Sunshine ski field
I went skiing at the Sunshine ski field in the Rocky Mountains twice while living in Calgary. It turns out I’m not very good at skiing 😛
Beautiful neighbourhood skating pond
A beautiful skating pond near my home in Calgary.
Christmas turkey
Well what do you do when you’re stuck in a strange foreign land on Christmas day? You have a Christmas orphans dinner that’s what! Gregor and I bought a turkey, got a bunch of other foreigners (Gregor’s from Oz) and then we deep fried the little bugger – the turkey, not the foreigners! The locals […]
Toboganning
My roommate (flatmate in Kiwi speak) and I went tobogganing. Of course those crazy Canadian kids decided it would be a good idea to build a nice ramp exactly where the natural flow of the hill goes so you end up going backwards at full speed over a ridiculously steep jump! We had a scary […]
Skating at Olympic Plaza
Ice skating at the Olympic Plaza in Calgary, Canada.
Front yard rink
Well what else do you do when it’s -15 degrees outside and you have an itch to play hockey? The idea of the rink came about one day when my roommate (flatmate) Gregor and I were sitting round talking about how his old roommate had built a rink in their backyard. So I was like […]
Anna visits :)
Anna Williams came to visit me in Calgary 🙂 Unfortunately she wont let me put any photos of her online 🙁 But here’s a photo of the beautiful sunset we experienced while walking back from the Calgary zoo.
Chemistry Halloween
Halloween party with chemists in Calgary.
Calgary Hitmen
Mike Boyle took me to see a Western Hockey League (WHL) game featuring the Calgary Hitmen at the Saddledome in Calgary. The game was very exciting, lots of big hits, lots of skill and a WAY higher level of hockey than I’d seen before. Unfortunately the NHL lockout was on at the time so I […]
Halloween pumpkins
I carved my very first halloween pumpkin 🙂 They sell specially grown pumpkins for the purpose over here. I was very stoked with my effort and proudly displayed on my front door step. After going to a halloween party with a bunch of fellow chemists, I realised that mine wasn’t quite in the same league […]
Calgary lab
After a lot of trips with trolleys, moving some massive fridges and packing way too much glassware into too few draws and cupboards, we finally moved into our new lab in the basement of Science B at the University of Calgary. Here’s a photo of my boss Mike Benn. I stole the photo of the […]
Pool party
30 degrees celcius, blazing sun and a ridiculously cold winter approaching … so what better reason than to have a pool party 🙂 We found a scungy inflatable pool in our shed, got someone to bring along a slip n slide and setup a web cam in our window to catch all the action. Unfortunately […]
Matt Dakins in Banff
It turned out Matt Dakins (an old mate of mine from our undergrad years studying chemistry at Otago) was living in Banff when I moved to Calgary. Thanks for letting me crash at your place Matt 🙂
Banff National park
I’ve visited Banff township in Banff National park in the rocky mountains a few times now. It’s only an hour and a bit away from Calgary. It’s similar to Queenstown but without the lake. There’s lots of hiking (tramping) and site seeing to be down there. The above photo is of Tunnel Mountain. It’s not […]
Los Angeles
And the prize for my worst first impression of a city ever goes to … Los Angeles. The stench of smog at the airport was simply foul. The following photos I took from the plane show the yucky smog quite nicely.
Prison Break In!?
Okay, soooo … most people who pick locks in prisons are generally trying to get out. But in our case, we were actually trying to get in! Yes that is as warped as it sounds. My old flat in Christchurch was built inside the original prison walls of the Addington Prison. But the old Victorian […]