I had a similar experience a week or so ago - hospitalised with a sever migraine in a country town. Outstanding service, people and attitudes. But clearly feeling the pressure on a chronic basis. I feel for anyone working in healthcare these days (used to myself, but out for 15 years or so now)
Road trip for me. Couple of hours each way to Arthur's Pass and and back to pick up a second hand commercial dishwasher. Looking forward to getting up in the mountains - best therapy ever! Might see if I can fit in a wander up to the Devil's Punchbowl along the way
Very nicely done - and a great selection of others there too. My son is a budding DM so these will be perfect for him. How does your patreon work? I'm assuming there's something preventing people from signing up for a month and simply downloading everything!
My kids love it, and are getting old enough to appreciate some of the more adult humour. So no, it's absolutely not "of its time". Definitely an unpopular opinion there to be sure!
I manage a cafe and tried a bunch of different beans before settling on MacKenzie's Mainland blend. A mellow, super easy to drink blend that's just as good in a flat white as it is as a doppio. We get a lot of compliments on it.
Personal favourite is Escape, a Taranaki based roaster. A lot more character than others though, so maybe not for everyone!
There are stairs to the cave itself, but inside is a completely natural pathway. Nothing between you and the speleothems except a rope on the ground. Lights are an LED system worn on each individual's helmet. And about a bazillion glowworms down in the lower levels over a lake.
Not always. I run a commercial tour (approx 5k visitors per annum, so fairly small in the great scheme of things) - one of the things we pride ourselves on is keeping the cave in its largely unmodified state. It's really special to be able to share that with people.
Yes, generally seen as a last resort to provide access past a squeeze but I know of several caves that have had Kilometers of passageway added to their surveys through the enlargement of a single point.
Just FYI, I've not had much luck with cracked Bitwig - its clever enough to detect the protection is bypassed and blasts static for a few seconds every few minutes. Not usable. Granted this was a year or three back, so things may have changed.
Great for NZ economically. Ambivalent for everyday Kiwis and I suspect detrimental long term to our already abused whenua. Seeing great swathes of South Canterbury etc being force fed fertiliser to grow grass to grow cows to make milk to export just doesn't seem like the 'right' thing to be doing. And this agreement just makes that econmically more viable for the dairy cartel.
100%. Was just reading that shit show myself. There's definitely both up and down side to the fediverse