Snowdonia

You have to admit there’s a difference between this:

And this:

Do you see it? That’s right. The first is the second largest mountain in New Zealand. The second is the second largest mountain in Britain. I went off to climb the latter a few weeks ago.

Don’t tell anyone, but I was secretly setting myself up for disappointment. My housemate, however, was eager for me to see Wales. She was probably more keen to see the Snowdonia ranges than I was. But my goodness when I got there it took my breath away.

I had always put Britain into two neat boxes. The first is the Britain of cities, of grimy brick terraces and grey-upon-grey, of satellite dishes, concrete and graffiti. If brick is your thing you can head to thousands of places that would do it for you. The other Britain is its antithesis. Quaint but boring countryside, hedges, vegetable gardens and greenhouses.

Snowdonia is neither. Here, mountains are still mountainous, climbing is still sweaty, and the view is still amazing.

Of course I have to take the latter on faith. Driving rain was stinging against my face as we headed to the summit. Visibility was also cut to twenty meters, but we all know this makes the trip that much more fun.

Thankfully there was some respite from the rain, so some photos were taken. Pictures tell a thousand words, so here are a few to whet your appetite.


Each peak is about a kilometre above sea level which means you're hitting alpine. Also, there is no such thing as DOC markers, so your trusty map and compass is all that you have going for you.

We spent three days in the ranges, possibly the three best days I've spent in Britain since I got here.

And there's now going to be a sequel. In under a month I'll be heading to the Lake District to climb Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England.

I can't wait.

PS: Far too many photos of Snowdonia are posted on my flickr site for your envy.

And out.

Goodness, who'd have thought?

I didn't win the Blog Idol competition, but I was runner up. Can't say I'm apathetic to it all, after several weeks of late nights there's a tinge of disappointment.

But it's over now, which means I can finally try and return my focus on settling into England.

Thanks to everyone who supported me with your emails and your votes. I couldn't have gone this far without you. And to the old friends who came out of the woodwork, thanks as well, and it was a pleasure to re-meet you.

As for me, I'll be placing my blogs back where they belong. Right here.

The final curtain

It was only February when I was cycling around Oriental bay, seven years of Wellington life having done little to sally the view of the harbour.

But somehow time and life have metamorphosed, and my daily commute down Melrose hill and along Riddiford Street in Newtown has become the hum of busses and the squeal of trains through the plains of Africa, before settling to the grind of the Northern line to Kings Cross.

There’s a lie that travellers tell to keep the folks back home envious. We tell tall tales of mountains climbed, of people met and expanses crossed. Lies, all of ‘em. The truth of the matter is you spend most of the time hunting for the next toilet, the next meal, the next hostel.

And then there’s the perpetual fight over exhaustion. You plant your ass on a seat for six hours with Zambian countryside as your view, and the only thing on your mind as you arrive at your hostel is a cold beer and a soft mattress. Not exactly the stuff of romance novels.

Yet there’s a perverse pleasure in travel. It’s not listed amongst the usual vices, but like them it will consume you. It robs you of friendships, commitment, money, and security. There’s always a town, a hill, just around the corner. I guess there’s something about the unknown that just appeals.

I had to turn around in Africa after I hit Zanzibar. I almost didn’t. Kilimanjaro was a stone’s throw away, and beyond that, the Serengeti with its wildebeest migrations. Then Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and adventure. But I had a ticket to England and a plane to catch.

Settling in London was always the OE thing to do. But the transformation of life from the spectacular to the mundane was never going to be easy. Oh what an understatement. Life returns like an anvil. Rent needs to be paid and bank accounts need to be opened. Then it’s back to careers, utilities and groceries. Surviving the grind is a feat itself.

You’d think it would be the end, but there’s hope for an addict like me. A friend, ex-Black Seeds trumpeter and all-round good guy Mikey Taylor, has moved to New York. He’s invited me to pop around for a visit. I don’t know about you, but where I’m standing it’s a spitting distance across the ditch.

I’ve never been to America, but I bet it’ll be interesting.

Concerning conspiracies and quacks

An elderly lady stands in a blue and white dress. Her whitened hair is tied into a bun, pulling the crow’s feet tight around her eyes. She’s screaming – screaming – at the crowd. “Your eyes are closed! You don’t see the Truth – just you wait until the day of judgement!” Hiding behind her, and studiously avoiding eye contact, is what I can imagine her husband and two children.

And here it’s obvious. Not only does the government control you, but it’s in cahoots with the media. Only through a socialist agenda you can prevail. Oh, and Jesus, Muhammad, and Moses are the only way to heaven. It’s all true, you know. I know because that’s what I learnt last Sunday at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park.

She laments about the decline of the English empire, then talks about criminals. “We sent them to Australia – because we didn’t want them!” The crowd takes offence and starts heckling. Cameras are taking photos, movies. I move along.

Elsewhere among the throng another man is yelling in an African baritone. “Mugabe? Mugabe ezz my hero!” He declares. “Ets the West that’s destroyed Zimbabwe! You! You whites!”

A crowd of about thirty gathers around each speaker, but this is less a marketplace of ideas and more a circus. Tourists are taking shots, and dozens of hecklers shout back at the speakers on their step-ladders. It’s a zoo.

But walking through this carnival of ideologies, there is a distinct buzz about the place. The big three are here in numbers, each holding up their holy books and announcing similarly sounding maxims. I’m impressed. By all accounts they should be fighting each other, right?

Hundreds of people gather here. Perhaps it’s because such level of public debate is now unheard of, there is a wonder to this place. There’s laughter and discussion. One speaker is mocking his heckler. “Shut up! Know your place. I am the speaker and you – you – are the corner!” There is laughter, including the heckler, who is momentarily disarmed by a flash of a smile.

I return to the elderly lady, where she’s now lambasting a Welsh couple. “You Celts always cause trouble! This isn’t your home! Go back home!” They stand their ground. A bewildered woman next to me turns to us. “I don’t get it,” she says, “why do they allow stupid people to talk?”

I know why. It’s offensive, rude, and utterly enjoyable.

Lies, damn lies, and jobs

Kiwi mate Steve and I were having a couple of quiets in Farringdon. He’d just been to an interview.

“They wanted to know if I could act.” Kiwi mate Steve explained.

“And then they started talking about role-playing.”

It all sounded pretty kinky so I wanted to know more. I ordered a few more beers.

Don’t buy the dream of a better life in England. Unless you work with money, computers, or kids, it’s a hard road. Reminds me of a joke that’s done the rounds: what do humanities graduates call commerce grads? Boss.

I’m a humanities grad, and so is Steve so we’re feeling the punch-line. If you have kids who you adore, throw them in a chartered accountants course before they go all teenage on you.

It took me a couple of months of hunting before I got a job. Steve’s been on the prowl for a month now. There’s nibbles, of course, and he’s had interviews too. But no catch. His latest interview was for a job as a recruiter, which is why he was a little surprised about needing to role play. So why the acting?

“From time to time you may need to contact one of our clients and role play as a conference organiser, so you can find out about their staff.”

They head hunt within their own clients, essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s a cheeky little racket. Of course Steve’s an honest guy and couldn’t take the role, but it makes you wonder how desperate you have to be to take an ethically questionable job in a foreign country. And with the level of immigration into England, there’s bound to be a fair share of entrepreneurs around for some fresh OE meat.

Not all recruiters are bad in the same way that not all sharks eat humans. But you get the feeling that as soon as you land on this little island they begin to circle.

We finished our rounds and headed off to a cheap pub for a feed. Wetherspoon was offering a two for one deal for £5.50. Perfect. And while tucking into our fish cakes and cottage pie, it occurred to me that life could have been worse. I could have been a commerce grad.

A piece of Kiwi in Kabwe

“Hand built.”

I aah’d. “Aaaah.”

“Well you can’t exactly get the parts round here, mate.”

“True, true.” I replied, but I had no idea. I’m not really a cheese man.

But it’s not every day that I get to see a cheese press. Big steel barrels, temperature controlled rooms. Quite fancy, and NZ owned and operated to boot. We exited and were led out to the yard where I’d interrupted his work on the ute.

The hood was up. He was constructing a grill to stop the tall grass in the paddocks from wrapping around the radiator and overheating the vehicle. As I stared down, inspecting his handiwork, I spotted a tiny LTSA plaque on the chassis. Call me soft, but it caught me off guard. My voice cracked for just a second and I had to feign a sneeze.

The ute, the farm, myself, and this guy were an anachronism. The dairy farm is in Kabwe, about an hour north of Lusaka, which is pretty much bang in the centre of sub-Saharan Africa. After several months of travel, of Afrikaners, Sutu, Shona, and Bemba, I had found myself unexpectedly standing on an island of New Zealand in the middle of Africa. Homesickness hit me like nausea.

Maplehurst farm, as I learnt, was started not too many years ago by New Zealand missionaries under the banner of Bright Hope, a US aid organisation. It’s host to a bunch of Kiwi farmers now, as they spend their days running the place, helping to improve the livelihood of the Kabwe community.

“Wanna come in for a cuppa?”

I did. It was my final few hours in Kabwe, before heading north to take the gruelling TAZARA express to Dar es Salaam, a two day journey taking me through the heartland of Tanzania.

It felt like a dream. I went in, passing the dogs running circles around me, and the kids jumping on the tramp. The farm looks like a kiwi farm. It has the feel of a kiwi farm. For a moment I was having a coffee in Taranaki.

We chatted for around half an hour, about Zambia, the Copperbelt, and the decision to emigrate. I had been trained to write down names, to remember things, but truth be told I can barely recall a word of the conversation. My head was still spinning.

In what felt like moments, I was told we had to leave. There was a train to catch. I agreed, smiling. We stood and the farmer shook my hand. “We’re heading near the Congo border in a few weeks. You’re welcome to join us if you’re around.”

His words were like a punch to the stomach. There was nothing more I wanted to do but stay in Maplehurst farm. Down the driveway was the potholed road into the dusty town of Kabwe. And further along, through the velt and the stalls selling mealies and sugar cane was a Chinese built train waiting. And beyond that? Who knows.

I’d found paradise, and it hurt to leave it behind.

Who's your idol?

I remember sleeping.

It was some time ago. There were friends too, emerging relationships with housemates and Londonites and ex-pats.

All suspended. Because of stuff's blog idol. The good news is that I've managed to make it to the final three. I have three more posts to finish before it's all gone, so this is the final leg.

And then rest. I finally get to clean my room.

That Kodak moment

Where were you the moment it happened? Do you remember?

I was a teenager in Cape Town at the time, a picture of innocence in a youth hall filled with thousands of similarly starry-eyed ilk. Everyone remembers though. It was Joel Stransky who finished it off with an eleventh hour kick, setting the ball sailing between the posts, and our hearts thumping in our chests.

I heard it was a dark day in Godzone, but on the shuttle home, all I could see were people dancing in the streets. You could hear singing, horns blowing, laughter. The country was electric with joy. South Africa had won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and for just one beautiful night this bedraggled young nation felt less a pockmark of tribes, and more a people. Tearfully, we celebrated together.

No-one outside of New Zealand could imagine exactly how dark kiwis were about it. The first words ever uttered to me when I arrived in Auckland a few years later were, “Ah, youz poisoned us!” The next ten years were spent enduring wisecracks about my time in South Africa.

The boot was on the other foot in 2003. I was still doing youth work, but my sheen had well worn off. We watched the matches in an affectionately grimy house in Newtown. New Zealand was out of the tourney, but a bet was forged between myself and Luke, the barrel-chested strongman from Nelson. if Australia won I would publicly wax my chest.

But it was Luke’s hair to be ripped out that weekend, when England snatched victory, also in the eleventh hour, also from a drop goal. Ever the gentleman, I invited our youth kids to come along and watch the waxing. A photographer caught wind of it and joined as well, in what turned out to be a pleasantly torturous afternoon.

For some bizarre reason I’m in England during this world cup. I’m calling it a sign, and if it weren’t for being perpetually broke, I’d be screaming in the stadiums with the other fans. Luckily there’s enough kiwis around to fill the rugby bars, and I guarantee a good time’s to be had.

Over the three continents I’ve visited this year, there’s only one team on everyone’s lips, I’m proud to say. I’d also like to say something to that team.

Please, please if you have it, take the kick.

Rule Britannia

My flatmate Lizzie berated me a couple of nights ago because I appear to pick on the English a bit. She said something about me being unfair, lumping all English people together and something about it being racist. I guess it’s well overdue to say nice things about the place.

Yup.

The tubes are on strike this week.

Um.

Well, job done then.

To be fair, there’s many things I love about England. The public transport, although perpetually mocked, and currently non grata, is brilliant. At a moment’s notice I can catch the Eurostar from London to Paris. Reading is under half an hour away, and Cambridge is a shade over an hour. And tickets are cheap.

Then there’s the comedy. Without equal, they have best comedians in the world. From Monty Python to Eddie Izzard and Ricky Gervais, the subtle barbs of British humour have done much to shape the Kiwi brand of funny.

And you can find any shape and shade of person walking on the street. You pass burkas and punks, yarmulkes and crosses and after a while think nothing of it. Aside from the London Lite and Metro newspapers, you can pick up a free paper specifically for Aussies, Kiwis, Saffas, as well as Polish, and many other ethnicities. You feel like you’re in the centre of the world.

Even the twee-ness of the place is charming, with its Victorian and Edwardian buildings, narrow streets and tiny cars. It’s even better when you know you can escape to an antipodean bar and mix with people south of the equator whenever it gets too much.

I could go on too. Camden Town is like Cuba Street on steroids. Christmas is in its proper season. The live music scene is fantastic.

I’m sure I’ll find a few more things. And I’m sure there’ll be plenty of annoying traits that come along with them. But while my heart is still in Wellington, I now have made London home. Willingly, even.

You give me fever

“Come. Come, look here,” said the dispatch clerk in Durbanville Post Office, South Africa, “I support the All Black, see?”

He flips open his phone and shows me his picture of Carlos Spencer. “All Black. See!”

And everywhere the talk is about Jonah Lomu. “Is he well?” I’m asked. Many times. Gosh, I know we’re a small nation but we don’t all get together for a feed on a Sunday arvo. I just nod and tell everyone he’s doing okay. He’s doing okay, right?

The thing is, you just don’t exactly realise the extent of the cult following until you leave Godzone. Aside from Lord of the Rings, the All Blacks have an international reputation that borders on religious fanaticism. Through my travels this year I’m constantly asked about the AB’s, as if talking to me will make some of their magic rub off on them.

So I’m not in the least surprised that their training sessions in France are mobbed by legions of fans. Branding execs take note, this is how to do it. I could be cynical, but I’m a fan myself, so a part of my heart is swelling.

England on the other hand celebrated their world cup launch by hosting a Scrum in the Park last weekend. I’m not exactly swimming in cashflow, so heading to Marseille to catch the kiwis didn’t make it on the agenda. Regent Park on the other hand is a few stops up on the Bakerloo line, so I decided to drop by and check out the competition. The difference couldn’t be any starker.

If you could stereotype the All Blacks as burly men dripping with testosterone, then the image I got of the English team is a tea party in the park.

They’re jolly fit, and marvellously well-spoken. Ready to give the world cup a go. They even won the trophy last time round (and by-the-by saved me a bet of getting my chest waxed, of which I am still ardently grateful).

But walking round the park, I felt no hum of energy. There was no pre-tournament electricity that seems to hang in the air with these things. It felt like a fair, with fans in red and white enjoying the lazy British summer.

The thing to do was to press flesh with the English rugby team. A queue had formed with their rugby jerseys ready to sign. I timed it and it was three minutes long. That is to say, the walk from the end to the beginning of the queue took me three minutes. It was depressingly orderly, polite and tidy. You can mock them, but the English really do know how to make a good queue.

So call me disappointed. Although I’ll be watching the English play on the paddock, and I’m sure they’ll knock out a few good turns, the scrum in the park was nothing much but a large advert for 02, sponsors of the English team.

For sure, the All Blacks have their sponsors too, but maybe the difference is the All Blacks are the brand. Sponsors must queue in droves to have the AB’s on their merchandise.

And I guarantee you they won’t be orderly, polite or tidy.

Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach

Beer will save us, I promise. And I have proof too. Klaude told me so.

It was a starry May evening at the Corel Rock hotel in Zanzibar when Klaude told me about the Heineken factories in the Congo. Sorry, make that the Democratic Republic. It would seem that even warlords aren’t without irony.

It’s a country the size of Western Europe. Trees, rivers, Jane Goodall, four tar-sealed roads and one never-ending civil war. So it’s a little peculiar that a Dutch brewing company has set up a HQ in the nether-regions of the world.

But Heineken seems to be doing alright. It’s one of the only corporations that still exist in the DRC. They’ve never been bombed, and are turning a profit in the region, proving that you may be a guerrilla, but you still need a good brew. Or two.

Klaude knows a little about this. While knocking back a pint (or two) of Kilimanjaro , he tells me that he heads a field office for a major aid organisation in Burundi. Forget Neighbours From Hell; to the north is Rwanda and to the west, the DRC.

And here are where things get interesting. Not so long ago, a refugee camp on the border was experiencing water shortages. To everyone’s surprise, Heineken stuck up its hand to help, and before anyone could stop them, diverted the water supply intended for its nearby brewery to the camp. By anybody’s books whoever made this call is a saviour. So where you can you hear about all this?

Nowhere. Heineken deny it.

I was stunned. In fact at first I didn’t believe Klaude, but he was adamant. Either he was a persuasive liar, or he had witnessed a rare gleam of human decency from a multi-national.

“That makes no sense. Why?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it doesn’t benefit their company.”

Damn straight it does, most people call it PR. And trust me, firms who deal in vices need every scrap they can muster. We argued for a while but Klaude stuck to his tune. Eventually the conversation changed as conversations do, and that was that.

Until last Friday, when I was reminded of my chat with Klaude. While catching up with some kiwis in Farringdon, I heard the news that Speight’s are coming to town. They were delivering a NZ built Speight’s Alehouse to London via boat.

Now, I’m more of a Montieths man myself, but there’s just something special that no PR can muster. I call it goodwill. So onya, Heineken, and onya Speight’s. Looking forward to the party.

Like Klaude said, saviours.