If the Beatles lived here…

Posted on 6 August 2016 by SJPONeill

snow snow snow

Here comes the snow, here comes the snow
And I say it’s all right

Little darling, it’s been a long cold rainy winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here

Here comes the snow, here comes the snow
And I say it’s all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here

Here comes the snow, here comes the snow
And I say it’s all right

Snow, snow, snow, here it comes
Snow, snow, snow, here it comes
Snow, snow, snow, here it comes
Snow, snow, snow, here it comes
Snow, snow, snow, here it comes

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear

Here comes the snow, here comes the snow
And I say it’s all right
Here comes the snow, here comes the snow
It’s all right, it’s all right

And with the snow, come the Darwinists, people who are just too dumb to be allowed outside on their own…

jul 16 emerald lakes rescue

Seasons | The Daily Post

Posted on 21 February 2016 by SJPONeill

This week, let’s embrace the season: share an image that embodies the world or the weather where you live.

Source: Seasons | The Daily Post

Every January, the Department of Conservation and Project Tongariro host the local Mahi Aroha Summer Programme, a month-long calendar that encourages people into the outdoors and showcases local conservation projects… DSCF9471 The first activity each year, on New Year’s Day, is the family kite day…
DSCF9481 Even though the first of January is technically in the middle of summer, true summer here often does not kick in until February….
DSCF9486 Pleasant but overcast days like this are common for this period of the season… DSCF9476

…and are no obstacle to everyone getting out and having a good time… DSCF9487

A bonus this New Year’s Day, was the first mistletoe in Whakapapa Village…

Ridge Track, Whakapapa Village

Posted on 22 November 2015 by SJPONeill

The Ridge Track is a nice short – about twenty minutes/1.2km each way – walk right in Whakapapa Village…great for a quick leg stretch at lunchtime…

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It starts here at the public shelter, just up the road from the DOC Visitor Centre, and opposite the Whakapapa Holiday Park. The trail itself is just up from the shelter , where you can see the DOC sign on the right of the picture…

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The trail winds behind the shelter…

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…across the bridge and into the forest…

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…past a nice resting spot about halfway up (the forested part)…

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…before you break out into the open and continue up through the tussock.

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Not all of the trail is in tiptop condition and sections like this can be a little more challenging, especially after a good downpour…

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…and your’re there…

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No one is quite sure why there is a big table here but there is…be nice ofr a picnic, better if there were seats…

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Further up the ridge line, on a clearish day, you can often see the very top of Mount Ruapehu…

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…to the north, there are often great views of Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Tongariro…

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…and below, The Chateau and Whakapapa Village, with SH48 winding back down towards SH47 and civilisation…

Treat | The Daily Post

Posted on 31 October 2015 by SJPONeill

Source: Treat | The Daily Post

This week’s photo challenge theme is “Treat,” an intentionally open-ended prompt. This week, share with us a photo of something that you consider a marvellous treat.

Doing dinner with my youngest daughter and her partner….

Any and all time with the twin terrors….

Kiwi sign outside the office…

About once a year…someone else gets a treat too…

Geeking out with my oldest daughter each once month when her Nerd Block fix arrives…

Off-Season | The Daily Post

Posted on 11 September 2015 by SJPONeill

Umbrellas in winter? Balaclavas in July? Show us what “off-season” means to you.

Source: Off-Season | The Daily Post

We’re a little lucky here, that we don’t really have much of an off-season…maybe three weeks between the end of the ski season and the start of the summer season; and May and June can be pretty slow as well once the Great Walks end and the uncertainty over first snow begins for another year…

In winter the main street in ‘town’ is fully of cars either heading up to the ski field or trying to head up to the ski field is the road is closed or restricted to vehicles with chains or 4WD (pull up a chair to observe case studies in crowd behaviour!); playing in snow on the side of the road; wandering in and out of the cafes…

In summer, it’s much the same…less but not necessarily no snow…this clip went viral from the Park Facebook page as it snowed heavily on the first day of summer last year…

…but generally summer = as many, if not more, visitors, less clothing and more sun…

Summer 2014 started for us in October with a brill period of beautiful summery weather as the Great Walks opened…the first day that it was so hot we opened all the doors and windows, it started to snow…the biggest dump of the winter and we were back to winter for six weeks…six weeks where five of six Wednesdays it snowed heavily in the Village…six weeks of chaos as we shuffled, cancelled and refund Great Walks bookings…six weeks of the most intense staff training as we brought a 90% new crew up to speed…

The autumn (fall) off-season is a little more stable, consistent but no less intense…it is our main window of opportunity for maintenance, stocktakes, product development, updating brochures, possibly even a little leave, training, strategising, sometimes even just relishing the opportunity to put our feet up for a few minutes and talk ‘stuff’…

…and then the snow falls and it starts all over…

It only works with a great team…proof that paying peanuts doesn’t always get you monkeys…

Tongariro by air

Posted on 10 April 2014 by SJPONeill

One of the really great things about working for DOC on Mount Ruapehu is that opportunities arise to participate in some of the activities available around the Park. Last month, my planned trip to the rim of the crater lake on Mt Ruapehu was foiled by poor weather so when Mountain Air called to say they had a spare seat if anyone was interested, I was on the road immediately…

Even by midday this bank of cloud was still sitting just short of the base of the Mountain and more importantly for the day’s unplanned activity, just short of the end of the Chateau Airport runway.
DSCF7899 Our destination… DSCF7900

Our chariot…

The Mangatepopo car park in the lower right, the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing…

The other side of the Alpine Crossing on the long descent from the Blue Lake to the Ketetahi Carpark which is the finish point of the Crossing…

A small patch of cloud mingling with steam from one of the volcanic vents on the north side of Mt Tongariro…

A closer look down on those steam vents…

Looking west over the Blue Lake which is a bout the halfway point on the Crossing walk…

The Blue Lake with the Emerald Lakes on the lower left and the majestic bulk of Mt Tongariro in the background…

Looking closer at the Emerald Lakes with the Crossing track running from top right to lower left…Looking over the Emerald lakes and Red Crater towards Mt Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Just to the right of Red Crater, you can just make out the Crossing track: Red Crater marks the highest point on the Crossing at around 1780 metres, a good half kilometre above the 1200 metre start point at Mangetepopo…

Mt Ngauruhoe …you can’t see them but on a good day like this, there were dozens of ambitious visitors clambering their way to the summit – they said that they waved but I didn’t see them. The journey to the summit of Mt Ngauruhoe is probably the most challenging of the three peaks in summer as the slopes are very steep (a constant 30 degrees), covered in loose material so that you may spend as much time sliding back as you do pushing forward, and there is always a risk of getting clocked by a rock or stone dislodged by climbers ahead of you….

Between Mts Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu lies Whakapapa Village, home of the Chateau Tongariro the main DOC base for administering the Park. The light coloured roofs on this side of the Village are the Skotel accommodation complex, and the tracks to the north of it run to Tama Lakes and Taranaki Falls…

Last but not least the splendour of Mt Ruapehu, with a glimpse of the Crater Lake. In a few months this will be covered in metres of snow but at the moment it is still relatively easy to trek up to the crater rim as a day trip form the Village.

Just after taking this picture, i switch my camera to video mode and recorded the remainder of the flight back around all three mountains and back to the airfield. I meant to convert it to MP$ and upload it to Youtube before I came away this week but I am afraid that you will have to wait until the weekend for me to get that down…

I’d really like to thank the lads at Mountain Air for taking me up. I’ve been in and out of aircraft of all sizes over the last three decades and i would have to say that their presentation and performance was as good as any other top-line aviation activity that I have been involved with. If you visit us on a nice day (and most of them are), Mountain Air offers a great way to see the Park and its attractions in a way that a ground based perspective simply cannot match…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Layers | The Daily Post

Posted on 20 November 2013 by SJPONeill

Weekly Photo Challenge: Layers | The Daily Post. Layers. Layers can reveal, conceal, and make something more complex. They can vary in size, texture, color, or functionality. Each layer can have its own story, meaning, or purpose. They can overlap, blend, or be distinctly separate. A layer doesn’t have to be a part of a single object but can even be a slice of a multifaceted image or scene. In a new post specifically for this challenge, share a photo which means LAYERS to you!

I don’t know if anyone else uses the term but I use ‘Shrek’s Onion‘ frequently as an analogy for the necessary process in a lessons learned or continuous improvement system to peel away the layers of opinion, policy, agenda, fog of war, inadequate training, etc etc to reveal the core issue that needs to mitigated to address the original OIL (observation, issue, lesson). It’s been so long since I actually watched the original Shrek movie before it got all franchised up that I can not actually remember the context in which the onion appears in the movie, or even if it actually does or whether it is just something that I extrapolated from something in the movie…

I felt though that I could do something a bit more than an onion for this challenge and kept an eye out when I had to drive over to Whakapapa on Saturday to look into a possible part-time position at the Department of Conservation Visitor Centre at the base of the Mountain.

It was an overcast day and my first thought was of a sequence depicting below, through and above the cloud layer…

I set off up the road from Whakapapa Village hoping that the cloud would be low enough for the desired effect…

…unfortunately it was not to be and I probably would have climb (on foot) another thousand odd feet to get above the cloud…

…but I did not the significant layering that is a result of the numerous volcanic eruptions over the last couple of thousand years… …and on the drive back…

…I was able to get a more micro look at this geographic layering in the big cutting just up the road…
…not being a geologist, I’m assuming that the rockier layers align with some of the bigger eruptions…