The French Alps

Last Sunday the Tour de France stage 14 traversed 2 major passes in the French Alps, and this revived my memory of a certain day on 14th October 1998, when I drove over part of that route. We stopped at the summit of the Col du Lautaret at 2020m altitude. Last week it was crowded with thousands of spectators and parked cars lining the road as the 171 riders made their way over the pass to continue down to the next major peak.  But on that day many years ago, we enjoyed a peaceful few minutes in that spectacular location with the feeling that we were on top of the world.

Westland Weather

I am reading Eleanor Catton's prize winning novel "The Luminaries", and enjoying the graphic descriptions that she uses to describe the life in the gold rush days of South Westland, an area which is well known to me. This passage, (which I include without her approval) provides an imaginative description of the dismal weather that so often greets the tourists as frequently these days as it did for the pioneers 150 years ago:-

"As Balfour turned into Revell Street, he was met with such a lash of wind and rain that he was obliged to clamp his hat to his head with his hand. According to Saxby’s Weather Warnings, that dubious oracle published daily in the West Coast Times, the deluge would let up within a day or three – for Saxby was expansive in his predictions, and allowed himself a generous margin of error on either side of his guess. In general, the specifics of his column changed but rarely: downpour was as much a part of the Hokitika constitution, as frost and sunburn had been in Otago……."

All Boys Throw Stones

Yes - Throwing stones is always a favorite pastime for young boys, but this is a bit ridiculous.
This was a typical scene on our rather challenging climb up to Castle Rock in the Girraween National Park, but the effort that it demanded was well rewarded by the 360 degree views that we enjoyed in rare perfectly calm conditions on the top.

Last Man on the Moon

I came across this while browsing the web. The history books are full of records about who did what for the first time, but there are not many activities where a person can claim to be the last to have done something.  One of them is certainly the astronaut Gene Cernan who is known for being “The Last Man on the Moon” as he was the last man to walk on the moon during the Apollo 17 mission, and there is no indication that his record will be broken in the forseeable future and maybe never, given the uselessness of that piece of rock that floats around 380,000 km above us.   He may also be credited with being the ultimate graffiti artist, because he traced his daughter’s initials in the dust on the surface of the moon before he left. He has documented his story in the book “The Last Man on the Moon“, which is now turned into a film by the same name.

"As I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come – but we believe not too long into the future – I’d like to just say what I believe history will record. That America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

THE OTEHAKE HUT

I was having a browse through some of my favourite web sites last week, and I noticed on the Arthurs Pass site that there is a note saying that the Deception Swingbridge has been removed.
That brought back a few memories.  I have only been through the Deception twice - the first time going upstream with the tramping club, and the second time going downstream with Leonie about 15 years ago.
On both occasions the river was rather peaceful and we did not need to use the bridge, but I remember it being a rather flimsy looking structure, so I am not surprised that its existance could not be justified as the years of deterioration take their toll.
It is a pity that things change, but when it comes to the wilderness you assume that all will remain as your memory recalls but it is not always so.  On the positive side (if I can believe the photos on the website) I see that the very remote and rather primitive hut at the confluence of the East and West Otehake rivers is apparently still maintained and it looks just like we saw it when it was a welcome home to us for a night on the ambitious 4 day trip that we did a few years ago.
Time can erode our fitness and mobility, but it cannot take away the memories.

HUMBLE PIE

Yesterday I posted a story which amounted to some personal boasting about my superb competence in solving complex navigation problems using spherical trigonometry.
Today I was brought down to earth when I encountered a trivial mathematical problem that I can not explain. Here it is:-

A farmer who was a horse breeder, died leaving 3 sons to inherit his estate.

In his will he had stated:-

“I want to leave all my horses to my 3 sons, and because they have contributed to the farm to different extents, I want them distributed as follows:-

My eldest son should get 1/2 (half) of total horses;

My middle son should be given 1/3rd (one-third) of the total horses;

My youngest son should be given 1/9th (one-ninth) of the total horses.”

After his death, the boys discovered that there were 17 horses on the farm, and they could see that it was  impossible to divide 17 into half, or 17 by 3, or 17 by 9.

So they decided to go to a farmer friend who they considered quite smart, to see if he could help them solve this problem.

The farmer friend read the will patiently, and after giving due thought, he went home and brought one of his own horses over and added it to the 17. That increased the total to 18 horses.

Now, he divided the horses according to their fathers Will.

Half of 18  = 9. So he gave the eldest son 9 horses.

1/3rd of 18 = 6. So he gave the middle son 6 horses.

1/9th of 18 = 2. So he gave the youngest son 2 horses.

This added up to a total of 17 horses,  so the farmer friend took his own horse back to his farm, and everyone was happy - problem Solved!

FLIGHT PLAN

I have had some recent fun in developing a spreadsheet based program to generate flight plans for light aircraft.  It is now looking about right but there is still an amount of testing to be done to verify its accuracy.
It has raised numerous problems, the main one was the need to calculate bearings and distances from global grid co-ordinates using spherical geometry and trigonometry.  Then of course there is the problem of converting speeds from Knots to km per hour, and Nautical miles to kilometers, and degrees to radians.
All this has kept me busy in my spare time.