Comedy

Over the last few weeks a comedy festival has run across New Zealand (it actually ended a little while ago, but I haven’t got round to blogging about it until now). It’s originally called the NZ Comedy Festival. 

Every night saw a host of different performances from stand-up through to comic plays at various venues around town. There’s a mix of antipodeans and comedians from further afield.

I made it along to three shows, each time with Angela, my comedy partner in crime from work. Here’s a quick run-down on what we saw and what I thought.

You can’t beat Wellington (on a good day) – this was a sitcom style show with a cast of 6. The setting was a coffee shop and the venue was a actual café, with the show carrying on between the tables, which was a nice touch. The plot centred on the owners of the coffee shop trying to cash in on the Rugby World Cup by becoming an official venue. They managed to achieve this through some underhanded means, but were then their plans fell apart. There were some really funny parts to the show, with lots of local jokes. But at times it was a bit slow moving and could have done with a bit more work on the script.

Mark Watson – the second show we saw was a Welsh stand-up. I hadn’t heard of him before, but he’s reasonably well known and has been on mock the week and other shows. His act was fantastic and had the whole audience laughing more or less non-stop for an hour. He had a very informal style, with lots of engagement with the audience and self-mockery. This was my favourite of the three gigs.

Jeremy Elwood – this was the final gig we saw and the tickets were free as a colleague had got hold of them from a newspaper giveaway and then couldn’t go. Elwood is a Kiwi comedian. He was the most political, making quite a few jokes about NZ current affairs and I was pleased to know what he was on about. He also did some guitar based comedy. Now I’m always quite dubious about this idea, although I’ve seen it a couple of times. His first two songs were ok, but nothing special. He then did a great closing piece where he improvised around a couple of members of the audience, with people shouting out different musical styles that he then performed the next part of the song in. It was a real feat to be able to do it that spontaneously and the audience weren’t generous with their suggestions.

It was a good festival and all the gigs seemed pretty much full. An annoying feature was that because they had several acts performing at each venue during the evening you were only let in just before it started and then herded out again right after the show, which got a bit frustrating. Aside from that, I really enjoyed it.

I’d heard that Kiwi audiences generally weren’t keen on the heckling/put down style of comedy that is common in England. Preferring a less confrontational, laid-back approach instead. I can hardly make definitive statements on the basis of two gigs, but they did both pretty much back that view up. 

Fame at last

Clearly this blog has more fans than I realised. My mum came across this in a shop on Sark -

The only explanation I can think of is that I already have my own line in merchandise ;-)

Paint party

On Saturday night I went to the Wellington leg of the Illuminate 2011 Paint Party tour. The basic idea is a rave in a warehouse with A LOT of neon paint. My flatmate Matt had gone along last year and had a great night and so I decided to go along with him and some of his mates.

Everyone turns up in white clothes and I'd be warned that whatever I wore would never be the same again. So on Saturday I headed into town and bought a cheap white t-shirt and a pair of £5 shorts. Another great suggestion was to put phone, money, etc in a zip-loc bag to keep them paint-free. That meant I was able to get some photos during the night (through the plastic bag and on my phone, so a quality is a bit low).

After some pre-drinks at someone's flat we headed over to the venue on the waterfront about 10:30pm. Everyone was dancing away dressed in white, which made for a pretty weird visual -

Then at midnight the paint hit (I think they were firing it from some big cannons and handing out tons of bottles of it) -

After raving away , chucking paint around and generally having an awesome time, we left a bit before 3. Here's the aftermath -

I jumped in the shower as soon as I got home and managed to get most of it off. Although people were still pointing out bits behind my ear 2 showers later!


I'm keeping the shutter shades (which started out white) as a souvenir -

NZ politics

I don't intend to post much about the politics out here (I can hear the collective sigh of relief). I have been stuck by how much action there has been in the few months I've been here. A few of the stories have been:

• An opposition frontbencher losing his position and standing down as an MP over an alleged sex scandal.

• Another MP quitting his party and going on to set up his own new party. The same MP is weighing up whether to resign his seat to force a by-election and then stand for re-election for the last 6 months of this Parliament.

• A successful coup changing the leadership of another party. This was led, very publicly, by the former leader of a different party, who isn't currently and an MP and wasn't even a member of the party when he took the leadership!

As far as I can tell, the election this year is probably the main thing prompting all the excitement. I think the electoral system, which is MMP (Mixed Membership Proportionality), also plays a part by making the role of smaller parties more important. Whatever the cause, it makes it interesting for a political geek like me.

Rafting at Rangatikei

With an unexpected forecast of sunny weather for the weekend, a few decided to go white-water rafting. Having looked at the rivers near Wellington and decided they were a little tame, we settled on heading to the Rangatikei river, in the centre of the North Island and about 3-4 hours out of Wellington. It ended up being 3 of us going - me, Harry and Joel from my team at work.


This was the first serious trip for my new car - haven't decided on the car's name yet - and it did a good job. The drive up on Sunday morning was pretty straightforward. Wellington is at the very bottom of the North Island and  getting to anywhere else is basically a case of working out whether you need to be on Highway 1 or Highway 2 and then how many hours to drive along it for!


Having said this, the last half hour of the drive to the lodge where the rafting company was passed took us down small, windy roads. The wind had been pretty strong and the road was littered with all sorts of bits of branch that had blown off trees and at one spot this entire sapling that forced us to stop and clear the road -

Having made it in one piece, the rafting lodge was a very slick set up. They cater for a mix of backpackers on the Kiwi Experience bus, tourists with more money and the occasional executive retreat. After a safety briefing and kitting us out with some stylish wetsuits and safety gear we were off for the short drive to the start point on the river.


We were the only three booked in for the trip, which meant we got a guide - Sam - and a safety kayaker/photographer - Ants - just looking after us. So the raft wouldn't be too light a backpacker who's been working casually at the lodge for a few weeks - Adam - also came along for the trip.

The conditions on the river were really good, rain over the last couple of weeks meant that the level was just right to be able to run all of the rapids. The set-up was nice as well, starting with a relatively calm stretch with a couple of Grade I and II rapids where we went through the basics of controlling the raft. There were then a couple of Grade III rapids before we got to 'the gorge' with the Grade IV and V rapids. All of this built up nicely and it was made it an adrenaline rush rather than absolute panic of a trip. 

It's been years since I last went rafting and I enjoyed it even more than I remember from my last trip. I'm definitely going to try and do some more while I'm out here.

Here's a couple of the photos taken as we went along -

LHS (Front to Back) - Adam, Harry, Sam
RHS (Front to Back) - Me, Joel

No idea how we avoided falling out here!

Finally at the bottom of the run there was a big rock to jump off into the water (which was bloody cold).

Not sure which of us this is, but we all did the jump

All in all a damn good day.

Tararua Forest Park

As mentioned in my last post, I spent Friday and Saturday of the Easter weekend tramping (hiking) in the Tararua forest park. The trip was organised by Harvey and Al, a couple of guys I met through work who have loads of experience in tramping and really know their way round this range of mountains.


This satellite shot gives you a bit of a sense of how hilly the park is -



View Larger Map


Over the 2 days we travelled from Holdsworth Rd north up to Kiriwhakapapa (Kir-ee-fa-ca-papa). This isn't one of the more famous 'Great Walks' but still offered some great walking and fantastic scenery.


Day 1 - we set off from Wellington around 5:30, so we could start walking about 7am. The first couple of hours were along an easy track, which was a good chance to get used to the weight of a 2 day pack. The track then started to get a bit rougher and took us over the first part of the range to arrive at a hut in Mitre flats for lunch. The weather was lovely and sunny, but the first signs that it might close in over night were just visible. This meant we decided not to climb up to Mitre Peak as originally planned and instead tracked along the riverbank for the rest of the afternoon. 

If that sounds like an easy option, let me tell you it wasn't.  Every 100 metres or so the track turned steeply up the valley side to climb to a point where we could cross the gully that was cut during periods of heavy rain by one of the streams feeding into the river. Once we'd made it across this the track would often turn steeply back downhill to the river, meaning we covered lots of vertical metres just to get back to the level we started at. At about 4pm we started looking for a site to camp for the night. After about 30 minutes we came across one spot by a tributary, but decided to search on a little further. As we crossed the tributary I managed to slip on a rock and plunge in up to my waist. I popped out unharmed, but was pretty worried about my phone and camera, which I was stupidly carrying in my pockets rather than in my pack. Having got the batteries out quickly both my NZ phone and camera seem to have survived without too much damage phew!


As I was now partially soaked, tired and starting to get cold I was pretty relieved that we found a good little spot to camp after about another 10 minutes. A quick change of clothes and wash in the river and I was feeling much better. We cooked dinner and were so knackered we crashed out by about 9:15. Here's our simple fly camping set-up -

Day 2 - Having slept solidly through to about 7:30 we got up to find it was cloudy but hadn't rained. After breakfast we continued along the river for about 90 minutes until we came to another hut and point where the track crossed the river. There are some brilliant little wire bridges across the rivers in the park, which swing as you walk along them and only take one person at a time. This one was a more serious endeavour. Apparently it replaced a self-winching cage. I was quite disappointed to have missed out on that until I heard that quite a few walkers had lost fingers in the mechanism! -

After crossing some loose shingle from a small landslide we turned steeply up and started ascending a spur. We covered about 700 metres in vertical distance over the next couple of hours to reach a ridgeline just below the peak of Te Mara. A couple of hours more took us round a horseshoe under the peak to the Blue Range Hut where we ate lunch. It was then a steep descent to get down to the carpark for our lift home. The rain only started falling lightly at this last part of the day and the canopy of trees sheltered us from it reasonably well so we didn't even crack out our jackets.


Physically I was pretty glad to reach the end of the hike. Although I've been running regularly since I moved out here, it really took it out of my legs. The pack also added a whole extra dimension of effort. I think we all felt pretty much the same as it's been a while since Harvey and Al have carried overnight packs.


The park itself was fantastic. I haven't done a very good job of capturing the scale of the place and the untouched nature. I was impressed by the balance that Department of Conservation (DoC) have struck in managing the forest. The tracks near roadheads were very easy, giving casual walkers a chance to enjoy the park. Further in, the work was more minimal - markers and occasional cutting of the undergrowth - meaning they had avoided making it too tame. There are also a good network of huts that you can stay in as an alternative to camping and that each have logbooks to keep track of the routes and progress of groups in case there are any issues. 


I'm definitely hoping to get out and do more tramping while I'm here. One that is on my list (as it is with nearly everyone who visits) is the Tongariro crossing. 

General update

Not much to report in the last week or so, hence the lack of posts. Here's a quick run-down of a few things:

• Helen, Harry and I went to the Carter Observatory last Tuesday evening. By chance we managed to choose the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's trip to space, which meant there was a special film screening as well as a new (for NZ) show in the planetarium. It must have been incredible to be the first person to ever visit space, but after hearing a recording of his radio exchanges with ground control I do wonder why he didn't think a bit more about how he could describe it!

• I've bought a car. It's hardly a mean set of wheels (a '98 1.8L Hyundai Lantra Sedan), but it seems to run ok and only cost me about a grand. It's actually the first car that I've ever owned - thanks to cheeky sharing of various VW Polos. It will give me a lot more flexibility for road-trips around NZ and day-to-day things like the nearby surf beach. Searching for the car introduced me to a great concept - 'NZ new'. Lots of cars are imported from countries like Japan after a few years on the road, but because of the expectations here these are classed as new!

• This weekend we get Friday and Monday off...but no extra day for the wedding. I'm planning to spend a couple of days on a hike (Kiwis call it a tramp) over the Tararua Flats with a couple of guys from work. If I've got all the documents sorted in time I might also use my car to head off and explore a new surf spot or two.

No doubt I'll be posting about the weekend some time next week, until then try and contain your anticipation :-P