The Calm Before The Storm

The All Blacks Performing The Haka

Just last week I finished work. Since the begining of July, most of my volcanology had been wrapping up the project that I had been pioneering for the last 8 months or so. Part of the wrapping up involved a day trip down to Wellington with my boss. There I had arranged a meeting with a whole host of people at GNS to discuss what I had been doing for half a year (cue presentation) and where we should take the borehole database project that I had created. It turned out to be very successful indeed. From the meeting discussions it was decided that GNS should create a national borehole database for the entire country by amalgamating all borehole data stored at GNS. One day, when you want borehole data from New Zealand and you go to the National Borehole Database to find what your looking for - just remember, that you may have never had access to such data if it hadn't been for the meeting that I had set up. Within a few weeks, my final report was in and I said a goodbye to all my work collegues that had become good friends over the last year. They put on a farewell morning tea for me and gave me a card and present too - which just highlights what amazing people they all are. I will certainly keep in touch with many of them.

With work complete, I was sitting in the calm before the storm. I had so many things planned, that were all going to hit me in one manic swoop. The first major event was a skiing trip, planned down at the Tongariro National Park, but before hand, Harriet and I had a very important sporting event to attend.......

......On a cold, windy night, at the Mount Eden Stadium, two brits, with only half an idea of what the hell was going on, turned up to see one of the biggest games of the year. The two brits were a Miss Harriet Willmott and myself and the sporting event was the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team take on their ultimate rivals - Australia (the Wallabies) in the Tri Nations Cup. In front of a packed stadium, we watched the gruesome battle unleashed. We were first treated to the Maori war dance that every All Blacks team performs before a game - The Haka. It was heard from everywhere in the ground and it looked scary from my seat at about 6km from the players. I think I would have ran away if I was an Australian Rugby player. However, it was the Wallabies who started the better - taking a comfortable lead by half time. The game was fierce and tackles were flying in at all angles as you would expect. Yet, the All Blacks are not a team to give up easily and by the end of the match, the kiwis had taken a 22-16 lead to win the game. We had the only All Blacks try down our end of the pitch too, which was good. The atmosphere at the end of the game was electric, and although we had spent most of the match huddled and shivering, we celebrated in style with our fellow New Zealanders. Harriet and I were fully dressed up in All Blacks gear and we partied all the way home and then continued the celebrations on late into the night.

Harriet and I had also been to Pat and Steve's (Harriet's Aunt and Uncle's) farm to spend some time with them. We were going on a skiing trip with them soon and so we all decided to do a couple of warm up rounds by going to Snow Planet - the dry ski slope, as practice. I had never been skiing before (only a day snowboarding), but luckily I had Pat and their friend Leith (both experienced skiers) to help. Harriet had done a bit of skiing before but not for years so we both took it very slowly. It was a lot of fun and with skiing I found that you could go a lot faster, a lot quicker than snowboarding - so I enjoyed it. Thats not to say I didn't fall over. Hell I was up and down like a yoyo and often I wasn't just falling over on my own - I would often take out the 6 nearest people around me too somehow.

Leith has been skiing for years and he's one of those folk who like to push the newcomers. You have to take a risk sometimes if you want to improve. By the end of my first ever skiing day, I was not only skiing down from the top of the run but I actually (still can't believe it myself), successfully made and landed a ramp jump. There are man made ramps all down the ski run and Leith said that I was ready to head straight for the big one. With ignorance on my side - I thought 'what the hell', and whizzed down the slope. I reached the ramp, flew straight over, leaping a few feet off the ground before landing with suprising ease. The first thing I thought is 'no-one will ever believe I did that', but luckily for me, Pat had photographed me all the way. Check out my New Zealand pics - there are four or five of me taking on the ramp.

We actually did two days at Snow Planet, the second day I appeared to be a lot worse than my first and I'm sure that me and Harriet took each other out on nearly every run. Still, we had both learnt the basics and we were ready for the real thing - bring on the mountain................