A couple of weeks ago, we spent a day touring outside Fernie in the company of local expert Ken and National Geographc wildlife photographer Terry, having various types of deer pointed out to us. Obviously all the local bears are in hibernation, so we didn’t see any of them, and we also didn’t see any cougar or mountain lions, but that was to be expected.

We travelled beside the Koocanusa Reservoir, a 95 mile long lake split equally between BC and Montana. The water level in the lake is extremely low at this time of year, and frozen too, so we stopped for some photos right on the edge of the border with the U.S.

Check out the photos.

Just finished my final snowboard lesson yesterday, so the course is starting to head towards its final stages. My riding has improved a lot, but more importantly, even when I lapse back to old habits – which I tend to do on the steeper off-piste stuff and in trees – I now know exactly what I’m doing wrong and what I should be doing instead. Given that I’ve another 8 weeks of snowboarding to go, I’ve plenty of time to improve even further.

I had a day off today, so I went back up the hill and forced myself to ride switch, as I’m hopeless at that and I’ll never be comfortable doing 180-degree jumps until I can land or take off switch. After a morning on the beginner’s slope, including an embarrasing fall on the beginner’s lift (memo: ride normal when using lifts!) I headed up the hill and managed to link turns down a blue run, which was a marked improvement over the last few days. Still, I’m nowhere near fluid, but at least I’ve made some progress and if I just do a little each day now I should be sweet.

Now that the lessons are over, I start the official instructors exam course on Saturday, with the final assessment being on Monday. There are two parts to the exam – the riding part, where they make sure you are a good enough rider to be an instructor, and the teaching part. I’m reasonably confident of passing, as our instructors have already said we should pass the riding side and we’ve also done some demo teaching sessions as well. Having said all that, if I fail I don’t really care – I’m 34 so there’s no way I’ll ever use an instructor qualification ;-)

Anyway, I’ve finally put some photos online:

Fernie

Made it back to Ireland last night to see the rest of the family (sans Bevin who’s in Whistler) having caught up with Isabella & Conal in London, and spent a few days with Cormac, Belinda & Jacob in Durham.

Seeing Isabella & Conal was great, as I haven’t seen either of them in years and was unable to make their wedding two years ago. Is met me after work and took me for a whirlwind tour of Selfridges to help her in choosing Conal’s birthday present, then it was back to their apartment to catch-up, followed by dinner and a drink.

I said farewell the following morning, picked up my bags from the left luggage at Paddington station, then had to lug all 30+ kilos of them to King’s Cross to get the express up to Cormac. Arrived in Durham to a rainy afternoon, to see Cormac with a brand new X3, but it turns out that it was a loaner as his car was in for a service.

Back at their place I got to meet Jacob for the first time – my sole nephew who’s almost three years old! That’s one disadvantage of living at the opposite side of the planet to your family. He’s a bundle of laughs and not too much trouble, particularly if he hasn’t been fed full of sugar. Still, it was interesting to sit in on a young family and realise just how little time you have to yourself while he’s awake… and once he does go to sleep both Belinda & Cormac are shattered. They wouldn’t change it for the world, but it reaffirmed my intention to never have kids!

While Belinda went shopping with her Mum, myself and Cormac took Jacob to the Shildon Train Museum (photos) yesterday, to tire him out before we flew to Ireland last night. It worked up to a point, but when Ryanair were an hour late (for a one hour flight) we had to respond to “I want to go on the aeroplane” repeatedly. To top it all off, Cormac bought him a toy aeroplane on the flight, so we had to listen to high-pitched toy plane noises for the rest of the flight as well :-)

The welcome party of Dad, Cliona & Dave were conspicuous by their absence when we landed as they were too busy chatting and didn’t notice us coming through customs! I haven’t been home in four years and they’re too busy yapping to notice! ;-)

It was obvious on the drive back home that a lot has changed since I was last in Dublin (notably the Luas), though since the weather’s pretty crap today, and Mum’s throwing a party here tonight for Dad’s birthday, I haven’t been out of the house. Still, I’ve another nine days in which to explore.

Photos from my day trip to Bruges with Kate & Sébastien are online.

Jacqui got free accommodation in Kiama through work, so herself, myself, Anna and Nathan headed down last weekend for a relaxing weekend by the beach. The accommodation was right on a beach, which was great. John & Goz came down for the day on Saturday, so we chilled out on the beach, played some frisbee and went for a swim. The water’s not too cold, which was a bonus, as I normally don’t bother going for a swim until December when the water temperature is usually around 20C or so.

The plan for Sunday was to get breakfast in Gerringong and then head down to Seven Mile Beach for the day, but by the time we had breakfast the weather had changed; the wind had picked up and the temperatures were down quite a bit, so it was no longer a beach day. We opted to head to Minimiurra Falls instead and do the rainforest walk which turned out to be quite interesting, though the falls weren’t as spectacular as I’d hoped!

Here’s my photos.

Myself, Tom, Kevin, Marc, Billy and Lisa made plans to go mountain biking on Sunday in the Blue Mountains. This was before the torrential rain that’s been dousing Sydney for the last week had arrived, so there was a little apprehension as to whether the day would go ahead or not. A decision was made on Saturday night that we were going regardless, though after a night of the worst rain I’ve yet encountered in Sydney, Billy & Lisa decided to pull out.

The rest of us packed all our warm clothes and hit the road for the two hour drive to Blackheath. After some coffee and choc-chip cookies to prepare, we drove to the start of the trail and set about getting the bikes ready. It was still raining lightly, so there was no doubt we were going to get absolutely soaked, however, as Marc had never been MTBing before, and his relatively new bike still looked very nice and shiny, this was a good thing. It would be a proper introduction to dirt!

We’d deliberately chosen a relatively easy ride which led to Hanging Rock, a picturesque lookout over the Blue Mountains featuring a huge rock which looks like it could fall off at any minute. The ride out there was good fun, with lots of water bars to launch ourselves off, though doing so got me a puncture, so there was a brief outage while I got that fixed. Marc was enjoying himself, and his regular bike commute to work meant he had no problems on the fitness front. Indeed, he was fitter than the rest of us since we’d only recently started riding again.

Once out at the lookout, myself and Kev elected to make the jump across to the rock itself. Tom was the photogrpaher, and Marc decided that he would skip the jump since he’s the only one of us with the responsibilites of fatherhood. The jump itself is only about a metre wide and you could easily cross it with a single large stride, but while facing the gap you can see a drop of a few hundred metres into the valley on either side. It’s this drop, coupled with the fact that the point you’re aiming for isn’t flat, which tends to concentrate the mind and make the task a good deal harder than it really is.

Once across, you can walk out to the tip of the rock for a photo opportunity, but here’s the thing: the rock itself is roughly triangular in shape, so as you move towards the tip, you get closer and closer to the massive drop on either side. The result of this is that you reach a point (well I did anyway) where your legs refuse to go any further – they literally start buckling to force you to stop moving – without any concious decision on your part. Clearly my subsconcious mind had mutinied. It’s quite a funny experience!

Back on solid land we retraced our steps back to the car, arriving cold and wet. We’d another short ride planned, so we quickly packed up, stopped in Blackheath for a brief, warming lunch, then continued on to Linden. The ride to Hanging Rock was entirely on fire trail, but the Linden ride had quite a bit of singletrack which was the reason for its inclusion – to give Marc a taste of the real thing.

Torrential rain on the way to Linden almost had myself and Tom pulling the plug, but it had passed by the time we got there. Once back out on the bikes we warmed up again and, after some short fire trail, were soon enjoying ourselves on overgrown singletrack. The other three missed the benefits of my long tights as their legs got whipped by the undergrowth, but that wasn’t going to curtail the fun. We rode for about 40 minutes before deciding that we’d better turn back so we’d make it home to Sydney at a reasonble hour. Once back at the car we deemed Marc’s bike to be an official mountain bike, and took a photo of it covered in mud to prove the point. All in all, a bloody good day despite the crap weather ;-)

Photos

I’m just back from ten days holidays in New Zealand so I’ve lots of photos to share. Myself and Jacqui had been invited to Graham & Louise’s wedding (photos) one weekend, followed by Danny & Rachel’s wedding (photos) the next weekend, both in the same place in NZ, so we decided to make a holiday out of it with Nathan, Anna, Tiff and Nick.

Apart from the two weddings, we managed to climb Mount Manganui (photos), drive to Waihi Beach (photos) and visit lots of geothermal springs around Rotorua (photos). There are also some random photos that don’t fit in to any of the other categories.

There was mild panic when we first arrived as it was pissing rain and Graham’s wedding was the following day, and was supposed to be held outdoors. We needn’t have worried as NZ turned on the sunshine the next day and it remained on for the rest of our trip. So much for the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’!

We flew home yesterday afternoon, tanned and tired, only to have some woman get hammered on flight home and refuse to fasten her seat belt and stay in her seat for landing. After much diplomacy, crunch time arrived as we were five minutes from touchdown, so she got handcuffed to her seat at which point she started abusing everyone with a torrent of bad language. She was taken from the plane by medics when we had landed. An eventful end to a great holiday.

Cliona & Dave have been here for the Christmas period, splitting their time between my place and Caoimhe & Dave’s. I’ve been showing then around and took them on the Bondi-Bronte walk (photos) last week with some sunbaking and swims at either end.

Jacqui headed up to Byron to be with her family for Christmas so we exchanged presents on Friday night. Her family got me a cool poker chip set which I had been eyeing up, so I’ll have to brush up on my poker skills now. She seemed pretty happy with the iPod Nano I got her too. Cliona & Dave took the two of us out for a delicious dinner as their Christmas present to us and then my family came up trumps with a fancy tripod & remote release cable for my camera. Now I can learn to do decent night shots and hopefully capture some lightning on camera.

Christmas morning saw myself, Cliona and Dave lounge around ringing the folks back home before heading off to Bondi for a Christmas sunbake, followed by a swim and some breakfast. Security was tight after the recent riots in Cronulla, with plenty of police around and bags being searched as you walked on to the sand. It was surprising but understandable, especially since they usually get 40,000 people on Bondi for Christmas Day. It wasn’t that busy when we were there but it was filling up fast, mainly with Irish wearing their county GAA jerseys!

After that it was off to Caoimhe & Dave’s for the official Christmas dinner (photos). We got stuck into the Pimms, lounged around the pool for a while then brought out the beer and nibbles. Once it had gotten dark we cranked up the barbie and had a veritable feast of meat and seafood. The only downside was that it was around 11 by the time we finished and everyone felt like the traditional Christmas nap! We managed to hang on for a bit longer, ringing the various families back home to wish them an official Happy Christmas.

Boxing Day in Australia, or St. Stephens’ Day if you’re Irish, means only two things; the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and the Boxing Day cricket test. In our case, the Sydney-Hobart was what we were interested in. Caoimhe & Dave took us out on their boat, to join an estimated 3,000 other spectator boats watching the start of the race (photos). As you can imagine the harbour was packed. After we’d bounced around for about an hour, the gun went off and the yachts charged passed us. Wild Oats led the pack out of the Heads, closely followed by Alfa-Romeo, at which point we decided to make a break for Middle Cove, anchor and spend the afternoon swimming and sunbaking before cruising back into the city.

It’s been a pretty good Christmas this year ;-)

Chris (Kamahl from Transitions) decided to enter a team into the Canberra Half Ironman at the weekend as he wanted to do the bike leg. I volunteered for the swim and Michelle plumped for the run. It was the first triathlon I had been to and I had a great time. I got the easy option and was only doing the swim. Chris lent me his wetsuit for my first time swimming in a wettie and it’s unbelievable how buoyant they are! I’d done a 2km swim during the week in a reasonably comfortable 29:30, so I figured I’d manage around 28ish for the 1.9km assuming there were no navigation errors.

The teams started in the last wave with the M35-39 group, so I got up front right from the gun and settled into a nice rhythm with one or two other guys. There was a group of about 5 ahead of us, but they were going much faster than I wanted to, so I let them go. Swimming in a full wettie was quite tough. My shoulders got tired fairly quickly, so when I buy my own one I reckon I’ll go the long john style to give me some freedom around the shoulders.

Water was fully brown, so couldn’t see a thing around me, but all went well and I managed to stay upright once I hit the ramp to exit the lake. Forgot to stop my watch, figuring that the 500m or so run to transition counted as part of my swim time, but I did look down shortly after leaving the water to see 25:36 on the clock, so I reckon I swam around 25:15 or so. Was pretty happy with that given that I was aiming for around 28! Average HR was 174!! Didn’t feel that hard though, but the run to tranisiton nearly killed me! I was bloody delighted to hand over to Chris, thinking to myself “how can these guys be heading off for 90km bike & a half marathon” and “I need to do more than 4km swimming a week”

Chris’s bike computer didn’t start, but we reckon he rode around 2:25. He said it was a very tough course. Constantly up and down, with no flats to settle into. Everyone else seems to agree. Michelle ran about 2:20 which she was happy with.

While everyone else was doing the hard work I farted around taking pictures.

Back into training this week for my first full triathlon at the weekend.

S: 5200m

Well it has been a week of weddings. Micky & Megan (photos) got married last Saturday week, Candice & Adam (Jacqui’s photos) were on Friday evening, and Katie & Mark (photos) tied the knot this Saturday. Congratulations one and all!

We had a traditional church ceremony, one in a beautiful old house and another aboard a paddle-steamer on the harbour, but the one constant was my new suit! I had to go shopping the day before Micky’s wedding as it became apparent that I did have to wear a suit to the weddings. I thought I might have been able to get away with smart-casual, but that idea was scuppered once Jimmy, Marty and Nathan admitted they were wearing suits, and seeing as how I no longer fit into my only previous suit (bought for Cliona’s wedding!) I had to shell out for another. I was doing my suit shopping the day before Micky’s wedding, and was a bit worried as I had just remembered that once you bought a suit there was usually a little tailoring to be done, but luckily enough the one I wanted happened to fit me perfectly straight off the rack. I grabbed a couple of shirts and ties and I was good to go.

After all the excitement of the weddings it was time to relax a bit, so myself, Billy, Lisa and a few of her friends went to watch Sydney FC beat Adelaide 2-1 last night. The weather was lovely, unlike the last game when it pissed rain, and the result was in our favour too. Adelaide looked like they had equalised at the last minute but the ball was ruled not to have crossed the line. Phew! We’ve now won three games in a row, and sit second in the table behind Adelaide. Next home gaime is against the New Zealand Knights in two weeks.

While putting up my photos from New Zealand, I forgot to add those from myself and Aisling’s cruise on the TSS Earnslaw, the last steamship on Lake Wakatipu.

Well we all arrived back safely from NZ on Monday night, straight into Sydney rush-hour traffic, whereupon I realised I hadn’t seen a single traffic light in the previous 16 days.

The trip had started on a weird note as I first got pulled aside for a bomb check when leaving Sydney. A couple of swabs were taken from my pockets & hands and analysed by a chemical sniffer device. I was given the all clear, only to have the bloody drugs dog stop beside me when we landed in Dunedin. I was taken away to have all my bags searched, and when that produced nada I had to undergo the full strip search. Thankfully that didn’t involved the rubber glove treatment, though I was prepared to tell them to get f*cked and submit to an x-ray instead. I did ask whether they had got the dog from Australia after reading the news item a few months ago about the dogs being trained with talcum powder but they assured me it was a Kiwi. It must have been bloody senile as it also picked out two other people who turned out to be clean as well. I reckon the handler can signal the dog to pretend you have drugs so that he can search you at will. If a cop walked up to you in the airport and asked to search your bags for no reason you’d tell him to take a hike, but the drug dog provides ‘probable cause’.

Anyway, after all that excitement it was off to Wanaka (photos) to settle in, grab a Brewski, some food and get ready to hit the slopes the next day. We spent a couple of days in Cardrona (photos) at first to let the beginners settle in and bemoan the lack of snow. Marc got his first lessons on a snowboard and was off the beginner slopes on the second day. Rapid progress was being made.

Things still weren’t looking good on the snow front, but after three days it dumped 20cms overnight and our fortunes were transformed. We went straight to Treble Cone (photos) and myself and Bevin ended up on the Saddle with perfect timing, as the main six man lift had an electrical fault trapping the rest of the crew in the cafe. Even though the snow cover was still a bit sparse we got a few runs in on the Bullet, including a couple of mini 180s & jumps off the side, which was a victory for me as the last time I was on the Bullet I spent 40m sliding on my arse! More snow fell and we were back with a vengeance two days later for an official powder day. This time we rode all the runs in the main basin and made the most of the photo opportunities.

The NZ Snowboard Championships had been on in Cardrona while we were there, but the visibility had been pretty crap so instead myself, Johnny and Bevin drove up to Snow Park for the Quarter Pipe (photos) on Saturday night. It snowed heavily and was bloody cold, but the action was spectacular.

We also entered the local pub curling competition (photos) and Tom, Ashling, Dave and Sean managed to win the thing, beating out the locals. After all that excitement it was time for us to bid Wanaka farewell and head over to Queenstown (photos). First stop was Fergburger, and only then did we check into the apartment.

Bevin and Johnny came over from Wanaka on Tuesday night and we went riding in Coronet Peak the following day. There was practially no snow, and it lived up to its nickname of Concrete Peak so we left after lunch, I said goodbye to Bevin and gave Johnny the mini version of the big brother talk ;-)

We spent the rest of the week at The Remarkables (photos) which also had relatively poor snow, but I passed the time learning to land jumps and ride switch so it wasn’t a total waste. Next year will be the year of rails, tricks and jumps I reckon.

So now I’m back at work wishing I was boarding. Bummer!

While I went snowboarding, Jacqui and the rest of the crew rented a place in Nelsons Bay, about three hours north of Sydney. Kirsten and Anna supplied photos to document their weekend of sight-seeing and the inevitable party. Check them out here.

Myself, Tom and Dave spent the last two weekends down at Perisher Blue, getting the legs dialled in before heading to NZ. The weather wasn’t really conducive to photo taking, but I managed to get a few organised anyway.

Here they are…

Last night was Christine & Danny’s birthdays, so we all headed out for a bit of a boogie down at UN. Here are the photos.

A few photos from the walk are now online.

I’ve put some of Dad’s photos from their trip up for viewing here.

Brought Mum & Dad up to the Blue Mountains last week to see the sights. Started off at Govett’s Leap and did the what I remembered as the short walk to Bridal Veil Falls lookout. We’re halfway there before I remember that there’s a lot of steps down to the lookout, which meant the same again up on the way back. I wasn’t sure how Mum would cope, but she handled it with aplomb and there were no worries. After that it was off to the other side of Balckheath for more views out over Megalong Valley, then to Katoomba for a spot of lunch.

Having had a bit of food we headed to the Scenic Railway and travelled down the steepest railway in the world at 52 degrees, then walked through the rainforest at the bottom before getting the cable car back to the top. Then it was on to the final stop at the Three Sisters before indulging in coffee and cakes in Leura.

Here’s a few photos of the day.

    

We’ve been sailing for John’s birthday and mountain biking for the hell of it recently, and on both occasions I’ve forgotten to bring my camera. Tom remembered his thankfully, so click above for some photos from the days out. I’m sur eyou can figure out which is which…

We all got dolled up in black tie three weeks ago for Leo & Syra’s wedding. I didn’t bring my camera, as I’d hardly any pockets in the flash suit. John brought his and these are his photos.