CherryPopper

I recently got back from a trip to Queenstown (New Zealand) where my girlfriend Andi and I went snowboarding for a week. Here are a few hightlights:

• Once we boarded we were able to play with Emirates awesome inflight entertainment system which had heaps of movies, music, tv shows & games some of which where even multiplayer. You could create a multiplayer game then request someone in another seat to join you which was awesome because of the multiplayer games was PONG!!! Oh yeah hours of block fun.
• First day snowboarding on The Remarkables was great fun but i was more assboarding than snowboarding
• Third day snowboarding on Codrona was great blue skys and some decent lessons saw me now resembling something like a snowboarder
• Fifth day snowboarding on Codrona I can now link turns both toe & heal side and can stay on my feet all the way down the green runs

One Small Step for Chatto, One Giant Leap for Chatto Kind

The snow & mountains are just a sight to behold i was just blown away by the sights.

Codrona Lift

Codrona View From The Top

Snow Angel

As some of you know i do lighting for bands as a side job and this time i got sent down to Apollo Bay's Music Festival for 3 days of rain, cold winds and the occasional great band that made it all worthwhile. I was on the B stage doing the lighting there for all the acts that played, no rest for me.

It kick off on Friday with a few boring acts but then Skipping Girl Vinegar popped onto my stage and impressed me with their catchy tunes. One song sounded great but listening to the recording on their site it didn't quite capture this songs "vibe" that well, the song was "Sift the Noise". The rest of the Friday was pretty boring.

Saturday kicked off early with my stage staring at 10.30am with Bonjah with their unique sound. The song that caught my attention with these guys was "My Patience" grooooovy little tune. Pretty boring to light but it kept interesting enough to keep me awake before I had time for my coffee.

Next up was one of the big acts of the festival, Kate Miller-Heidke. Apparently she has been on Ch7's sunrise a few times but I never get up that early (anything before 10am should not exist). I started off pretty mello but her songs all had a bit of a funny story to tell which kept it fun to light. But the main reason I remember this act was their cover of John Farnham’s You’re the Voice. Now while this wasn't too out of the ordinary it started off slow and then out of nowhere gets very rocky and totally caught me off guard to their audio mixing guys amusement... having me scramble to kick off a faster scene with the lights only to have it slow right down again until the next chorus. But her little stories out side of the songs were also quite funny with one story about having to sign a kids dirty jocks only to have him ask who she was after waiting 2hrs in the line!!! Kate also has an amazing opera type voice.

Dallas Frasca busted her way onto my stage later that day and she's always a lot of fun to light & very random. She loves to jump into the crowd to the dismay of security who have to protect her. I've also never seen someone have absoulty no respect for a stomp pad (pad you stomp on to make a drum beat). Great live act though and man can she sing, i don't think she needed the mic at all.

I had been told that there was a rock band coming up on my stage which after a few country and shit boring acts was a welcome relief. Electric Mary crashed onto my stage and boy did i love it. FINALLY a band i could sink my teeth into. They came out loud and kicked the crowd's ears... I came out bright and kicked the crowd in the face with my lighting show. After a day of pent up lighting i let it all out on one band and blew the crowd away. Strobe's, fast movements silhouettes and much more... even I was impressed with my work. I love rock & roll, it so suits my style of show. The band loved it too with them & a few of their friends coming up to say that fucking ROCKED, great work. Its times like that i love doing lighting.

Overall it was a great festival even if it was a little boring in parts. After freezing my ass off for the entire festival i was glad to get home to a warm bed.

On a recent trip up north to lovely warm Cairns in tropical north Queensland I was walking round the city of Cairns only to find the following stuck to a notice board on the main street. This pretty much summed up my trip too

Adult DVD's for sale in Cairns

It was my last day in Samoa as I was to fly out late that night so i wanted to try and make the last day special. I thought it was going to be hard to beat the night on the island as it really was a great way to forget about the real world and relax. But as we headed back into the real world, well as close to the real world you can get in Samoa, Roneil said he knew the perfect way to end the week in Samoa with a swim in a waterfall. Not just any waterfall but the Samoa equivalent of "wet & wild water park".

We picked up Renu on the way and headed out to Sliding Rocks for a swim in a waterfall in the middle of a rain forest. After walking down a very steep path we ended up looking at a number of smallish waterfalls with a few of the local kids having a ball sliding down these falls into the pools of water, it really was like what you would see at a local pool but in the middle of a rain forest.

The green moss is what made the rocks so slippery and made it possible to slide down the rocks as you would a normal waterslide. The water was so refreshingly cold and clear i was just blown away at how picture perfect this place really is. After watching the kids to see where you were meant to slide they soon noticed i had no idea where to go so were yelling for me to follow them. The kids soon got me in the right spot for the first of the slides. The first one was only a small slide of around 2m into a whirling pool of water. That was easy but then they showed me the next part which was a 6m slide with a huge bump half way down that would get your airborne before you hit the water, I asked the kids if it hurts your ass but they just laughed at me and slid down. I figured if they can do it so can I, so pushed off down the waterfall only to get a lot more air than the little lighter kids did and almost went head first into the water!!! When i finally came up for air the kids were laughing at me & told me to lean forward next time, now they tell me...

Then came the climb back up to the top of the waterfalls... it was a 8m rock face we had to climb up. Now I'm all for a bit of rock climbing but I'm in bare feet and my feet are silky soft (just the way the ladies love them ), so i'm in a little bit of pain scaling this rock face to which the kids are again laughing at me!!!

I went down the falls a few more times before i joined Roneil & Renu in the top pool under the first waterfall where they were getting a nice massage from the waterfall. They were leaning up against the rocks and letting the water gently fall onto their backs. It was at this point where i just stood there with the cool fresh water falling on me and looked around at the rain forest thinking.... wow this place truly is amazing & so untouched.

I can see Samoa in the next 5 years slowly starting to chase the tourist dollar more & more so it will become very westernised & commercial, which will be sad in some ways. It will slowly lose its untouched places and become crowed with loud annoying Americans, like all the other good tourist destinations around the world.

But for now it really is a touch of paradise and I enjoyed every minute of it, if you can go visit Samoa while its still is a slice of heaven.

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With work now out of the way it was time for the real holiday. Roneil arranged to go visit a school on the other side of the island that just happened to be close to where we had arranged to stay the night on a small island just off the coast. So we headed off in the trusty van across the "cross island road" which goes over some of those massive mountains behind Apia. It was much like our great ocean road except for a hell of a lot more pot holes, but just as scenic and full of slow moving buses!

We soon reached the school which was perched just up the hill off the coast with a great view of the ocean & reefs. The school had around 450 students and the resources weren't of the highest quality or quantity. Some room didn't have tables & chairs but had woven palm leaf mats for the students to sit on (though this is a traditional way to sit in Samoa). The principle asked us to have a look at one of their servers as it was running slower than the other server. We went to the IT lab which had 8 thin client terminals (not full pc's they connect to a server) and 2 desktop HP PC's acting as Windows Terminal Servers for the 8 thin clients. In true Windows style a reboot fixed the slowness issue and we were soon on our way to the island.

We arrived at Lalomanu where the true beauty of Samoa really starts to shine, this is picture postcard stuff. Nothing but clear blue water with lots of colourful fish, white sandy beaches and lush green rainforest. Our bed for the night was on the island of Namu`a where we would stay in a beach fale (traditional Samoan hut). We found the so called wharf, it was just a small plank of wood sticking our into the sea. From there we asked the local guy to look after our car and he called over the boat. How he did this was with a long stick with a white flag on it, he walked to the waters edge then waved the flag around for 5 mins till the people on the island noticed and jumped in the little dingy to come get us, very high tech.

We slowly putted over to the island in the crystal clear water and were given a fresh coconut on arrival. The young man then asked us if we wanted lunch, to which we said yes, he went inside grabbed his snorkel and said lunch will be ready in 15 mins. He was going to catch our lunch, can't get much fresher than that!! Lunch was great & afterwords we went for a snorkel where I'm sure i saw a few of my lunches family swimming around me.

We lazed around in our fale, went for a swim & snorkel, had a few beers, slept & swam some more. It was a hard way to spend a day but hey someone's got to do it Later that night we sat there chatting with the 3 other New Zealand guys staying on the island drinking beers and watching the magnificent sunset. I dozed off to sleep in my fale which had a matrice & pillow. After a few hours the cool breeze stopped and thats when it got hot, without the gentle breeze to keep you cool the humidity got to you even though the fale don't have any walls it was still hot.

I dozed in and out of sleep for most of the night and once the sun started to come up the island's animals came to life again waking me up. But i was glad they did as the sunrise was also just as beautiful as the sunset, and its not something i see much normally. I snapped a few pics then went for a snorkel to see all the colourful fish & coral in the dawn light.

After lunch we went for a trek up the Island's mountain and sweated our butts off as it was sooo humid in the rainforest then we headed back to the real world after one of the most relaxing days I've ever had.

Click on the "READ MORE" link for pictures

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