Memories: Fun and adventurous friends..

One of the things that i missed most about New Zealand is the extremely fun and adventurous friends. I never experience the freedom of doing so many crazy things until I went to New Zealand. It seems that Kiwis indeed do have the can do attitude and would give anything fun a go.

Take for example my peers at my previous workplace. A group of them came up with an idea that they could buy cheap second hand bath tubs from Trademe, an online auction site and retrofit it so it is like a dinghy and paddle it to a nearby volcanic Rangitoto island.

Obviously the drain hole had to be sealed and they had to fit a keel to ensure they do not tip over. Some of the participants bought steel bath tubs instead of the cheaper fiberglass ones and that made fitting a keel and welding the hole shut a loat easier, but unfortunately, the weight of the bathtub was more than the water displaced, Archimedes law took over and the metallic bath tub sank to bottom of the sea.

Only a handful of the bath tubs managed to float successfully, but crossing international shipping channels on the way to Rangitoto island was indeed tricky and unfortunately none of the bathtubs successfully made it to the island. No one was harm though, as there were heaps of support crew.

One of my friends that participated in the above while traveling through Europe on a shoe string, decided to buy a cheap inflatable dinghy and paddled around Venice to explore the canals.

Unfortunately for James, he got lost big time, and after paddling around for 3 hours, he ended up in a main canal and got some odd looks from other tourists on ferries and gondolas.

Looking back, i wished i wasn’t that tight with my money and i should have joined them. Money comes and go, but opportunities like these are few and far between.

There were quite a few motor enthusiasts at my previous workplace. We sometimes join local car clubs to participate in gymkhanas. Unfortunately for my friend Dave, his CV broke and he could not get his car onto a car trailer in the normal way and decided to improvise. Mind you what we did were very dangerous.

We managed to get the car on the trailer, with not much dramas.. which was lucky for us, as the trailer was never designed to be loaded like how we loaded it.

Before I came to Perth, i realized that i had not been doing as much fun stuff as my peers, and started to think about things i could do to make my stay in NZ more memorable. Unfortunately for me, i am not so creative. I realized that there were some cows in a local park, Mt Eden, and i went there to interact with them.

That didn’t really felt that adventurous or fun at all.. in fact,  I stepped on countless cow dung just to get close to the cow.

Anyway, unimpressed with my attempt, I went to Mt Hobson, next to New Market Basin just to see what i can do that’s fun. I saw an old rope with a stick on it, and i decided to make the most of it, and hung off it.

That was fun.. but it was not as cool as what James and his friends did.. James did invite me down to the south island once to build a raft using milk bottles and freestyle down a river.. but being a boring sod, I didn’t take up the offer. It would have been fun and memorable… I guess that’s some of the things that I regret not doing when i was in NZ.

Tags: fun activities