I recently uploaded this video to YouTube. It was taken on new years eve 2009 on Ko Tao in Thailand. To Thai people, lanterns are a sign of good luck and hope. I bet they got a lot of luck out of this one, it’s huge!
Giant Lantern Being set off on Ko Tao, Thailand
Monday, June 7th, 2010White Water Rafting in Rotorua, New Zealand
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010I put together a little video slideshow from the photos we got when we went rafting in Rotorua, New Zealand. I saved it in HD so you should check out the full quality version!
The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes and it was so much fun! The guys who ran it were great craic too…. utter lunatics!
Diving in Nha Trang, Vietnam!
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
Back in Vietnam my friends and I went diving with CoCo Dive Center in Nha Trang, Vietnam! Its was alot of fun. Our dive guide, Jens, had a great camera and took loads of great photos of us messing around underwater and also some nice nature shots. They also had a really nice boat and by the looks of all the other ones we saw in the harbour, it was by far the biggest.
We also finished off our advanced diving course too. My speciality dives were Boat Diving, Deep Diving, Underwater Navigation, Night & Limited Visibility and also Wreck Diving.
Check out some of the photos
Web work in New Zealand
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009Since living in New Zealand for the guts of 7 months I have managed to get a little bit of web development work here and there. Back in Queenstown I did some freelance work for local web development company, Kelpdesign. They took me on for a few weeks and I managed to get a few site’s done for them. Nice bunch of people and I’ll never forget William’s two dogs lounging around the office in front of the gas heater.
The first bit of work was a simple WordPress website for a local tradesman. They were looking for something quick and it was basically a free theme, some plugins and some content put together.
www.queenstownconcretegrinding.com
The second website on the other hand was a custom design by Kelpdesign and it was for a local construction project management company. I had to convert it to xHTML and CSS and set it up as a WordPress template. This was the first time I have created a template for WordPress and it really opened me up to what WordPress could do. I have created so many templates for Joomla in the past and developing one for another CMS was pretty interesting. This WordPress template had everything from custom fields and separate layouts that could be assigned to specific pages and categories. As well as clever bits of PHP and nice usage of WordPress’s API.
www.triplestar.net.nz
Weather – Where I am, Where I’m going, Where I’m from…
Friday, November 27th, 2009Where I am, Where I’m going, Where I’m from…
Milford Sound
Friday, November 13th, 2009As I have said in my earlier post today, I’m going to start filling you in on my New Zealand trip. So here it goes!
Milford Sound is a lovely fjord on the south west coast of the south island of New Zealand. Trish and I decided to go on a little bus trip down there to check it out the beauty. Plus the photos we’ve seen pretty much forced us go! The drive took about 3 hours from Queenstown. On the way there we stopped off at a few photo opportunities. We also had a coffee in Te Anau, a nice little town on the way and home to the largest lake in the south island, Lake Te Anau.
Amazing views at Milford Sound
We were very lucky with the weather too. It was raining on the journey down but then it turned nice and sunny by the time we got there. Plus the roads were clear, if we decided to go a few months earlier we would have been disappointed due to road closures. Some fiends of ours previously couldn’t go due to avalanches and snow covering the roads.
When we arrived we waited to board our boat for the cruise, had a packed lunch and tried to dodge the sandflies. We were greeted with a voucher for a free muffin upon boarding and were given some welcoming words from the Captain slash cruise narrator. He pointed out all the geographic features along the way up the fjord. Our cruise brought us right to the waters of the open Tasman Sea and back again.
Me posing with my favourite fjord
The landscape is stunning and you certainly get overwhelmed by the beauty of it. On the way back we spotted a few seals taking a rest in the sun and got very close to one of the waterfalls! So close that we needed to zip up fully and put out hoods up as we were right under it!
Fun fact: One of the waterfalls here was the one Wolverine jumped off wearing his birthday suit in his X-Men Origins flick. Also some of the explosives used in the film were stored in Queenstown’s ice rink! CrAzY!
Me at the bottom of the waterfall at the front of the boat! SOAKED!
Have a look at some of our snaps
New Zealand Update
Friday, November 13th, 2009Well well… it’s been an awful long time since I have managed to get back to updating my website. I’ve been able to update Twitter easily enough as I can update it from my phone via text. But I just didn’t have the time and net connection to update this blog!
A lot of stuff has happened since my last entry. It’s going to take me many more to fill you in on what I’ve been doing and how awesome our New Zealand road trip has been.
Here’s a quick overview on what we’re been up to:
- Went to Milford Sound
- Snowboarded at Treble Cone
- Left Queenstown and started our road trip
- Hiked Franz Joseph Glacier
- Kayaked in Abel Tasman National Park
- Wine tasted in Cloudy Bay vineyard
- Saw a lot of seals chilling by a car park.
- Got the Ferry from the South Island to the North.
- Met up with my good friend James in Wellington
- Went white water rafting
- Saw a geyser and smelt some eggy geothermal activity in Rotorua
- Went Caving, abseiling, tubing and saw some glow worms.
- Ate some sushi
- Got to the northern tip of New Zealand at Cape Reigna
- Tried sandboarding!
- Saw some wild dolphins
- Sold the van in Auckland and made a fantastic profit!
At the moment I’m compiling a google map with the route we took, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to share it easily but I will go in more depth at some stage.
Here’s a few pics!
Will update again soon!
NZ DIY Camper Van Conversion
Saturday, September 19th, 2009Over the past few days my girlfriend Trish and I did some camper conversion work on our Toyota Hiace we bought last month.
We took out the bed that came with it and decided to make a new one down the back, nearer the boot. We also made up a tall storage unit for our stuff and there is also plenty of storage under the bed too!
Today we did some work on the floor; we got a thin piece of MDF, cut it to shape and stuck on some simple lino tiles so it can be cleaned easily! Looks great!
Hopefully we will make a bit of a profit on it when we sell it on and hopefully it will make a great New Zealand road trip vehicle for more backpackers.
We have a few little bits and bobs left to do now but that’s mainly it! Can’t wait to hit the road and explore this amazing country!
Check out the photos!
Queenstown to Glenorchy Video
Thursday, August 13th, 2009Check out this little video I put together from a few bits of footage from the road trip I took the other day with my friends.
Queenstown to Glenorchy
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009Yesterday, my friends and I went for a lovely drive from Queenstown to Glenorchy as we were spending a day off the slopes. The drive took about an hour and it brings you through some amazing lakeside views of Lake Wakatipu. With a camera in hand I was very snap happy taking photos from the car window as we headed north.
We had a nice little picnic in Glenorchy by the lake and then proceeded further north to a place called Paradise, where there were lots of sheep and back country roads. Also, some of the Lord of the Rings and X-Men Origins: Wolverine was filmed up there. We had to turn back when we the road got a bit more suited for 4×4 vehicles as we didn’t want to do any damage to our van.
On the way back we stopped off at Bob’s Cove, a really nice secluded bay. We had a bit of a walk around there and climbed up to a look out point. By this time the sun was going down so we had to head back to the car before it was completely dark.
We hopped back in the car and headed home.
Check out some of the photos I took
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