First of all, this blog has been up now for 20 days now and has already got (at the time of writing) 606 views. All of that without us actually doing anything interesting! Thanks for the sterling work on the refresh buttons mums.
So, as you will know if you've been reading attentively, we have spent the last 5 days out of 6 working at the Bliss Stick factory, out in the wop wops near Taihape. Charles on the right hand side is the main man. He pours, cooks and finishes all of the kayaks that come out of the factory, 3 or so per day. His wife, Coke, makes all the outfitting and does the accounts. We stepped in for a week to do all of the labour intensive stuff so that they could get on with building boats! Doug reloaded moulds and finished outfitting while I cooked back rests and seat pads all week. Take note of the boat in the picture. It's Doug's - still in the mould, still with plastic in the space of the cockpit hole! That'll be cut out by Charles.
Cracking the mould off of my boat. At this point, fresh from being spun around for 45 minutes after being taken out of the oven, the plastic is pretty darn hot. Once it cooled, I got to lift my boat out of the mould. Not many boaters can say they've done that!
Two tremendously intrepid looking chaps, two shiny new kayaks. Lots of adventures to come! We are going to drive up to Rotorua tomorrow, then we'll make our way slowly down to the South Island, paddling as much stuff as we can on the way. Looking forward to the Kaituna!
Catch you all soon,
Sam and Doug
is that a tuna and mystick?
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