day 23 in Cromwell

it's amazing how time flies when ya have things to do.. at this point last year, time seemed to be dragging on, esp when ya had no job and had to find stuff to do.. and it would be made harder by the appalling weather of summer 2004-05..

but this summer has just flown by.. doesn't seem a long time ago when i first arrived in Bannockburn.. dint even know where it was.. now it kinda has a place in my heart.. soon it'll be my last week.. well that's gonna be next week, when i leave Cromwell on Friday morning to go back to Dunners and meet up with my family - my dad will be down from Malaysia for Christmas and New Years :) - to go up to Christchurch and Akaroa the next day :)

p soon i won't be seeing ppl that i have become so used to seeing around in Dunners for the last 3 years for much longer, e.g. Rach, Jess, Jacqui.. funny they all seem to be girls.. makes ya think..

well i've had 3 action packed weekends in a row.. 3 very exhausting weekends, which is prob starting to show during the weekdays.. i want to go out to Hall Road or the Mullers tonight but then again i feel a bit tired.. i should not have stayed up to see the ending of High Crimes last night.. so will have to sleep early tonight.. back to being in bed after 10..

anyway, last weekend, had Jacqui's baptism which was v cool.. the weather was p fickle, and Jacqui actually got baptised at the Lowburn Inlet, just as it poured heavily.. by the time we'd finish praying for her after that, the sun was out.. u could say it was kinda like a Methodist baptism, with the sprinkling of the holy water, and then God's glory being shown.. which it was.. heaps of guys were there, well mostly Student Soul ppl, and the baptism was conducted by the Student Soul pastor..

after that, me, Jacq, Joe, Jared and Roxy headed off to Wanaka and well had a v exciting time there from start to finish.. we needed to look for a place to stay so Jared decided to drive up to Glendhu Bay.. we then turned off to West Wanaka Station and found a turn-off to the river bed of the Matautiki.. it was quite late at night and it was p dark.. and it was all gravel, shingle, sand around us..Jared wanted to park near the river but he parked too close.. because we ended up getting stuck in the loose bit of shingle.. now i know why they used to have that sort of thing on the side of racing tracks, and why cars which end up spinning off the track get stuck in there and have to be craned away..

anyway, it was too late, so we built a fire, and camped near the car.. happened to be two other groups of ppl there, mostly hippies like us, and the night sky was gorgeous.. a bit of a struggle to sleep, esp when Roxy and Jared dint stop talking till 8 in the morning.. they just couldn't sleep, end of story.. come 8 in the morning, Roxy wanted to go to a church in Wanaka, and our car was beached.. so we had to get it out.. spent an hour trying to do that.. after trying to put rocks and branches under our car, discovered, that the undercarriage was p much buried, which was why the wheels kept spinning and why changing from Reverse to Park had that strange sound..

the German guys who were there tried to help with their rope but yes my car was p much buried.. so Jared and Joe had to jack the car up both sides and shovel out the stones from below the undercarriage.. and man there was so much it was crazy.. Jared thought of putting a rock for each wheel and then putting branches next to it so that the car could reverse out of the shingle onto the solid sand.. by now we had had like 5 attempts to get the car out, trying different things, and it was getting hot.. as i reversed, i saided a 1-second prayer, then i hit Reverse and the throttle....

and we got out! Praise the Lord!

just kept reversing out till we were clear of that God-forbidden stuff, and man the relief was ominous.. at one point thought we had to get a tow truck to crane us out, and since we were off-road it wasn't covered by AA.. sheer perseverance, and really good thinking by the experienced campaigners, Jared and Joe.. if they weren't there, my car would prob still be stuck on that river bed in Wanaka even today.. they really saved the day..

anyway, we did go to church, albeit an Anglican one.. which was p interesting for all of us, hippies.. i've been to an Anglican service before, 2 years ago in West Melton in the middle of the Canterbury plain, and i knew it was going to be p rigid and out of the prayer book.. it was mostly middle-age to senior citizen sort of crowd and there were really only 2 children there.. can't imagine what the congregation would be like in say 10 years time.. but it was alright.. after that, went to get lunch in town.. at this point, we had completely forgotten breakfast having spent most of the morning trying to dig out my car..

after that, went into the Mount Aspiring National Park and did the highly-recommended Rob Roy Glacier walk.. and it was fantastic.. definitely worth the crappy road and the 3 hour walk.. it's just quite amazing.. and to think we nearly never made it with our car stuck in the shingle.. but it was gorgeous.. shame cloud covered the top of the glacier so couldn't see the top of it.. and it was p windy, but definitely worth the effort..

on another note, us 3 boys suffered a humiliating 2-0 thumping by the 2 girls at pool at the Irish pub in Wanaka on Saturday night.. and apparently Roxy hadn't played pool for years.. well she caned us.. at least i now can proclaim that Guinness is the best beer in the world.. and worth the $7.50 for a pint, just for that experience.. it grows on ya..

on a bit of a down note, heard on Thursday night that my grandma whom i'd lived with in KL until i came to NZ prob saw me for the last time when i was in KL in January earlier this year.. she's now p much blind in both eyes, due to temporal arteritis i.e. stroke.. the doctors should have picked it out but somehow never did.. so it's quite a shock.. it's been quite a hard time of late with ppl i know back in Malaysia having had drastic and unexpected physical changes.. but i'm not too down, coz she's had a p good life and u know u have to expect at that age(she's in her late 70s) these things.. u aint a teenager anymore so ur body isn't expected to function like a teenager's anymore.. in fact, there are more breakdowns the older ya get.. that's just life i guess..

don't want to end on that note, so i have to say that had a fantastic BBQ at Breeze's - one of the girls who works at our vineyard and lives in Cromwell.. Maoris do know how to put on good barbies and yeah we had mussels, paua patties, steaks, the whole lot, and stubbies.. that was a great night..