Ryan Hellyer's website » Skating

Jaimee, Larry and Krissi show

ryan — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:54:20 +0000

Jaimee Wood, Larry Martin and Krissi Wood joined David Patchett and I at the Lower Manorburn dam.

Jaimee in front of the dam

Larry Martin at the dam

Larry and Jaimee playing hockey

Larry with the puck

Jaimee in the bottom basin

Jaimee passing the puck

Jaimee and Larry playing hockey

Krissi Wood

Krissi and Jaimee showing their charming side

Lake Tekapo road trip

ryan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:21:44 +0000

Anna, Harry and myself road-tripped from Dunedin to Alexandra to do a night skate on the Manorburn dam, then headed to Poolburn reservoir the next morning to skate on mega thick ice at Poolburn reservoir, then finished our journey by travelling through to Lake Tekapo for a hockey tournament between the Killer Keas (our team) and the Christchurch Rangers.

Harry on Poolburn reservoir

Harry and Anna at Lake Tekapo

Harry and Anna on Poolburn reservoir

Anna, Harry and Dave during a night skate on the Manorburn dam

Anna and Harry on Mt John, Lake Tekapo in the background

Anna and Harry heading towards the dam face at Poolburn reservoir

Anna during a stopover at Lawrence

Anna on Poolburn reservoir

Anna, Ryan Hellyer (me) and Harry. Unfortunately the flash didn't work too well with my reflectors.

Ryan Hellyer (me) and Anna struggling to keep our eyes open due the glare on Mt John. Lake Tekapo in the background.

Keas invade Poolburn

ryan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:20:09 +0000

The Killer Keas hockey team took to the ice at Poolburn reservoir to brush up their skating skills before heading north to Lake Tekapo. Skating conditions were a little average due to the snow, but there was no shortage of ice (up to 15 cm thick in some parts) and lots of fun to be had enjoying the scenery.

The Killer Keas squad heading towards the face of Poolburn dam. Download high resolution version.

Lunch break

Dave Patchett measuring the depth of the water on Poolburn reservoir

Ed and Pip

The two Daves, David Patchett and David Richards

Killer Keas goal tender Peter Wallis

Panorama showing how massive Poolburn reservoir really is. Download high resolution version.

Ben Wallis

Manorburn dam

ryan — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:06:11 +0000

View of the water fall at the lower basin of the Manorburn dam

Dave Young drilling down to 6 cm at the beginning of the channel between the middle and lower basins at the Manorburn dam

From left: Dave Young, Dave Patchett and Alan Knowles on the middle basin of the Manorburn dam

Dave Patchett playing hockey on the middle basin of the Manorburn dam

Dave Patchett posing with his home-made ice poking device

View of the middle basin of the Manorburn dam showing the moon still shining in the top right hand corner.

View of the middle basin of the Manorburn dam from upper channel.

Poolburn reservoir

ryan — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:50:01 +0000

Some photos showing the beauty of the frozen Poolburn reservoir this winter.

Alan Knowles and Dave Patchett skating through the maze of jagged rocks on Poolburn reservoir.

View of the rocks at Poolburn reservoir. This photo is result of merging three different photos to create a wider angle view.

A light snow dusting on the rocks created a stunning backdrop for the ultra-smooth near-black ice

Wide panorama showing how beautiful Poolburn reservoir is on a good day. Full resolution Panorama available here. If you look closely you will see Dave Patchett and Alan Knowles skating.

Skating Poolburn

ryan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:20:01 +0000

Thanks to Dave Young, Alan Knowles and Dave Patchett for taking me along on their ice skating trip to Central Otago. We had beautiful ice, up to 10 cm thick, at Poolburn Dam. We circumnavigated the entire lake (~20 km), most of which was beautifully smooth near-black ice. There are a lot more photos to come, but here’s a few quick snapshots from the weekends activities until I find the time to process the rest of them.

Here you can see the "crazy squares" effect in the ice. The rocks you can see in the background are common throughout the lake and make for a terrific view across the huge expanse of ice.

There were a lot of Canadian Geese in the area. Their droppings are somewhat of a hazard on the ice as not only are they large and gross, but they ice tends to melt wherever they land.

Dave Patchett striding across the ice after we made a quick jaunt over to the dam face around lunch time.

For more information about the trip, check out Dave Young’s blog post.

Killer Keas

ryan — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:22:27 +0000

The Killer Keas ice hockey team, bronze medalists in the Dunedin Ice Hockey League Autumn season.

Clockwise from top left: Ben Wallis, Edward Waite, David Richards, Peter Wallis, Ryan Hellyer, Bret Dougherty, Señorita León de la Barra, Elizabeth Roberts, Jaydee Cabral, Hernisha Fakir, Sonja Woods,

Thanks to Jaydee Cabral for providing the photo and Anna Craw for taking it.

Manorburn dam history

ryan — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:06:08 +0000

I’ve been fishing through my families old photo albums and found the following photos of the Manorburn dam from the past that some of you may find interesting.

From left: Lynn McArthur, Ronald Hellyer, Pamela Hopkins, John Hellyer, Ken Hellyer and Robyn Reid on the central basin of the Manorburn dam in 1954. The hand writing is courtesy of my Nana.

From left is Ronald Hellyer, Ken Hellyer, some random guy, Phylis Hellyer and John Hellyer on the Manorburn dam in 1952.

Ken Hellyer. I think this is the Manorburn dam, but I'm not entirely sure which part. It may have been somewhere else, but I'm not sure where that would be. I'm guessing this is some time around 1970.

Ken Hellyer on the Manorburn dam. I'm guessing this is some time around 1970.

This is my brother Scott Hellyer on the tiny ice cube they called a rink which sat beside the Manorburn dam. This would have been around 1984 I think.

And this is Scott demonstrating why I'm the one who's still skating!

Bode Cave

ryan — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:07:38 +0000

Our uber awesome, wonderful and truly incredible professional ice hockey coach Jenel Bode is leaving Hopefully she’ll be back next year though

Rhyan McMillan and our uber awesome coach Jenel Bode

For her goodbye bash, she organised a goodbye party in a cave at Longbeach. It sounded boring, getting stuck in a cave all evening on a cold, wet, rainy day Luckilly Sarah was heading out to take Jane so I hitched a ride along so I could make an appearance and bail home early with Sarah. Darn glad I went though, coz it was totally awesome. The cave was wicked, the fire kept us all cosy warm, everyone had fun and there was loads of entertainment provided by my teammates who provided firebreathing, guitar and flame throwing demonstrations for us all. There were even baby blue penguins in the back of the cave hanging out with us!

Neil Dudley and Rob Owens demonstrating how much effort it takes to burn human skin

Neil Dudley pretending to be a dragon

Sarah MacDonald stumming on the guitar, Jane Soper sipping on her vodka and chocolate thingy

Neil Dudley trying to set himself on fire

The bonfire, Chris Laing in the background providing some music on his guitar

Bajeeze, two scary looking women! Thankfully they’re normally quite beautiful. The Beasts arch nemesis is on the left (she keeps scoring goals on us) Sheree Haslemore and ex Dunedinite Susan Green is baring her teeth on the right

Neil Dudley and Rob Owens lighting up the cave

Ryan sandwich? From left: Ryan Hellyer (moi), Rhyan McMillan and Ryan Wick.

Stupidly I didn’t think to take a camera, so thanks to Jenel Bode, Susan Green and Rhyan McMillan for the photos

Stewarts Gully Mini Golf

ryan — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:58:20 +0000

The Beasts (my ice hockey team) headed to Stewarts Gully Mini Golf. The facility is owned by Clive Murphie, a top bloke who is also heavily involved with the Aardwolfs Ice Hockey Club who we played against in Christchurch. As it says on the label, this is “Mini Golf”, so basically big golf shrunk to a small size, no castles, water features or other fandangled things to navigate, just good old putting greens.

Clive Murphie, the owner of the course

Estelle Baker expertly sinking the ball in the hole after some advice from Jane Soper (on right). Conveniently I clicked the shutter just as the ball was falling into the hole.

Jason Sedgwick kicking some serious butt on the greens

Jane Soper playing catch up

Neil Dudley aiming for 18th hole … from the 1st tee

Estelle Baker putting for gold