Another year, another Woodford. It rained, of course. A bit more than usual, and the site was already insanely wet, so it felt like a really wet Woodford, but I think it was only about half rainy days.

Still, as we arrived, thanks to a kindly lift from Mr Scott, it already looked as wet as “the” wet year did after a week. That lead to a last minute change of plan and a camp site up on the hill, out in the new territories, which I think despite the long walk was a good decision. Our camp site was muddy, but only locally, ie. we didn’t have the contents of the camp site up the hill flowing into ours.

We’d also seen the weather forecast and decided to bring the Swedish tent, which as you can imagine is able to handle rain. So there we were pretty comfortably setup, and so ensued a week of music and fun and all things hippyish.

Highlight of the week would have to be beating Scott at his marble game, which he brought all the way from Africa so that I could beat him on it. In fact I think he had it hand carved just so I could beat him on it.

The other highlight would have to be the very cute and funny Passenger, who we might have seen three or four times, but he was very good, writes nice songs and sings them well, with a chuckle and a sparkle in his eye.

Tim Rogers was another standout, his solo show is a bit like watching a train crash in slow motion, compelling viewing. Somewhat surprisingly Tim Freidman was also really good. Kevin Rudd stopped past, and managed to actually be quite good, the whole robot bureaucrat thing is actually an act it seems, god knows why. And of course most of the usual suspects were there, all were good.

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Late last year we managed a trip to Nowra and then Tianjara falls. I think we won the award for latest start at the crag, I think it was 6, pm, when we clipped our first bolt. Still it was actually pretty smart because it was a bit warm during the day.

We went to Hospital Rocks because we were short on time, and climbed I don’t remember what, but it was good fun. The evening light was gorgeous, and we were visited by an Echidna. To start with he was shy, but then he got used to us and in the end ended up walking straight over the rope bag.

After a nice nights camping at the animal park we headed up to Tianjara falls for Sunday, where we met Andrew & Penny & Tim & Tanya.

We headed to the Huskisson Homo and the Hill Top Hoods wall, mainly because it’s the first with a good looking descent gully. There was a big bunch of locals, who were all really friendly and gave us lots of good advice on which routes were good.

In some order we climbed Roger Bourne Identity (16), Bingo Wings (14), Cool Bananas (17), Little Miss Sunshine(11) and Trad dads can’t campus (20).

They were all good, especially the first two. The start on Cool Bananas is not 17, but still a good route. Trad dads can’t campus was quite good, though has a bit of a ledge which made for nervous ankles.

Andrew and Penny put us all to shame by doing the awesome looking Dodecahedron (22). I was keen to top rope it but then the rains came, what a pity!

After we all sheltered under the cliffs for 20 minutes, Andrew had the fun task of climbing the 22 in the rain to clean it, but I don’t think it was too horrendous owing to it being slightly overhanging and so mostly dry.

Owing to the rain we got an early start home, which meant we had plenty of time for gourmet pizza in Braidwood, life is tough!

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Waay back, in September, we spent a few days up at the KAC lodge at Charlotte Pass, and did a bunch of skiing. We were tagging along with uncle Teepar and his annual trip, they don’t let any old plebs stay at the lodge, you have to know someone reputable. I went a few years back and posted lots of photos, oh gee even more. I had such a good time I’d been keen to take Meg up and show her the slopes ever since.

After a bit of a late night on Friday celebrating Tom’s 30th we dragged ourselves out of bed on Saturday morning and started driving down. I drove for a bit but then needed to have a little lie down, luckly Meg was OK and got us to Jindy. We picked up some skis and gear and raced to the Skitube, just in time to get the connection. Unfortunately when we got to Perisher the snow cat was an hour late due to a break down, so we needn’t have rushed, oh well!

On Saturday arvo we squeezed in a quick ski down the valley just to refresh our memories. Sunday dawned sunny but blowy, but it still looked pretty good from the lodge so we started charging up the Kosciuszko road. We wanted to ski up Kosi but weren’t sure we were up to it, but thought we’d see how we went. The skiing wasn’t too hard up to the Snowy river crossing, but from there up to Seaman’s was very tricky (at least for us novices). With the wind really blasting over the pass and a lot of ice it was hard going. After lunch in the hut we decided to head back, which began with a pretty death defying run down to the river, with the wind at our backs and ice under our skis.

I’ve lost track of what happened on which evenings. Every night there was a lovely three course meal, and often pre-dinner drinks and nibbles. After dinner there was usually casual conversation, mixed in with a bit of political commentary, mostly baiting Rohan, and then to escape from that he would turn to the stereo and get half the room dancing. I of course had sore legs and couldn’t manage any moves on the dance floor, but Roh & Nahd and the rest of the “youngies” more than made up for me.

After a good nights sleep you wake to a cooked breakfast, though you do have to be on the ball, if you’re too hung over you can miss breakfast entirely, which is not a good way to start the day.

Monday was windy again, so we did a little tour around the east of Mt Stillwell. To being with we were nice and sheltered, but then we got a bit higher trying to get a view down to the Thredbo river and the wind picked up a bit. Rather than skiing back into the wind we bailed down a ridge to the east, and after some interesting skiing through trees that tested our skills a bit, we were back down in the valley. Lunch behind a rock and then a leisurely ski back had us chilling in the lodge. After a bit of relaxing we headed out again for a quick lap of the valley before dinner.

Tuesday was our last full day, and the weather looked perfect. We hoed into breakfast and got cracking up the road to Kosi. The weather was completely still, and by Seaman’s we were stripping off a layer to keep cool. Teepar had warned us that the stretch from Seaman’s around to Rawson’s pass was a bit steep and tricky, and although it didn’t really give us any trouble it was definitely a bit nerve racking for a stretch, one slip and you’d be sliding for a long long way.

The east face of Kosi is really speccy in winter, with a big cornice hanging above lake Cootapatmba. It also looks rather steep and intimidating, although I think that’s partly because it’s hard to judge the scale in the snow with no cues. In the end the climb up was pretty easy, with just a few kick turns required on the way up and lots of zig-zagging. The view from the top was superb, with snow covered mountains on three sides, and the steep drop down to Geehi to the west. Although it’s no great achievement we were pretty chuffed to make it to the top in winter, and on only about our fifth day skiing cross country together.

Getting down was a bit interesting, but again just a case of traversing the slope and doing sharp turns, nothing elegant that’s for sure! We decided to avoid the steep section along the road by going up and along the top of Etheridge ridge, it turned out to be a good decision, and gave us more speccy views. After lunch in the rocks above Seaman’s we cut across to the Kosciuszko road, and then tootled along through the rocks above the road, eventually catching the summit of Stillwell before heading down to the village.

After one last night of excellent food and company we woke up on Wednesday not ready to leave. Still we had a snow cat to catch and a concert to go to, so we got packing and managed one last 20 minute ski before we had to head off. An awesome trip, only wish it was longer!

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If you like Linux and you like games, then you should head over and check out the Humble Indie Bundle #2!

It’s a collection of five games:

• Braid, innovative and award winning, and previously Xbox only.
• Cortex Command, a sort of resource extraction + action game, featuring disembodied brains.
• Machinarium, a point and click brain teaser game, with great artwork.
• Osmos, where you float around absorbing other blobs, with an awesome ambient sound track.
• Revenge of the Titans, a resource extraction and base building game, think Command & Conquer for the ADHD generation.

What makes it really stand out is they all support Linux, they are all DRM free, and you can choose how much you want to pay.

To top it of some of the money goes to Child’s Play and the EFF. And don’t worry, giving money to the EFF doesn’t make you an enemy combatant .. yet.

They also have data on how much people are paying for the bundle, which is quite interesting. Currently the average amount paid by Windows users is $6.07, Mac users $8.23, and Linux users $13.68. So despite being a band of unwashed hippy communists, it seems Linux users are more generous when it comes to opening their wallets.

ps. Depending on your graphics chip & driver you may need to apt-get install driconf and enable S3TC texture compression to get Braid working, see this bug.

Back in August when it was still chilly in the ‘berra, we headed up north for a few days in South West Rocks. It’s a beautiful area and it was nice to finally get to see what’s there after flying past the turn off so many times on the way to Woodford. But the main reason for the visit, besides the beautiful scenery and perfect weather, was to catch up with my grandparents, Grandma and Poppa (alias Pam and Don), who were holidaying there from the Adelaide Hills.

It was great to get to spend such a relaxed time together in such a beautiful setting. We got the guided tour of the local area including the historic gaol, lighthouse, and all the good places to eat! And they even let us win at cards, what more could you ask for! We happily whiled away an hour watching some migrating whales frolicking beyond the headland, before we headed down to the nearby beach where Mike set about freeing the driftwood. We even got a chance to case out some nice camping spots for any future trips up that way.

Finally, very deserving of a mention is Mike’s early morning effort to photograph the speccy sunrise from the headland. He is now a proud member of the South West Rocks Sunrise Appreciation Club founded by Grandma. No wonder he’s the favourite!

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As hard as we tried to tire Emmy out with our food extravaganza, er, bike ride, we just didn’t manage.

So on the Sunday we drove up to Tidbinbilla with mum, dad, Ange & Rohan, to make an attempt on the South Ridge of Camel Back!

It was still pretty cool, and there was a fair bit of snow around as we ascended. We managed without crampons though.

The knife-edge ridge to the summit proved problematic, we lost the route several times, and at one point the party was separated because we couldn’t hear each other over the deafening roar of cute little chirpy birds.

Finally we made it to the summit, took some photos, and before the weather changed, quickly had a picnic. Oh and we made a snow man too!

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Back in August Emmy came to visit us from Germany! Actually she came to see everyone, and look after some Dingoes, but we like to think she came just to see us 🙂

We didn’t have time to plan any trips away which would have been fun, but we still had a nice time showing her the sights of Canberra, and of course the best way to see Canberra is by bike!

Actually we started by going to the farmers’ market (not by bike) and getting some things for a picnic. We also stopped at Tilley’s on the way past for a coffee, Emmy likes coffee quite a lot.

Then we rode around the lake, and eventually to the Carillion, where we had a giant picnic and all ate too much. Afterward we rode to Kingston, for another coffee, und kuchen natürlich, and eventually back home.

It was a really nice day for August and a lovely ride, and really nice to hang out with Emmy and show her around. We just need to do the ride ten more times to make up for all the food we ate!

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The ski season took a while to get started this year, for one simple reason, there wasn’t much snow. Luckily it eventually came, and when it did it was actually pretty good.

Friday night we headed off with Penny & Emma, picked up skis and trundled into Thredbo Diggings. There were some other Canberra folks there, Ant and his mates, but despite their invitation to come and have a drink we hit the sack pretty early owing to the subzero temperatures.

The next morning was pretty crisp, but not terrible, and we got going OK. We let a big group go ahead of us up Cascade Trail, and started our way up. It was Meg’s first time on X-country skies, and it was a bit of baptism of fire (ha!). It’s not super tricky terrain, but it is uphill and quite narrow, with a drop off to the river, and in the morning it was still very icy. So there was a fair bit of side-stepping going on, and general struggling.

After 10 or 20 minutes we got past the worst of the climb and it flattened out, from there the rest of the day was really nice skiing. We found a nursery slope and practiced some turns, and then had lunch on the bridge over the Thredbo river.

We spent the afternoon touring further up the valley, to the south, and just mucking around. It was pretty warm with the sun, and although it looked windy up high it was mostly still where we were. A great day’s skiing!

Back at the camp we scrounged some wood for a fire, and got dinner going. The fire was a real life saver, with it getting down to -6 or -8 or something freezing. Still we weren’t up super late.

While we slept soundly in our beds, Andrew and his mate Oli drove down from Canberra, because Andrew had been working ’til 8pm or so. Crazy lads. Still it was good to see them in the morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

After a bit of um-ing and ah-ing, we decided to drive over to Guthega for Sunday’s skiing. It turned out to be an excellent decision. We skied over the dam, and then spent more or less the whole day just skiing up and down through the trees.

The others being super phat hardcorde powda monkies skied all the way to the top of the ridge and back down, doing nice turns all the way. Meg & I being a bit more novice just went up and down the lower part of the slope, but it was still great fun.

After lunch Meg & I went for a bit of a tour up the valley, but realised we were on the wrong side of the river after a while and headed back. As the sun began to drop behind the ridge we managed to just get organised to get a group photo before the light went. Like herding chickens!

To top off an awesome weekend we stopped in Cooma for giant big-as-your-head hamburgers, woot!

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Back in July we headed down to Nowra for a bit of climbing. For some reason that escapes me we picked a weekend when Andrew couldn’t come, so it was us, Penny & Emma.

From memory it wasn’t exactly an “alpine start”, involving a trip to Andrew & Penny’s with a cup of coffee, then a car change at Emma’s, a detour via the farmers’ market, and then morning tea in Kangaroo Valley. So sometime a bit before dark we made it to Thompson’s point and did a few climbs.

We had a nice quiet night at the animal park, with some slap-together vegie pasta, and a bit of port, before retiring in our slippers to the tent.

On Sunday we got going a bit earlier, but not early enough to beat the rush on the descent gully walls. Not that I wouldn’t normally warm up on an 18, but it was a bit of a cold morning, and getting the fingers going was tough. But still, after a bit of faffing, I led & Meg 2nd’ed Samurai Pizza Catz (18), which was pretty nice.

From there I think we walked around to the Orca area, and Meg led something that’s not in the guide book. It looked easier than it was, owing to the lichen and some surprisingly poor holds. But still she cruised it!

After lunch we did a few more climbs, I led Vanderholics (18) and Gina Hardface (18), and then Diddy Kong (18). On the way out I think we finished with SLH (15) and a nice sunset.

Yet another super top trip!

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Back in the depths of winter, when it was too wet or cold to do anything much, we did a bit of a kitchen reno.

We realised that having the fridge in the middle of the kitchen was really cluttering the space, mucking up the fung schway you might say.

So we moved the fridge into the corner, where it can be all big and sticky-outy without causing so much trouble. That left a gap where the fridge used to be.

Of course the gap is 89.5cm wide, which you’ll be surprised to hear is not a standard size for kitchen cabinets or other furniture.

After a bit of looking around, and a tip from Dave, we decided shelves might be a good option, because we could make them just the right size. So that’s what we did.

There was a bit of bashing and bolting from me, and then lots of sanding by Meg while I had the flu, and voila nice new shelves.

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