Holidays and rocks – or holidays rock!

20 February 2008 – 1:38 pm

Ah back to the desk I am. Its OK, the tedious stuff always has good results, and thats what I’m paid for. But you all know about working…

The last couple of weeks were filled with a whirlwind trip around Victoria, visiting Bel’s family and my brother. And catching trout in the Mitta river, and a lo of eating and greeting, and falling in love with the Australian alps all over again. Hmm… snowwwww….

Coming back to tassie it was straight into a trip to Frenchman’s cap! Kinda nice to get paid for an awesome bushwalk with A-list clients. Yeeha! I took the camera/GPS system for a test drive and realised I need a better system. Ah well. Some photos will dribble out soon.

However, its unlikely I’ll ever try to do frenchmans in 3 days again. Well, not guiding. Maybe with a lighter pack!

In other news? Well, repercussions from the tahune race continue – my helmet is broken, so now I know why I felt extra-dodgy after the race. Hmmm. Will try again without crashes and injuries…

catch ya!

By adam | Posted in environment, life | Comments (0)

100km of recovery…

4 February 2008 – 11:20 am

As usual, its been almost a month since I last looked in here! Well, you can rest assured I still think about this site a bit, and have even started extracting content from the old overcomplicated beast in order to reload it all.

I digress. Yesterday I rode my mountain bike 100km, along with around 200 other complete nutcases in the Tahune mountain bike marathon. I crashed twice, and considering there was a broken collarbone and a few stitches, I feel pretty lucky to have escaped with a few bruises, broken sunglasses and a wrist that feels OK but not quite right.

Lukcily, I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow for a week of R&R with Bel. No climbing, no riding, just lots of stretching, good food, relaxation. Ahhhh….

In other news? The organ pipes assault continued for some time, leading to the ticking off of a few more classics on the north buttress, the latest involving my hardest lead for some time, with an epic run to the top since we forgot where the climb finishes. We turned it into a 55m epic pitch, finishing up the classic pulpit chimney – actually it was cool! Every style of climbing was represented. Face, then hand, fist and finger crack, chimney, and a little offwidth. Ha!

Sorry, no new photos or anything yet. Soon… I’m going to Frenchmans cap straight after Melbourne. I’ll take the camera, it’ll be ace!

ciao for now!

By adam | Posted in bike!, climbing, life | Comments (0)

An organ pipes frenzy!

11 January 2008 – 10:01 am

In the last two weeks I’ve done more climbs on the organ pipes than in the two years before that!

Crazy huh? had a new year climb fest, involving arriving at work by 7 am so I could go climbing at 3. Good fun but I need a rest now! A few days off, then Hillwood on Sunday. I’m racing my friend Margaret to a grade 25 tick – but I have to onsight lead, she just has to top rope. I’ve been climbing a bit longer…

By adam | Posted in climbing | Comments (0)

Its a whole new year!

9 January 2008 – 12:45 pm

welcome to 2008 everyone! In the months since my last entry here, much has happened. Lets wind back to Movember. Yep, I grew a Mo in aid of mens health, and it looked quite funny. It gets real bushy if I leave it on long enough. Hilarious! But it got shaved off real quick after the end of the month.

…except that it stayed for the first weekend of December, since we had a cocktail party at Twilight Tarn, Mt Field. Then, ohyeah. Just work until christmas – at which point Bel and I went off and walked the overland track! I got paid, Bel got to do a swanky hut trip for free. Loads of fun all round. yeeha!

Since then, Bel’s been away at meditation retreats and working at Cradle mountain, so I’ve been filling time with lots of rock climbing. Can you believe – more climbs on the organ pipes in the last week than I’e done in the last two years! crazy!

I spent new years at an old haunt – Bluestone bay. There was a total lack of Tasmanian dwellers, but loads of people from the north island, so I hung out with a cool bunch of people from the blue mountains! We played guitar, drank beer, ate good food and had fun. It was inevitable really!

…and I think that brings us up to date. With Bel away for a month, I’m just in training mode. For what? hmm.. who knows. We shall see.

By adam | Posted in climbing, life | Comments (0)

back on terra firma…

15 November 2007 – 7:49 pm

I’ve actually been back on Terra Firma for some time now, a few days short of a month! Crikey time flies. So you can see what I got up to on the ship at the SIPEX voyage website, if you navigate to ‘blogs’ and look for my entry there.

So, what have I been up to? Well, where to start. I got back and couldn’t walk right for a day, which was quite funny. Then I went back to work for almost a week before heading off to the north island for a ‘holiday’. Intending to visit some mates in Canberra and Sydney I accidentally did a 24 hr mountain bike race. So, I spent quite a while on the bike, and almost an entire day in bed recovering. Not really the most social thing to do, but I think I’m forgiven! Many thanks to Murray for helping heaps in preparing Rosie the DMR for the next part of riding epic…

So after my day in bed I jumped on Rosie and pedalled off to see my uncle, aunt and cousin, then pedalled back, loaded Rosie up and embarked on a ride to somewhere near Sydney! I made it to a random creek about 110 km away from Canberra on day one, tired, sore and in the dark. I had a great sleep in possibly one of the worst campsites ever – I didn’t care. Eatsleep. The next day I woke up early, ate a fine brekkie and pedalled along through Nerriga, then Sassafras [cool name for a place], flies dust and heat, all the way to Nowra. And there I stopped, camping at the traditional spot in the animal park, eating an Andys burger for dinner and washing it down with cold beer, a hot shower, and an awesome sunset!

The next morning I gave up on more biking and went for a climb in the morning, then caught the train to Sydney. It looked like a nice ride, but I was too stuffed. Ah well. Sydney came with all its craziness – after finding Harriets house [and another hot shower] I headed out to a swanky wine bar where Amelia works [an old classmate from honours days] and enjoyed an awesome dinner. I love dirtbagging in swanky places. Its fun. Met my bro Ben briefly before he was sucked back into corporate dinnerland, then cruised home for another round of long sleeping. I didn’t actually see Harriet until Friday, when we went for a beer and dinner. I crashed before Sydney even gets started, and had another good long sleep. The rest of Sydney involved lots of urban biking, a walk in the blue mountains, a play, some sculptures and loads of good, glorious sleeping. Ahhh.

…and now I’m home! And even better, I have a home, complete with the beautiful Bel, who hasn’t quite forgiven me yet for running off to Antarctica and the north island in quick succession. Anyway, I’ll find a way to make it up, I’m sure. We’re off to Cradle Mountain this weekend… Bel is working, I’m gonna have a little adventure.

Ohyeah I nearly forgot. I did a 6hr solo race last weekend and didn’t come last. yay! Rosie is grumbling though, she needs some lovin’ after all that hard work…

By adam | Posted in bike!, climbing, life, science | Comments (0)

1 more voter against political insanity, 12 days to sailing…

23 August 2007 – 7:39 pm

Finally, I registered to vote today. Phew, and about time. I’m very keen to cast my vote in the upcoming federal election, due sometime later this year. Australia is in a political shemozzle – there is a distinct lack of checks and balances, and a distinct feeling that we as a people are being railroaded by our elected ‘representatives’. A great case in point is the proposed Bell Bay Pulp Mill in Tasmania. It was failing the approval process, so what did the Tasmanian government do? It threw out the approval process and made a new one, specially designed to accept the mill proposal. Opponents of this erosion of proper process were thrown out of the governing party. This lack of tolerance for dissent speaks volumes – it raises my dodgy alarms, no doubt.

As it turns out, it looks a lot like the Tasmanian government had given the developers tacit approval way before the original approval process was wound up. The developers have been crying foul because they’ll lose money if the mill doesn’t go ahead. What does this say? They’ve signed contracts already. What does this mean? The Tasmanian government does not know what the words ‘representation’ and ‘democracy’ mean. The development was challenged in the high court, and the challengers lost. The response of the developing company was, effectively, ‘we’re big and have lots of money. Bow down ye peons and let us walk over ye, or else’. The Tasmanian government is curiously silent. The Australian federal government has benignly said ‘we can’t find any problems with whats going on’.

Stack that on mountains of lies and deception surrounding the war in Iraq, the Tampa affair, the GST and who knows what else, and we have a government that clearly cannot be trusted, and should not be allowed to take the reigns again. I’m happy that I will have my chance to kick ‘em out. Or at least, try. I’m thinking, once again, the Greens are the only viable way. They may not get in, but astute politicians will read the results, and hopefully pay attention to where there constituents place their vote. So vote with your conscience, and live in hope…

On to more savoury topics: In 12 days time I will be sailing south for Antarctica! Its so close, its unbelievable… I guess it will still be sinking in until I have my first spew over the rails in a 10m swell… arrr…

Hope you’re all happy – enough for now!

By adam | Posted in life, science | Comments (0)

Saturdays and new toys.

18 August 2007 – 7:22 pm

welly well well… this week has been like christmas! I’ve put together a new bike – DMR switchback frame with a whole pile of hand-picked funky bits. First ride just an hour ago has made mountain biking a whole new level of fun again!

Also, a new camera arrived so I’ve been trying to figure out how to use it… its smarter than I am for sure. So in the next few months I’ll be sorting out my photo stuff and making a nice, CSS based, simple gallery. I;m a bit over the feature-bloated monsters you can just download. Nice, but I’m trying to make my site all CSS/XHTML niceness…. which means… what about wordpress? Anyway – I digress.

On the close-to-home front, Bel and I have un parted ways, which is really cool. yay!

No adventures this weekend – just getting stuff done, blowing out about being only two weeks away from heading south. Crazy indeed… and making plans for working in New Zealand next winter. Hrrrm.

Hope life is fun out there! Off to make some deeeeeeelicious vegie pasties and await the arrival of hard-studying Bel. Yum. two times.

By adam | Posted in bike!, life, science | Comments (0)

snow, bikes, trippin!

14 August 2007 – 12:13 pm

Who’d a thunk it? fluffly, soft, fresh snow in Tasmania? Unheard of… but thats what Pete and I got last Sunday up at Mt Field. We postholed our way to glory on the Rodway tow line, through knee to waist deep fluffy stuff in amazing clear sunshine! And equally amazing was the lack of punters out for a go. Four cross country skiers and us, kicking around to Tarn Shelf. We had our way with Rodway, then returned along our tracks to Mt Mawson, passing another two snowboarders on the way – they had the benefit of our bootpack, but alas, we’d taken all the nice lines already – and it was late, with the snow slightly going off.

Mt Mawson was a fun scramble, reminiscent of Temple Basin adventures – and a short but rewarding punch through the late arvo goo. Finally, we cruised all the way down the road to the carpark, exhausted but smiling. We made it back in time to finally catch the Celtic Dawn café open – yay! Strong coffee got us home.

Bel and I had parted ways the night before, so the distraction was welcome. I’m still reeling a little, but we’ve been hanging out a bit, which is nice. Had a great yoga class this morning… ahhhh.

Ohyeah – bike MKIII is 80 percent here… just the forks to go – will post a pic once it is built!

By adam | Posted in bike!, snow | Comments (0)

Adventures everywhere!

9 August 2007 – 8:13 pm

Its 28 days until I jump on a ship with a load of other science geeks and sail to the deep frozen South! The cruise web site has been launched, so you can follow the journey when it starts. Most things are sort of packed and organised, my new camera is shipping next week, so look out for lots of photos, and buy some! I’ll need to sell a few to justify this new toy!

Yes, its tax time, so toy shopping for the year. A new bike, in thousands of bits, is also underway. Finally, you’ll say – he’ll shut up!

And by no means least – there’s another adventure well worth watching, and possibly even cooler than Antarctica! My mate Duncan is heading off in a few days to ride the silk route on a motorbike, with his mate Ben. Its an awesome mission – follow it at http://silktrailies.com. They plan to take about a year – it’ll be amazing even to hear the stories…

I’ll be keen to catch up after that.

So, enough for now – off for a climb, after a long day and my first yoga class ever…

ciao!

By adam | Posted in bike!, life, science | Comments (0)

All worked up?

27 July 2007 – 12:21 pm

Its been nearly a week since the winter challenge – crikey time flies… Anyway, I decided to go hard and didn’t die, although it hurt a fair bit.

Nothin’ else to say really – should read the news sometime… whats going on out there, world?

By adam | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)