91km Bike Ride.

Starting from Marsfield at 6:30 AM

- Down to Browns Water Hole

- Kissing Point Road

- North Turramurra

- Bobbin Head, a big gorge with a 4km climb out

- Suburban roads to Galston

- Gaslton Gorge, a big gorge with a steep 4km climb out

- around the back of Dural

- Down to Berowa Waters, my top speed on a bike ever down the hill, but as with all hills you ride down ...

- Cross the river on the car ferry and then up up up out of the gorge.

- Back to Bobbin Head (via Mt Kur-ring-gai and Mt Colah just for laughs)

- Bobbin Head gorge again this time in the other direction.

- Back through North Turramurra - Kissing Point Road

Its the first big ride I have done in decades, and I did it on a mountain bike - with knobbly tires. Only the second time I have used cleats - the one other time was in the gym on a stationary bike. I ate like a horse about half way through, drank 4 liters of water and finished about 2kg lighter than when I started so I must have sweated 6L. Average speed was around 21 kph, 11 on the climbs. Total vertical was about 1km. The trip home from Turramurra was slow and my legs felt like wood. I was so exhausted I was swearing under my breath with every pedal stroke.

I still had to mow the lawn and do the gardening when I got home.

I slept well.

Today my bum, or rather the inside of my upper thighs is a little sore, as are my hamstrings behind my knee. Other than that I feel like I could do it again.

Suburban Recovery

I know I should be posting about the ski trip but I couldn't let my lovely wife's attempt to park the car in the garage go un-commented.

Perhaps we should let the pictures tell the story:


Ended up ripping a 10cm gash in the tire wall. These are armored tires mind.

Ten Years

It's our tenth anniversary today.

Where has the time gone?

Long holls

We've now returned from a fab trip to Fiji and then skiing in Australia.

Part 1, Fiji:
Qamea island is a little dot of land about an hours plane trip north east from Nandi - well to the nearest island with an airstrip at any rate - then you have to take the minivan to the opposite side of the island and then a boat trip across the straights and then finally to Qamea. Greeted with a bottle of bubbly - I knew I was going to like it. 10 days of intermittent diving and relaxing. We did our advanced open water course amidst the clownfish in some of the best diving in the world . For the drift dive, or diving in a current component of our course we did the aptly named "Swirling Coconuts" dive in such a strong current that the dive master later told us he was going to call an end to the dive the moment we got to depth as he had never seen the current so strong - we got whipped around in an underwater maelstrom - but apparently we looked comfortable so he continued. On reflection the vigorous current that was sweeping us over the underwater features with such velocity was probably spinning the blood out of my face - thus accounting for the calm look. Saw my first trumpet fish at 10 knots. So many memorable moments that it's hard to pick what to write about - the manta ray cruising past, diving through caves in the reef at The Great White Wall in the Somosomo Straights (regarded as one of the absolute best dives in the world), being attacked by nemo - don't believe the movie, Nemo is a vicious little beast.
But it wasn't all two hour massages and piña coladas - there was some hard work to be done. We had to choose between reading our books in the hammock or on the beach lounge - nobody should ever have to make a decision that hard.

Back in a month

Married for 10 whole years so we are off on a long long holiday - Fiji without the kids and then Skiing with them (if there is any snow left).

Don't do anything I wouldn't do whilst I'm gone.

Surf

The NSW coast has been hit by a series of big swells
I got out in it for a few hours last weened and this Weekend just passed.
Sitting in a giant swell whist mountains of water crash past you is fucking exciting. I'm not that good a surfer. I'm a good swimmer, comfortable swimming around in it but only a weekend warrior when it comes to negotiating the surf with a 1.7m pointy fiberglass board with blades (three of them for good measure). I caught some good ones, got smashed and rag-dolled through the washing machine a few times. I judged that my bigger 'fun board' was too big to duck dive easily in this swell and I needed to be sure I could get under the waves - the tradeoff is that as you select a smaller shorter board they are slower to paddle and when you try to catch a wave you have to be exactly in the right spot (you can't paddle in or out as fast to be in the right place) and you tend to end up higher on the face before you have the speed to 'pop' (i.e. stand). You do not want to be up high on the lip of a wave tied to a fiberglass block resplendent with points and blades as the wave breaks or it will throw you forward and you will get to experience water in a whole new way. Shorter boards are also less forgiving about body position on take off and if you are too far forward they will nose dive, catapulting you forward into the abyss only to be met by the lip as is crashes down and aquatints you with the bottom before it surges you around a few times. But short boards move over the water more nimbly once you are up and running.
I did a bit of both but still managed a few long and exciting rides on some of the biggest waves I have ever played on - certainly the biggest I have been on in the last 10 years.

I fucking love volcanoes

Chores

Just cleaning up again this weekend. Gardening, cleaning windows and bugs out of the outdoor lighting, replacing bulbs - that sort of thing. Entirely unremarkable.

Bushwalk

Quite the loveliest walk.

Camping

We got away for a bit of camping this month just gone.
The first was up to Stockton Beach, just north of New Castle for a weekend of driving with the Toyota club, the other was with friends a little way up north (at a nudist beach :-) The weather was not on it's best behavior. With enough rain to cause a decent flood in Sydney. The morning was made all the ore exciting with a little brown snake (v. deadly) sharing the camp ground with us.







Stockton

In the news

This and This.

Buggered that I can't find picks of the later either.

In case of rapture

If you find yourself left behind you may find these resources useful.

What - NZ Beats Us !*&%!#$

Beaten by NZ where it counts - that hurts.

Accosted by the Christians ...

Accosted by the Christians at uni and invited to a bible study class I was asked by a young lady what my favorite bible passage was.

Ezekiel 23:20 I replied, giving her lovely flat chest a healthy amount of attention before I walked off.

Accents

If the sound is out of sync blame youtube.
Ute et al meamed me to do this.

Natural Disaster Levy

The poor cunts in Queensland: the paper today says don't panic if your roof blows off. WTF? I think that you are entitled to a tincey tiny little panic if your fucking roof blows off. Keep a raincoat handy - It's a fucking cat 5 cyclone. You'll need something a little more prophylactic to keep the rain off than a rain coat. Hide in the toilet they say - sensible advise at least - you can bet that if I was in the path of cat 5 cyclone that was taking my roof off I'd need a visit to the loo.

Now these pricks that are contesting Julia's Flood Levi should pull their right wing heads in. Me - I'd be happy to contribute to a permanent Natural Disaster Levy to help rebuild and recover from fire, flood etc - to buy rescue equipment and rebuild national infrastructure. Not to be used to insure against marginal or unsafe development and protect people from the stupid but to be used in ways that help all of us or a whole region.

Current temp: 40.7°C

I know, I'm a soft city boy now, gone are the days of working as a geo out in the Western Desert where it was routinely 47 and occasionally it would touch 50 C yet you still put in a solid days work. But these days steeping out from the aircon into 40 something heat is stunning. It is an experience that is hard to describe - it's not like a sauna that you can get out of - everywhere you turn it is that same heat.
I'm looking at some photos a blog friend send me (thanks btw) of a backyard covered in snow that I want to fall into and spend all day making snow angels.

I'm limping a little, damaged by a surf session on Sunday at Avalon, where I got brutalised by the cyclone swell from the last storm that crosses the Qld coast. As I write this I'm playing my tongue across the chips in my teeth earned by being stupid enough not to close my mouth when I got barreled playing beyond my ability.

Meanwhile Yasi is knocking on the Queensland doorstep. This bastard is bigger than NSW:

(clickety click) - from here

'Stralia Day

What could be more Aussie than getting blasted by a few bluies down the beach on 'Stralia Day?

A misty but hot Australia Day spend down at Freshwater Beach. Bit squishy in surf due to the carnival taking up most of the beach.

Fucking Floods.

'Av a listen to what the Fat Aussie Bastard has to say about food prices in Queensland..


This bloke has a great story.

A bucket of prawns in the sun.

New Years Eve was spent with mum, Alex and the kids enjoying the tunes belted out by a local chick in the beer-garden under the country club. It has a casual beauty, sandwiched as it is between the bowling green and the golf club car-park it overlooks the ocean, dunes and lakes, kangaroos pause in a mob around the t-off just below the fence and a strong sea breeze brings a briny haze. A few locals are trying to make a go of a burger business, barbecuing up the scotch fillet stakes for filling the local fresh "still warm from the oven" focatcia style buns, the local market gardens providing the salad so fresh it still drips sap.

Entree is a bucket of prawns, literally. Enjoyed with a chilled sav blank and a Coopers or three.

It's a picturesque 3k walk back around the lake to mums house.


This is country.