Impulse

Near the end of last year, it became obvious that unemployment was imminent.  An appropriate response to this revelation is to figure out "what's next?" and fortunately, I have had a rough idea of what that would be for a while.

So on extremely short notice, I booked a ticket to New Zealand.

Fortunately, my trip coincided with a mate's wedding in Akaroa, as well as conveniently falling during summertime, which meant an opportunity for an impromptu training camp.


Next stop: awesomeness

My flight left on New Years Eve and landed on January 2nd, so the flight crew was kind enough to provide champagne at some randomly selected time that roughly corresponded to midnight somewhere.

I don't really sleep that well on long flights, so I passed quite a few hours watching the Pacific pass below at 10 miles a minute.  From a certain perspective, the next three photos are all pretty much the same and I should really only pick one, but from another perspective, they're all quite different.  Frankly, it's my corner of the internet, so I'll do what I want and post them all.


Dimly lit cloud tops


Awesome unintended aurora-ish reflection


Dawn approaches

Also, I was naughty and "forgot" to power off a certain electronic device until a cool opportunity had been snagged :)


On final to AKL

Upon my eventual arrival into Christchurch, I had literally not decided which direction I'd go, although I had some options laid out.  I made a few phone calls, spent some time with some road maps calculating kilometer-age, took a deep breath, and pointed it for Queenstown.  It then promptly lashed down torrential rain (and snow up high) for the entire 6-hour drive.  Welcome to summer on a tiny rock in the middle of the South Pacific...

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