About this website

This website holds information about me and my interests that I'm happy to have up on the web for all to see.

The most active page is "The Extremity of the Course".   This is a blog where I comment on various orienteering events.  Mostly, this will be courses I've personally run but from time to time I may decide to include a few "guest" courses.

I review books I've read in "The End of the Chapter".  I mostly read novels but there will be a fair sprinkling of non-fiction as well.  I have several tens of metres of books on shelves at home and I make liberal use of my local library so my choice of reading matter is usually determined by what I feel like reading at any given time rather than dictated by the "New Releases" section of the local bookshop.

"The End of the Path" doesn't have much in it at the moment, in fact as I launch this site in October 2011 it doesn't exist at all.  It is where, over the next couple of decades or so, I will put information about a walk I intend to do when I retire.

So who are you?

It isn't as if I'm trying to keep my identity secret; in fact, if you are interested enough to look at my website you probably already know who I am and if you don't, well, it shouldn't be difficult to work it out from all the clues on these pages.  However, I don't see any reason to advertise and so I've adopted "Arapito" as a pseudonym to use on the Internet.   As well as being geographically appropriate, it also fits quite well with my interests as seen on this website.  If you want to contact me, send me an email at this address.

Coming up soon . . .

Yes, it is true - I haven't been posting anything for about the last eight months and so a lot of great stuff has been missed.  I've made the decision to not bother trying to catch up on old events and just start again from here.  Reviews of OY3 and OY4 are now up with more to come.

What is the weather like there?

I'm glad you asked that.  Feel free to check out my weather station on Weather Underground.  It is updated every ten minutes and gives you the latest Arapito temperature, barometer, wind and rain records.  You can also get there by clicking on the "Weather" tab in the header.  No clever translation of Arapito, I'm afraid - if you think of one, let me know.

And finally, after nearly two months out of action, my weather station is back on the roof and reading the correct barometric pressure.

What does "Arapito" mean, then?

Arapito is a Maori word that is used as a place and street name in various localities around New Zealand.  The masthead photo on this website was taken from one of those.  Arapito is a compound word being made up of the two Maori words "ara" and "pito".

According to Maori Dictionary, both "ara" and "pito" are nouns; "ara" meaning way, path, lane, passageway, track or course while "pito" translates as end or extremity.

So, at various places on this website, I've translated "arapito" as "the end of the path", "the end of the track", "the extremities of the course" and even (this one is a real stretch) "the end of the chapter".  Maori scholars may well raise an eyebrow at one or two of these translations; if that is you, please grant me a modicum of poetic licence.