Malc's mumbling and mutteringd

2007-11-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

hi have been bad but here are some photos of my latest stuff:-)

2007-03-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

hi everyone

Life has been cruising by over here on the West Coast. We were having a bit of a dry spell. There was only about one day of rain since the start of Feb. Now it looks like summer is well and truly gone. The forcast for the next week is rain, rain and more rain broken by periods of heavy rain. Lucky for me all this started on my days off so i am sitting inside thinking of lighting the fire and spending the day watching TV. I did manage to get out on Sunday afternoon. I decided to leave work early and go fishing with Jeff. As you can see we did ok and i have spent the last few days eating nothing but salmon. Raw, cooked smoked it was all good.

I had planned to go hunting today cos the roar is only a few weeks away and i want to check out my usual hunting spots to see where the stags are hanging out but cos of the rain i won't.

lots of love and hugs to all.

Malc

2007-01-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

The coolest thing down under in the last few weeks has been this comet. It was first seen by an Aussie guy called McNaught.
I had been trying to spot it for a few days. It pretty much has been following the path of the sun so i had been heading out to the beach to see where the sun was going down on the horizion so i would know where to look for the comet once it was dark. I went out to the beach on two different nights but each time the clouds came in and blocked out the part of the sky i wanted to look at. The drive to the beach is a 40km round trip so i was a little pissed off. Then last night i was over at some friends house watching a movie. As i walked home i saw that there was a clear sky and i thought that i should have gone out to the beach to see the comet. Just as i was thinking that i saw the comet. It might be hard to find in the photo but it is just about the flat spot on the ridge over the shed.

Cool sunset waiting for the comet. Just after I took this photo the clouds dropped in.

A few weeks ago the flax bushes outside my window were flowering. I had Tuis and Bellbirds feeding on the flower stems. This is a shot of a Tui. The Tui's call is one of the iconic NZ bird songs. They look very cool, kinda blue black, with a white tuft of feathers at the throat.

2007-01-20T18:58:00.000-08:00

HI everyone.

It again has been some time since i was a good boy and posted. I have been looking at Arthurs blog and he is making me feel a bit slack.

I have had a quiet enough time since my last blog. Most of my free time has been spent in the bush with a bit of nature watching and hunting. This morning i actually got out for the first decent mtb ride in about 6 mths. i just did a normal enough christchurch ride going up the hill on Rapaki and heading down through Vic park. The tarck that Andrew took me down today was called Cool Runnings and it was a nice piece of track. There were one or two build ups and doubles (all of which had chicken routes) and lots of tight fast courners with big berms. Andrew said that the track was quite cut up compared to a month or so ago but i thought it was a blast.

I had a funny meeting at work last week. A korean guy who was my 2a student in 2003 was on my walk so we sat down and had a chat afterwards.

Happy new year all

Hugs
Malc

2006-11-06T00:57:00.000-08:00

These are two French people who i took climbing Tom and Sohpie.

I am not sure who this good looking guy is????

2006-10-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

I have just got back from an over night work training trip into the mountains. This is a pic of me scaling the almost vertical slope of a scary mountain. (Or it could be me falling over on a flat snowy slope, you decide) We landed at a hut halfway up the mountain. Then we walked up to the top. There was alot of snow around and it would heve been great to be able to snowboard down the mountain. Some of the slopes we were climbing up were damn steep with a nasty runout at the bottom. A few places would have killed you if you slipped and slid on the ice or snow.

This is the crew

This is a look at about the only blue sky we saw on the whole trip. Check out my nasty beard. I am thinking of keeping it until Christmas so i can go to the work Xmas party as Santa Claus (or ZZ Top)

This is a look at the hut we stayed in. I am standing on the heli-pad that we landed on. The pad is perched right on the edge of the cliffs that fall off into the Upper Icefall of the glacier. Check out the toilet. We landed here and then walked back down after our first days climbing.

This is the view from the toilet. I took this as I was "relaxing" early on the second morning. The view is so good that it is a shame to close the door, but you had to be on your toes as there are quite a few helicopters flying by. If they catch you with your pants down, you could end up in some poor tourist's photos. The second day was mostly walking out to a heli-pad on the glacier. We had to grovel down steep slippery rocks and waterfalls to get to the glacier far below the hut.

2006-08-14T01:08:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone

It has been a funny old month. I have been out fishing, hunting, hiking and stuff and have seen some really great things.

We had a very cool full moon last week. This is a shot just on sunset as i was driving over the hills to the East Coast.

This was the moon taken when i was out fishing one night after work. It was a sweet night. One of the guys from work and I went about 35 km nth one night to try drag netting in a big coastal lagoon. We were using a double Kayak to set the net. At one stage i was on this really still still water looking at a large White Heron feeding, with the mountains and full moon in the back ground.

We had a week with piles of rainbows. This one was outside my kitchen window

We also get some great sunsets over here these to are from two different beaches on two different nights

Another rainbow i saw coming home from hunting one day.

2006-06-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

This is my Winter 2006 look. What do you think? Am I starting to look like an Alpine Guide now?

These photos were both taken from my back doorstep. I went out hunting the on thursday afternoon and shot a deer but I guess most of you would rather look at pictures of rainbows.

In the first photo you can actually see the very top of NZ's tallest mountain. Just above the sat tv dish and to the left you can see two snowy peaks. Mt Cook is the one on the right. It looks lower but the range in front of it is about 20km closer.

Yesterday i drove to Hokitika and back (310km)to get some coal. If any of you readers decide to come and visit then the house should be nice and warm for you.

Got to go to work
Hugs Malc

2006-06-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

HI.

Since my last post i have been to Korea for a great 5 week break and am now back at work.

This little critter is one of two live snakes i saw while i was riding my bike during my vacation.
The weather was great i loved hanging out in my shorts feeling nice and warm.
I generally bummed around biking and trying to catch up with friends. Did not get to see all the people i wanted to but still had a blast. Was not sure if I really wanted to come home.

I stopped in Singapore on the way home. I had a 7hr break between flights so i figured i may as well go into town and look around. Singapore was hot but cool. The beer was cool but damn pricey 19 Singapore $ per pint for Hogarten.

This was the view as we crossed the West coast of the Sth ISland.

This is the view out my kitchen window now. I can actually just see the top of Mt Cook with is NZ's tallest mtn from here. There has already been a pile of snow this winter so i might get to do some boarding this year.

Yesterday I took Helihikes and there was about 4cm of snow on the part of the glacier we do the helis. This is the sunset as i was waiting for the Chopper to come and pick up me and my afternoon group.

This is what can happen to guides who don't look where they are going.

See ya guys will try to get the next blog up a bit quicker than the last.
HUGs Me

2006-04-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

I am not sure how it happened but i have two posts on the same topic.
I tried to post one a few days ago and it did not work, so last night i posted another one and then this morning i check my blog and the missing blog has returned. Very strange.

Today i want to start moving out of my place. I am moving into a shared house for the winter. The single unit i am in costs twice as much as the shared place. The really cool thing is over winter there is not so many people around which means i might get the shared place to myself.
It also has a fireplace which i good for winter.

cheers
malc

2006-04-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

Doh!!!!!

Last week on Friday i had a wee accident in my nice tidy car.

There is a dent in the back hatch,where the spare wheel holder smashed into it. Now the door does not open.

There is a big dent in the front where it hit the bank.

I can here all you readers thinking. "How the fuck does he damage the front and rear of his car in the same accident"

I was quietly, conservatively and soberly driving around a bend in the road. Somehow the bend combinded with the wet and the bumps caused the rear of my car to slide out. The front hit the bank and then the car spun so the rear hit the same bank. Tah Dah damage to both ends.

Hugs
malc

2006-04-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

Doh

Last Friday i had a wee accident in my nice little truck. The back slid out on a wet courner and i ended up putting the front into a bank. Most of the impact was on the left front courner which then spun the car around and slammed the back into the same bank. So now my car has a smashed up front and back.

I am fine but my car is a little sad.

hugs Malc

2006-04-06T01:57:00.000-07:00

HI Everyone.

Well i have been out in the bush a bit the last few weeks. Last days off Richard came to visit and we went out both Thurs and Fri to try and find something for Rich to shoot. On the Thursday we headed to a river a bit south where i have often seen deer.
We got up early and told Rachel (Rich's wife) we should be home by 3-4pm at the latest. As i was leaving the car at 7am i took my torch out of my bag. We had 12hrs of daylight left and were only planning on being in the bush for about 6 of them. I can guess you know where this story is going about now. So we walked quietly around the bush for a few hours (well one of us was walking quietly, the other was trying to snap every stick, branch and tree he could reach). We scared up a couple of deer but not close enough to shoot. About 2pm we heard a stag roaring up on the hill above us. We decided to climb up and see if we could spot him. It was a steep nasty slope/cliff we climbed up and both Rich and myself were sweating like pigs by the time we got near the ridge. (when i say pigs i mean i was sweating like one pig and Rich like 3 or 4). Rich was a little worried about getting home to Rachel but as soon as we spotted sign he was keen to head in the away from the car direction. We scared up a group of deer but did not get a chance of a shot so started heading down the hill. The way down was much easier the the way we came up, which was a good thing cos we only had an hour or so of light left. We headed towards the edge of the bush but came out at the top of a 100ft cliff that dropped off to the river flats. We were walking as fast as we could through the bush trying to find a way down the cliff. There were a number of small gullies that we had to climb down into only to find that the creek at the bottom dropped off a 50ft or so watter fall to the flats. Then we would have to climb up the other side of the gully and keep on moving. By the time we finally found one we could climb down it was well and truly dark under the trees. We got home about 745pm and Rachel meet us at the door in tears. She thought we were lying dead in the bush somewere. The worst thing was she had gone into my work to tell them I was lost in the bush. I got sooooo much shit my next day at work. I would have been ok if we had actually got something.

The next day we went to a different place and again got close to deer but still not shot. I did see some pretty flowers though. I am having problems with the macro feature on mu cam. It does not want to focus on close ups. The first photo was of me seeing if it would work with a closer back ground. I was not trying to get it to focus on my face but on that blurry flower in front. Rich was more than happy to let me shot flowers cos he was looking a little worse for wear after all the hills i made him grovel up.

I was back out in the bush today and got really close(20-15m) to a large stag but was not able to get a clear shot at his head. I had a lovely view of his bum but not his head. Then he got wind of us and bolted. It is very cool being in the bush. You get to see and hear some very interesting birds and plants. I saw some very funky fungi today but was in the middle of chasing deer so did not get a photo of it.

Cheers
Malc

2006-03-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

I have once more been a bad blogger. Ian requested a new post the other day, so here it is. I have not been so motivated to blog cos i have not shot of any really cool photos recently.

This is a photo of a New Zealand Robin. This is the most common of the NZ Robins the is also a really rear one that was for a while the most endangered bird in the world.

I have been spending quite a bit of my free time in the bush chasing deer. I have not always been in the mood to shoot one but it is very cool trying to get up close enough for a photo. Getting a photo of a deer is much harder than actually shooting one. It is very cool sneaking around in the dense bush. You notice way more things than you usually see when you are hiking on the bush tracks.

In the last few weeks i have been out in the bush 3 times and have seen deer every time and have managed to get quite close to some. I shot one a couple of weeks ago that i managed to get withing 10m of. If i had had my camera out of my bag i would have taken a photo instead.
Last Friday I went into the bush with a friend from work. We found where a stag has been setting up shop for the roar. The stags should start roaring in a few weeks so we plan to go back and see if we can roar him up a bit.

Winter is on the way so things are getting a bit quieter at work. I promise to try and get some nice photos for my next post.

Hugs to all
malc

2006-03-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

HI everyone

I went away for my days off. I went north to visit some friends. It was a funny trip cos i picked up a pile of hitchhikers. 2 Argintine girls on the way nth and then a dutch couple who ended up staying in my friend's backpackers hostel and then a greek guy on the way back south.
funny trip.
I am also getting the rear shock on the mountain bike replaced for the newer verson. The NZ importers are doing it for free.
I am planning my trip to korea now too will keep you all up to date on that as it work it out.

hugs
malc

2006-02-10T10:57:00.001-08:00

hi everyone

How is this for a moody sunset. the colours did not quite come out real but it was very pink and black. It was taken out my bedroom window.

I have had another lazy week. Just working and walking. Did had a funny day were i got 40$ tips from my groups which went into my cider fund.

Yesterday i had to drive to the supermarket to do some shopping. The closest supermarket is in Hokitika, which is 156km nth. On the way there you drive past heaps of rivers and lakes. As it happened I still had my fly rod in the car. From the car, I noticed a bit of insect activity on one of the lakes. I stopped to have a look and from the edge of the road i could see a nice fish feeding right near the bank. I slid down a small creek bed to the edge of the lake and spent about 10mins trying to convince the trout that my fly looked tasty. Was really hard casting ( Is at the best of times) cos I was standing bwteen some bushes. finally the little sucker fell for it. When I got to Hoki i bought a fish smoker, so last night i had smoked trout for dinner. Jerry recons that the fish here are easy cos i have caught 2 since i started fly fishing a week ago. So far this year, I have caught 3 brown trout that were all between 40-50 cm long.

I did not put a photo of this weeks fish in cos i am sick of fish photos

hugs

malc

2006-02-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

hi everyone

How is this for a moody sunset. the colours did not quite come out real but it was very pink and black. It was taken out my bedroom window.

I have had another lazy week. Just working and walking. Did had a funny day were i got 40$ tips from my groups which went into my cider fund.

I did not put a photo of this weeks fish in cos i am sick of fish photos

hugs

malc

2006-02-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

Yet again i have been a slack bugger and have not been updating my blog much. In the last few months I have been a busy boy. I have had a few friends stay and i have been working heaps.

It has not rained in Fox for about 2 weeks which is really funny cos usually it rains about 200 days a year. We get between 5000-5500mm of rain a year. For you cavemen who still work in inches that is about 200-220 inches which is a fuck of alot of rain.

Duncan was here for a couple of days. We headed south and checked out some biking areas. We went to Wanaka which had a pile of built up trails in a fairly small area. The trails are all graded like ski runs and have signs at the top and bottom telling you the name, grade, what kinda jumps to expect and if it is a 2 way or only up or down trail. This is a picture of duncan riding over the bridge on an uphill trail called "cranken fine".

Last weekend a couple of friends came to stay. One i meet in Greymouth the other drove up from Queenstown. While i was in Greymouth waiting for my friend to arrive i had about 2hrs to kill. I ended up buying a flyrod setup and fishing licence. So today i drove a bit south and tried fly fishing for the second time. First time was 2 days ago for about 1hr after work with no luck. i was really just happy to get out and practice my casting. After about 20mins i caught this little beauty.
It was a little bigger than the one i caught a mth ago.

2006-01-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone.

I have been busy working so have not posted for a while.

I got away to see some friends for the weekend and went fishing on their farm. Here is the nice little brown trout i caught.

I was yummy yummy yummy.

happy new year

malc

2005-12-12T23:51:00.000-08:00

Well I did another day of heli's today and had a great day. The weather was a bit shitty but i had fun anyway. These are the photos from inside the really big ice cave i found a few weeks ago. One of my clients sent them to me last night.

Dig the funky colours

2005-12-11T23:53:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone:-)

It has been a busy week and i have had a blast.

I went on a really cool day Helihike. This is a photo i took from the helicopter on the way up. It looks a little funny cos of the reflection of the window glass.

This is the view from the heli pad up on the ice. It is fun being on heli's cos you are never really out on bad days. If the weather is shitty they don't fly. If you are doing helis then you meet the clients at our base at 9am. we drive them down to the helipad. Once we get there we get them into boots and give them a safty briefing. Don't walk into the tail rotor, don't touch the levers between the pilots seat and the front seat. Once they are all set then we load them inot the choppers. The flight up to the ice is about 5-10mins. once we are up on the ice we divide them into smaller groups and blast around looking for fun stuff trying to chop as few and as small a steps as possible. On a clear and busy day we could stay on the ice from 9am till 630 pm.

Last weekend was a blast too. Andrew came over from ChCh to go ice climbing. He was arriving sometime latish on friday night so i decided to go for a quick hunt after work. It was a nice evening and all was going well until I shot a big 10 point stag just as it was starting to get dark. by the time i had cleaned it up and decided it was way too heavy to carry out it was dark. i got home at about 11pm to find andrew had been waiting for a while. I had to wake up early and go back to where i had left the deer hanging in a tree to pack out as much meat as i could. Got back home about midday and was feeling shagged but then went ice climbing with andrew. On Sunday we went out to the beach. These are some of the photos i took .

this is the lagoon at the beach

looking nth from the end of the beach

old miners tunnel near the beach.

On our way back from the beach we got stopped by a dutch couple who had a flat battery. they had parked their camper van about 1km sth along the sand track on the beach. It was an auto and we did not have jumper leads so i towed them back to the main beach road. lots of fun almost got stuck in the soft sand.

Sunday afternoon we went ice climbing again and when we got back to the car at dusk, we found this little darling trying to pull bits off my car.

2005-11-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone

I did an extra halfdays work yesterday so did not finish until 230pm. I decided to go for a walk up one of the local creeks to see if i could find any deer.

I did not see any deer but i did bump into three chamios. The first was just down the road. It was sitting in a small grassy area next to the road. It was on a bend if i had kept driving straight i could have hit it. I had my rifle in the car so it had a moment where i was trying to decide what to try shooting it with my cam or the rifle. I decided it was looking so happy in the sun in the little grassy clearing i would try and take a photo. I could see it through the trees but it did not like the sound of my car stopping or my door opening so it took off before i could snap a photo.

My plan was to walk up this creek that i have crossed a couple of times when i did one of the local walks. There was a bit of deer sign in the bush along the creek. After about 2 hrs of walking up the creek i saw two more chamios in the creek bed. They were about 150m away and the breaze was blowing towards them, but by this time i was in photo mode and i tried to get closer for a shot. The little buggers must have got wind of me cos they took off.

I have decided it is easier to shoot them with the rifle than with the cam but i am going to keep trying to get some photos.

cheers
malxc

2005-11-24T01:04:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone.
I am buzzing and it is not the two or three beers i have had. Today was just great. I did 2 lots of heli hikes and found the biggest ice cave i have ever seen. It was soooooo big i could have put about 20 people standing in the main chamber and still had room for more. The entrance was quite small and you had to slide down a small shaft but once you were in it opened up huge!!!!!!
I have not got any photos but the people i took in have promised to send me theirs.

Then in the afternoon/evening i got to do a terminal walk with a couple from England. While we were at the front of the glacier part of the river cave fell in and dammed the river. Then the river burst out so we got to see this really cool Glacial Surge. The first photo is of Jo and Andrew (hope i got the names right guys) looking back at some of the big ice blocks that were left behind.

These two were shot a few minutes appart. The first one was actually the second one shot. You can see the watter starting to break through the ice dam.
Just after this it went nuts and burst. I have a video clip but am not sure i can post it here.

2005-11-22T00:21:00.000-08:00

HI Everyone

I got sick of seeing that poor little chamios everytime i logged in so i decided it is time to post a new one.

I have not been doing alot recently. Last weekend i headed over to CHCH for another wedding. It was cool to catch up on mates but i think i am going a bit sour on weddings.

Work is going great i have had some fun people the last few days. Met a nice Czech couple this morning got to talk about things in the Czech Rep.

As you can see in hte photo my house is as clean and tidy as ever. It is actually a bit of a bomb site right now as i brought a pile of stuff back from CHCH with me and it is still waiting to be sorted and put away.

Hugs to all.
malc

2005-11-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

It has been ages since i last posted. I was in Christchurch last weekend cos a friend got married. While i was there i finally got my gun safe open and was able to bring my rifles back to Fox with me. Today i decided to head out for a walk along one of the local rivers. I was only about 30mins from the car when i saw a Chamious just across the river. I had been planning to check out some flats further along the river for deer. I spent about 5 mins watching the Chamious, before i decided to shoot it. It was an ok sized one its horns where about 6 inches long which is a bit bigger than the only other one that i shot years ago.
This is a photo of one of the native NZ orchids. I found the plant about a mth ago. Someone had trimmed some branches on a really big old pine tree down the road and the plant was on one of the cut branches. I bought it home and put it by my steps. It started flowering a week ago.

I thought some pretty flowers might cancil the bad vibes of the poor dead Chamious

2005-10-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

I just got in from work. I was going to do heli-hikes but it was raining too much so they were all canciled. I ended up spending the morning cleaning and then did a 2pm half day walk with 11 israelies.
It was really funny one of them was a 90 yr old man. He was not a super fast walker and was a little wobbly on his feet but he made it up on top without falling over (much).

plus the tour leader was so happy i got a 20$ tip.
now i have 2 days off and am not sure what to do with myself.

2005-10-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

HI Guys
This is just a quickie before i go to work. I have a pile of photos to upload but not the time now.

This was the sunset from my bedroom window a few days ago.

This is the view from 3/4 of the way up the mountain i had a go at climbing last monday.

This is a cool moody ice and cloud photo from when i went to Franz Joseph Glacier a couple of weeks ago.

2005-10-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

I am having trouble uploading photos, so I can't put any in this post.
I have been a busy boy since is last posted. I have been ice climbing at Franz Joseph, which is another glacier, about 20km north of my town. I have been up on Heli-hikes, climbed a small mountain near my place and today i spent a day working on the track. Track means you go up on the ice and you have to dig out steps in the ice with a big miners pick. It is hard work, usually you start at about 730 and finish about 11. Today however i did the normal track then went up and dug out the day line. The normal track is just the part where the half day hikes go but the day line is a big loop further up on the glacier and it winds through big crevasses and stuff. It is very cool but very hard work. So today i was swinging my pick from 8am till 330pm. I am feeling very fucked now. my wrists and forearms are toasted and tomorrow i am co-guiding a day hike which means alot more step cutting.

I am not sure why i am having probs with the photos they may be too big so i am trying a smaller file to see if that works better. It is not working so you will have to wait for photos.
sorry

hugs
malc

2005-10-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

Crazy Kea

we get these parrots around the area i live and work. They are called Kea. This one was in the carpark at the glacier as i was coming home with a group. it was chewing on someones ski bag. they are pretty crazy and damn cool.

looking up the glacier towards Chancelor Dome.

The group i took up onto the ice today

same pic as the two from yesterday but not so much cloud so looks nice.

2005-10-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

These two photos were taken about 4hrs apart. It was snowing for a while in the morning up high. I had a group which i took up to the glacier about 2pm and it started snowing in the carpark and i took the photo on the left when i got back about 430pm. The heli hikes were stuck on the ice for a while because of whiteout conditions up on Victoria Flats half way up the glacier.

2005-10-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

I just got in from dinner with my neighbours. A group of about 11 guides who live near by turned up. I cooked a yummy dessert (i am sure custard is supposed to have smokey undertones). This is the night sky outside my house.

2005-10-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

This morning i walked up one of the local creeks. I went up as far as i could until i hit some water falls and then had to try and climb up some slips. The slips just went into shitty scrubby bush that was too hard to push through so i came back down. The photo is the view back towards town which you can see on the the flat.

This is my house i am the one in the middle. If you come to visit turn left into Cook Flat road. Take the first left turn into Pekanga Drive. my house is the last on the left. There are four units, mine is in the middle of the block of 3, there is also a stand alone 2bedroom unit on the same section.

Damn I am "SEXY"

2005-10-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

I am back.

Well as promised in my last blog i did get a laptop and a connection in Fox. The reason it has been a while since i blogged in is cos i lost the cable to my camera and could not download all these lovely pictures on to my nice new laptop.

Today is my day off so i got off my bum and had a look for the cable. It was in the box with my crampons?????? i have no idea what posessed me to put it there???

So these last two photos are from the beach not too far from my place. They are taken at sunset. I am thinking of bringing some of my fishing gear from mum and dad's cos some of the people from work catch some quite nice fish down here.

This is about 15mins bike from my place. I think this must be one of the best places in the world to go skydiving. The whole ride must be like a senic flight.

I had some time off work so i did a quick trip down to milford sound. This is shot from the boat.

Check out the wildlife

This one was quite cool. The boat parked just under it.

As i was head Nth through the Lindis pass I saw 3 deer less than 50 meters from the road.
I did a U-turn to go back and have a better look and 2 more popped up.

It is kinda funny cos the last few times i have driven through here has been on the way back home from shooting trips. The one time i see wild deer right next to the road i don't have my rifle in the car. Good thing really don't want to get in trouble shooting from the car.

The mountain just to the right at the end of the road is Mt Cook which is NZ's highest Mt. It is kinda cool to see it from this side (east)of the island cos i can also see it down by my place in Fox (west).

Another shot of Cook (Aoraki) from the end of lake pukaki.

To finish off my days off i went up to Mt Hutt on last time for the season. This is Hayden cutting up the field.

I ended up getting 3 days in on my seasons pass. At $460 for the pass that works out as just over $150 per day. That is double what i would have paid if i had just bought day passes eash time i went. FUCK.

2005-09-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

Malcolm Richards "Glacier Guide"

Hi Everyone,
Well i have been working at Fox Glacier for about 2 weeks and I have to say it is great fun. I am outside everyday. I get to climb the ice and talk to lots of interesting people. The rain can be a pain but I am loving life at the mo.

With any luck i will have a laptop up and running at my place in the next week or so so will start making more regular reports

These two photos are from beside the road as i drive nth from Fox towards Hokitika

This is the view of a sunset from by my house looking sth west

The other day i finally got off my bum and did a 40km ride to the coast to check out the local beach. These photos are from along the way

I think i am a budding artist

These three are shots of my "office"

I walked up to this lookout point on Wednesday last week(my day off). I went up in the morning and could not help but notice that there were no "no bike" signs on the track which was a nice benched track the flowed down hill. So in the afternoon i was forced to take my bike back up to the lookout so it could see the view.

The ride down is great except for 2 rough stream crossings only problem is that it is part of a national park and i should not ride there. I figure if they did not want me to ride there they would have put more signs up. I do have to be careful on the way down cos there are a few blind turns and I am sure that if i cream a nice tourist there will be no bike signs up in no time.

I am loving my job can't wait to get fully trained up so i can take all the hikes. I got to do a Helihike the other day. Very cool. Yesterday i had to help one of our clients off the glacier as she had hit her head on a rock and bled alot, luckly she was not in a group of mine, she was with another guide, so i got to be a hero and the boss won't be asking me any nasty Q's

hugs
malc

2005-08-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

Big Week.
Hi Guys I have got the glacier guide job. I start on the 5th of Sept.
This weekend I have been busy. On Saturday Hayden, Liv and I went snowboarding. The Mtn had lost about 5-10cm of base since i last went but they had got 15cm of new snow on Friday night. Hayden also had a big night on Friday which was why we had to stop 2 times for him to "Have a Breath of Fresh Air" on the way to the mountain. He was also so impressed with my skillful driving up the access road that he had another in the ski field carpark(car park pic not included).

Once,

Once again only closer(you can see chunks on the ground)

Twice.

Look carefully at these 4 photos of Liv and see if you can pick the odd on out. ( i will give you a clue, it is the one where she is on her feet)

There was actually another showing her carving a turn, but I cut it out to make her look bad.

Who is this sexy masked man??????

Today (sunday) Andrew and i went back to craigiburn where he showed me the track i was looking for a few weeks ago. We climbed up a ski road to where the single track cut off across a scree slope.
The single track was 99% ridable although there were some rather exposed bits. It is not nice to come around a tight sharpish turn to find that there is a big drop on your right. I walked a few bits cos i was too pussy about falling off the mountain. Most of the single track flowed down under Beech trees. There was one point where we had a wee climb on the singlr track to get over a 1200m sadle but from there is was all down and by the time i got to the bottom, my legs were sore from standing too long.

That was my weekend and tomorrow i am waking up at 5am to go hunting. If you boys and girls are lucky i might have some blood and gore hunting photos for you on my next post.

2005-08-22T00:47:00.000-07:00

Go West Young Man

Last Friday I had a job interview at Fox Glacier on the West Coast. Andrew and I went over on Thursday night. Andrew is one of those lucky people who's boss does not mind if he takes a few days or half days off now and then as long as the work that needs doing is done. He thought that my interview with Alpine Guides would be a good excuse to take a day off and spend the weekend ice climbing.
Friday started with me going on a half day glacier walk "FOR FREE" all applicants got to go on one of the walks to see what was expected of guides. My interview was a 2pm i got to chat with the boss and the head guide and the HR manager. It was great and i think (read hope) they liked me.
Andrew spent the day solo climbing on the glacier.

This was the view as i drove out of my motel on the way to my morning glacier hike.

This is Franz which is about 20km Nth of Fox where i am trying for the job. Franz is a bit bigger than Fox but the view of the mountains is better from Fox. I think i could really get to love looking at that view as i bike to work.

I got back from my interview and went into the glacier carpark to see if andrews bike was still there. It was and he had just got down off the ice.
this is andrew playing in the carpark.

Me my first time on the ice.

Another time

another time

Andrew looking cute.

It was a great day on the ice and if i get the job I think i can see myself spending a bit of my spare time sticking my sharp shiny tools into bits of ice. You have to be a little more carefull on the ice compared to rock. when your foot slips on the rock there is no danger of you cutting up your other leg with the sharp spikey bits on your feet.

2005-08-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

Snowboarding at Mt Hutt with Lou and Arthur.

This is the View from half way up the access road.

This is the first time i have been up on the snow this season. Seeing i have a seasons pass to Mt Hutt this is a bad thing. In the last week Hutt got about 25cm of snow. Which is the first snow they have had in over a month.
The conditions on the Mountain were great. Not alot of snow but not too much wind, sunny and clear. There were a pile of rocks showing through so we had to stick to the groomed areas (although a few of those had rocks showing too). New Zealand Ski areas are kinda famous for the access roads that everyone has to drive up to the reach the mountain top fields. The roads are tighter than the Filthies when Jerry is looking for beer money. More twisted and dirtier than the girl of Duncan's dreams and uglier than my left collar bone (which is pretty damn ugly). The most excitement we had of the day was the drive home down the road. Traffic was backed way up behind some buses and camper vans (RVs for our Nth American cousins) no one was looking interested in passing the heavy vehicles. I performed a very safe but interesting over taking manouver getting past about 10 of the cars who did not seem to want to pass. I got behind the camper and bus that were causing the block. I waited until we had a clear veiw down the road and started to pass them, then the camper decided to pass the bus. They pulled out with no turn signal (unlike me) and we came within 2-5 cms of being side swiped and about 20cm from me being pushed over the dropoff below the road.

If you look at the horizon above my head you can see some hills. They are the old volcanic hills behind Christchurch. They are maybe 80km away. How is that for clear skys.

This is the view Nth of Hutt. It is looking towards where i climbed the small Mtn last week.

Me from behind on the snow:-)

Me far away

Up close and Ugly

Me and Arthur "chillin" waiting for Lou to catch up to us.

2005-08-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

Rock Climbing At The Thors

Today was supposed to be shitty and wet and cold. However the front that was going to put lots of snow on the mountains for me to go boarding tomorrow did not really happen. It was sunny at 8am raining at 815 and fine by 1030. In the afternoon i went climbing on rock for the first time in maybe 6 years. Debs Andrew and I went to the Thors. This is funny as it was also the last place i went climbing on rock 6 years ago. The sun was just hitting the rock face when we got there. It was great to be out and on rock. The feeling of greatness kinda went away when i got one of Andrews brand new $160 cams stuck in a crack. Andrew was able to rescue it so it all ended well.

Me getting stuck

Me still Stuck

Debbie Climbing through the bit where i got stuck.

Andrew still not happy with me whimping out and not trying the "stuck bit" again

Looking South

2005-08-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

This is a shot Duncan took of me in Korea it is riding the first Mt at Bundang.

This is the top of foggy peak about 1760m.
it is looking back over the plains towards Christchurch. You can see the shitty weather stops at the mountains i am standing on.

same photo on an "Arty" angle

this is looking the other way the clouds are just starting to push over the pass into the basin

this is looking towards craigiburn where i went biking in my last blogg

Climbing up this mountain was not too hard but coming down killed me. It is not 2 days after and my quads are achin like hell. If I sit down for too long i almost fall over when i stand and try to walk.

2005-08-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Craigiburn ride June 05

This is the top of the Broken River Ski area road. We actually went up the wrong road we should have gone up the Craigiburn Ski area road. At the top of the other road you can access single track. At the top of this road you can access a ski area and lots of nasty steep rocky mountains.

Once we ( Me and Sarah, who boards at my mum and dad's house) got to the top. the only option was to go back down the way we had come up. The road was mostly hard and fast not too many icy bits. Most of the road was through nice beech forest so it was a pretty ride.

Pretty

Even Prettier

What a sexy car

this is the bottom of the ski road. The rest of the road is much nicer

more pretties

This is driving home. The good thing about Christchurch is often when the weather is shitty you can drive one or two hours and get clear blue skies. The clear sky photos are west of the first mountains which block some of the shitty easterly weather.

2005-07-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is the top of Rapaki track. It is the way i usually ride up the hill. This day it took us 33min from the main road at the bottom to the top gate. That is quite good for me but fast people do it under 23min.

This is a side branch off the main single track that kinda follows the road. You can see on the sign it is a black diamond track there are some double black diamond tracks here too. This track is called lava flow has lots of rocks with some little rock drops and stuff.

this one is standing by the lava flow sign looking back the way we had come. The single track mostly runs just below the road but on the knob in the distance you can just see it above the road.

This is where the main single track enters Victoria Park. I am standing on the starting blocks to a DH course. In the distance you can see a small double and a ramp over a fence.

You can also see just on my left there are two tracks through the fence

still standing in the starting blocks to the DH track looking back where we have come from. Lava flow is from the tree covered hill top way in the distance.

This is part way down another Black Diamond track called "Dazza's Track". not too hard a track lots of little jumps or drops but all can be rolled over or have chicken out routes

On some tracks there are signs telling hikers to give way to bikers.

this is the landing on a 40ft jump. this guy did not do the whole jump he launched from the transition not the actual ramp.

This guy did launch from the ramp. He landed on the flat but if he had landed on the down slope it would be about 40ft(12-13meters)

This is the top of Rapaki track looking into the Harbour on the other side. You can do a big XC ride right around to the hill tops in the distance. (I say "You can" cos it is bloodly too long for my liking)