Hobbit-shire

[Andylaser]

A few photos from the land down under the land down under.

This is the hill where behind where I am staying. The top of the little hill was just over an hours walk. The big hill is 2300m stuff walking that one.
For a sense of scale, spot the Boeing 737.




A few from the Shotover RIver.

 

[Andylaser]

The bottom of Lake Wakatipu looking towards Queenstown.



View from the picnic table at work. Seems a decent place for a spot of lunch.



Dramatic sunrise as I arrived at work a couple of days ago.



Rufty-tufty transportation is de-rigueur here.

 

[Winnet]

Looking good down there.

G

 

[Jaggededge]

Looks great. Took me a while to spot the 737.

 

[Andylaser]

A balmy -2C today.




By lunchtime the weather managed to drag itself into positive figures so I went for a short drive to something I spotted a couple of days ago. The steamship TSS Earnslaw, a rather elegant ship dating back to 1912. Unfortunately, out of the water for annual survey and refit, but a great opportunity to see her graceful lines.





A brief walk up the small hill provided views over the lake past the headland that protects Queenstown. Amazing views with low clouds hanging onto the sides of the mountains.

 

[Andylaser]

Spotted these next to the ship. I am guessing they are the fire grates for the boilers.



BBQ chicken and pork belly sandwiches. . Possibly the tastiest £8 I have spent for a long time.

 

[Jaggededge]

The ship looks great. Looks very kong islandesque. Or summat up the Nile.

 

[Beachlover]

Stunning place and great photos Andy. Don't do anything to get sacked just yet - we need more of these photos first and if you do get sacked we need pics of the female concerned, if not video of the actual event.

Stick paddles on that ship and it could be the Waverley. Had it been the Waverley though and based on past history, it would have been out of the water needing work because the crew had ran into another pier.

 

[Andylaser]

This is Yoshi, the office dog, her mission is to keep everyone happy and is very good at it. She is also very cute and knows that too and also has the most amazing soft fluffy coat which more like wool than hair.



Mhmm pie.



Is that the letter V? Is it Vegan? Fuck off!
Is it Vegetarian? Not bloody likely.

Venison & plum sauce if you please.



I have also left my air BnB in the sticks and moved into a hotel in Queenstown. After the large house to myself, the hotel seems a bit cramped. Still its Friday night, lets go out and have some fun.

The promenade at night.



I found a rather good pizza joint and partook of a tandoori chicken pizza complete with popadum full of mango chutney.



It seems Queenstown isnt cheap though. Pizza and a couple of beers cost the equivalent of £32.

Ahh well its Friday, lets go for a drink.
I had been warned that almost everyone gets asked for ID when entering a bar, so was prepared with my passport in my pocket. Wandering around, I passed a bar with some banging heavy metal music emanating from within. This seemd like a good place to check out and I joined the queue to get in. After inspecting the ID of those in front of me, the bouncer looked at me and said "You look like you belong here, go on in." Result.

The place was brilliant. Small and maybe only held 70 people, but the band were excellent and everyone happy and leaping around to good music. I staggered out at 1.00am having dropped $100 on JD and coke and facing the long uphill walk back to the hotel

 

[bushwacker]

Are you including a meet up with the founding father of ROF/NAFOF while you're there? If I didn;t know better I would suggest he was responsible for your pie filling.

 

[Andylaser]

I think Neil is on the North Island. But havent heard from him since ROF went AWOL

 

[Andylaser]

Waking up this morning soon showed that being awake wasnt such a good idea, so I promptly went back to sleep and didnt much more of the morning. I decided to return to town in search of some breakfast. I spotted a McD the previous night and marked that as worse case scenario, but really wanted a bacon roll.

A stroll towards the promenade I visited the night before showed a street market had appeared, along with a wide array of multi-national street food. I promptly ignored the rainbow candy floss and tofu sandwiches and did the usual thing of follow my nose and look for the biggest queue. Breakfast therefore consisted of fried pork dumplings with chilli and garlic sauce.



These were eaten off the promenade wall while I took in the amazing views here.







It looks like The Earnslaw is back in the water. Lets go and have a look.

 

[Andylaser]

Up close and in her natural hbitat, TSS Earnslaw does indeed look a beautiul and graceful ship.





More low clouds over the lake.



The village green. Nicely terraced area for beer drinking at night. I expect its a good place for ice creams in the summer too.



Man hole covers decoated with pictures. Much nicer than the boring ones we get here.

 

[Nice65]

Breakfast looks great!

I think I could get to enjoy this ‘work’ you speak of. Only just got to see the thread pics, the 4G connection I’ve been on was just spinning it’s wheels trying to load them.

 

[ElThomsono]

Fortunately I'm at the campsite crying up bacon or that would have been a difficult read; whole place looks great.

 

[Andylaser]

Last nights dinner, the hotel serves a decent fish & chips.



Amongst all this sightseeing and partaking of the great outdoors, I have been doing some actul work.

This is one of the camera systems we built. It feaures a gyro stabilised 3 axis gimbal. It is loaded with a Red Komodo camera which shoots 4K video at 60fps in RAW and a Canon 17-120 lens. These were in use at this years Glastonbury festival (mounted on long arms) filming the main stage.



For testing, we bolted it to the back of a pick up truck and took it for a drive. It was amazing to centre the viewfinder on a mountain peak and watch the camera track its target as the truck drove down the road and negotiated bends and a roundabout.



However, all this pales into insignificance compared to this little beasty.



This is a 6 axis system with inertial navigation. Its fitted with a Sony broadcast camers and a Fuji x92 zoom lens. This is classed as a "mid range" system. We will test this tomorrow.

In the mean time, dinner. I found a tiny little Korean restaurant and ordered beef bulgogi and a manuka honey tea. I was the only non Asian in there, obviously a good sign and I got a few strange looks. The food was delicious but also outrageously spicy. I am sure my arse will suffer in the morning.

 

[Andylaser]

So to test the dynamic camera system, we need a more dyamic vehicle than the Holden ute.

Eurocopter AS350? That'll do nicely.
Yours for a mere £1.5M. This one had just 38 hours on the clock, so ncely run in and still has that "new helicopter" smell.



I feel garage envy coming on. Feel free to work out what this lot is worth.

 

[Jaggededge]

Looks great but rather you than me.

 

[Andylaser]

Aaaaaaand we are off.



Looking down on the morning commuters. I cant be too harsh, I was there yesterday.



We found a gap in the clouds punched through and headed towards the peaks.

 

[Andylaser]

Sunrise over the mountains as seen from 6500 feet.





Majestic mountains.

 

[Andylaser]

Job done and time to head back for coffee and cookies.

Flying down the valley towards Queenstown where we will drop under the clouds again.





The historic slipway where TSS Earnslaw was a couple of weeks ago.



Queenstown airport looking back across the lake where we just came from.



Back in the office and a friendly welcome.

 

[Andylaser]

One of our systems being used in anger.

 

[BorderReiver]

You are going to come back here?

 

[Beachlover]

You are going to come back here?

I know I bloody well wouldn’t be, that’s for sure!

 

[Andylaser]

You are going to come back here?

Afraid so. I can see why people move here.

Its a really laid back place, friendly people and stunning scenery. Most people at work are in cargo pants and hiking boots. Hardly a BMW (or land rover) to be seen and bars are pretty reasonable. Although it does seem strange sitting outside in -2C having a beer.