So, a couple of weeks ago, Repton and I went to New Plymouth to watch the Fleetwood Mac concert (1) and, as you do, went for a walk up Mt Taranaki. We didn't make it to the top by any means, stopping at the transmitter tower just before the track gets really hard, instead of just really steep, chatted with the unicyclists coming down the path, that kind of thing. I'm not kidding about the unicyclists. One of them even had brakes.
It turns out that they were in the country for the World Unicycling Championships, one event of which, Freestyle Pairs, Repton and I went to see tonight. It was nifty, and pretty scary the amount of skill involved. There were dancer unicyclists, acrobat unicyclists, bishounen unicyclists, Swiss stripper unicylists ... pretty damn awesome. And I'm not kidding about the Swiss stripper unicyclists; there were other teams that took the opportunity to fling off a bit of costume at an artful moment, but these guys really took that idea to heart and were, moreover, wearing suspender socks (who the heck wears those anymore?). Despite my kibbitzing (and discreet leering), their performance was Awesome and they won that section. Good for them etc.
In other tramping news, my Christmas toy was a GPS so I can go geocaching. Dragged Repton out with me to find a couple of caches on Tinakori Hill which, even with getting lost for reading the map wrong at one point, was a pretty awesome walk. Also found a geocoin, which is trying to visit every cache in NZ and has a code deciphering wheel.
(1) Which was awesome by the way.
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4 comments:
Woot! This is indeed a christmas toy of awesomeness. I'm kinda trying to decide whether or not to get myself an HRM with built in GPS on the basis that this would help Trailwalker training by letting me track elevation changes on the routes I do and thus help with the hill training (hey, the logic works for me). Of course I could just get a handheld GPS for a lot less moneys, but it wouldn't be as *cool*.
Also? Merry Christmas and stuff :-)
Guy I talked to was Tony Savage at KiwiGPS@paradise.net.nz. He was very helpful - asked what purpose I had in mind, suggested a model based on that, preloaded it with information, that kind of thing. The one I got is a Dakota 10 which is supposed to be a reputable brand's entry level offering for geocachers. And it does track mapping and elevation plots, which are suprisingly addictive to look at.
Yay! Seasonally appropriate greetings to you!
Que-est-ce que c'est geocaching?
You hide a box full of goodies and a log sheet somewhere near or in a location of interest. Then you publish the GPS coordinates and encourage other people to go find it. I'd assumed before I started looking that this would mostly mean parks and reserves, but it turns out that there are a whole bunch of teeny little ones in the middle of town, as well. http://www.geocaching.com/profile/default.aspx?guid=07651606-9253-45f9-9278-e22798612f1a
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