The first bit of work was a simple Wordpress website for a local tradesman. They were looking for something quick and it was basically a free theme, some plugins and some content put together.

www.queenstownconcretegrinding.com

The second website on the other hand was a custom design by Kelpdesign and it was for a local construction project management company. I had to convert it to xHTML and CSS and set it up as a Wordpress template. This was the first time I have created a template for Wordpress and it really opened me up to what Wordpress could do. I have created so many templates for Joomla in the past and developing one for another CMS was pretty interesting. This Wordpress template had everything from custom fields and separate layouts that could be assigned to specific pages and categories. As well as clever bits of PHP and nice usage of Wordpress’s API.

www.triplestar.net.nz

Milford Sound is a lovely fjord on the south west coast of the south island of New Zealand. Trish and I decided to go on a little bus trip down there to check it out the beauty. Plus the photos we’ve seen pretty much forced us go! The drive took about 3 hours from Queenstown. On the way there we stopped off at a few photo opportunities. We also had a coffee in Te Anau, a nice little town on the way and home to the largest lake in the south island, Lake Te Anau.

Amazing views at Milford Sound

We were very lucky with the weather too. It was raining on the journey down but then it turned nice and sunny by the time we got  there. Plus the roads were clear, if we decided to go a few months earlier we would have been disappointed due to road  closures. Some fiends of ours previously couldn’t go due to avalanches and snow covering the roads.

When we arrived we waited to board our boat for the cruise, had a packed lunch and tried to dodge the sandflies. We were greeted with a voucher for a free muffin upon boarding and were given some welcoming words from the Captain slash cruise narrator. He pointed out all the geographic features along the way up the fjord. Our cruise brought us right to the waters of the open Tasman Sea and back again.

Me posing with my favourite fjord

The landscape is stunning and you certainly get overwhelmed by the beauty of it. On the way back we spotted a few seals taking a rest in the sun and got very close to one of the waterfalls! So close that we needed to zip up fully and put out hoods up as we were right under it!

Fun fact: One of the waterfalls here was the one Wolverine jumped off wearing his birthday suit in his X-Men Origins flick. Also some of the explosives used in the film were stored in Queenstown’s ice rink! CrAzY!

Me at the bottom of the waterfall at the front of the boat! SOAKED!

Have a look at some of our snaps

A lot of stuff has happened since my last entry. It’s going to take me many more to fill you in on what I’ve been doing and how awesome our New Zealand road trip has been.

Here’s a quick overview on what we’re been up to:

• Went to Milford Sound
• Snowboarded at Treble Cone
• Left Queenstown and started our road trip
• Hiked Franz Joseph Glacier
• Kayaked in Abel Tasman National Park
• Wine tasted in Cloudy Bay vineyard
• Saw a lot of seals chilling by a car park.
• Got the Ferry from the South Island to the North.
• Met up with my good friend James in Wellington
• Went white water rafting
• Saw a geyser and smelt some eggy geothermal activity in Rotorua
• Went Caving, abseiling, tubing and saw some glow worms.
• Ate some sushi
• Got to the northern tip of New Zealand at Cape Reigna
• Tried sandboarding!
• Saw some wild dolphins
• Sold the van in Auckland and made a fantastic profit!

At the moment I’m compiling a google map with the route we took, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to share it easily but I will go in more depth at some stage.

Here’s a few pics!

Will update again soon!

We took out the bed that came with it and decided to make a new one down the back, nearer the boot. We also made up a tall storage unit for our stuff and there is also plenty of storage under the bed too!

Today we did some work on the floor; we got a thin piece of MDF, cut it to shape and stuck on some simple lino tiles so it can be cleaned easily! Looks great!

Hopefully we will make a bit of a profit on it when we sell it on and hopefully it will make a great New Zealand road trip vehicle for more backpackers.

We have a few little bits and bobs left to do now but that’s mainly it! Can’t wait to hit the road and explore this amazing country!

Check out the photos!

We had a nice little picnic in Glenorchy by the lake and then proceeded further north to a place called Paradise, where there were lots of sheep and back country roads. Also,  some of the Lord of the Rings and X-Men Origins: Wolverine was filmed up there. We had to turn back when we the road got a bit more suited for 4×4 vehicles as we didn’t want to do any damage to our van.

On the way back we stopped off at Bob’s Cove, a really nice secluded bay. We had a bit of a walk around there and climbed up to a look out point. By this time the sun was going down so we had to head back to the car before it was completely dark.

We hopped back in the car and headed home.

Check out some of the photos I took

One of my housemates, remembered that there was a pair of boots hanging around somewhere in the house. She fished them out for me and they fit perfectly and they are a really nice pair of Burton boots, all I needed were some new laces. The guys in Small Planet hooked me up with a free pair of laces because I know them almost at a first name basis now as I’ve been in so many times asking about my boots! So at the end of the day, I now have boots and I can head up the mountain again! Plus my ribs are a lot better!

For my final year project, I studied the differences between 2D and 3D simulations. I had to write a pretty large paper and create an application to demonstrate my findings. The amount of hours I put into this project would be far too many to count. Its a pity nobody uses Director anymore!

For my project I decided to focus on traffic simulation and I created this little interactive application. You’ll most likely need to install Adobe Shockwave to get this running! You can view junctions in 3d or 2d ( which was just a top down 3D view ), increase traffic density, rotate camera view in 3D and increase building height.

Its flawed I know, the cars turn into each other sometimes and the 2D view isn’t even true 2D, but lets just put that all aside!

Does anybody use Director anymore? let me know and post any links to anything you’ve developed with it!

Now that a few days have past they are much better, still a little bit of pain but no where in comparison to Saturday evening! So I have decided to give it a rest for a good few days and sort out some other stuff!

My snowboarding boots have gotten a little worse for wear so I brought them back to Small Planet (the shop where i bought them in) and they were happy to send them to the repair shop free of charge. Two of the laces are almost broken and another fully broke, I just tied a knot to join it back together last week! Also the velcro strap on one of the snapped! Anyhoo, look forward to getting them back so I can head up to The Remarkables again, my last session up there was last Friday and it was brilliant!