Although I was heading home Wednesday arvo, I was pretty keen to head to Blue Lake while we had the chance. So Wednesday morning, at some ungodly hour, possibly before 8, we got up and going.

After climbing to the pass we had to walk most of the way down to the Snowy River, the sun the previous two days had melted most of the snow on the northern slopes.

Crossing the river proved interesting in heavy plastic ski boots, and Teepar ended up carting a few extra pairs of skis over for the balancedly-challenged among us.

The ski up to the lake started with a bit of a slog, but once we’d gained some height we could just trundle along the ridge without too much effort. The final climb up to the pass above the lake was a bit of an effort though.

We hit the lake about 11:00 in the end, owing to our early start. We still needed to be back by 2 or 3 at the latest, so we had an earl lunch by the lake.

While we were there some clown started skiing across the lake, which gave me the willies, I guess he knew what he was doing though. As we left he was pretty much in the middle of the lake, with (apparently) about 80m of water under him, and hopefully enough ice!

The ski back was pretty cruisy really, the only tough part was climbing back up to the road in boots after the river crossing. We made good time and I was back at the lodge with plenty of time for a shower before heading off.

A great week all up, no major human-tree accidents, and a great way to clear your head. I’ll be doing my best to be there next year.

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The plan for Tuesday was pretty much to ski anywhere while the snow was still OK. We headed up to the pass and thought about heading along the road towards Kosi, but it was pretty patchy and probably would have required some walking.

Instead we headed east-ish along the side of Mt Gutherie. After a bit of climbing we had great views of the main range and also over Spencer’s Creek and the lower ranges beyond.

On the way we found a dead hare under a bush, and retraced the tracks to the spot where a fox got it, nasty.

After a bit too much sun on Monday I had to resort to execeedingly fashionably measures to save myself from more burning.

We headed back along the road in the heat and flopped onto the couches back at the lodge, another top day out in the hills.

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I finally got a new phone a few weeks back, after a few years of using dodgy second-hand phones from friends and so on. It’s pretty nice in most respects, and something I actually do like is it has a camera. I know it’s pretty wanky, but it’s fun to have a camera on you at all times, you get some photos you otherwise wouldn’t …

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Fueled up on hor’dourves from the night before, we woke to beautiful clear weather on Monday morning – it was bright enough to hurt your eyes.

A bunch of us headed out to climb Mt Stillwell, the main peak above Charlotte Pass to the South. It was a pretty tough climb, for some of us at least, with lots of quite steep climbing on edges which is damn tiring.

Eventually we got to the top and took a few snaps for posterity. Yes I do have a thermal tied around my head, I forgot my hat – oops.

The view from the top is pretty awesome, all of the main range is visible, most of it snow covered – 10 points for those who can pick Kosi out!

After lunch we skied along the ridge to some rocks just above the Snowy river bridge and then headed south to the other side of the little plateau. We headed east from there to the ruin of the old chair left. Then back over to Stillwell and down the resort runs to the lodge. Phew.

And there’s still two days to go!

ps. Compare the snow cover in the morning vs the same afternoon.

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Keep this neat little article from damninteresting.com handy for the next time someone tells you Nuclear power is cheap and easy

Good to see the Yanks going to the effort though, the cynic in me wonders why they didn’t decide to dump the stuff in Iraq and cover it up with sand.

On a more positive note, this story about a satellite which is being launched with the sole intent of deorbiting in 52,007 AD – hopefully to be discovered by our ancestors .. but more likely some advanced race of Dolphins.

What’s super cool is you can leave a message to be stored in the time-capsule, and apparently it’s uncensored!

Are 64-bit applications faster? Better? Just bigger? Or even slower?

It depends. There seems to be a bit of chatter out on the net, but much of it Intel or Windows specific.

Olof has actually done a bit of research and has some numbers. Google should remember his paper, “A look at 64- versus 32-bit userspace performance” and his slides from LCA 2006.

After a slightly hectic week at work, I wasn’t really mentally prepared for it, but that wasn’t going to stop me heading up to Charlotte Pass for five days of XC skiing. I was there thanks to an invite from Uncle Teepar, one which was extended to my other lazy cousins, but only heeded by me. Their loss!

I took a heap of photos, so I’ll unleash them in stages, here’s the shots from Saturday and Sunday.

Thankfully it snowed both days, we would have had fun without it, but it certainly helped to have some fresh snow. There’s also something nice about being in the Snow and having it actually snowing, somehow it feels more genuine than those crystal clear days – although they’re pretty nice too.

The first half of Saturday we spent just getting there, followed by a pretty casual ski in the afternoon, just up the nearest slope and down a few times. Eventually the snow started coming at us sideways and we decided it was time to retreat to the lodge for a beer.

Sunday didn’t see much improvement in the weather, still snowing, still blowing a gale. We headed up to the pass itself, where the wind rockets through – I’m not smiling in the photo, my lips are frozen to my teeth! After a short sortie along the road to Kosi, just to check it out, we headed back down the valley a way and then up the river back to the lodge. A great little intro.

Monday morning saw us waking to brilliant sunshine, but that’s another story!

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To mark the end of another somewhat ordinary football season, we decided to head up to Sydney to catch the last game of the season, Sydney v Carlton.

Most of us we’re fairly unimpressed by the game, being Carlton supporters, but Pop was pretty chuffed with Sydney’s win at least. Ange hid under her flag and Dad muttered something like “it can only get better”.

To make a weekend of it, Meg and I spent Saturday driving up via the Southern Highlands. We stopped at Fitzroy Falls and walked around which was lovely, I’ve driven past a number of times but never stopped, it’s pretty spec’y.

We drove on via Kangaroo Valley and Nowra, then up the coast through Wollongong. We stopped at a great lookout at Wollongong, an incredible view. On the way back to the highway we spotted a crashed, probably stolen, car and eventually got through to the cops to report it, after 000 fobbed us off.

After some fun shenanigans in Sydney traffic we made it to the guest-house in Kirribilli we’d booked. Booking over the internet we were pretty dubious, but it turned out to be really awesome. It was quiet, clean and an awesome location, the included breakfast was great and for $80 for the two of us it was a steal.

After walking along the harbor, we had great Thai from a place a short walk away, and ate it outside in the balmy evening conditions – bring on summer!

In the end, despite the result at the football, it was still great fun and another top weekend. Hopefully next year we can go to a game where the Blues are a bit more competitive.

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Back in August we had a gig up in Sydney. Well actually it was in Western Sydney. Actually, more like the eastern Blue Mountains, but anyway.

As usual we country-rocked the place out:

It was broadcast live on SWR FM, which was kinda cool, and we didn’t totally suck. We even got a half decent recording out of it.

Lots more official shots here.

Having driven all the way to Sydney, Meg and I decided to stay for the weekend. Shara generously put us up (as usual), eventhough she was in Canberra, and we spent Sunday strolling around the city, just checking out the sights.

We stumbled across a pro-Lebanon protest, which had some interesting posters and participants.

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First Steve Irwin cops a sting ray barb to the heart. Sad.

Then Brocky prangs his car into a tree. Tragic.

John Howard killed by a rising interest rate? …