Ranger says No

Relatively short Multiday Trip to Tama Lakes, Waihohonu Hut and Oturere hut and back out to Desert Road. Was going to go around to Mangetepopo Hut and complete the Northern Circuit though an updated 11:00 a.m. Weather report upon reaching Oturere Hut, the Ranger advised us not to proceed due to dangerously high wind gusts.

Click photo below to access the gallery…

Mount Ruapehu

Hut Rangers, Doug and Horse, who we met on the trail, were fantastic.

A dip in the Springs near Waihohonu Hut provided some much needed refresh and temporarily removed the pain of my Left foot.

Ranger says No

Diwali + Blossoms Assorted photos

Random Assortment of pictures from the Diwali Festival and some blossoms at Cornwall Park. Click image below to access photos…

Resene Sponsored Diwali sign

The Diwali Auckland Festival this year was perhaps sightly smaller than in years preceding, though I thought was still certainly worth a visit.

Ended up walking into the Equippers worship service by accident, thinking it was part of the festival.

Diwali + Blossoms Assorted photos

Road Trip Awhitu Lighthouse

An afternoon Roadtrip explore up to Awhitu Lighthouse. Click picture below to access the gallery on NUI.NZ

Awhitu Lighthouse

Rebuilt in 2006 using the original plans from 1874. Official site: Manukau Heads Light House

The Road up to the Lighthouse becomes very windy half way up the Awhitu Peninsula. Beware new speed camera about 400m out (north along Awhitu Road) from Waiuku.

It was observed that a seemingly substantial percentage of the real estate was being marketed for sale, particularly the further north you went (e.g Big Bay). However the reason why this was the case remains unknown.

Road Trip Awhitu Lighthouse

Future Website Plans

Over the next month or two, I’m planning (where I have time) to go back through past posts and photo albums and tidying a few things up. Namely…

  • Finish captioning as many un-captioned photos as I can.
  • Writing up more detailed Trip reports to go with the Photo Albums (where I can, particularly with those to do with Hiking).

While originally the intent of this homepage was purely set up as a means of keeping in contact with friends and loved ones (in preference to relying on Facebook), the reason for the Tidy up planning came about while I was trying to search for some new possible hiking trips to do and then ending up back at my own homepage.

It appears some of the pages have been ranking a little higher in search results than they have in the past and this corresponds with a noticeable uptick in general visitation arriving from various search engines, combined with an increase in the general email inquiries about various trips and what not.

I’m thinking some people will no doubt be landing on my website (expecting to find more information about a given hike or place), seeing a photo and going… “Where the Flip is this? Where is this landmark / building? Where’s the Information?!” Potentially frustrating casual visitors in the process.

All that said, the intent of this website was to be a personal homepage (to keep in contact with loved ones and friends) and I never really envisioned it being anything more than that. I don’t at present have any plans as such of turning this into any sort of  travel blog with any intention to monetize or paste it over with adverts, at least not yet anyway. (Website is currently funded solely through my own personal funds)

Video

Waterview Tunnel Pre-opening Visit

After landing back in Auckland, Embarked on the Waterview, Tunnel Walk, kindly hosted by the NZTA. Could walk about 900m in via the Northnound tunnel then crossing over to the southbound tunnel to walk back. (Though have to admit, was thinking we could walk straight through to the other end)

Waterview Tunnel Southern entrance

Beware, Fixed Speed cameras at each end and variable speed limit up to a Maximum of 80km/h.

Waterview Tunnel Pre-opening Visit

Are Chemtrails still a thing?

I don’t know what it is, I didn’t realize “Chemtrails” (from commercial passenger jets) were still a wide spread concern. After checking my Facebook messages (as I do every few days), I let curiosity get the better of me and clicked on one of the seemingly random suggestions which Facebook often show on the side of their web interface, then came across this post. I have to admit, at first, I thought it was either a prank, joke or sarcasm and it took me awhile to sink in that some of the people were actually serious about the issue.

It was probably more the numbers of people whom were subscribing to the Chemtrail theory, and the resultant “group think” which threw me off the most (and led me to go find the nearest brick wall). After further casing the corridors of the face-borg cube, found that the Chemtrail thing was actually quite well subscribed to across the confined of the ‘borg cube and to a lesser extent, beyond into the wider general Internet.  I don’t what is driving it, is this the filter bubble / echo chamber thing that many critics of Facebook mention?

External link(s)…

Are Chemtrails still a thing?

Taranaki Around the Mountain Circuit Trip Notes

Pictures from Taranaki Around the Mountain Circuit have been posted to NUI.NZ

With Matt Davison, Nicole Scheid, Brody Radford and myself. Flew down from Auckland very early Saturday Morning and flew back up to Auckland on the ANZAC Tuesday

Mount Taranaki at Sunset as seen from Waiaua Gorge Hut

T’was a very tough going track, mainly due to the steep and sharp undulations. Oaonui Track was pretty rough and took a lot of energy to do.  Was pretty much drained out at the end of both day 2 and day 3 of the Walk. Continue reading “Taranaki Around the Mountain Circuit Trip Notes”

Taranaki Around the Mountain Circuit Trip Notes

Swanson Pipeline Waitakere Dam loop Redux

Did a rather short “reconditioning” hike in the morning (before heading off to afternoon family activities), photos posted to NUI.NZ (as per usual).

A small Unnamed / unidentified Waterfall (Requires bush bash to get to)

Route by pure chance ended up being almost exactly identical the Swanson Pipeline Waitakere Dam loop I did last year with the Auckland Hiking Group where the dam was perhaps more spectacular then with water going gushing down it. My own photos for that hike have been posted here.

Almost feel like combining the two albums.

 

Swanson Pipeline Waitakere Dam loop Redux

Domain names

Originally posted 28th January 2017, updated 29th March 2017

Eventually ended up acquired the young.kiwi domain name to replace the longer young.kiwi.nz (which I’ve since dropped). I guess as well as representing my last name, the “young” + “kiwi” word combination does have a nice ring to it. The young.nz domain is still in a conflicted state with about 5 different claims on it and it looks unlikely anyone will get it any time soon.

Not quite sure what is going on with dot Kiwi and their domains. Their front page is incorrectly indicating domains which are taken as being available. Additionally, late last year, young.kiwi couldn’t be registered (had some funny lock on it preventing registration), and prior to that, the dot Kiwi registry was trying to hock it off as a premium domain name for a thousand dollars.

There is also a bit of an identity issue with “Kiwi” as a word in itself. Seems everywhere else in the world, the word Kiwi is firmly linked to Kiwifruit (Chinese Gooseberry) as opposed to New Zealand’s Native Bird, or a New Zealander / New Zealand CItizen, or anything about New Zealand as such. Go to Google NCR (“No Country Redirect”) and type in “Kiwi” to see what I’m referring to.

As an aside, how is this for unusual pricing? The young.blog is listed with an asking price of 110,000 USD per year. Not sure who will go for those with the plethora of Top Level domains to choose from these days. Continue reading “Domain names”

Domain names

Pukekohe + Other Randoms

11th February 2017 – Random pictures with a walk around Pukekohe Hill and Waitangi Falls around the former Franklin District.

I still need to draw down the excessive annual leave racked up and travel overseas, somewhere, anywhere, for say a month.

Pukekohe + Other Randoms

Wairoa to Cossey

30th January 2017 – Wairoa Cosseys Track (one way involving car shuttle) Redux. Fairly easy walk through some pretty lush bush. Due to the ambient temperature of 27°C, still ended up hitting my heat limit a number of times. Hunua Falls upon our arrival was packed with people looking to cool off in the pool at the base of the falls.

Wairoa to Cossey

Intel HD Graphics IGFX Display driver crashes

In my latest grief with my ASUS N550JV Laptop… Upon returning back home from my tramping (hiking) trip, I received “Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered” (Event ID 4101) Over and over and over and over and over while trying to upload the photos from the aforementioned trip to my website.

“Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered” Over and over and over ad Nauseum

Yes, the ASUS N550JV was giving me grief yet again. Though thankfully I think I’ve finally nailed this at least for the time being. In the end, it involved several hours of trying out many different drivers off of the Intel website and then testing whether or not the issue went away.

Continue reading “Intel HD Graphics IGFX Display driver crashes”

Intel HD Graphics IGFX Display driver crashes