Rock Climbing in Ombleze, Dentelles de Montmirail, and Ombleze...

After 2 weeks in my family, it was time for me to catch back with some climbing mates, and with some nice french limestone. We first went to the excellent crag of Ombleze (south Vercors) the 11/12 of Septembre. With Donn, we tried to introduced Etienne to the hard way, i.e. camping under heavy rain, the tent set up on a non flat and rocky ground... Somehow, Etienne didn't like the experience, but me and Donn enjoyed it a lot!

We then came back to Lyon to leave Etienne, and to pick up Caroline for the WE. In order to avoid the rain, we went down south to the Dentelles de Montmirail, an old favorite. We sucked at rock climbing, but we had a bit of an adventure: we wanted to spend the night at "The Jardin", a small garden located at the top of the crag, 50 metres above the ground. To access it, one has to climb 2 pitches of grade 5c (NZ grade 17). The thing is that the wind was bloowing very hard, and the climb ended to be a mission: Donn got an excitting lead, and me and Caroline followed with the heavy backpacks (full of food and wine...). The wind was so strong that when you happened to fall, your rope was making a 30degrees angle with the vertical... I manage to dodge myself to the top with my backpack, but Caroline left her after 10 meters, on a bolt. Donn went down to help me hauling it. He made it to the top just at night...

That wasn't the end of the adventure for Donn as he decided to be strong and to sleep in is hammock, which was sounding like a noisy plane... He didn't sleep very well, actualy...

The beautifull Dentelles de Montmirail

A small spot sheltered from the wind

The following WE, I came back to Ombleze with some friends from St-Etienne. It was less adventurous, but the the food was way better, for some reasons!

The cute place we stayed at.

Playing the table traverse... All the girls ended up with bruises, I guess it's just a male's game...

Yum!

My little nephew Armand

Last year, when I came back to Europe, I missed the birth of my little nephew by less than 2 month. So, after 1 week at home spent to catch up with family and friends, I was impatient to head to Strasbourg in Alsace in order to meet this little terror! Armand is indeed full of energy... We bonded well I think, especially when Armand vomited on me as a sign of happiness...

Armand with the mum, my lovely sister called Fanny (and not funny...)

The dad (named Sebastien) visually tired...

And Armand!

This trip was although the occasion to visit the Haut Koeninsbourg castle near Colmar, which is a magnificent one, made all in the local stone, a pinkish sandstone. For the history, it has been expensively renovated by the German emperor just before the first world war, when Alsace was a part of Germany... Thanks dude, I got a couple of nice picture from this!

The last pic is one of the many cute little towns on the way back. I really like these painted houses... As much as the local wines and food specialties...

Farewell farewell...

On my last evening in NZ, I had a farewell party at David&Karine's place (many thanks to both of you even if Karine was unfortunately missing). THAT WAS GREAT: almost everybody I like was there, and I was really impressed and pleased to see you all sitting in front of me, listening to my crappy talk... It is something I will remember for a long time!

Many thanks to all of yours for coming, bringing some nice food! Thanks as well to the people who cleaned the house while I was talking to other people. And sorry, I didn't take any picture of the event...

The next day is full of good memories as well, waking up early to have a coffee with Bethany and Travis (my American lover...) before they work, having breakfast at Aurelie's place, going down to Wellington with Francis (thanks EAPS, bro), where we saw the excellent Rita Angus exhibition at the Te Papa museum (http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/exhibitions/RitaAngus/). Then I left Francis to his usual "lovely evening"... Understand who can...

Farewell lunch with Bill's group, Cafe Cuba

We went to Cafe Cuba with the all "Biomaterial group". When I say the all, everybody was there, which strangely never happens for the infamous group's meeting, hehe. Sorry, it is not nice at all to say that, especially since I had 2 nice presents from you, an All Backs T-shirt and a Tui hat!
Many thanks to all of yours for coming, for for these presents!

A legendary skiing trip...

Well, before leaving NZ, I really wanted to have a couple of days of great sunny skiing days... But the weather decided otherwise, with something like 36 rainy days in my last 40 days in the country! I guess NZ was crying because I was leaving... Anyway, under Francis's advices, we (me, Francis, Graham and Ivor) decided to go and fight the elements in the Ruahines, instead of on Ruapehu where the avalanche hazard was "Extreme". And what a trip it was, with 6 hours of bush bashing, for 5 mins of not-so-great skiing. Well, we won't come back there, for sure!

A bunch of happy skiiers...

Voila!

OK OK, I should have started years ago, at least when I arrived in New Zealand for my PhD... But anyway, "latter is better than never" (does it sound alright in English?) and I will start my life story at the very end of my stay in New Zealand. I hope you won't find it too boring!