Josh & Rach

Good Bye New Zealand!

2007-06-05T09:36:00.000+12:00

We're outa-here!

Everything is finally in order! We're not happy to leave New Zealand, but we've waited six months for all of Rachael's paperwork, and it has finally arrived. We started the Canadian immigration process after our honeymoon in December, and now, in June, it has finally been completed.

After a family-filled weekend packed full of goodbyes, we're heading to the airport this afternoon. First to San Fransisco, then off to Calgary, where we'll drive to Banff. Our new home.

-Josh

Almost to Canada

2007-05-27T13:51:00.000+12:00

Well I hop everyone's having a good weekend. Down here we're back in Auckland after our trip. Everything went great. We ended up spending time with Rachael's family down in Timaru for our last day. Luckily the camper van rental company 'accepted' the state of the van when we dropped it off, so there were no extra charges.

Good News! After dealing with the Canadian Consulate in Sydney, Australia, we believe Rachael has finally been approved for her Canadian residency! It is pretty painful dealing with them, as I have had to wait FIFTY-SEVEN minutes before talking to someone. That's right!, an hour on the phone to the embassy before reaching a human. Well after sorting things out with them, which is a very slow process, I finally received a letter requesting Rachael's passport. We just pray that they receive it Monday, process it and send it back before Friday. If all goes well, then we'll be on a plane on June 5th.

We'll miss Ashley's birthday by a day, but she won't even be around, as she's on a tall ship in the pacific then, and most likely we'll pass over her at 30,000ft.

So it's only a waiting game. At least there's a few things that I can do for the week. Lots of possible computer jobs. Thank God for linux.

BloodToll - If you're into FPS Games, check this out. A multiplayer, online tournament game based on the OS 'Cube' engine that installed cleanly (Well almost cleanly) on both my linux laptop, and Rogers Windows XP machine. Even runs quick on lowered NZ broadband speeds. Neal says that the game's tuned to allow players on dialup play head-to-head with broadband players, and the tournament stays fast-as for all.

Anyways, keep in touch. And if you know a clean way for Postfix to use Spamassassin (SQL Userprefs, BayesStore, etc) without being dragged through maildrop, then definitely keep in touch.

Regards,
Josh

At the end of the long white cloud.

2007-05-20T12:19:00.000+12:00

Josh & I enjoyed Wanaka we ended up staying on another day & ventured to this stunning place on the lake front and did a spot of fishing and sight seeing. From there we headed off to Queenstown, via Cardrona - the old pub was a must see for both of us & we weren't disappointed, it is filled with rural 'bloke/mate' character, and set in the farming highlands it's just great. "Good on y'r mate", just rolls off the tongue in that sort of environment.
Onto Arrowtown via the crazyest road immiginable. Arrowtown was lovely, Josh enjoyed Gold Panning on the Arrow river & I enjoyed perusing the shops and taking some of the many walks along the river bank. Josh's desire to strike gold was so strong that we ended up staying the night in Arrowtown and delaying our arrival in Queenstown.
The following morning we back-tracked to Cromwell to visit the historic Goldfields Mining Centre, by now we both had 'gold fever' and the thought of striking it rich was all consuming. The walk around the old mining town was interesting and seeing the machinery was pretty cool but we were focused on 'the panning'. Josh found a few flakes and I nothing, but it was well worth the trip.
From here to Queenstown, I must say afterall the hype I have heard about it I was a little disappointed. It doesn't have the character of Banff or the quaintest of Wanaka and seemed very, very commercial. We were only here for a few hours so I guess I need to give it longer next time. Oh but it is as expensive as Whistler - 1 packet of 4 batteries was $40.00!!
Then we headed all the way down to Invercargill we both wanted to see the southern most point of NZ as we had been to the Northern most on our honeymoon. Bluff was awesome, on the way down we picked up a hitch hiker - Brian, whose real name was Feng Lee, a Taiwanese tourist who had missed the bus to Bluff that morning, we helped him out and gave him
a lift. No Bluff Oysters though - very disappointing.
After taking the tourist route along the southern coast of NZ we ended up in Dunedin our 2nd to last stop on our amazing trip.
We have taken many, many photos which you will all be subjected to at some stage.
Luv rach

A real southland trip

2007-05-20T11:54:00.000+12:00

WOW. Time goes by fast. Here we are and it's Saturday already. And we're in Dunedin! What a trip. It turns out we stayed at Lake Wanaka for another day. It was sooo beautiful. Almost like a whistler-eque valley bottom amogst the hills of Kamloops. Rachael and I were told about the evening dry-fly fishing in the Clutha river. We've never experienced a full-on didymo infestation (aside from the Buller), and we sure were surprised. NZ's South Island is considered a “Controlled Area” by Biosecurity New Zealand, so they are closing any rivers infected, but are just trying to stop the spread itself by angler education. Now I'm an angler, and I like to consider myself educated in such matters, so whenever I leave ANY body of water in New Zealand, I rinse off my gear at the site, make sure there is no debris, and then immediately spray all items with a spray of detergent supplied by biosec-nz. When travelling I have the equipment soaking in a solution of either detergent, or bleach. When at home (or elsewhere) I dry. These steps are good enough for the government, and they would like all anglers, North or South (island), to exercise them. What I can't figure out, is why they do not post signs where there is a heavy didymo infestation, and recommend anglers not to use such waters! The local Wanaka fishing/fly shop recommended

that I DO go to certain sections of the river, knowing I was a travelling angler, and all I find is a creekbed full of rock snot. Are they stupid??

Anyways. That was just a little bit of bad stuff amongst all the goody stuff. Rachael said she wants to move to Wanaka. We stayed our second night in a little ... well actually a large campervan/holiday park on the west coast of the lake, called Glendhu Bay. Absolutely gorgeous. We arrived after dark, (due to some late-night adventure seeking on my behalf), and much to Rachael's despise, I awoke before light to cast a few flies at some river mouths. (Whatever people may tell you, even myself on some occasions, flycasting at night, I mean ABSOLUTE darkness is not fun, and even though it is dark, sunglasses are highly recommended for safety purposes) Anyways, beautiful fish. Even in the dark. For the brown trout, -especially- in the dark.

Note to self: Before moving the campervan between rivers, wake Rachael up and put the dishes away.

Although when Rachael did wake up, put away the dishes, and stop yelling, she LOVED the scenery. I'm so smooth sometimes.

We decided that we'd stop by Queenstown “just for a little visit”. Most people manage to spend their whole vacation there, (and sometimes their whole savings too), but we were getting short on time, so we decided just to drop by. Good thing we did. After being on “fleece-people” time, and smelling like “fleece-people”, we suddenly found ourselves in a hustling, bustling, non-fleece-people friendly mountain-city. The only thing I have to compare it to is spending two weeks wearing the same clothes in the now-defunct ski area Fortress Mountain, and then waking up to Whistler Village on New Years Eve! We were not ready for the high-class change, so we quickly stopped by the Wharehouse for some cheap camera batteries (bad mistake) before we took off like lightning towards Invercargill.

Invercargill was neat. It's a really laid-back prairie city that is spread out and absolutely no part of it is constrained. We took our time finding a campground and were not disappointed.

This morning we woke up with the sun, and made our way to the info centre/museum where I managed to catch a few photos of the rare Tuatara (a lizard) before he went to sleep for the day. The old guy was born in the 1880's. At this stage of our trip Rachael and I wanted to go on the ferry to Stewart Island, even if only for half a day, but at $51 a pop per person, it would be $204 for the morning “trip”, so we declined, but continued on South to Bluff instead. Turns out there weren't any oysters this week, so we had Bluff Fish 'n Chips instead.

Then we took off along the south coast heading east, drove to the southern-most point in the south island, viewed Nugget Point, a lot of hick-ass towns, and arrived here in Dunedin. If anyone is young and single, I highly recommend Dunedin. Crazy College town with crazy people.

Tommorrow it a trip to the Cadbury chocolate factory for her, the Speights brewery for him, and then north to Timaru.

Wish us luck!

--Josh

North 2 South & adventures in between.

2007-05-16T11:09:00.000+12:00

After visiting my bro in Palmerston North we drove to Wellington, Josh thought it would be nice to camp beside the river in the Hutt and I naively agreed - it was so cold that night in the campervan, we had hot water bottles and 2 duvets but we both woke at 1am freezing and had to start the van to generate some warmth. Josh recovered rather well and woke bright and early to fish the river.

The following day we drove to Wellington & made a brief visit to the 'Beehive' and raced down to catch the 1pm ferry across the Straight to Picton. We had a calm crossing, even so it was pretty rough in the open ocean, I can easily imagine how rough that stretch of water gets - when you are in open ocean like that you feel the power of the sea for-sure and it makes you feel very vunerable.

We had arrived! The South Island - yipee. It reminded both of us immediately of Vancouver Island, cruising into the sound was beautiful, so scerene.

After spending the night at a neat little camp ground in Canvastown, we drove onto Nelson - I loved it. Situated by the water, it's the gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park which is a must for our next trip. However we continued onto our next stop Murchison. This small town, population 750 epitimises small-town, rural NZ, with a 4-Square (grocery store), a gas station & a Tourist Info centre (that was closed on weekends). We refuelled, ate and slept before heading off the following morning to Greymouth. And then onto Hokitika - where we ate Gold, not the metal but the fish - Whitebait. Ahh, so delicious!

Continuing on our drive, we ended up in Haast, we had not intended to stop here. But adventures unfolded.....................
As we were passing through the town I happened to point out to Josh 2 Huge Stags, he is a 'hunter-gather' and was overwhelmed with the need to stop and photograph these creatures. Josh swerved onto the side of the road to stop. He did not see that on the left hand side of the road was a wet, long grassed area. Before almost taking out the sign 'Thanks for visiting Haast" he came to a stop. I then got out of the passenger side and fell into the 'grass' area. I suggested to Josh that it might be best if he re-park the van higher up on the road. Josh proceeded to reverse further into the drop-off, by now the van is looking decidedly unstable. His words were 'I'll get us out of this", he maneuvered the van into a better position, and then attempted to drive out, well the tires starting spinning, the van started moving sideways and he yelled out 'Rachael push me", it must have been a comical sight, me behind this huge van legs out straining all my might to push this thing! After plan A went to crap, Josh thumbed down a local who said he would tell the local garage/mechanic we were in need of a tow. No more than 5 minutes later Edmond from the garage arrived, apologized for taking so long, and said 2 people had reported 'our situation' to him. Firstly checking we were Canadians (and not American imposters) he hooked us up and towed us out. Apparently, word spreads pretty fast in small town NZ, Ed (the mechanic) said talk was already circulating as to what had caused our predicament. Most people were betting it was The McDougalls' 2 stags, and when we confirmed this fact he roared with laughter. We know we were the talk of the town at the local watering hole last night. Too Funny. Those damn Stags!

Now we are in Wanaka - loving it.

Day 8 ... or 12

2007-05-16T10:32:00.000+12:00

What a week. Well after travelling from Palmerton North down the west coast of the North island, we camped beside the beautiful Hutt River in the Hutt Valley Between Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt. (Catch the drift?). A quick stop in Wellington to see the parlimentary buildings, and we were off on the ferry trip to the south island. Really weird trip - You leave Wellington and you say farewell to windy, rolling,grassy hills. Three hours later and you swear you've been on the ferry to Vancouver Island. The weather is calm, the hills are covered with green bush, and you're in a beautiful sound.

After driving off the ferry, we raced along coastal roads that make the Norquay drive seem like a walk in the park. After passing numerous campervans, we drove off the road about 10kms to a little hole-in-the-wall caravan park with nobody around, no owners, no tourists, nobody. It was awsome, somebody left the power and water on so we camped out and found some trails to a cave with glow worms all over the walls. pretty neat.

Turns out the owners WERE home, so in the morning we paid our $25 and left.

I guess this could turn out to be a really long writeup, so I'll make the rest as quick as it can be:

Anyways, we paid and left Canvastown, drove to Murchison that day (too many rivers to stop by, so we didn't get far) Turns out that the Buller river that we camped beside has had its fair share of didymo, and all I could find were eels. Not brown trout, not rainbow trout, but eels.

Anyways, looong drive to Franz Josef (The red track) Where we stayed the night in a rainforest. I'm pretty sure it was just undeveloped bush, but some genious drive through there with an earth-mover, laid a bunch of electrical cords, and now it's a famous "Rain Forest Caravan Park". Now they're millionaires.

Say the glacier after driving up a narrow road that specifically said "no motorhomes or campervans". I just thought that was a pretty racist sign biased against tourists, so we went anyways.

Then off to the Fox Glacier, and lake Matheson, then the looong haul down to Haast, and a pretty hairy, wet drive through the southern Alps where we are now, on the east side of the Alps in a windy town called Wanaka. Pretty cool. Wanaka and its neighbour town (across some mountains), Queenstown are supposed to be the equivilant of Whistler. Good nightlife though. I had a big-ass plate of lamb backstraps with a few pints of NZ's Finest. Boy I slept well.

Anyways, Keep in touch and we'll do the same.

Another good sleep

2007-05-11T09:57:00.000+12:00

NZ is so beautiful, the scenery is just spectacular, you don't get a chance to tire of it, as it is constantly changing, from volcanic rolling countryside, farming plains, remote native bush (with a herd of wild goats, much to Joshua's excitement), rivers, streams and then ocean..... Ahh Aotearoa, "rugged individual", you are so special.
After celebrating the Team NZ win yesterday morning over Oracle we were in fine spirits and traveled across country to Napier. A city that I had previously never visited, it is fab, the buildings are all Art Deco Architecture (think Bat Man Gotham City) and it is situated right on the water front. Also famous for its many, I repeat many vineyards we passed hundreds of them. From there we ended up in Palmerston North last night and stayed with my brother Matthew & sister-in-law Phoebe. Lovely to see them both, thanks guys for the great food and comfortable bed!
Now we are on the road again, destination unknown but it will be another great day.
Cheers,
Rachael Tarchuk

Day two is behind us

2007-05-11T09:28:00.000+12:00

What a drive. Taupo to Napier, then down to Palmerston North. On the map, Taupo is the big lake in the center of the island, Napier is on the east coast, and Palmerston North is at the end of the track. Beautiful drive. Finally pulled out the fly rods. (whoopee). These waterfalls are on the Waipunga river, which funny enough, also holds some trout . Out came the rods, but we just saw some small-ish rainbows and never managed to land any. It turns out that my so-called "guide book" for the trip is a little out-of-date. I borrowed some nz trout fishing books to use as an index for the trip, but the one I have for the north island shows the Tukituki River as being closed for the season. Actually it was NOT the case, and the rules have channged in the last 15 years since the book was published. Good fishing there, as large-ish rainbows were rising all along the banks. A quick stop for a fish, and we landed a fat 15-incher. Disclaimer: I might add here that we're using the "Royal We" and if there's any reference to 'us' fishing, that would mean that I fished.

-Josh

Day One!

2007-05-10T09:32:00.000+12:00

Well, We made it.

Yesterday morning we picked up our campervan and hit the road. After a brief detour of delivering trademe items to a few buyers in exchange for gas money, we headed south. With loads of maps and no plan, we just drove. Rachael was horrified to not have a plan, but be aimed to be at either of three places by the time it got dark. 1) Rotorua 2) Taupo or 3) Napier. I drove the beast down the main highways following all the signs for Rotorua, but at 7:00 we ended up at our regular vacation spot, Taupo.

We visited and stayed with some friends, Glen & Sarah, and it was a good thing too! - The temperature was freezing! Today we're definitely picking up some ig warm blankets for the nights to come.

After getting a coffee, checking our emails, and picking up some provisions, we may head south. Or east. Either Napier (wine country with fishing) or Palmerston North (Rachael's bro Matt, and his wife Phoebe.)

I think We'll have to hit the Waitahanui river for some fish this morning, but I'll see what the wife says.

Regards.

Road Trip

2007-05-08T20:23:00.000+12:00

Well, this is us for the next little while, as Grandma T would put it, it's a nice "dolls house". I think Josh and I have rather different ideas as to what our 'road trip' will consist of, I know fishing will be involved, I'm just hopeful it's not ALL about the fish!
Anyway, the trip will be a fantastic way for us to see more of Aotearoa before we depart......

Beauty and the geek. (emphasis on geek) - part 2

2007-05-08T15:36:00.000+12:00

Part Two:

Well, I managed to hack some scripts together that grab enough google map satellite images together to create the neccessary 1280x1024px image that GPSDrive requires. Still not too sure how it will work out in real-time while moving between maps. Also, it will be interesting to see how it projects the maps down on the south coast. (pretty far south). LOTS of editing-by-hand. Here's the preliminary result:As you can see, the most promising feature is that none of those wlan waypoints are in the ocean! The yellow track is, but that's just a dummy track.

Regards,
Josh Tarchuk

Beauty and the geek. (emphasis on geek)

2007-05-08T10:50:00.000+12:00

Well I've spent a few days on GPSDrive (link). I've got it working fine, but the default expedia images for New Zealand are sub-standard. Just like the default Garmin Basemap that came with my North American gps unit, the expedia maps had me driving over the ocean. Didn't really help me much, as when I overlaid a 1:1,000,000 New Zealand raster image, the coordinates and/or the scale of the map must have been messed, because even the TOPO showed me driving over the ocean. One good thing is that I really like the scale of the 1:1M map for our drive over the next few weeks. It will be nice for real-time driving directions and offline screenshots, but I'm still hoping for something better. Now I believe I've narrowed my mapping to-do list down to 2 items:

1) Get GPSDrive sorted out with NZ coverage for 1:1M or 1:250,000. This will help us with real-time directions on the big screen. (I've already got nz maps on the garmin unit, but that's beside the point.

2) Be able to consistently download tracks (and waypoints) from the etrex to the computer. Importing into Google Earth or Google Maps is high on the wish-list.

Wish me luck,
Josh

Testing.

2007-05-05T21:46:00.000+12:00

Just testing the setup for this page...

Wow. As Neal pointed out, it shows how much I use Internet Explorer, or view this site. Well it will be more often now, because Rachael and I will be updating everyone on our road-trip to the south island of NZ. We wanted to be able to keep in touch with everyone, and we also needed to compile all of our photos, notes, and GPS waypoints in one convenient location, so we bought a new laptop. For under $600NZ, we scored with an HP nx9000.

For the Geeks, here are the specs:
HP nx9000
H/W: Celeron 2.4Ghz, 512Mb, 40Gb
OS: Kubuntu Feisty Fawn, 7.04
Kernel: 2.6.20-15
Graphics via an ATI Radeon chipset. Not too bad, but X didn't handle the shared memory too well. bios had the video ram set to 1 or two megs, but after allocating 16mb, everything's gone without a hitch.
Wireless: Well I grabbed an Entrasys RoamAbout card from BorgWifi's online shop in Auckland. Man, was it handy being able to source 802.11x equipment locally. I've also been kitted out with a pigtail, and a mag-mounted 7dbi 2.4Ghz antenna for the road. Getting the orinoco drivers to work under Feisty Fawn wasn't the easiest, as the distribution is only a few weeks old, but it ended up working seamlessly. Luckily, some crazy spanish-speaking guys had an orinoco driver patched for allowing monitor mode under feisty fawn. Actually, who knows what they were using, but it they were using the right kernel. Here's the link.

Voila. Now I've got my gps mapping the journey to the laptop, so we can put pretty pictures of where we are in the world. A few access points here and there don't hurt either. Even when handheld, the New Zealand Open GPS Map Project kinda saved me. Their(his) site: http://gwprojects.orcon.net.nz/gps/ has some pretty good basemaps of New Zealand for our eTrex Legend. Now all I need are some good maps for GPSDrive, or another software package. (The only word to describe gpsdrive is 'clunky') Well I'll have a lok around. For now, my goal is to just get a stable, slick, end-user-based system set up.

Schweeet..
-Josh