New Zealand- Final Thoughts

Well, here we are. A time long talked, planned, and prepared for. Only now it is actually here. I'm leaving New Zealand after 3 rather eventful years this weekend.

Like any other period in my life it has had its ups and its downs. This past year it has been becoming clear though I've overstayed the place. Which is just fine. I had many great times, and admittedly some really miserable ones. This is just life. I leave with many fantastic memories and have lots of good friends staying behind as an excuse to return one day.

I thought I try to summarize for both myself and everyone else my New Zealand experience with a BALANCED tally of my experiences of the country... I will do this through a list of for everything thing I will miss countering it with something I will not (currently if I were to just do this without balance in mind the will NOTs would win by a clear majority)

I will miss all the great friends I've made over here. In particular Clare, Paul and Laura, the Twitch, and my horde of Germans (who are too plentiful to list individually!).

I will not miss driving on New Zealand roads. Mostly due to Kiwis absolute inability to drive properly. They are hands down the worst drivers on the the planet (and I'm taking into account the stereotypical Asian)!

I will miss the actual truly "Beautiful Green New Zealand" with its many awesome beaches, forests, mountains, and natural parks.

I will not miss the propaganda and lying about "Beautiful Green New Zealand", a country that doesn't recylce, pumps its sewage into the ocean, has litter and garbage scattered on the street of even its smallest villages.

I will miss New Zealand winters, as it never dropped below zero for very long and only snowed one or two days of the year.

I will not miss New Zealand winters. Despite the aforementioned warmth of winter compared to the Great White North, the Kiwis don't insulate their homes, and as of such your living or bed room is only 1 or 2 degrees warmer then outside. This can be quite unpleasant when sitting down and trying to relax.

I will miss our current house. Especially the fact that the roof is just a giant glass covered balcony

I will not miss our house in the winter. Again it was the same temperature as outside OR colder!

I will miss living by the ocean and the many beautiful beaches of Dunedin

I will not miss being taunted by the ocean, in that you couldn't really go swimming as it was too cold, and despite buying a wet suit, having to still avoid it due to the cities sewage washing back into shore often throughout the year!

I will miss the road trips around Dunedin. 60% of all the coolest stuff in New Zealand was within a days drive (granted this could be a full on 14 hours round trip) of my house.

I will not miss the Kiwi drivers I'd have to watch out for on these road trips. Yes a repeat, but I really can not emphasis how bad at driving these people are.

I will miss how friendly and awesome the world travellers I encountered were. Be they from outside of NZ or be it a travelled Kiwi.

I will not miss the hostility and xenophobia of the none travelled Kiwis. They seriously put Americans to the test for most insular and nationalistic western country.

I will miss the food, at least the fresh ingredient foods like diary products and seafood.

I will not miss the Kiwi food. As a culture the Kiwis don't believe in spices, and eat very bland meat and potatoes style dishes.

I will miss my work. Especially the self employed system of substitute teaching down here. I was an educational mercenary and had to carve out my living amongst the dozens of independent skools in town (NZ did away with centralized skool boards in the 1980's, so they are all self contained entities for my purposes).

I will not miss my work, in how during slow times I was not guaranteed work and had to endure not getting paid for long stretches...

I will miss all the exotic wildlife down here

I will not miss the locals none caring or outright hostility to the wild. Not all Kiwis were like this mind you, but many who lived in the rural areas were the animals were to be found were shocking.

I will miss New Zealand, for the reasons above.

I will not miss New Zealand, again for all the reasons above.

So with this list done and out of the way, I leap into the heart of moving on the eve of the X-Mas holidays. As a result posts from me here and elsewhere (Traumador in particular) may be slow for a little while.

All the best to you this season (be it winter or summer), and we'll catch you on the flip side...

Last art post for a while

We're very close to T-Minus 1 week from the leaving New Zealand forever!
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As of such things start happening here quick, fast, and hard... To quote my favourite teenage space opera (which one is it, you geeks out there?)
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Meaning there won't be much time for either making my art and/or posting about it. The goal after this post is that I get my 4-5 pieces done for ART Evolved (a series set in the same time and place... one of the advantages of using CG), so I don't have to worry about working on them immediately after heading over to Australia.
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Here is your slight sneak peak of what they're going to be...

I got Kaiwhekea skeletoned, rigged, and roaring to go.

My next big obstacle is creating some prey for him.

There is a chance Dr. Fordyce will be interested in using this fellow now that I've got it. So that could be exciting.

The biggest news of all is that my Squalodon passed its final inspection by the good doctor, and has only a few very minor tweaks. Essentially I got a 90% (with the chin area being the only absolutely major concern). More on this story coming to ART Evolved in my Flukes series.

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He'll be making an appearance in Jan along with the Kaiwhekea (among other critters!) at ART Evolved. Hopefully in even more public venues later in 2010!

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As I've been taking a lot of Traum related photos for his own big finale with NZ, I was inspired to start work on somethings for his future here too...

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Thought you'd seen the end of his interactions with Mythology and Maori Legends... Think again!

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This is the start of one of several new Mythological inspired denizens to be appearing on the Chronicles next year...

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Note it is too scale!

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I'm also trying to make sure I keep Traum's current adventure going and conclude able by Feb... as there is a HUGE surprise in store for you all then!

The next two Dinosaurs are presents as it were for two old and dear friends of mine, who were gracious enough to put up with my insanity and appear in Traum in the next few posts.

Why and how they are presents will make sense with the post themselves.

The question I have for you all, can anyone successful guess what types of Dinosaurs these two are? I'll give you one key clue, they are both native to Alberta...

Where did it all go?

It is hard to believe, but I only have 2 more weeks left in this country... Frankly I can't wait to go.

The epic soap opera that is packing and wrapping up have begun with a vengence. I've also done such a good job of seeing all the sights once more, that there isn't much left on the agenda to do that is fun (which is good, as there is no time for it anymore!).

I have so, oh so, many projects to try and wrap up.

Despite my co-creator of the kids book being something of a whinny git about trying to publish it (he has waited till the literal last minute of the 3 *BEEP*ing years!) I've given up on it, but he is forcing me to use up a precious day to work on it again (though I'm not going to be happy about it!!!)... I need to finish prepping my whale skull for Dr. Fordyce, and try and complete my 3D whale. Though the Palaeo-art whale at this stage is likely to have to be completed through email correspondence.

With ART Evolved's big "Blog of Note" break through yesterday, I'm also forced to redouble my efforts on my pieces. I'm being smart and trying to get the whale done for it, plus my Kiwi marine reptiles.

As I got some feedback from Dr. Fordyce on my Kaiwhekea the other day, I thought I should try and complete it here today. Apart from rigging I think it is ready for use in a final piece or two...

The Great Final New Zealand Expedition Part 2

So we'd made it too the west coast, but due to the delays caused by my car we arrived in the total dark.

Meaning on day 2 we awoke not really knowing what was outside our tent...

We did know somewhere very close by was the ocean, as the sounds it made soothed us to sleep (though the exhaustion of the whole first day probably helped too!). Wandering a mere 20 meters from our tent this is the sight that welcomed us...

We didn't cover much actual distance on day 2. We DID see an awful lot though as we drove a 75km stretch of coast. We also checked out several of the dirt roads that led into the local forests.

Hopping in the car we began our tiki tour of the coast. The weather was outstanding as you can see. Not a single cloud in the sky, and it stayed that way all day.

I feel in love with the area instantly, as should be evident from the local vegetation.

I specifically wanted to hit around Greymouth due to the plants. My current book Ghosts of Gondwana goes into a lot of detail about NZ's plant record (and how most of it is million year old stuff blown over from Australia). In this area of the west coast though, survives some of the few plants that are truly descended from before NZ split from Gondwana in the time of the Dinosaurs.

I was quite pleased to say the least.

We spent most of the day just driving and checking out the local forests and swamps. It was awe inspiring.

The only single "attraction" I had hoped to see, was the Pancake rocks. Walking with Dinosaur fans should recognize them, and they were just too cool in person! If you subbed the flocks of Terns soaring about the place with Pterosaurs (an automatic with an imagination the size of mine!) it was like stepping back in time!

While at the rocks, I had to hit the bathroom. While I was doing my thing, this bird wandered up to check out Lady R outside. Lady R recognized it was significant, but didn't know what type of bird it was...

Coming out of the washroom, I was dumbfound to see Lady R right up and close to a Weka. Not that the proximity was the surprising thing, Weka's are notorious for their curiosity and feisty, bold personalities. A friend of mine has a picture in which 2 wild ones are crawling all over him.

It was rather I had been told (misleadingly it turns out) that Wekas were extinct on the mainland, and now only currently existed on predator free islands. In reality it turns out that they are not threatened on such islands, but clusters of them endure on the mainland. The west coast being the largest of these.

This made my day... Saying something as the forests and Pancake rocks were huge highlights of my whole 3 years in New Zealand!

We then swung back through Greymouth to briefly check out the largest centre of the west coast. Not that it is big, even by New Zealand standards. It certainly isn't my favourite town, but its surroundings would easily entice me to move there (if I were staying in NZ).

Lady R was very fond of this fisherman statue, which reminded her of a sculpture her mother owns (though their family version always had a Penguin between its legs I'm told).

We wrapped up the day with a visit to "Shantytown", a Goldmining themed heritage park. It was quite nice. Possibly a little overpriced, but not at all unenjoyable.

I've seen several similar era recreations, but this one took the cake for having what I associate as prairie and mountain buildings and settings, and sticking them in a prehistoric jungle!

We then casually made our way to Hokitika and set up camp. While there we befriended an Australian couple, and took them and their daughter to see the local glowworm dell. Though much bigger then Dunedin's local glowworm site, it was no glowworm cave. At least it was free!

This brought day 2 to a nice conclusion.

The Great Final New Zealand Expedition Part 1

My apologies for the delay in the continuation of my west coast camping trip.

My internet life has been hit by something of a fantastic "good" natural disaster. Peter alikens it to an avalanche of chocolate, which would be great for those who survive it, but still be deadly for those crushed by it.

Traumador has finally made his big break, I'd always been hoping for... However I'm just not prepared for it being this week, and I've been struggling to keep up with it all.

Despite this I've opted to hammer through the camping story (as I've had two of my people actively skype me for the story).

So as you'll recall the car broke down the morning of our intended departure. By the time it'd been repaired we were no longer in the morning, rather early afternoon a good 5-6 hours after we'd planned to depart. As there were a number of things on east side (our side) of the mountain pass we were going to have to cross, we thought we might push the trip back a weekend.

However when forecasts (which are out right now outside!) indicated the weather would be awful in a week, and plus we were going to be depressed hulks of sadness all weekend, it was decided screw it. Why not just go for it!

So with the threat of sunset looming on the mountain pass, we booked it up the main highway of the south island, till just short of Christchurch as which point we headed inland towards Arthur's Pass. An area neither me nor Lady R had been too before...

Despite the lovely weather of the day, some slight systems had passed through the area. It still being just early spring down here resulted in snow dumped on the mountains. Lovely to look at, as you can see here by our approach to the pass. However if we had hit earlier in the day before it melted it would have made the higher roads inaccessible to the OX (my car... my license plate starts with these two letters).

Fortunately the roads had been cleared by a days worth of traffic and sun. So our late departure had one benefit. Apparently until 2pm the topmost road was closed.

Despite this one benefit, the lowering sun caught us at my personal key destination on the east portion of Arthur's Pass. That was the Castle Hill rocks. As we arrived the sun had set on the majority of the section. These were a key location in Narnia, and a minor one in Lord of the Rings. I have at least seen them. Sadly didn't get to go as up close or get many pictures of them as I'd hoped. Can't win them all I guess... and I at least DID see them!

There were quite a few cool little limestone outcrops in the area still in the light at least.
Anyways we hit the summit of the pass as proper sunset, and as we descended onto the west coast we did so in the dark.

Arriving at our camp ground literally as the office was closing we just managed to nab a site (though with our morning we'd earned the karma shift). Thankfully we'd bought a great new tent just for this trip. One of its key features being how easy it is to setup. In the pitch black, minus headlamps and OX's headlights, we had the whole thing up in just over 10 minutes.

We feel asleep knowing nothing about our surroundings, other then we were right beside the ocean. Little did we know the wonders we were going to wake up to!

Stay tuned for part 2

The Great Final New Zealand Expedition Part 0

Well it had to happen. Not only is my time running out here in New Zealand, but so are the places in the country I haven't been too.

As of this weekend I can sadly and happily say, I have ventured and seen my last (easily accessible) NZ frontier.

Not that this epic undertaking did not have an equally epic start.

I've decided to split the trip up into parts. Today you get horrific start of it all. The only photo you get is of this amusing NZ traffic sign we saw on day 2. The morning of day 1 was among my least fun days in NZ, and so there are no photos of these events...

The quick backstory on the trip, of all the few places I haven't seen in NZ, the only one that has held any appeal has been the west coast of the South Island. Due to its remote access (there are only 3 ways to get to it) slight distance from Dunedin, and lack of civilization I had never been able to convince any of my past travel companions to venture that far off the beaten trail. Yet it sat there, within a day's reach (a full day mind you) of where I sit now. How could I not go before I leave the country?

After many times of talking ourselves in and out of a trip, due to limited financial and temporal resources, Lady R and I finally agreed on a romantic get away to the coast for a weekend. With exams and a new job in Lady R's remaining time here, and term 4 off to a roaring start (I have 4 days in the FIRST week back to skool already!) there really wasn't any chance but this last weekend. So we pegged ALL hope on it...

There is a saying about putting all your eggs in one basket. Though I think the saying should really be changed to something about backpacks into 20 year old cars... Point is my friend Will's law "Nature tends toward maximum irony" came into full effect the morning of the trip.

Planning to take a leisurely trip up to the coast, we had banked on leaving Dunedin by 8am. We woke up, packed the car, and were ready to go. Early no less! When I turned on the car nothing happened... I mean literally nothing.

The old junkered had decided of anyday it was going to die it was on THIS day! (It has plenty of other chances!!!)

Saving the long rant version of the story, I managed to get the car towed (at big expensive) to a mechanic. Fearing the worst (in terms of $), my car managed to pull a my car... I love this car to bits, don't get me wrong. Even if it is an ancient tempermental thing... it has always been predictable in its troubles. The battery. In this case the wiring to this key part had fallen apart. Which cost next to nothing to fix!

This whole misadventure however cost us another crucial thing in addition to money. Time. We have so little of it here, and with the number of things we wanted to see on the latter end of the first day we would be cutting it short leaving at that point in the afternoon.

I have felt more defeated and depressed then I did on Saturday (that incident is classified though, and only Camp Team EXTREME ppl will know what I'm talking about), but this was close. After 30 minutes sourly pouring over our defeat, I (with a push from Clare) declared we were going.

With this ridiculously shortened launch window we set off... The story improves from here

Stay tuned for parts 1-3 this week.

Art Assessment, and a Palaeo-Know-How Challenge!

Tomorrow is a potential exciting day, dependent on whether I have work or not. I'm meeting up with Dr. Fordyce to have him critique the whale.

Rather than just show Dr. Fordyce the boring "flat" version of the model (flat being the rigid unposed version of a creature, making it often look like its been road killed or turned to stone... the 3D version of Glendon's "ugly phase") I decided to create some prototype poses and scenes for him to look at.
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This being a general idea for a piece I have, complete with two brand new primitive penguins. The penguins were today's modelling project, and though not my best effort (up close) are functional in this long shot. I plan on building better versions if Dr. Fordyce likes this direction for the project.

What are your thoughts on it? It is not a final by any stretch just the general idea.

Finally just for my own amusement, and to test my audiences palaeo-knowledge, let's play a quick palaeo-game.

Who can guess what type of whale (or Dolphin) I have recreated here? Super bonus if you can guess one of the possible genus of Penguin he is trying to snack on? The only hint I will give you, is for a sense of scale the Penguins are about a meter in length (in other words about the same length as my whale's head). Good luck!

Rounding out the Shale

Another weekend came and went. Got quite a bit done during it.

First and foremost I now have 2 pieces officially done for the upcoming ART Evolved gallery. I am very happy with the final version of the claw reef, and I think it matches and out does Karoo Sunset as my pinnacle artwork.

In order to finish off the claw reef I needed to increase the ecosystem diversity with a few new Burgess Shale critters. Of these, the one I'd most wanted to make in 3D forever has been Leanchoilia. This is my current model, and it does the job. I'm not happy with the shell at all (though through it I have discovered an incredibly powerful new method of making segmented shells!) and will probably fix it at some point.

The tentacles on the other hand are a technical triumph, if I say so myself. They are each made of 54 individual segments that have been linked and had their individual rotation parameters defined. Meaning they function as one piece, but when I move the ends the whole thing easily twists and curls like a real tentacle. This sadly was a lot of work as I had to painstakingly set the parameters of each individual piece. I hope the new version of Carrara features a batch rotation setting where you can apply the same restraints on multiple objects at once.

I'm not finished with my Burgess construction effort. I'm aiming to build at least 3-4 more classic and obscure critters to occupy my remaining 3 unfinished pieces.

The other finished piece was an easy redo of my classic silhouetted Anomalocaris, only with the new version model.

A possible 6th wild card piece is a more tweaked version of this, my sponge eating Anomalocaris. It was inspired by a conversation I had with a world expert on Trilobites a few years ago. This expert challenged the concept of the super predator Anomalocaris due to a lack of track fossil half eaten Trilobites, which I've seen claimed as actually existing but have yet to see for myself (the expert hadn't seen them either, which might be telling), and they proposed Anomals instead ate the equally giant for their time sponges. I don't really buy into this argument, as again I've heard there are trace fossils, and the mainstream is content with the hunter model. Still it got me thinking and researching, so I may present it as a testement to the good of contstantly testing and rethinking conventional wisedom.

We'll see if I get this one done in time.

Went on another field trip as well this weekend. This time not overly far from Dunedin, just an hour south, out to Nugget Point. I'd been to this place twice before, but never bothered to wander out to the lighthouse at the end. Wish I had (though at least I did it this time!), as this is the view waiting for me there...

The rock circle in the water has been in a movie or two I'm sure, but I can't put my finger on which (other then probably Jackson's King Kong). Anyone out there recognize them?

My Creation Station

I'm a little bit late to the party, but I made it none the less. Hopefully making me just fashionable late. Hopefully!


Sean in his creative wisedom decided to organize an impromptu internet carnival of sorts, in which artists share their workspaces with the world. Thus giving us all a glimpse into the settings and places of some our favourite creations are made. I've been learning a lot so far, and been very impressed and surprised by where people are working (nothing like I imagined!... yet much more similar to me)

We are collecting the series of posts from everyone over on ART Evolved. Feel free to share your Creative Space with the world, and send us the link at artevolved@gmail.com to get added to the roster.

So here is my creative space. Well the small section highlighted by the arrows anyways. This is my desk/office/den/study/business operations centre.

In fact this is my only personal space in my whole house. Due to living with Lady R in a 4 person househoold, and her getting the seperate study attached to our room (as she is the university student), I had to settle for a desk in the corner of our main bedroom.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter. Though I'm a bit resigned to the fact it is the only part of the 3 story house that is exclusively mine.

Despite this slight sovereignty, as my space is in a shared room, my desk faces a constant threat of invasion by Lady R's things from the dresser. I must be constantly vigilant to keep the build up of invading hair care products, jewelry, makeup, and clothes from overwhelming my tiny santuary.

The heart of my workspace is of course my computer. You'll notice not only is it nestled in the midst of my mess (me and Lady R are traditional scattered left handed ppl... we organize things by spreading them out rather then piling them up. So you'll pick up that the whole room is a little on the messy side :P ).

My computer itself is quite a mixed up entity. It was originally a laptop, but a couple days after new years its screen died. Requiring me to purchase a monitor, which considering it was the cheapest I could find is REALLY nice!

This is where 90% of my creative work (that you guys see anyways) occurs, and thus results in my being at my desk a large amount of my home time. I do miss the days when I could take my puter to places like the TV room or my neighbors rooms and be sociable. However as this isn't even remotely an option I don't fret it.

To the left of my desk is this, my information collection station, comprised of a white board and quark board. The two in unison, while primitive, are incredibly effective.

For my creative projects I will record such key things as specific screen resolutions or file formats on both.

Overall in life this is even more important as this is my lifeline to work. All my key work information, minus the scheduling (which I moved into a calender book, to avoid double bookings that my old mono whiteboard system caused), lives here. As I'm the teaching version of self employed, it is vital I have phone numbers and contacts written up here. (Which is why the white board looks odd in the photo, I've blurred all the information so that none of my sensitive info gets misused. Not that I don't trust you people, I'm just not taking any chances)

On the non-computer side of the desk is my "utility" space. You'll find everything I use in my life here. This can include books, DVDs (such as in this photo a big inspiration to me the Muppet Show), my camera and its support gear, my cellphone (which I don't really use... hate them SO much!), my watch, multi vitamins (a huge part of how I keep healthy substitute teaching!), and writing equipment.

Most important of all of this is my water bottle space. I've found a trick to staying healthy (supplementing the vitamins... which I think are the key to my success this year) as a substitute teacher is to keep very hydrated. This helps flush a lot of harmful things out of my system before they can cause trouble, and so I drink between 6-8 litres of water a day.

Right beside the monitor is another extension of my computer. These are quite literally my external harddrives. Unlike the commerical versions of such drives you can buy, these units are harddrives from my old computers that have been rigged to function on my desk. The one in the forground is literally Delta Patrol the movie. If anything happens to this the movie is screwed (I'm meaning to back this up!).

Watching ever vigiliantly above this is my toy Kookaburra. A random gift from Momma R, to celebrate my new found obsession with these birds during my trip to Sydney. I like to think she'll (it's a girl I've decided) keep the harddrives safe till I can back them up.

Here is a closeup of my main trinket collection. They include the cool little wooden Dinosaurs given to me by Sister R for Xmas, and my manditory Batman fig. As a big fan of Batman and his creative solutions to problems, I try to keep the Bat influence high in any of my workspaces. Given to me by Dave last time I was in Canada, this figure also reminds me of him and my peeps back home in the Great White North.

That does it for my tiny personal space. Despite how small my claim on the house is, we have plenty of public space, including my favourite place of the whole house. The roof also known as SKYLOFT!, which is a giant glass room surrounded by a rooftop enclosed balcony.

From here we have a rather commanding view of Dunedin. When I need somewhere to think (and pace... I'm a total pacer) I come up here, and let the vast openess of view open my equally vast imagination.

s Dunedin benefits (and suffers) from rather sporadic weather, the views up here vary quite a lot throughout any given week, that alone month. So I'm never short of variation for my inspiration!

That does it for my workspace. Many of these photos are from the virtual tour of the house I've been meaning to do, but never quite get around to. If it is something people would like to see, I'll try to do it. If not meh.

Keeping Out of Trouble

One of my favourite sayings, especially when applied to myself, has always been "keeping out of trouble". As a slight sufferer of ADD I, if left otherwise unoccupied, can get myself into the odd spot of trouble.

Lately having found myself poor, due to a lack of work (though as of this new term this is a problem of the past...) and my efforts to save my worthless kiwi $s for the move back up to Canada next year, I've become acutely aware of how much money keeping occupied can take.

The remedy I've come up with only gets around the expense issues after a fashion (as everything costs something!). Every weekend I've been jumping into the car and driving around both town and south east New Zealand in search of fun and interesting places to photograph.

I justify this as both my last stab at enjoying/taking advantage of my time in New Zealand, and that photograph is free (sadly the cost of fuel and the associated guilt of environmental impact remove this).

However fans of Traumador shall be happy to hear this photography is going towards the cause of Traum's big finale in NZ (though the irony he probably won't get back to it on the blog till I leave BACK for Canada LOL). I won't elaborate much, other than to say it will be an adventure spanning millions of years!!!

My new favourite spot in town is a little park area at the north end of Dunedin called Bethunes Gulley. The slight irony is it was just up the road from Salmond, but a little ways up the road. Needless to say from my new location in town I must drive to get there.

A short drive that is very worthwhile in my opinion.

This specific spot, which lies just off the main path, has become my favourite picture taking spot of late. I've been returning to this exact spot for the last three weeks at different times of the day to see what the different lighting effects are like in the forest. The best times so far I've been finding are just after the sun begins coming down after noon, and any point when it is overcast.

This photo is among a FEW that capture the atmosphere perfectly. I love the layers and layers of lines juxtaposed with the tentacle like branches in the foreground. This effect is even cooler in person. If you're ever in Dunedin I recommend a stop by the Gully.

On one of my longer day trips (not my longest, but quite probably 2nd or 3rd longest) we ventured into Central Otago. It is a nice area, but not my top pick of New Zealand regions as it mixes a lot of familiar features from back in southern Alberta. Those being grasslands and mountains. I'm more about my forests and water.

However in the area around the small town of Twizel I made an astounding discovery. Twizel is in between Wanaka and Queenstown for anyone interested in NZ geography.

Of more interest to the greater world, Twizel town sits directly under the mountain Peter Jackson CGed the city of Gondor onto, making it neo Gondor I guess. Sadly EVERYTIME I go up this way I never manage to snap a photo of this mountain. Having seen it, there is no mistaking it, but the conditions have never been right (either trees obscure the camera from a moving car or worse the sun is setting behind it!).

Two years ago while exploring this area with my parents, we drove past this cool outcrop of hills about 15 minutes down the highway from Twizel. These hills were quite unique, and caught my attention to the point I took a picture from the moving car, something I don't normally do.

At the time I thought it was simply a cool random road side sight, and didn't think there was a way to get close to these hills. Man I hate it when I'm wrong! Though the good news was I found out my error before it was too late.

While out on my fossil dig with the University of Otago's palaeontologist, I noticed in several Central Otago town's postcards of a cool set of rocks called the Clay Cliffs supposedly from the area.

This last weekend I set out on the mission of tracking down this mysterious location, that none of the locals knew of (as I was on the wrong end of Central Otago starting my search I now can't blame them... it is a big area). I was amazed finally arriving that I actually knew of the Clay Cliffs, and more to the point I'd actually technically seen them before, as I distinctly remembered these rocks from my parental trip.

Though these may seem familiar to Lord of the Ring fans, these other worldly rocks are NOT actually the same ones used in the film as the pathway to the city of the dead. Those are the same geologic makeup as those, but the film's ones are a much larger formation on the north end of this island. The Clay Cliffs would be too small to look good in a full-on helicopter and crane equipped Hollywood effort, but to those of us armed with just our legs and handheld cameras it was pretty much the real deal!

My only compliant, due to our arriving an hour before sunset (and the sun had already fallen behind the hills sadly) the sky bleached out of my photos.

Through some creative photoshopping I've tried to restore and replace the sky into these shots. (Quick aside plug... check out Sean's more impressive photo tweaking efforts of this week here)

What do people think? Does this look really fake? Keeping in mind the location is a little fantastic and "unreal" to begin with (it was ubber cool, and makes my top 10 NZ spots, and certainly the most underrated attraction of Central in my opinion!).

One door slammed shut, but a new open flew right open

Well I was of course laid off last week as you may recall. Good riddance is all I have to say! After today it's nice to remember what being appreciated feels like.

So after losing my job last week I put in a good 2 day effort into a find a replacement. I was mostly looking at skool holiday programs, but of course they were all in the midst of their programs (and thus having the staff required) AND the economic climate down here being what it is (most holiday programs are at 60-75% capacity from what I heard today) meant I had as much of a chance as Harry Potter against a Balrog getting on with one!

However phoning any reference to a kids holiday program I could find, I accidentally stumbled onto the number of a "daycare" (I'll get to why this isn't what my readers in North America might think it is in a moment). As I introduced myself as a registered teacher in my phone calls this place was very interested, and immediately insisted I come in to talk to them.

So "daycare" down here is short for Young Childcare and Education. What we in Canada would call daycare has been combined by the government with Playschool and Kindergarden. Meaning it is a formalized educational institution= my teaching degree and certification allows me to work there as a teacher!

Long story short I was added to their relieving pool a couple days later after the appropriate paperwork was filled in. Leading to my first day of working with them TODAY!

I'm pretty excited (but also tired... little kids take up LOT of energy). It is so far a great place to work, and I ended the day with high praise from the staff (not that it was hard to impress, without boasting, I have YET to meet a room of young children I can't win over in 8-20 seconds!). More the point they're already booking me in for more, and getting right into the one (of course) red tape battle I have to contend with. I proved today I'm worth the fight and the trouble (or so I hope)...

This gig also goes on all year. Meaning for those weeks where primary skools slow down I'll have this as a backup!

It is only 3 blocks away from my house too turns out, so it is a quick (very uphill sadly) walk away. Additionally I get PLENTY of exercise entertaining the kids. So I may yet turn into Arnold...

The only down side to it all is that as I'm not a proper "early childhood" trained teacher, again I'm primary, I get paid on the lowest tear of the payscale (though this daycare was nice enough to give me the highest level of said tear... again I really like this place already, and I only just started!). So I'll have to figure out how to balance between it and my primary teaching once primary starts back up again.

Ed the Ringwraith: Rohan

Well after my limited success finding some of this country's Middle Earthiness, I decided to actively try and seek more of it out this weekend.

I've lived here in New Zealand for 2 years, and only seen bits and pieces of Lord of the Rings scenery. For one thing they did a great job spreading it out across the whole country. Even when you manage to get to a site (most are not easy to get to by car) you find it doesn't look much like it did in the movie. Much like how a painting of a place isn't the same as the place itself, all the colour tweaking and digital landscape manipulation makes the onscreen Middle Earth quite different than many places in New Zealand, even though they were filmed RIGHT there.

Yesterday I embarked on a road trip to one place that is pretty much exactly the same in person as in the movie. Very cool I might add.

Of course this being me, meant I couldn't just do it the normal way...

This ones dedicated to Carmen, who no doubt had a real jealous twitch sometime yesterday she couldn't explain!

I present to you (which may have more installments)...

Tale the First: Rohan

Who better to take us on a tour of modern Middle Earth than a descendant of the Nazgûl. Ed the Ringwraith, who lives in the third Minas to the left on Mirkwood Lane.

Ed was very excited as today he was heading to the realm his ancestors used to get their rides from back in the day. Ed was going to have to make the trip in a more modern way himself. What with the inhabitants of this land no longer around to breed him a special horse tolerable enough to bear his unworldly presence.

That was to this place, Rohan! Land of the horse masters. Known to some as the Riddlemark or just The Mark.

Ed was very excited to visit the source of his ancestors land transport back in the day. He ever brought his still life rendering machine to record his visit.

All of Ed's pictures are high resolution so click on them to hopefully enlarge them. If not links to their larger version on my flickr account are given. This one's is here.

Ed was ecstatic. He could just imagine legions of Rohirrim horsemen riding across these plains, or hordes of those whacky Uruk-hai.

Alt version of pic here.

Ed noticed some of the nifty rocks that gave the area its distinctive look, and he had a funny idea.

Oh what a silly Ringwraith Ed is!

After much searching Ed found a landmark easily recognized from Peter Jackson's documentary on Middle Earth.

This was the lake where a village was ransacked and burned down by those rapscallions the Wild Men of the east.

Today it has once again been resettled by people if you look at a blown up version of the picture (alt version)

Look at Ed. Isn't he the kidder. He's pretending to be one of the many Rohirrin refuges. Oh that Ed...
Sadly for our favourite Black Rider the weather was turning foul. The sun was coming out, and Ed didn't want to ruin a perfect day with sunshine.

(close upable version here)

So we'll have to say good bye to Ed the Ringwraith today. He's back off to his hometown of Mordor, and its lovely perpetual darkness.

So enjoy one last look here to Rohan.

(flickr backup here)