Australian Open

Smart things to do during a 45 degree heat wave:

• Stay inside the air conditioned ship.
• Go to an air conditioned movie theater.
• Attend a tennis match in a open air stadium with 15,000 other people

Hmm one of these seems like a bad idea. Despite the hottest temperatures in Melbourne in over 100 years, (45C) a group of us had bought tickets for the Australian Open. We bought the tickets before the heat wave hit, but it was still a great event.

The tickets were for the evening game but we were allowed into the grounds at 5pm, but there was another match underway so we couldn't take our seats until that one ended.

This meant that we had to sit outside, thankfully in the shade, but still way to hot to do much of anything.

During the matches they were saying that on the court in the sun it was reaching 140F, cant imagine how anyone could play tennis in that kind of heat. And there were a few players that had to quit because of that.

It turns out that we got very lucky because the stadium operators decided to close the roof, cant imagine why they didn't do it many days before.

So thankfully once we got into our seats it was very survivable.

Now to the match. We were watching the men's quarterfinals. And happened to be lucky enough to get to see the world's #1 player Rafael Nadal vs. Giles Simon.

Nadal was playing a great game and it was easy to see how he is #1 in the world. Some of his shots were amazingly accurate. Simon put up a good fight and had a chance to win the second and third set but Nadal eventually won both and took the match in strait sets. 6-2 7-5 7-5.

I got some great pictures and movies.

If the roof wasn't closed I'm not sure if I would have been able to handle the temperatures for the whole match.

It was really cool to be able to go to a Grand Slam tennis match, and to see a playoff match, involving the best player in the world, was very lucky.

White Water Rafting

I went white water rafting as a tour escort the other day. It was fun, even if the rapids were not all that crazy.
The tour is created with the average age of the guests we get, (old) so they cant have us doing any class 5's.


That being said possibly the scariest part was how we had to enter the rafts. We had to climb down a steep set of rocks that although are somewhat like steps, they were more like jagged rocks then steps, and any fall would have surely lead to broken legs/arms/hips. And we had a few old people there that I was praying were surefooted. But everyone made it to the rafts so all was well.

I didn't buy the pictures they took of us, so i don't have any pictures of the river, but i do have a few pics that of us in our gear.

The river was cool, and there were some fun rapids, and interesting scenery.

Another tour off the list

'Moving on up'

I'm moving on up, to the bow side. To a Delux cabin in the ... well still deck 2.

But I now have my own cabin, no more roommate, or top bunk.

The cabin is still around the same side, but now with just one bed and a desk to put my laptop on.

I was able to get this cabin, when the DJ who left, I talked to the person assigning cabins and found that I am more entitled to a single cabin then the DJ, so it was moving day durring the last cruise changeover.

I'll post some A/B pictures soon.

Hobbiton

I got to go to the Hobbiton movie set the other day. It’s the only Lord of the Rings film site that still has some of the set pieces left in place.

The tour also included going to the Waitmomo Glow Worm caves in the same area. And that was what we did before Hobbiton. These are large limestone caves that are filled with stalactites. And also there are glow worms. They are small worms that when they form a cocoon they give off light kind of like a firefly. They also hang down spider web like stands that catch bugs that are attracted to the glowing light. Inside the caves there were thousands of them and it was like looking at a star filled sky.

After the caves and lunch, we went to Hobbiton.

The story of Peter Jackson finding the film site is that he and a producer were flying over the area in a helicopter, and when he saw the farm that was eventually chosen he landed at the owner’s home on the farm land, and went to talk to the him. After knocking a few times the owner finally came to the door looking annoyed, and said “What do you want?” and they said that they wanted to talk to him about using some of his land, but he said “I can’t talk right now I’m really busy.” They asked what he was busy with, and if they could help. He said the he was watching the rugby game and it was about to start.
He invited Peter Jackson in to watch the game, and New Zealand won, so I guess it put the farmer in a good mood, and the required land was eventually was leased for use.
This was also a good deal for the farmer who now makes over 3 million dollars a year from Lord of the Rings tourists.


There are many hobbit holes still left in the hill side as well as the party tree. Also Bilbo’s house is still there and you can go inside.
Also there are lots of pictures of the site during filming.

The Hobbiton film site was actually going to be demolished just like all the other sites, but half way into taking down all the props, a rainstorm stopped work on the site, and before it could be restarted, there had been so many requests from tourists to see the site that they were able to negotiate a deal to leave the rest of the hobbit holes in place.

Also they plan to film The Hobbit at the same place, so possibly they will be able to keep more of the set after that movie is done.

Return to the Shire

Tommorow I will be going on the Hobbiton Lord of the Rings film site tour. This is the hardest tour to be an escort for, because everyone tries to sign up for it.

Paintballing

A large group of us went paintballing in Dunedin. There were 26 of us in total. We split up into teams, so it was entertainment, and shorex vs. casino, shops, and spa. We played a total of 6 games. The first 2 were capture the flag. With so many people on each team, it was very unlikely that anyone would make it to the enemy’s flag and back to their base safely. Because once you were hit you only had to tag a central cone and then go back to your base and you were back in the game.

I didn’t hit too many people in the first 2 games, one or two only I think, but I didn’t get hit many times either.

The second 2 games I did much better. The game was called ‘Saving Private Ryan’ so named because of the movies opening scene of the d-day landing. There was a box shaped like a landing craft with the same sort of front door that would fall open. So one team starts in the box, and the other thankfully had to start a ways away. But they did get 5 seconds to move upon the landing craft before the door was dropped. Once you hit, your out in this game.
I wisely put myself near the front of the craft, allowing me some time to get out and behind a barrier before the other team was in position. I was able to take out around 5 of the other team, thanks to small openings in the barrier I was using that allowed me to shoot without exposing myself. I was the last one left on my team to get taken out.
When the other team had their turn in the landing craft it was payback time. When the starting horn was blown we sprinted to the ridge that looked down on the landing craft, and found many people still exiting the craft, easy targets. In the middle of this game I had to run back to our base, to get more paint from another teammate. I was, with one other on my team, the last left unhit in that game. Pinning down the last left on the other team, who was hiding behind the same barrier that I had used in the previous game.

The final 2 games were again capture the flag. I fared much better then the first 2 games, taking out quite a few of the other team, but near the end of the second game, many of us were running out of paintballs, and during the last 2 minutes my last few shots were used stopping someone advancing on our base, but when the referees, called out one minute to go, we had only 1 person with any paint at all, the game ended just as one of the other team rushed our base and would have taken us all out.

It was a very fun day, and I escaped with no large welts or bruises, unlike some others, who had some very nice marks of battle.

Poker streak is over

Well my streak of finishing in the top 2 in our poker games is ended at 6. I split pot in the first game we played today, but the second game I burned out early.

That's what I get for playing aggressive and not sticking to my playing style.

Pictures from Milford Sound during our last crossing

Here are some extra Sydney pictures

2 Nights in Sydney

We were in Sydney again and I did some of the standard touristy stuff, that I haven’t had time for yet.

The first day, I had lunch at a restaurant in the Rocks then walked to the Opera House, I was with one of the singers from the ship’s shows, and she almost got us backstage at the Opera House. The choreographer for one of the shows at the opera house also does the shows for the ship. We had security at the stage entrance call to see if he was around, but it wasn’t to be, he was offsite.

After that we walked to the botanical gardens. One thing I noticed as we walked around was that in nearly every tree we looked at there were hundreds of bats hanging from the top branches. Apparently they are a migratory bat that comes round every year, and they are somewhat damaging to the gardens, but there isn’t anything they can do about it. Lots of cool stuff in the gardens, there was a fountain that is activated by a sensor on the tiles around it. On the way back to the ship we stopped at a coffee/chocolate shop near the ship, I got a really good chocolate shake.

The next day a few of us took the ferry to Manly Beach, the waves were good sized, would have been fun to go body surfing, but I had no board. We had fish and chips near the beach, and walked around the beaches. It was very busy that day, as it was Sunday. The ferry going back to Sydney was packed and we had to wait for the second ferry before we were able to board, and that one was full as well.

After that we walked across the Harbour Bridge, and to Luna Park, the small amusement park that is at the shore on the other side of the bridge. This a fun fair that is built in a style after Coney Island, and has been in the same spot for 100 years, but only reopened 15 years ago after a fire a while ago. We played a few of the carnival games but didn’t win. There are a few rides at the park that are exactly the same as what we have at home in playland: The Wild Mouse, which had the same name, and also the one that plays music and the cars go backwards faster and faster.

After that we walked back across the ship and had dinner at a restaurant in the Rocks where you pick out your steak and then cook it yourself. It was a very tasty steak and it was good to be able to just sit down after walking around all day.

Heads Up

Well,

After 3 times coming in second on our poker games, i finally won a game.

Catching a lucky jack on the river to double up, I made it to the final 2 and was able to win.

But on the second game I got ripped off by the cards. heads up with a king queen vs a pair of 5's. i get a queen on the flop, only to see a 5 on the turn. Lost the big game today, but still won at least one.

Thats 5 games in a row finnishing in the top 2. At least I won one of them.