Francis’ Weblog

Yup we’ve had a Lahar… (lar-har). Yes everyone one was going on about the Lahar involving one of the New Zealand volcanoes… had no idea what on earth they were going on about. As it was involving a volcano I thought it would be a good idea to find out :). Quick search on wikipedia sorted everything out. Its basically a lake a the top of a volcano that has burst its banks and a load of mud and water poring down.

The NZ government have set up quite a neat system for alerting everyone so that s cool… no probs BUT I get a call from my parents. They are travelling down to Wellington on the train and the track had been washed away. Luckily they had stopped for lunch (the train stops for an hour or so, so everyone can get off and have lunch!!! how bizarre!) anyway they had to go the rest of the way by coach.

Should be getting the video of me jumping off the SkyTower next week…

More info: NZ Herald

Imagine your at work and a colleague asks “Are you busy Wednesday evening?”, you reply “Yup, think so… why?” and you get the reply “No reason”… do you worry? do you ask for more information? like an idiot I kept quiet…

On wednesday morning an email is sent to everyone in the office… “As you are all free this evening we have booked 10 tickets for the skyJump at 5pm, it will be followed by a meal in devonport”. The office goes quiet… you can hear the jaws dropping from all around… For those that do not know the SkyJump is a virtually freefall jump from a tower no just a smallish tower… its the biggest tower in the Southern hemisphere… nice!… ok, you don’t jump from right at the top but at 640ft tall and going 85kph its still very, very high and fast… and i’ve just received an email saying that i’m going to do it… NO WAY!!! … oh and the added pressure being that they have paid for it so you have to do it.. the panic starts the set in. I’ve seen people doing it, hanging in no mans land waiting to fall… I start to go into a strange laughing hysteria which lasts most of the day… unfortunately my window looks out at the sky tower it dominates the Auckland skyline.

At 4.35pm we get in the taxi and leave the office… 4.50pm we get to the sky tower looking directly up the tower… it looks big… very big.

We get our harnesses and jump suits, I ask for another harness but they says its pointless as your only attached to one cable… nice… I ask how long the person has been working for SkyJump… the reply “one week”, right. Confidence high!… not. Were taken up to the lift and we go up the sky tower. The lift is a glass lift, you can look down and see the bottom of the lift shaft and look directly out of the window to the world. I keep my eyes firmly on the back wall of the lift, not looking out. We get to the top and one by one go onto the little ledge. I have this recollection of the guy saying “Are you ready?” to which I reply “Yes” and wonder why on earth I’ve said yes? because agreeing to a stranger to push you off a building at 192 metres just sounds stupid! and well … unwise! Anyway I didn’t have much time to think about it because he shouts out 3 … 2 … 1 … and i’m gone…

Note the clenched fist! the second photo isn’t great because of the strong lights from the base of the building and night fast approaching. You get a better idea from the video on the website.

Tom Gleeson an Ozzie Comedian dissects James Blunts famous song You’re Beautiful:

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2006/james-blunt-p1.php

Well I think summer has finally been blown away in Auckland. Over the past couple of days we have been having some major weather… thunder lightning… the works. It cleared up a bit today but I’m feeling that summer is over and roll on winter! The mountain season ski passes go on sale at the end of March and I’m going to be first in the queue… ok maybe second. The “Weather Man” in Wanaka has predicted a bumper snow season and we’ve also had news on snow already hitting the mountains.