It’s now strange conspiracy theories of grant money hungry scientists and a complicit media manipulated by huge green companies’ agendas. All of them chasing riches, and some attempting to bring about a new world order.

Sometimes it’s worthwhile to take a step back from the current debate and get back to some fundamentals. Here’s a condensed version of a fairly science-heavy article entitled “The CO2 problem in 6 easy steps” from realclimate.org. It aims to explain why increasing CO₂ is a problem without using models:

1. There is a natural greenhouse effect. This is illustrated through calculations based on the mean temperature of the earth, the amount of energy arriving at the earth and the fact that the planet is in radiative equilibrium.
2. Trace gases contribute to the natural greenhouse effect. Remember high-school chemistry – spectrometry? IR spectra from space show absorption lines associated with CO₂, H₂O vapour, CH₄ etc. The effect of CO₂ in the mix has been calculated from these spectra, and it’s significant.
3. The trace greenhouse gases have increased markedly due to human emissions. We know CO₂ has increased by more than 30% and methane has more than doubled.
4. Radiative forcing is a useful diagnostic and can easily be calculated. This one involves some scary maths for the layperson, but the conclusion is that a change in the radiation budget at the top of the atmosphere is a pretty good predictor of future surface temperature change. Read the original article for more detail.
5. Climate sensitivity is around 3ºC for a doubling of CO₂. By analysing the climate’s response to known forcing changes from the past, it is possible to derive a sensitivity figure of ~3ºC.
6. Radiative forcing x climate sensitivity is a significant number. Current forcing from trace gasses implies an equilibrium of around 1.2ºC – since we aren’t there yet (~0.7ºC of warming to date), we’ve still got another 0.5ºC in the pipeline. Additional forcing from additional emissions as per BAU is calculated to result in 2ºC  to 5ºC warming – significant, right?

And if you want more information about this stuff, check out “Is Global Warming Still Happening?” and “Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming” from Skeptical Science.

Here is a picture! I’ll upload all my photos tomorrow, most likely.

Here’s the single sentence version: In New Zealand, a vehicle turning left must give way to an oncoming vehicle making a right hand turn into the same road. Or to put it another way, when making a right hand turn across oncoming traffic, you need only give way to cars proceeding straight ahead. Oncoming vehicles turning left must give way to you. Clear? Didn’t think so. Here’s a picture:

Red car gives way to blue car.

In Australia (and pretty much everywhere else) when turning across oncoming traffic, you must give way to all oncoming vehicles. Nice and simple.

I’ve racked my brain trying to understand what benefits are conferred by this hare-brained approach. I’ve certainly encountered a couple of really dangerous situations that are created by the rule. I’ll use some pictures to explain the problems.

Situation one – Vehicle A making a left hand turn at a four way intersection with traffic lights and pedestrians crossing. When a red light changes to green, generally pedestrians crossing in the same direction will get a green signal too. This means when turning left, you must wait until the crossing is clear of pedestrians before turning. No worries. Only problem is, pedestrians will sometimes dart across the crossing when their signal has started flashing red, so the driver of Vehicle A must pay close attention throughout the turn to avoid collecting anyone.

Watching the pedestrian? Mind the car about to crash into your driver's side door!

While busy watching pedestrians and making a left turn, the driver of Vehicle A just might miss an oncoming Vehicle B with right of way turning right on top of them. Dangerous, sure. Not the worst one though.

Situation two – Vehicle A making a right hand turn on a straight but narrow road, while a large left-turning oncoming Vehicle B gives way. What a driver may not be able to see behind the oncoming Vehicle B is another Vehicle C which is not turning. It is legal for this hidden Vehicle C to pass the slowing/stopped Vehicle B. Upon passing, Vehicle C has right of way over Vehicle A which may have already started to turn, possibly resulting in a passenger-side collision. Very not good. This was described here at Fush ‘n’ Chups from where I nicked the diagram (thanks guy!)

It's bad enough as is. Now imagine Red Car can't actually see Yellow Car.

So when is this nutty rule actually meant to help? Can anyone describe some scenarios that are actually made safer by the rule?

Edit: I’ve discovered from a news article from 4 days ago that the NZ government are at last planning on ditching this rule! Hooray!

Kaiteriteri

Abel Tasman National Park was characterised by what seems to be our usual New Zealand weather pattern – grey, possibly a bit rainy and cold in the morning followed by beautiful blueness to finish off the day. Strange, since it looked so nice when we woke. Never mind.

Spot the Seal

After about an 8 hour drive down the coast to Fox Glacier (via a seal colony at Cape Foulwind), we both decided our pace was a bit manic and it was stressing us out. Consequently, we’ve ditched both Mt Cook and Dunedin from our itinerary so that we can spend a bit more time around Wanaka, Queenstown and Te Anau. So far, that’s working really nicely.

Spot the Glacier

Glacier clambering was great fun, if a little exhausting. Once again, cold, drizzly and cloudy early on followed by dazzing blue skies and sunshine. We’ll walk the Rob Roy valley track tomorrow, which I’ve heard is particularly pretty.

Gee, I’ve been a bit slack with this haven’t I? I guess we’ve been a little bit too busy really. Since I last posted, we’ve been from Taupo to Tongariro National Park and then down to Wellington where we spent three days. We’ve crossed the Cook Straight on the Interislander and have now arrived in Motueka, near Abel Tasman National Park.

Some quick highlights: The photo up top is of the sun setting on Lake Taupo, the first night we arrived there. The next day was a bit grey and gloomy but we headed out to see the Aratiatia rapids on the Waikato river. Four times a day during the summer, the power generation company opens the flood gates on these rapids and “turns them on” for half an hour. It’s really quite a thing to see the rapids go from pretty much a trickle to 90,000 liters of water per second. I took some photos but you’ll have to wait till I get back.

Next day we headed for Tongariro National Park. I had all the best intentions that we would climb Mt Ruapehu and see the crater lake. I’d heard that the walk was pretty difficult, but that it could be done in about 5 hours return. By the time we got up to the top of the chairlift (at 2050m), that walk was looking a whole lot more daunting – difficult is certainly not a strong enough adjective. It was basically a slog up about a 30-35 degree incline on loose volcanic rock and pebbles on an unmarked trail with a 700 meter ascent. We started out and gave it a go but were forced to turn back reasonably quickly. We walked up a different ridge instead, about a 300 meter climb and took some very cool pics from among the clouds. Bloody hard walk, all the same.

We finished our tour of the North Island with a fairly long drive down to a three day stay in Wellington. Got a bit of everything done, saw museums, ate good food, saw some bands and drank copious quantities of beer and cider from tiny, tiny glasses.

Yesterday was a bit grey and gloomy too for our ferry trip across to Picton. It wasn’t too bad, rather cool to see the mountains of the south island popping out of the mists. The trip down Queen Charlotte sound was both surprisingly long and very pretty. Upon arrival and consumption of some deli sandwiches, we drove over to Motueka via some of the most windy roads I’ve ever encountered.

We woke this morning to see this out our window:

And we’re taking a boat trip up the coast for some walkies and swimming. I’d better get myself out of bed, in actual fact. Toodles, more later!

(When I get the chance, I’m gonna write a good and proper rant about New Zealand’s crazy road rules. Well, just the one rule in particular actually. Those of you who’ve driven here know the one I mean.)

Kuirau Park

Tuesday kicked off with an unintentional two hour sleep in. Somehow during the night, my phone had decided that it had returned to Sydney and had adjusted its timezone accordingly. All well and good, except that we are very much still in New Zealand and had intended to be on the road by 9am. Never mind, our host was very gracious in not charging us extra money for checking out late and we sped off down the road to the Black Water Rafting Company HQ.

Once outfitted in a squishy wetsuit and squishy boots, it was kind of impossible to carry a camera around. So sadly, I haven’t got a whole lot of pictures from Waitomo Caves. Nonetheless, rafting through the pitch black water with glow-worms above for a couple of hours was an awesome experience. Lept backward off a couple of waterfalls, even!

Rotorua Lake

Next stop was Rotorua, about 3 hours drive away. It’s definitely a scented town, though not overpoweringly so. We spent the late afternoon taking some photos of the various steaming pools and whatnot dotted around Kuirau park in town. Spicy Indian dinner, tasty followup icecream and a walk to the moonlit lake finished off one very full day.

In the morning, we grabbed brekky and then headed pretty much straight for Orakei Korako a rather impressive thermal area about halfway to Taupo. Orange thermal goo, boiling mud pools and gushing geysers. Pretty much the whole thermal thing in one place. I got some pretty pictures and video, the majority of which I’ll upload when I get back.

Orakei Korako

After Orakei Korako, we visited the Craters of the Moon, another thermal area which came into being when the authorities were messing around building geothermal power stations and whatnot, altering the groundwater and creating a new thermal tourist attraction somewhat by accident. The signs around the place tactfully avoided mentioning this fact. “Being that the Craters of the Moon is a fairly recent geothermal site, it has no particular Maori significance,” one of them read.

Huka Falls

Huka Falls next stop, something like 160 cubic meters per second of water pouring through a gap about 10 meters wide with a 10 meter fall. Definitely something which was felt as much as seen. We finished up the day with a dip in Lake Taupo to cool off. I don’t think I’ve ever swum in fresh water which was so amazingly clean and clear.

We stayed in Tiki Lodge in Taupo last night, an oddly soulless place filled with bare walls and doors with passive-aggressive signs about not slamming them and not drinking. Curious.

Anyway, I’ll save today’s activities for a later post. Toodles!

Auckland seemed quite nice, we were both a bit regretful that we hadn’t planned to stay a night there. It remind me of Melbourne a little bit, with the wide streets and slight hilliness. I was most impressed to note that their little green walking men are animated. Nice.

Murderburger had been recommended to us by a whole bunch of people who’d eaten there while in Auckland. It was a little bit strange chasing down a tiny burger joint in a foreign land based on a few recommendations. Good food though, I must say.

But! Despite getting up at 5.30 and hopping off our flight around 6 hours later, we still had to make our way to the sleepy bayside town of Whitianga. Crashed out, got up in the morning and headed to Cathedral Cove. The photo up there on the right is along the walk which wasn’t too long. I’ve taken heaps of other photos but I’ll probably end up uploading them when we get back. I’ve got fairly scant internets to spare.

Lunch was damn good at a cafe in Hot Water Beach. Sadly the hot water spring phenomenon only happens within two hours of low tide, and low tide was at 7am and 7pm today. Just couldn’t fit it into the schedule.

I’m sitting now in a little cabin nestled in the hills near Waitomo caves. The picture you can see there on the left is directly out the front door of this cabin. We arrived just as the sun was going down after something like three and a half hours on the road. Phew.

About two minutes walk down a little track from this cabin is a cave that I’m told is pretty much full of glow-worms. The last light of the day is just fading away behind the hills as I type so I reckon we’ll go down and check it out shortly. More in a few days!

While we’re away, I’ll post some updates and photos and stuff here as we travel around, so stay tuned! We leave early Sunday morning for Auckland. The routes linked below are somewhat tentative in a few cases, but should give you some idea!

21/2: Arrive Auckland, then head for Whitianga
22/2: Whitianga to Waitomo Caves
23/2: Waitomo Caves to Rotorua
24/2: Rotorua to Taupo
25/2: Taupo to Tongariro
26/2: Climbing all over Tongariro National Park
27/2: Tongariro to Wellington
28/2 & 1/3: Hanging around in Wellington
2/3: Wellington to Motueka via Picton and a ferry trip
3/3: Admiring Abel Tasman National Park
4/3: Motueka to Hokitika
5/3: Hokitika to Fox Glacier
6/3: Fox Glacier to Makarora
7/3: Makarora to (probably) Twizel
8/3: Twizel to Dunedin via Mt Cook/Aoraki
9/3: Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula
10/3: Dunedin to Te Anau
11/3: Nice early trip out to Milford Sound and back
12/3: Te Anau to Queenstown
13/3: Flying home from Queenstown in the afternoon