two out of three.
That night in Rotorua we did a bit of souvenir shopping and debated our dinner options, and ultimately decided to go to a restaurant called "Amazing Thai" if only to later make the joke "Y'know, that Thai was only very good." We changed our minds when we saw that they were adding a 15% surcharge for the bank holiday (for some reason 02 January is a bank holiday for kiwis too.) I may always wonder whether that Thai was really amazing or not.

[groza528]

Day 4:

This was a pretty full day and we're headed to Wellington this morning, but I'll do my best to make it through first.
First thing in the morning we awoke to visit Wai-O-Tapu, a geothermally active area exploited as a tourist trap. The big attraction there was the Lady Knox geyser which plays at 10:15 every morning (named for the not-quite-notable daughter of Governor Uchter Knox). We decided to take the two-hour tour of the other attractions *before* the geyser, to beat the crowds, which was certainly the correct choice. My particular favorite was the Painter's Pallette, where localized metal oxides and other deposits created different colors on various parts of the pool.
The geyser was maybe 10-15 minutes late; at first I presumed that the 10:15 target was deliberately rounded down so those who were trailing wouldn't miss it. What I didn't realize was that the geyser eruption is actually an artificial phenomenon created by the introduction of a surfactant, which made it a bit less spectacular. This leads me to wonder if Old Faithful in Yellowstone is a contrived name itself.
For lunch back in Rotorua we sampled New Zealand's Hell Pizza. It was decent pizza, but I must say it's a great restaurant theme. The classic pizzas are named for the seven deadly sins. We sampled envy and lust; the latter I being a *cough* meat-lover's.
[To Be Continued]

[Amb]

[jelly]

[???*]

So, are you going to fill us in on the remainder of the trip?

[groza528]

I wasn't convinced anyone was actually paying attention Sure, I'll continue. Sadly I believe I have left my notes in Palmerston, so the rest will be from memory and some photos.

Day 4, Part 2:
Certainly the most unusual part of the trip for me was an activity known as zorbing. For those of you who do not know what zorbing is, and you are not alone I assure you, the basic gist is that you are strapped inside a large, transparent, inflatable ball. One you have secured yourself to the inner wall of this ball, you are pushed down a hill. The other option available was to ride in the ball with a few inches of water, though not strapped in; sort of a self-contained waterslide. I opted for the drier, dizzier version. It was quite unique.
After this we visited a Māori village (note the accent on the a; the word is not spelled correctly without it, though this is a relatively new development so you may notice its omission in older texts.) Honestly, when I first heard about the Māori, I had no idea they were still around. I assumed they were like the aborigines (who are probably *also* still around, just to spite and embarrass me). We did not take the guided tour, but we did see an Anglican church in Māori architecture, as well as the exterior of a meeting house. The meeting house was padlocked-- I suppose the interior is too sacred for us mere mortals.
During the rest of the drive back we stopped a few times to visit some waterfalls along the way, including Huka Falls. Apparently kayaking is to Huka Falls what riding in a barrel is to Niagara: Very dangerous, very illegal, and therefore appealing to those with surplus adrenaline. I thought it would be fun to give it a try but I left my kayak in my other trousers.
One of the activities we had considered but didn't even end up looking into, unfortunately, was a spot in Taupo known as "Puzzle World." We'd had a rather full day by that point and were really just looking to get home to Palmerston North. Their website seems to paint them as more of a funhouse or arcade rather than anything particularly puzzly, so perhaps it's just as well.
Dinner was fish and chips, New Zealand style: a heap of chips in the center of the table, our respective fish in front of us, and no flatware.
Then we reached Palmerston North and met Tally's family: Dave and their two daughters Heidi, 5 (whom some of you may remember as "The Lump") and Abigail, 7. We also met their cats: Virginia and her six new kittens, and Victoria, the father-- surprise! The kittens are adorable and were a barrel of laughs for the rest of the trip-- my favorite kitten story was when the kitten we called Four of Six (no, they did not all have such utilitarian names) tried to climb up the side of the couch by means of the cushion that was leaning against it; no doubt you can predict what happened when that cushion suddenly became topheavy.
Aside: There are two big things I noticed about kiwi buildings that struck me as incongruous. One was the toilets: besides the "half-flush" button that is evidently a remnant of the maintenance done beneath the Auckland reservoir, they were unusual in that they were not located in the same room as the shower and sink. The second abnormality was, as I mentioned briefly, several kiwi homes do not have a front entrance, or at least not one that sees any regular use. Certainly I know people in the United States who regularly enter their homes through the side door or the garage, but all of them have a well-groomed entrance facing the street. This is not always the case in New Zealand.
Thus concludes day 4.

[Amb]

[Tal*]

Uh, I'll look, but I'm not hopeful. You guys know that every spare scrap of paper is shredded and used as kitty litter.

[Courk]

I watched this show a while back where a young marathon runner, a young survivor, and an old aborigine raced across part of the outback. The young guys had power bars and water bottles and the like, the aborigine had a stick. They all more or less tied, arriving within minutes of each other, after a day or more walking through the outback. The aborigine was amazing.

[groza528]

Yeah, I actually figured the aborigines were still around too, but for some reason they seem to fall under the category of "lost civilizations" to me as well. Perhaps because they've lost a lot of the... ritual? You know, like westernization has removed, or at least reduced, the quintessence of being aborigine.
PS Tally, my notes would be near Blake's computer I believe, if they're still around. But it's not that important-- I usually have a halfway decent memory.