Rodis on Tour: Frodo climbs Mt Doom

OK so what has this hobbit been up to for the last little bit?

Firstly, I got a job pretty quickly (The less said about Canada in this regard the better) with Manukau Water which is going really well, being part of the whole super city thing. For non Kiwi’s please don’t laugh while I explain; we used to think our “Big Smoke” of Auckland (Grand total population of 1.3 mil) was far too big to be ruled by one ~~ring~~ I mean city council so we split it up into 5 smaller districts looking after themselves. Surprise surprise that these councils then became almost little principalities who found it hard to help themselves let alone each other. So that trying to do anything for the city as a whole like say roading, public transport or hosting a major sporting event resembled 5 spoilt only child brats, fighting over who got to play with the kick arse optimus prime toy. So now we’re going to make all 5 spoilt brats stand on each others shoulders, wear a big trench coat & act like a young adult so we can get into the pub with the other big kids. I’m sure it will work fine...it always did in the cartoons…wait.

Also I managed to tick off one of my new year’s resolutions and made an awesome hollandaise sauce the other day. I was half prepared to shout a trip to a café due to my hollandaise turning into oily scrambled eggs but surprisingly it turned out awesome.

A project that was going ahead before I got back in the country but which I have added my considerable weight to is home brew. Now I’m not talking about those piddley little tins you buy from the supermarket and brew up (Not that there’s anything wrong with supermarket homebrew, it’s looked after me quite a few times over the years) No sir this is a massive 3 hot water cylinder, modified temperature controlled chest freezer, emersion chiller, counter flow, LEDs…& it’s painted flash!….owwww yeah!!! This setup can turn some grain, yeast, hops (Smells like weed, or so I’ve been told) & water into up to 80 litres of liquid gold each fortnight… Livers are overrated!

To celebrate such an achievement & to trial some beers we may want to clone (Yet another area where I’m pro cloning) we had a beer tasting at mine a little while ago. A wicked day with top lads that started very civilised around 12pm, with us rating each beer on appearance, aroma and taste but which slowing disintegrated\evolved into a drunken frat party. Big ups to V Dog for not only organising the day (Whoop Whoop to Mikey & I for hosting) but also for one of his own homebrews coming in 2^nd in the ratings against quite few professional breweries. Just to add an extra level to the day I had double booked myself and was due at Graeme’s Stag party at 6:30. This also was a barrel of laughs but of cause what happens on a stag night stays on a stag night…PS Sorry Graeme for pyking out early.

The following weekend I achieved a goal I had had since returning to this ‘Tiny spit of sand in an endless sea’ & walked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Mike had been keen as soon as I had mentioned it, Ange was hesitant & then pulled out, but after some quick talking by both Mike & I we managed to convince Scott he wanted to do it as well.

So Friday night after work the 3 Persian rugs from Turua jumped in the car & headed off for National Park to don bear skins (Well this is New Zealand, so possum skins sewn together) & chant around a fire…10 minutes later we decided that sounded dodgy so agreed to stay in a hotel, fully clothed…but to remain open to chanting if the mood so took us. Just outside of Hamilton the hotel rung to say that they would be closed for the night by the time we got there, but not to worry we were in Room 4 which they would leave unlocked with the key on the table…Happy days.

In Otorohanga I took over the driving from Mike so that he & Scott could have a few cans as we headed down – I know that seems inconsequential but I included it for two reasons a) To brag to the Canadian’s that the non drivers in New Zealand are more than welcome to have a pint in the car and b) to give curtain parties an excuse for the next part of the story. – So we arrive at the Hotel, unload the pockets, drop off our bags & I head back to the car to get the beer saying “Make sure you have the keys”, “Where are they?” to which I reply “Just on the bedside table”…All good. We wander back in with the beer & queue outside the door for the mandatory game of “I thought you had the key” (Always very funny) After a couple of minutes of this great game Un-named party #1 laughs & produces keys from his pocket…Unfortunately they looked suspiciously like my house keys, on further inspection they turned out to be my house keys -The look on his face when my keys didn’t open the hotel room almost made this whole episode worth it- Whilst un-named parties 1 & 2 started arguing over whose responsibility the key’s where, I decided it prudent to remove myself from this conflict to have my 1^st beer & cigarette of the evening & ponder what I had done in a former lifetime to deserve such great friends. Whilst I was pondering the great mystery, Twiddle Dee & Twiddle Dumb had stopped arguing & were now attempting to break into our room with a coat hanger. I believe they had mistaken our hotel room for a 1984 Mazda 323. After finishing my cigs & beer I thought I’d try knocking on the manager’s door, apologising for being so foolish & asking if she had a spare key…which she did. Luckily she just gave me a 2^nd key instead of coming out to open the door for me, as I’m not sure on how she would have felt about the smooth criminals now attempting to peel the rubber from her windows to better insert the coat hanger.

The next morning dawned crisp & clear & far too quickly, so that by 7:30 we were on the trail, loving it. This part of the crossing definitely lulls you into a false sense of security as its fairly flat & easy going plus the sun hasn’t risen above the ridges so it’s also quite cool. Even the Devil’s staircase has been flattened out somewhat so it’s less devil like & more grumpy old man like.

As we rested for morning tea Scott finally realised that we hadn’t been joking about also climbing Mt Ngauruhoe, but fair credit to the top gezza, when he realised, he shrugged his shoulders & said “Alright, lets have at it” And have at it we did, a full 1 hour 40min of intense rock climbing ensued, making sure you didn’t dislodge rocks or yourself to fall onto the people below you & making sure you didn’t wander into the gravel scree where for every step up you take you travel down two. The view from the top & the fact that we had “knocked the bast*rd off!” made it all worthwhile, so we decided to stop for lunch, scroggin & to get annoyed by a Canadian that kept wandering into our photos trying to get cell phone reception.

Heading down the mountain…WOW! 1 hour 40min up…20min down! You basically run/walk/jump down the scree slips. Heaps of fun, reasonably dangerous –especially with the rocks you’re sending down on the people in front of you & the people behind are sending down on you- but absolute death to wonky knees. So after leaving minimal skin on the mountain and cleaning out the buckets of stones in our shoes we traipsed through Mordor stumbling onto some rather sorry looking orcs -& a dude that didn’t get what we were doing- and back onto the Tongariro Crossing track & realised just how big a mountain we had climbed is & how far we still had to go.

The Red Crater & the view around are amazing, looking down over desert road. Then onto the emerald lakes where I was well impressed by the smart little puppy who bought up an inflatable Lilo to chill on the lake with…I like the cut of their jib. Across the moonscape of the central crater onto the blue lake, by which time we were all well over the whole “walking uphill thing” so I decided that due to the position of the stars, the angle of the sun & also to help morale, that the track would only be downhill from here (20 minutes later I was proved correct… I always have been ahead of my time)

However, our initial joy of walking down hill was poorly placed. The downwards gradient of the track was causing Mikey’s shoe to lift his big toe nail off his foot (He is now the proud owner of the toe that will be Bruce Campbell’s toe double in the next evil dead movie), whereas my gammy knee was making it mandatory to go down stairs sideways like a little old lady & Scott was just buggered! I would be proud to say we all manned up, gritted our teeth & pushed on through till the end of the trail without complaining…but one nameless individual (Who may have been wearing a hat) grumbled under his breath a lot of the way & came close to throwing his toys out of the pram at the sight of more stairs in the last kilometre or so.

We finally made it to the Car Park smack bang on 4:30…But no bus was waiting for us…By this point we weren’t too worried & just wanted to sit for a while picking up random car park gems, but after 20 or so minutes we were getting bored, sore & plus we were catching occasional whiffs of the result of 9 hours hard yakka, we decided waiting for our bus -that was now not due till 5:30- was a last resort. After chatting to a few people I managed to scam us onto standing up on a bus back to National park village, meaning we were showered, shaved, soaked in the hot tub & limping off to the pub by the time the bus we were going to be on pulled into our hotel. The pub was another little surprise for us, I was expecting rather basic fare… not the beauty piece of perfectly cooked rump with a red wine jus & Mediterranean roasted veges that arrived at my table.