Highlights of the Year 2010

1. First time on skis (Norway)
2. BMW
3. Olympic track in Sestrierre
4. Graduation Ceremony
5. Winning Google Soccer World Cup with Portuslavia
6. Finally, winning Division 3 Season with Google soccer 6 team
7. Getting "Player of the year" award from my team mates
8. Parents in Dublin
9. Team trip to Liverpool and playing at Anfield
10. High School #155 - 10 years since graduation
11. Surfing in Dingle, meeting Smyaka & Genichkin
12. Seedcamp
13. Zelenograd & Gondolas
14. Singapore Airlines
15. Meeting Andriy & Vadik in Perth
16. 6000 km drive across Australia
17. Skiing in New Zealand
18. Meeting Boykos
19. Luda's Wedding
20. Zoli's free fall in California
21. San Diego, Warner Brothers, Beverly Hills, etc.
22. People's Republic of Berkeley
23. Prague with Dina
24. Movember
25. Irish Snow & Airport Madness
26. My first hustle steps

27. 5th of November
28. Moscow

Invercargill

Heavy shower prevented us from skiing in Queenstown L Even seeing Treble Cone – the biggest ski field around Wanaka failed due to poor road and visibility – our Yaris simply couldn’t climb up this mud…

We swapped skiing for shooting in Wanaka’s “Have a shot”. It was surprisingly successful on 22 caliber – we both got 1200 points out of 1250, but Andriy was better in last recordable 20 shoots and even got to the hall of fame J Claybird shooting was not as good, and this time I won 7:6.

Late at night we arrived to Invercargill – my favorite name of the town J It was an excellent driving practice, sometimes a bit scary – darkness, winding roads, mountains, heavy rain… Awesome…

Next morning we quickly stopped at Bluff – the southern of point of the southern island. It’s 19K to London from there. Then we drove to NZAS for an excursion around aluminum plant.

As Michael said – some big toys and pretty serious shit that can easily explode, if you do it wrong… The plant is massive! Consumes 14% of New Zealand power and releases massive fraction of CO2 in return J Great fun to walk around and feel this massive production process, which I know nothing about, but it’s created by humans J

Fiordlands

It’s been a hard, but very enjoyable day. We had an exhausting 600km mountainous drive to Te Anau, Milford Sound and back. Some turns were really bad and we switched seats with Andriy, as I didn’t feel confident enough…

90-minute cruise around the Fiord was amazing! I expected something like a regular circle between the rocks, but we went under the waterfall and watched three dolphins playing with the boat and jumping from the water just in front of the nose. Also we went into the sea and jumped on the waves for a bit. On the way back we played with dolphins again, watched the seals and penguins, and went under the biggest waterfall, which was 163 meters high!

The actual drive in Fiordlands from Te Anau to Milford Sound is very exciting both as driving experience and as thrilling landscape. It’s very hard to transfer this feeling on to the picture. Snowy tops changing forests, tunnels from the trees, one real town in the rock, which looks more as a cave, beautiful valleys with huge ranges around, mirror lakes, kea birds and many more things… You feel so small, but so thrilled in this wonderful panorama!

Face is red. Eyes are tired. Knee is still in pain. But it was so damned good! J

Ohau & Queenstown

Early morning we headed towards Ohau – small ski slopes 40km from Wanaka. We had to do a good bit off-road in the mountains to reach the one and only ski lift of Ohau J Luckily, Yaris survived…

Ohau was about 10 tracks and some bits of free-ride. Andriy got to learn the snowboard, and I decided to practice my skiing again. It’s been good, except couple of falls and nice bump on my knee J Otherwise enjoyed it a lot and really looking forward to some nice snow in Alps next winter.

We finished the day in Queenstown – the touristic center of New Zealand, where one can hardly meet a Kiwi on the streets – only tourists around. We had a nice sip of Speight’s and a limp around town J

Mount Cook & Tasman Glazier

We thought of going to Mount Cook just for an hour, but ended up spending the whole day there. The views are astonishing and Tasman Glazier has just had a massive piece falling down into the water.

We hiked down to the water and then all around the glazier, which was a nice exercise for lazy asses that are driving all the time for last three weeks J We thought about flying around Mount Cook as well, but it was too expensive, so we saved some money for two days of skiing around Wanaka.

Closer to the evening we went to a small salmon farm to fish and cook the salmon back in the B&B. The owner says that in a month time the temperature will jump from +9 to +38 and they will have the peak season for fishing…

Salmon in milk was delicious! Bravo, Andriy!

Lake Tekapo & Lake Pukaki

On August 22^nd we started our new drive. This time – around South Island, this time – on Toyota Yaris, this time – really short and civilized…

The scenery is so good and so diverse that you can’t really write about it… We have passed lakes Tekapo and Pukaki with wonderful blue and white colors on the sky, snow, water and clouds. Within 100km of driving it felt like we passed Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Norway…

Many more “Lord of the Rings” landscapes on the way… It’s hard to describe really…

Christchurch, Capital of Rugby

We arrived to Christchurch at 3am in the morning – it was freezing cold compared to +30 at Gold Coast beaches J I actually didn’t expect that New Zealand can be so cold and that we will actually ski later on…

Having browsed some cafes in the morning we went to meet Andriy’s friend Andrew with his wife, 7-months old daughter, and wife’s mom. “How’s your work?” – “It’s average.” – the attitude is so hilarious… Who cares about it? It’s just a temporary stuff and it will fix itself at some point J

Our evening was full of Rugby. First we went to see New Zealand Warriors playing in the National Rugby League – very tight game, Warriors lost by one point in last minutes, and I have got some good knowledge on Rugby League rules. Good enough to enjoy the game J

Peak of the day or more of the night was All Blacks vs. South Africa. We woke up at 2:30am to see an amazing game! All Blacks were losing 14:22, before the late equalizer and winning try 30 seconds before the final whistle… Such a turnaround! Such an atmosphere! I really started enjoying Rugby…

Day 15 - Brisbane

August 20^th was our last day in Australia. We traveled 6,145km in total, burned around 800 liters of diesel, spent $1,325 on fuel, another $1,350 on a camper van, which all rounded to about $2,600 per person.

Tour around Brisbane has failed permanently due to the first rain in these 15 days. We returned the Wicked van being a bit shocked with the amount of vans at the car park and the size of this business. Then we had a short walk to the City in the rain, watched sea gulls and ibises wondering around cafes for the rests of food and lively skyscrapers and motorways in the middle of the day.

Rainy day is good for thinking, researching and simply accounting for the previous trip J New Zealand will be cold, so we better get used to this now. From beaches to snow – everything is here! And we gonna go to Warriors vs. Broncos game next weekend J

Day 14 – Gold Coast

On August 19^th we traveled our last 200km to Gold Coast – this time a massive touristy place for internationals just 100km north of Brisbane. Multiple skyscrapers with holiday apartments, shops, restaurants, etc. Very touristy, but at least with waves J

We rented surf boards and wet suits and went to catch some waves. Andriy actually managed once, while I was very far from even attempting… Don’t know for which reason, but it was so much easier to catch the wave and stand up in Ireland… Anyway, my farmer’s tan got even worse after wetsuit and I was happy to get smashed by couple of waves J

After the surf we went for electronic games. A bit of air hockey, basketball, vampire shooting, motorcycles and of course couple of songs with Guitar Hero J But the best time at Gold Coast was visiting Roberto – Andriy’s teacher and coach from New Zealand, Aaron’s father…

In his nicely decorated house, which is average size by Gold Coast standards, but quite big from what I saw in Ireland, Roberto was sharing that new life starts, when kids leave the house and now they have all this time with his wife to explore and enjoy.

Very wise man. I enjoyed his thoughts on opportunities in Australia, on economy, and mostly on relationships… Especially, how parents see relationships of their sons, and how they analyze girlfriends. The story continued in Aaron’s house, where we could see the other side… Very good learning…

Day 13 – Noosa

On August 18^th we traveled 450km to see the Sunshine Coast – biggest recreational spot for locals. We hoped to surf, but this dream never happened – the ocean was flat that day and we ended up having a bit of sun on the beach, a bit of swim and a bit of hike to the cliff.

Noosa was a nice place with all the touristic conveniences, but without overselling touristic culture. I hoped to fix my farmer’s tan, but I think it got only worth after a day of driving and hiking in the t-shirt J

In the evening we arrived to Brisbane and stopped at Andriy’s old friend Aaron. Was cool to see them catching up and discussing all the old friends from New Zealand times. I should visit my old friends more often as well J And just realized that almost no one visited me in Ireland within these four years L

Day 12 – Bundaberg

August 17^th was the last long driving day – we covered 554km to Bundaberg – the home of Australian rum J Too bad that the road doesn’t go along the coast with ocean views and reefs… We have had the same scenery as in the Outback, but more greenish and mountainous.

Rockhampton was the only interesting town on our way. Not that the town was interesting, but the person, who used to live here in the early days… Rod Laver – the most famous tennis player in the world, who managed to win all Grand Slam tournaments in one season twice – in 1962 and 1969.

The town was not particularly full of Rod Laver stuff – just one monument… Could do it better J Actually, Mount Isa was home to another famous tennis player – Pat Rafter. Both towns could actually use these names much better…

Finally, we arrived to Bundaberg and managed to catch the last tour around Rum Distillery. I think at this stage I am just missing Vodka factory excursion for the full alcohol industry package J Couple of pictures with a bear… Dinner at RSL – veterans place with commemorative lights out at 6pm… And another camping night before we catch some waves at Noosa…

Day 11 - Carmilla Beach

On August 16^th we traveled 281km towards Carmilla beach. At around 2pm we already arrived to our destination, where we agreed to meet Emmas, and things got a bit boring. So we went for an off-road drive along the beach and bought some fishing gear to kill time.

Carmilla was totally different from Whitsunday – no roads, no tourists, no flashing signs – just campers, fishermen, caravans and automatic BBQ spot J

Emmas arrived closer to five and we placed our vans on the beach. This was the best camp fire of the trip – in the middle of the beach overlooking the ocean, with half moon shining at Victoria and Betsy – our dusty vehicles J

In the morning we have planted the tree at the beach – compensation for Andriy’s accidental drop of the plastic bottle during Whitsunday cruise. Pollution has been compensated…