alright, the overdue account of the
middle-earth adventure.
long boring 10hr plane ride on Air New Zealand Boeing 767-300, got no games to play, no entertainment, night flight, slept. they said they screened Hulk, guess i slept thru it till they served bfast. got to their thankfully not so tiny airport, whisked thru customs, and promptly sent on tour buses on yet another long long 7 hr bus ride. plane flew at approx 10,000m 900km/h cruising. interesting to see so many layers of clouds at so many altitudes. wonder if the skies are busy with little planes zipping around, do they meet each other? low clouds are only a few hundred metres up, so close, so low. rain's very low too.
SAF has this obsession with chinese restaurant, it seems. lousy, boring, chinese restaurants. which serve basic food, in pompous fasion, ill-equiped to deal with large crowds, inexperienced waitresses, totally out-of-their-depths. but i dun expect chinese restaurants in new zealand to be much good. touristy places. yuck. an obession with corn soup as starters as well. *rolls eyes*
long winding zipping bus journey typical of getting anywhere in new zealand, where everything is far apart, lands aplenty, lakes aplenty, mountains aplenty, hills uncountable, knolls under your feet. [i think we forget that the earth ain't flat orginally] so there. wonderful Lake Taupo which u cant see the other side, peppered with black swans and their young, brimming with waves and mist. ringed by disappearing forests and winding cliffside car-advertisement roads. the kind where u cant be too sure there's so 'copter on ur tail waiting to fire a missile before the next bend.
and then a long long straight boring flat 'desert road'. well its called Desert Road, and i suppose it is their desert. brown shrubs, green grass, rare tree. and on to Waiouru, hometown of their military camp, their SAFTI MI. not bad, encircled by a desert training area, with signs that warn of live firing, with tracks going everywhere, with no fences, no doors, no "i'll shoot you" signs. nothing to say that you can't go in actually, jus that you might get killed, and there's really nothing for you to see/take.
tralala. okay ignore that.
nice camp, as i said. din look like a camp. looked friendly and nice.
...
nice bunks, belonging to their sch of arty, but looked unused for some time. who know.s
got bathtub in toilet! played with it on two nights, but too slow, coz got no shower inside. nway their shower's nice too.
4 men rooms, with two pipes carrying hot water going thru the rooms as heater. the pull-it-up against gravity kinda windows tt will fall down and crush ur fingers, juz tt these were so stiff and cobwebby. carpeted floors in corridor and room. cardkey lock on doors in our block. the other block had normal keys. pple got locked out, climbed windows to get into room.
they've nice nice nice delicious food in camp. [but we were all eating from the warrant officer's and specialist's mess, so...well. the men's mess was behind our block, but only their kiwi recruits used it]
they've got small little packaged containers of UHT milk for their tea and coffee, no powdered creamers. the meals had too much of an asian-indian tendency, mebbe their indian chef decides that finally there are singaporeans around who can appreciate spicy food, and mebbe we need the spice to keep ourselves warm in the cold. but was okay, the food was very nice, the porridge was better than our army's. there's potato egg salad and pasta as sidedishes with lunch, desserts for dinner. desserts like ice cream, cheese cake!... yum yum. lots of fat to burn in the cold. in the first 5 days outfield which was the battalion exercise, they packed fresh food, which were like 80% carbohydrates, or more. insane. but still damn lot better than SFI fresh rations.
outfield was rather enjoyable. super relaxed compared to previous experiences. their desert has nice grassfields which you can just like down and sleep on. wildflower field. mushrooms when u can spot them hidden in the grass. honey bees buzzing ard, they were so so so cute, and nice sounding, boing boing from flower to flower. the landscape is of course, amazing. rolling plains, with Mount Raupaehu in the backdrop standing at near 3000m. snowcap occassionally covered with clouds. layer of clouds sometimes at the bottom of the mountain, sometimes middle, sometimes top. got various pictures of all those. the camp was at 800+m. the 3 main deployment areas were at 88+m, 900+m, 1100m respectively. Paradise Valley at 1100m was a no-no for staying overnight. too strong winds and too cold. the other two were cold enough, temp 8-20degrees. winds almost all the time. Robinson's Pond had this little pond with a small forest around it and then desert all around. odd that the treeline stops abruptly. Carbuncle had its share of cold times, one night it was rainy and a mist/fog/cloud came down and lowered visibility to 10metres. so we just plonked down and stayed the night. nicely cold in the day, too hot at noons and afternoons(relatively), shivering cold at night. can wear 4 layers and run around. usually 3 layers will two. 2 when its warm. and never enough at night. once i was cold in my sleeping bag while wearing 3 or 4 layers. once i tried to sleep without sleeping bag and just shivered the whole night without really sleeping.
really nice-colored landscape. nice clouds. nice shadows of the clouds moving across the land, areas of light and darkness. warm sun, cold wind. somewhat sunburnt, in the cold. no visible kiwi birds, no visible possums, rabbit droppings all over the land, no visible rabbit holes, burrows, rabbits seem to shun us. hares.
have you seen the sun rise over the land?
have you seen the redness, the orangeness, the blueness, the sunrays?
have you seen the moon rise over the land!!?
have you seen the white yellow spotlight, the glittery stars, the twinkling blues, yellows, reds?
have you seen the fuzzy belt, which they call the milky way?
have you seen it white and long, across the sky, with your naked eye?
the land so green, the hills so high, the clouds so white and sun so bright.
the nights so dark, yet with moon so bright.
the shadows cast by moonlight.
the low angle of light by the setting sun.
in the half barren desert, where there are no trees to block the view, where all is in its glory.
in the empty lands, rich and wonderful.
so many of us in this country have never known what a starry starry night is, what a twinkle star is, what does xing xing shu bu qing mean, what does a sunset and sunrise mean.
i was rather happy with the milky way appearing. a dense belt of stars contrasting with the darker darkness in other parts of the sky.
could see rain far away too. see the storm coming from kilometres out. see the other side turn opaque, see the white wall.
lala. so there. twas nice okay. happy happy rivendelly place.
fastfoward to end of the thing. end-of-frame dinner was a sumptuous dinner. nah, actually only the dessert was good. and good is really really really good. icecream, cheese cake, choc cake, choc mud thingy, oreo cheese cake, some other cakes. madness. stuffed.
unit ORD celebration where for the first time i actually drank more than 2 mouthfuls of beer. i almost finished the can, i think. and drank some lousy white wine from the bottle. and had a lot of fun that night being crazy.
the morning that i was supposed to go Auckland was madness. an ultra strong wind was blowing, can get so strong you'll stop in your tracks, and if u walk the other way you'll fly and bounce along.
Auckland's interesting. the city area's a mad jumble of buildings. office blocks and shops all messed up together, with some old buildings. like our Raffles Place, City Hall, Orchard Road, Clarke Quay all rolled up into one place. variety. with a nice harbour/wharf, with nice boats, ferry building, japanese car yard, america's cup village, pubs. great place to hangout. i still cant go into the casino at Sky City even tho the age limits' 20. im young im young, lala, feels great. nice tall sky city tower. din go up. liked the feeling of running ard in a foreign city with just some odd maps. nice freedom and adventure.
they actually put us up at a hotel! an okay Hotel Grand Chancellor and Centra Auckland. only problem is they put us near the airport. so we're 20km frm the city. so the taxi fare happens to jump 20 cents at a time, it's $2+per kilometre. and fares range from $25 to $45. ugh. nice twinsharing hotel rooms.
so there so there.
flight back had lousy food. shrug.
so that's just about everything, i think. long story. i'll add more when i can think of it.
saw this wormy thing in camp on thursday. 2nd time in my life. really cute and fun worm to play with.
walked from HwaChong to Botanic Gardens. surprisingly short walk. very enjoyable journey. shall include it as part of my singapore trekking route.
