So far this year has been pretty cruisy - one week in and I have done nothing at all. Sadly the weather has mostly gone sour, with lots of rain and cold winds, but summer came back in full force over the weekend and I went out to Colac Bay to make the most of it. Saturday morning was overcast and didn't seem so hot, so I didn't quite get around to putting on sunscreen - that was a bit stupid on my part. But you can see how I would make such a mistake, the view from the front gate that morning was just clouds and more clouds:
It's just a marker of how long I have been away that I expected to be safe on a cloudy day. It doesn't seem to matter that you can't actually see blue sky and sun here, you'll still burn to a crisp. The plan for the day was to go fishing (my plan was not so much to fish as to look around a new beach) - we'd been told that the only place around that would give you any chance of catching fish was way down the edge of the bay near the point, a place called Tihaka. Amazing how different the beach is just because it faces a different direction - while right by the town of Colac bay the beach is sand, down at Tihaka it is a more gravelly, pebbly beach with lots of big rocks.
There was lots of driftwood and broken bits of shell, even really big horse mussels washed up from Stewart Island. It seems that old habits really do die hard and I spent my time on the beach filling my pockets with shiny, colourful pieces of shell. This area of the coast isn't generally where you would expect to see seals or penguins but I did see some shags:
So of course we didn't catch any fish, but that's OK because if we had we'd have had to gut them and stuff. Instead I got sunburnt, all down my back and legs, but it could've been worse and at least I'm getting my NZ tan back. By the time that we decided to turn back towards the car my poor legs were exhausted from traipsing over the constantly moving pebbles and gravel and I was all scratched up from climbing up rocks to get a good view. It was worth it though, you could see Stewart Island clear as day from there. Photos don't really do it justice, it was much bigger in real life.
After making our way back down the beach and climbing over a hill and some farmer's field in order to avoid jumping over a slippery chasm on the rocks, but in the process having to wade through a creek and some really swampy grass and prickles, it was definitely time for a swim. The water was great - colder than the last week but once you were in it was really good. Then the day was nearly over and it was time to fire up the pizza oven in the back yard (I know, how cool is that, our own wood-fired pizza oven!). Of course, my dad being in charge meant that nobody had bothered looking up instructions and it wasn't really 100% successful. The first pizza looked cooked, but the base was still completely raw. I've looked it up since and I reckon the fire in it was way too big, so that the pizza burnt around the edges before it could be cooked properly.
Anyway, we solved that problem by precooking the bases. There was still a bit of charring around the edges, but they were edible at least. It was a rather lenghty procedure just for a slice of pizza.
All of that was just Saturday, and Sunday brought more mediocre weather (though it was better than the heavy rain that I am watching out the window right now). Sunday is touch practice and it is so much harder than tag rugby was. What makes it worse is that half of the players that I can't keep up with are at least 20 years older than me. Makes me feel awfully unfit, even though I'm not really at all.
Anyway, the weekend is over now and I think it's high time that I get my A into G and start working again. My thesis is not even half finished and if I ever want it to be over I'm going to have to get down to some serious writing (and thinking, that's the bit that I've been trying to avoid...). Still, distractions are great so right now my focus is on buying a new laptop - I mean, the one I'm using now is OK, but it has gotten really slow and it freezes a lot and it doesn't handle big things like huge word documents and photoshop so well. Plus a new computer would be so nice and fast and shiny. And small - I'm looking at either a MacAir or a Sony Vaio ultrabook so that it will be easier to take my computer (and thus potentially my work) anywhere with me. Maybe that will encourage me to work harder? Only I can't quite decide what I want...
It's just a marker of how long I have been away that I expected to be safe on a cloudy day. It doesn't seem to matter that you can't actually see blue sky and sun here, you'll still burn to a crisp. The plan for the day was to go fishing (my plan was not so much to fish as to look around a new beach) - we'd been told that the only place around that would give you any chance of catching fish was way down the edge of the bay near the point, a place called Tihaka. Amazing how different the beach is just because it faces a different direction - while right by the town of Colac bay the beach is sand, down at Tihaka it is a more gravelly, pebbly beach with lots of big rocks.
There was lots of driftwood and broken bits of shell, even really big horse mussels washed up from Stewart Island. It seems that old habits really do die hard and I spent my time on the beach filling my pockets with shiny, colourful pieces of shell. This area of the coast isn't generally where you would expect to see seals or penguins but I did see some shags:
So of course we didn't catch any fish, but that's OK because if we had we'd have had to gut them and stuff. Instead I got sunburnt, all down my back and legs, but it could've been worse and at least I'm getting my NZ tan back. By the time that we decided to turn back towards the car my poor legs were exhausted from traipsing over the constantly moving pebbles and gravel and I was all scratched up from climbing up rocks to get a good view. It was worth it though, you could see Stewart Island clear as day from there. Photos don't really do it justice, it was much bigger in real life.
After making our way back down the beach and climbing over a hill and some farmer's field in order to avoid jumping over a slippery chasm on the rocks, but in the process having to wade through a creek and some really swampy grass and prickles, it was definitely time for a swim. The water was great - colder than the last week but once you were in it was really good. Then the day was nearly over and it was time to fire up the pizza oven in the back yard (I know, how cool is that, our own wood-fired pizza oven!). Of course, my dad being in charge meant that nobody had bothered looking up instructions and it wasn't really 100% successful. The first pizza looked cooked, but the base was still completely raw. I've looked it up since and I reckon the fire in it was way too big, so that the pizza burnt around the edges before it could be cooked properly.
Anyway, we solved that problem by precooking the bases. There was still a bit of charring around the edges, but they were edible at least. It was a rather lenghty procedure just for a slice of pizza.
All of that was just Saturday, and Sunday brought more mediocre weather (though it was better than the heavy rain that I am watching out the window right now). Sunday is touch practice and it is so much harder than tag rugby was. What makes it worse is that half of the players that I can't keep up with are at least 20 years older than me. Makes me feel awfully unfit, even though I'm not really at all.
Anyway, the weekend is over now and I think it's high time that I get my A into G and start working again. My thesis is not even half finished and if I ever want it to be over I'm going to have to get down to some serious writing (and thinking, that's the bit that I've been trying to avoid...). Still, distractions are great so right now my focus is on buying a new laptop - I mean, the one I'm using now is OK, but it has gotten really slow and it freezes a lot and it doesn't handle big things like huge word documents and photoshop so well. Plus a new computer would be so nice and fast and shiny. And small - I'm looking at either a MacAir or a Sony Vaio ultrabook so that it will be easier to take my computer (and thus potentially my work) anywhere with me. Maybe that will encourage me to work harder? Only I can't quite decide what I want...
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