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Sorry-Wanaka borrowed me...

10/10/2016

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​It's kind of ironic that settling into a place became the death sentence of my blog. But I have a feeling Wanaka does that. Then winter arrived, and with work, skiing and everything in between, sitting down to post something has barely crossed my mind. Although the snow gods delivered the goods again in the week and spring is definitely here, a little too much "fomo" trampolining a few days ago has left led to me spending the last 3 days fairly incapable of doing much, let alone making the most of some prime spring skiing. So, day 4 and I've finally out procrastinated myself into a state that leaves trying to revive this page the only thing left to do.

So what have I been doing? The Pioneer finished in Queenstown and after the best part of a month doing odd jobs, staying with various people and on various sofas I upgraded to "The Cupboard" Kings Drive, Wanaka. Unfortunately the hunt for the type of design and making work I found up north wasn't making any ground. Caleb who I had met in Morzine and whose cupboard I was living in put me in touch with a local builder, Perry. I've been working with Perry since. Almost exclusively on his own place just out side town. We'll be putting the finishing touches together over the next couple of weeks, and after my initial internal struggle over not really finding what I'd set out for I'm starting to realise how much I've learnt over the last couple of months. Not only that but how lucky I am to have found such an easy going guy to work for. 

Perry has been a stand out and we've squeezed in the odd powder day when the snow has been on point.  I'm stoked to have been part of their project and to have seen a whole build take place while living in an insanely beautiful part of the world.

It's not all been sunshine and rainbows there's been a couple of hiccups, both physical and mental but all in all, life is good in the southern hemisphere.

Weekends at the end of summer were spent exploring, from hut missions with strangers to catching up with increasingly old friends. Since the snow arrived I've done my best to make the most, weekend warrior style....

So I thought I'd share a few pictures, kinda miscellaneous adventures of the last few months in Wanaka. Over the next couple of weeks I might even go into some more detail on the bigger ones. Chronocologicallishly.
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Meg Hut- "Strangers have the best candy"
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Hooker Lake, Mount Cook - Snap, Caleb Riding
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Roys Peak - Birthday Suits
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Mace town - Autumn
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Gillespie Pass
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Milford Sound - Turning 24
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Dunedin surf trip
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Meg Hut, Winter - More strangers, more candy
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She popped over
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Wanaka
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The Pioneer - 7 Days of Racing, 569kms of riding, 15,273m of climbing.

2/5/2016

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As with most of the volunteers for me the Pioneer came around purely by chance, Martin, who I had been staying with, mentioned he was involved in this huge MTB race on the South Island. I checked out the website, it looked right up my street and I hadn't found anything to keep me in Auckland. 7 days volunteering for free food and travel was by far a more exciting prospect than continuing the job hunt up North. I got in touch and snagged a last minute spot.

This sort of event attracts a variety of people and for various different reasons. Riders raced in pairs through some of the most beautiful and brutally rugged terrain in the world, on a course designed to drive individuals, friendships, marriages to their absolute limit. Once they were there, it asked a little bit more. Aside from the elite teams who came to win, or train for the season ahead, the majority of the field came to finish. We were treated to various inspirational stories after dinner each night and early on the respect that the competitors held for one and other was apparent. This spirit of personal endeavour combined with a total appreciation for being part of something very special while sharing in the agony endured to achieve a goal, summed up The Pioneer for me.
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​I've been pretty slack recently so since entries have now opened for next year's race I figured it was about time I shared some snaps...oh and a cheeky little video.
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Basically I spent a week putting up a serious amount of tents, between us, roughly 400 a day. When I wasn't I was seeing parts of the country that very few people get to see, way out in the ranges. And the whole time was spent with a wicked group of people. A wee cog, and part of something great.

Do ex-volunteers get discounted entry for next year?

Click this for more info on the event and a whole TV episode in which I don't feature once! Gutted.
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Catching up - My last week on the up north

22/3/2016

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The week before I was due to leave Auckland Rupert called me reminding me that his exhibition was opening on Waiheke over the weekend. We arranged to meet at the ferry on the Friday and head over. Martin and Jane have a place on the island and very kindly said I was more than welcome to stay there, Martin even gave me a couple of days' work on their new place on the Monday. 

The exhibition was awesome, a collection of Auckland newest talent, through such a range of media. Rupert's Kauri dining table was in a prime spot in the main exhibition and I hadn't seen it finished, someone has to buy it, it's incredible. It was pretty cool to see the side table I worked on in there too, and to see peoples interest in it! The night got slightly less genteel pretty quickly after a few cocktails at dinner... So good to catch up with Laura and Dai, who I had crashed with before Christmas and Jo and Dom, who was completely unsuspecting of his big birthday surprise the next day. Dai nearly gave the game away somewhere into his third "sex on the beach" 

I spent the weekend catching up with family Kinnear, exploring the coastline, fishing, and being part of a family I spent so much of my childhood with. Its amazing to see people from home so far from it. DK and TC thanks so much for having me.

Martin and Jane  a belated thank you for everything, your generosity made those first couple of weeks so much more manageable. Hopefully I'll see you all soon!  ​​
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Catching up- Pottering round Auckland 

27/2/2016

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​Over the weekend with Vaness I had managed to get in touch with Martin, a Kiwi who had worked back home with my uncle Dave way back, 30 years ago. They were kind enough to invite me to stay at their place in Mt Eden while I found my feet, I was relieved to be out of out of a hostel, financially more than anything and it gave me a really comfortable base to be able to carry on looking for work. Martin mentioned fairly early on that he was going to be driving down to Christchurch in a couple of weeks to volunteer as part of the crew running a mountain bike race from Christchurch to Queenstown and I should give them a shout to see if they had anymore spaces, so I did and they did. With a deadline set for a free ride south for what sounded like a pretty awesome trip I spent the next week or so trying to line up a job to come back to. I met some awesome people and really cool companies, most of whom were willing to meet me for a chat if nothing else to find out more about what I was looking for.

Christian a mate from last winter put me in touch with Eleri a rad welsh girl, whose been over in NZ for a while now. She was keen to show me what Auckland had on it's doorstep! We met up and escaped the city for a couple of surfs up at Muriwai and Orewa. Mid job hunt, a couple of sunset paddles kept things cruisey. Surfing wise something might click if I manage to put some more time in soon. Tar Eleri!

I managed to spend some time drawing too.
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Catching up- Back in New Zealand

22/2/2016

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Coming back to New Zealand was really difficult, it annoyed me I felt like that, but it was off the back of an awesome couple of weeks somewhere I just didn’t feel ready to be leaving. It crossed my mind for sure that I could quite easily spend the next year in Aus, looking for the same sort of work as I am out here. It turned out I was way more sold on beach life than I ever thought I would be. I felt like I had rushed into my working holiday here when I could’ve been in Australia, but this is where I decided I wanted to be this year and there's no chance I’m gonna waste it! Timing really is a dick, but who in their right mind would be so reluctant to come back here. It’s just taken me a couple of weeks some very special people to realise that.

I flew back to Auckland on the 6th of Jan, up until this point travelling hadn’t really felt like travelling. My months holiday in Aus had lead straight into work with Rupert and back to another holiday in Aus. Pretty ridiculous. This time was different though, I was arriving without the comfort of going straight up to Rupert’s. I did have a loose plan, which involved putting a load of pressure on myself to find the same sort of work elsewhere on the North Island for the remainder of summer, at least for a couple more months before heading south for winter. A very loose plan, I’m writing this from Wanaka…
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I spent a day wandering round Auckland, printing CV’s, drinking coffee and just feeling slightly trapped between wanting to travel and finding work, gradually getting more frustrated. Then I got a message from Vaness, Vaness is a friend of Rupe and Lou’s. Who I had met twice before Christmas and briefly at that, she's french. We had a quick catch up over messenger and she picked up on the fact I was super grumpy. Instead of ignoring me I guess she figured she could help, so she told me to snap out of it and took me for a drive up to Piha to take some pictures.
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Thank you Vaness for slapping me with a dose of Piha, waves, sunset and fire dancers. It sorted me right out.
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As we started driving back Rupe called her, Lou had given birth to Lily. Perfectly timed news. 
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Australia II- Better late than never

13/2/2016

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It's a long time since Christmas but I thought I would share a few photos while I sort though a heap from the last couple of weeks. 

Having worked for Rupert for a few days it dawned on me that I hadn't got any plans for Christmas, and I hadn't really given myself the best chance to meet anyone to spend it with. Even though that changed by the end of my time with Rupe and Lou I was desperate to go back to Aus (having been semi invited) so I booked a flight for Christmas Eve.... I just neglected to tell Beth.

George's original plans had fallen through so he ended up being another stray taken in by the Wakelings, which Linda loved I'm sure. My first southern hemisphere Christmas turned out to be one of the best I've had, despite being so far from home, soz fam.

A couple more weeks of pottering around the sunshine coast followed until I flew back to Auckland a week or so into the new year.  
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Happy belated New Year! I will probably be playing catch up over the next few days so keep an eye.
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NZ take 1, Rupert and Lou

10/1/2016

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I arrived in New Zealand a few weeks before Christmas, straight off the back of having the most amazing time in Aus, and feeling way more settled and at home there than I ever thought I would. 


Months ago I was trawling google NZ for carpenters, furniture makers and designers, basically anyone who was making things that I liked in the hope that they might need a hand in their workshop and I could learn a thing or two. The first person that replied was Rupert Herring, I found his work on a site called ‘cleverdesign' that brings together a whole load of of Kiwi makers and provides an online platform for their work, it’s pretty special and well worth checking out. 


Anyway in our email correspondence that followed Rupe explained that he had just taken on a huge personal project North of Auckland, the scale of which I found out later. He also has an exhibition starting on Waiheke in a couple of weeks which he needed to make new pieces for. Oh and he and Lou were/are still expecting a baby. We made plans for me to arrive around the 7th of December, I could help with a couple of jobs around the house and get involved with the work for the exhibition. 
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They had only moved in a couple of weeks before I arrived but Rupe already had a sweet workshop setup and the house was so homely, Lou’s touch. It’s an incredible place, north of Wellsford, tucked well down a ‘metal’ road (dirt track) with land out the back and a view from the kitchen that makes washing up the job of the day. It looks out over rolling hills down to a tidal inlet with a cartoonish landscape on the far shore. It didn’t take long to have the grand tour, and Rupert to start spitballing all his ideas, the short of it being to set up a glamping retreat in their field behind , convert the garage to granny flat for longer term rentals, an outhouse that is currently the games room to a kitchen and lounge for campers as well as a full new workshop, office, exhibition space and coffee shop in another barn. So plenty to keep busy with. Having met them I know they will end up doing all that and more. They have so much energy and are directing it into a really special project, there is so much potential on their wee slice of NZ. 
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On my second day, Rupert chucked me straight onto one of his designs for the exhibition, the second in hopefully a series of hall tables made out of repurposed balustrades. I am so thankful for him trusting a complete random bloke with long hair to produce one of his designs (under his watchful eye), When I thanked him for taking a punt on me he just said "If you had f$%k%d it up I would've just had to make it again". Workshop life is pretty perfect with good music and good company. I'm pretty chuffed with how the table turned out.
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​I wrote a short kinda statement for Rupert and his work which really sums up my time with them and a lot of it is based around a mutual attitude to design.
"Our impact on the world is vast, and worryingly far from the limits of its extent. Some of us question our personal contribution to this on a daily basis, whilst the majority of us carry on without out a second thought, pausing every other week to take out the recycling. Then there is Rupert Herring, for whom recycling isn’t something to do because it’s what we “should” be doing. With a desire to create beautiful objects, a moral obligation to our planet and an aversion to consumerism and our throwaway society he has turned it into his livelihood.


Rupert’s work flirts along a delicate line between sculpture and furniture. Working almost entirely with found material, specifically timber, he sees wonder and potential far deeper than surface appearance and often completely detached from the materials original use. He aims to answer his own question, "why are we not using up what we already have?" The environment has already paid the price for so much, why take more? Rupert breaks the mould of the in-vogue concept of up-cycling, and far from simply using timber from pallets and whisky barrels, he searches for the beauty hidden in an objects original form. Through slicing, arranging, rearranging and even turning inside out he finds such beauty.

His work takes time, huge quantities of it, but he finds joy in the monotony of preparation and in the knowledge that the process has begun. The process which creates refined objects of a quality not often realised in found materials. Perhaps its his homage to the time it’s taken for the material to reach him or maybe to the new lease of life that he gives it and the will to make things to last far longer than a human life span. Probably all of the above, but in amongst all that it's because he is the sort of person who won’t let anything leave his workshop until it’s… ’nice’."
Thanks for having me guys it's been the perfect start to my time in NZ. Catch you soon.

Check out more of Rupert's work at http://www.thecleverdesignstore.com/designers/rupert-herring.html
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Road Trip, Part III, Mount Warning

22/12/2015

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George was easily swayed into switching up his plans and joining us for our final leg of the trip. Our last night was just over an hour inland of Byron Bay just below Mount Warning. We pitched our best camp to date at the bottom of a steep valley after an incredible drive from the coast. The bloke that 'greeted' us at the camp site had been having a pretty chilled day, his eyes were pretty far gone by the time we got there, around 4:23pm. He seemed chuffed we had prepaid and couldn't be arsed to charge for George, or checking the number of people on the booking. 

We went all out on camp dinner, fresh mint and rosemary that Beth had found were put to good use, all in preparation for climbing Mount warning in time for sunrise. The 3am start was well worth it. 
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Beth asked me a couple of days before if I preferred sunrises or sunsets, I said I didn't know but I had seen a lot more sunsets. Looking back I think it's pretty obvious, the start of the day is way more exciting than the end.

I left Aus a couple of weeks ago, thanks to everyone I met for making it so special, the Wakeling family for making me feel so at home and Beth, for sharing Mcventures.   
"I'll be back"
-Arnold Schwarzenegger
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Road Trip, Part II, Yamba and Byron Bay

13/12/2015

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I'm working through a back log of pics and bits and bobs. I've been in NZ for about 5 days and will having plenty to show for it soon, in the mean time, the second leg of our road trip.

Beth had a last minute interview the day after leaving Moreton so we drove back up the Sunshine coast for the night, before a slog south to Yamba, and a campsite just south at Redcliff. The weather was turning after two weeks of blue skies. We jumped out of Krudler, pretty stoked on the stormy outlook and had a blustery walk along the cliffs. We set up camp for the next couple of days of kangaroos, emus, back burning, and insane mid storm moonlit swims. Fairly Aussie.     
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The storm hit pretty heavily on our last morning, leaving us to take shelter and have a solid run of O and Xs in Krudler. The tent took a beating. Once it calmed enough to pack up we followed the storm towards Byron Bay and coincidently George, a mate from Uni. The weather peaked at some point that evening and we found ourselves in the middle of a 360° light show up at Byron lighthouse.
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Chase storms.

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Road Trip, Part I, Moreton Island.

6/12/2015

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After a chilled first week exploring some awesome local spots we packed up Krudler (a 27 year old, diesel chugging Land Cruiser, with nearly 500,000km under the hood and loves long walks on the beach) and drove to Moreton Island. The ferry from Brisbane takes just over an hour, we engaged 4x4, let some air out of Krudlers tyres and drove straight onto sand for 3 days of Island living. 
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So yeah, Moreton was mind blowing.  

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