The Book of Ashes

The LONGEST month ever, upgrades and clothes purchases... 8:36AM

The days are flying by and I don't have a gun to shoot them down.

Not much has happened this week. It was a short week which rocks, only three days to work. Although I had to go in on Anzac day and do 1 hour with Crispy. It all went pretty sweet. So on Thursday this week I get my first pay check, proper pay check that is and I've spent most of it already. On Friday I ordered some upgrades for my computer. I am doubling the ram to 512MB (for a sweet $75), trippling the harddrive space by adding a 80GB harddrive and replacing the power supply with a bigger and quieter one so that my machine will put out less noise pollution. Seriously it makes a hell of a noise and it will be good to resolve this. So I am happy, I just have to wait till it all arrives. On top of that I went out clothes shopping with Bonnie and brought some new jeans, a long sleeved shirt and some casual cream pants. Now I am only 3 items (3 months) of clothes behind. All is good but now I have no money left to spend next month. Come on month. End. This has been the LONGEST month ever and its still not over.

So what have I got to say? The arms are holding up pretty well. Its good to be working again although the lack of free time sucks. I was so busy this weekend and very happy that I had three days instead of two. Winters starting to approach here. Its getting colder and the heater is starting to come on every once and a while.

Miscelaneous events: Catching up with Char and Simon (recently married) in their new house just up the road from us, bringing them some home made chocolate chipie biscuits and a CD with wedding photos from my digital camera on it. Watching a 3hr 20min DVD at Martins place, training with Master Lee (man its been awhile), purchasing a new stash of blank CDs, updating my Indexer program and submitting it to as many Shareware sites as I can find. Yeah I guess thats about it

The Tongariro Crossing 8:55AM

So I promised you photos from the Tongariro crossing and its been a while so I'm sorry. Here they are finally...

Tom and I walking at the start of the track...

Tom having a drink against the steep sides of the valley walls.

Ngarahoe, the beast we are soon to climb. It doesn't look so steep or hard yet but let me tell you it was a real bitch to get to the top.

Ash at the top of the pass. The hardest bits done now and its now an easy walk along the South Crator then a medium climb to the top. But just to make it more interesting Tom and I decided to take the 3 hour detour to the top of Ngarahoe and back. Also note the pack on my back which contains a tent and sleeping bag along with clothes and food. We decided to weigh it down to see how it would be carrying this on a proper tramp. It is Thomas's new pack and my new tent.

Tom and I wondering why we decided to take on this mountain. It was fucking steep!

You work out whats wrong with this picture (eg why Tom's legs are looking funny), if you need a clue then think about the sequence of the photos shown...

Looking back down the hill at a little kid we passed on the way up. We felt so sorry for him (our parents used to do this to us as well!).

Another photo of how steep it was. It had started to fog over by now.

Looking up the hill at Tom and the people we are about to pass. We're feeling pretty buggered by now.

Up near the top, a wicked black, cracked lava formed rock showing the power of the mountain. It goes from hot to cold so quickly the rocks don't even have enough time for form properly. By now it had started to snow lightly.

Tom at the top on the edge of the crator. We didn't get much view except for fog but we got good reception!

Ash at the top. I conquored the bastard!

The crator at the top. Check out how red the rocks are. If it wasn't for the snow this photo could have come from Mars.

The South Crator, it was pretty desolete. If it had been a little greyer it could have been the moon.

A cool rock formation along the ridge walking up to the highest point.

Looking back at the way we had just come.

This rock is sitting atop the ridge. As you can see we are nearly at the top and there is nowhere this could have fallen down from, except from the sky! and it seems it landed with suck impact that it cracked it all up... very cool!

Vents of steam rising out of the side of the mountain.

The emerald lakes.

The Tongariro Crossing part II 9:20AM

After this it was an easy stroll down the hill to the hut where we met mum then it was another two hours out to the other side. All up it took us six and a half hours to do a 9 hour trip. Not bad, not bad at all! It was an excellent trip as well which I would recomend to anyone (fit)