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Listening to: Under one roof-Hunters and Collectors.

I'm a sucker for sunsets. The moodier the better. Like say this one from our recent Taupo sojourn with D3vo, Morgue, My other half, and others:

The suck thing about holidays is coming home. Taupo was fun, even if the place itself is a little soulless these days. The accomodation was brilliant. The nightlife was awesome:

Because it was someones birthday or something, a whole bunch of our party decided to go skydiving. Fi and I didn't. I'm more in tune with flying planes than jumping out of them, and ultimately couldn't decide if I actually wanted to do it or not. Listening to everyone rave about it afterwards was kinda depressing though.



The plane they went skydiving from had teeth and eyes painted on it. All machinery looks better this way I think. The exhaust pipes are supposed to be crooked if you are wondering. I suspect you weren't.

Taupo was kinda fun. The Huka Jet was definitely fun, if not actually scary. The nightlife was better than I have given it photographic credit for. I liked the see-through beer dispensers at the tables, and the TV screens under the taps. The drive by homo-ing at breakfast time was quite strange, but entertaining nonetheless. Frisbee in the park was cool. I am way better at catching with my left hand than I ever used to be. The peaceful dawn on the lakeside was nice.

I enjoyed my long walk back to the motel from the centre of town. I say long because the brochure said '10min', when the reality was 5 times that. I wasn't really up for the direction the night was taking, so I left the crew to it. I think I needed some serious alone time at that point, so it was convenient. I walked past million dollar mansions nestled next to weatherboard batches. I disturbed sleeping waterfowl. I discovered geothermal outlets into the lake, which raise the temperature of the lake at the beach to around 50C. It was peaceful. When I got back to the motel I tried to have a spa bath, but something kept tripping the pump out so I was out of luck. Either the water was too hot or I had too much of it, or not enough.

Driving up was entertaining. I have driven to Taupo many many times, but seldom at night. At night you lose all of your scenery cues, so only the meandering of the road tells you where you are. At night, all is the road. At one point on a Desert Road straight I got a little spatially disoriented. I had to convince myself that we were going as fast as we were, that my speedo and tach were reading correct, since it felt slower. I felt somewhat disconnected from the car at that point, which was a little uncomfortable. Once I found some corners and effectively recalibrated my sense of speed things returned to normal. Apart from that I really enjoyed the drive up (apart from the traffic at Plimmerton, which stopped us for half an hour). We completely accidentally ran into D3vo and Brendan at Paraparaumu, and convoyed for the rest of the way. D3v0's eyewitness reporting of our nearly being buried was quite entertaining (we were hit by falling rocks and mud near Taihape, which was attention getting. My car now has a new scratch or two).

Watching the skydiving was fun. I got to answer questions about something I actually know something about for once, even if I was later to be mocked for my knowledge. I enjoyed the chief photographer role, and I think I got some good shots. I have been taking "proper" photos for about ten or so years now, in the not just taking happy snaps way. Having a decent camera helps enormously. I make an effort to compose images and think and stuff these days. Not that others don't, I am just getting more concious of it.

It was a good weekend, but I think I caught the hangover on Monday.

Next sojourn: Sydney in two weeks. I'm going to kick the airshow season off with a bang by spending two days looking at and photogaphing planes. Freaking Geek. There, I said it so you won't have to. One day will be spent exploring and shopping. Anyone want any duty free? Believe it or not, attending an airshow in Sydney is now cheaper than attending the Wanaka airshow that people always ask me if I have been to (I have been to four).

Going to be a great airshow season this summer. Two major events within easy reach at Blenheim and Masterton, plus Sydney at labour weekend.

And the Big Day Out line up looks extremely promising.