The South Pacific is a part of the world I have always wanted to visit, and will definitely be doing so in the not too distant future. Before leaving the UK, I watched the first 2 episodes of a great series on the whole South Pacific region, and through the luxury of torrents have been catching up on the rest of the episodes here (BBC Iplayer still hasnt gone international and I havent yet found a way to fool the site in to thinking I am in the UK)
The narrator went to my school too…(yea I know, typical middle England accent…)

Below is an incredible clip from episode 1, well worth downloading the whole thing if you like the look of it…

Another great bit of filming from an earlier BBC documentary:

In light of the recent false claims of the 1st double FMX backflip in competition here, I thought I would post the actual 1st double FMX backflip again by Pastrana in 2006…super clean and still epic 3 years on…

Kiwis (and Aussies) seem to have a bit of an issue about being on the arse end of a world map, so I wasnt surprised to come across this:

Now who’s on the top of the world, bru?

The whole north/south thing is obviously just a man made construct, and the history of mankind is full of examples of races putting themselves in the centre/top:

Arabia (Ancient): They put south at the top. This is because when you wake up and face the sun, south is on the right. Because of positive associations with the right as opposed to left, they put that on top. Yemen is so named because it is on the “yamin” right of Arabia. And of course, with the sea to the south of them there was nothing “on top” of the country, so they prefered it that way. Europeans learnt mapmaking from the Arabians and flipped the map to make themselves on top.

Arctic/Antarctic: A natural map of the poles has either south or north at the top and at the bottom – indeed, in all directions. Unusually, the opposite compass direction will be located in the centre.

Australia: Maps are pacific centred.

Biblical Times: There is evidence from the Torah that east was at the top of maps. In Genesis, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, is captured in war and carried away. Abraham races to the rescue. He and his men catch up with Lot’s captors, and set him free, in “Chovah, which is to the left of Damascus.” (Gen. 14:15). Chovah is north of Damascus. In Psalms 89:13 it says, “The north and the right, You created them”. This implies that right is synonymous with south, so you are facing east when you read the map.

Medieval Europe: Jerusalem was on top because that was the Holy Land. This meant that east was more or less at the top.

China (Ancient): The Chinese were the first to invent the compass, which they always thought of as pointing south. South was a sacred direction, in ceremony the king would always face south.

China / Japan: In modern times, Chinese and Japanese maps are split at the Atlantic, so have Japan right in the middle and China near the center. In Tokyo, English language maps that are for sale are printed in Australia; the maps in both countries are Pacific Centred.

Egypt (Ancient): The pyramids are aligned with true north. This was calculated using a grouping of stars, that they believed to be holy because the pharaoh’s “spirit” would travel there after death. However, they also thought that “up” was south because of the northwards flow of the Nile; rivers must flow “downwards”.

India (Ancient): Sanskrit “daksa” means ‘able, strong, dexterous’; whence “daksina” meaning both ‘right’ and ‘south’. Presumably this indicates that they used maps with East at the top.

New Zealand: Upsidedown or “corrected” maps are becoming more popular, especially with tourists.

Russia: The former soviet union placed its maps with the USSR at the center.

US, Canada: Some maps are as in Europe, with the Americas on the left. Some are rotated with the Americas in the middle, China split in half, and Bangladesh and Bhutan almost lost in the margin.

Source: flourish.org

I was sad to find out that Snowboard UK, the longest running British snowboarding magazine has been “suspended” (read finished) and all the staff were made redundant yesterday.

I dont know the details yet but I would guess that with disappearing advertising revenue, they have become another victim of print media’s demise…

They were the first magazine to print snowboard images that I submitted, including the shot bellow, and will be missed for sure….RIP SUK.

We all know it, but often lose sight of it…you should laugh more, it’s good for you.

Try this:

Or this:

Or click here…

If you dont like it try again, it’s different every time.

I got this the first time…:)

I went for a hike up here out the back of Cardrona Resort to the top of Mount Cardrona. There was amazing popcorn snow all over the rocks at the top…the result of seriously strong and cold wind….

Found out that Cardrona = “Windy valley” in Maori…and it showed that again yesterday with 50kph winds and horizontal ice pellets…

While hiking today, I also came across some guys skinning back up in to the resort from the massive Mt Aspiring National Park behind Cardrona where they had been ski touring…looks absolutely knackering but an amazing way to get right out there…

Been reading the Jeremy Jones blog – the winter story of an epic snowboarder who has, incredibly, got to the point where he was burnt out from being heli’d in to the mountains (and paid to do it), and instead decided he needed to climb to the top of every peak he tackled…so much respect for making that decision…

I came across the link to this one, where he is in Europe, and had to go back and read them all from the start of the winter in the Sierras and then Alaska…

I’ve always been fascinated by split boards and I’m gonna give one a go in the spring out here.

Back on a board and feeling content down in our little corner of the planet. It seems big from here.

Looking forward to the new Jeremy Jones TGR movie.

Yikes…

1st day at Cardrona – apparently the most snow on opening day in years – a good sign for the winter…

THE Best damn ice cream I’ve had in a long while – even comes with a proper good WARNING!

We got a little fed up with the cold and total lack of insulation in our house so we drove a couple of hours over the mountains to Haast. As you come down out of the mountains it’s like coming in to a new country, with palm trees and a tropical feel to it (including a temperature about 20 degrees warmer than Wanaka) We came out on a huge beach about 15 miles long, with absolutely no one on it at all…epic. There was massive rolling surf, huge oldgrowth trees with the beach covered in knarled piles of bleached drift wood…It was sooo good to wander down the warm beach in bare feet after the freezing temperatures in Wanaka…

I feel very humbled in this place. It has an ancient and weathered feel that I’ve not come across anywhere else, and with all the turmoil going on in the world, it feels a very long way away from it all.

However, with many, many different problems clearly on the horizon I have to doubt that anywhere is really safe from it all…..