Saturday, December 22, 2007

2007 - the best bits

Its been a really hectic but fun year so just going to make a quick note of all the best bits before we forget what we did.

Hiking
Did some fantastic hikes this year. Here´s some of the best.
  • Road trip from Brisbane to Sydney after Xmas. Visited, camped and did lots of day walks in Border Ranges NP, Girraween NP, Bald Rock NP, Washpool NP and Gibraltar Range NP despite finding the only rain and cold weather in all of Australia which was in the grip of drought.
  • Kosciusko 3 day hike with Matt on Australia day weekend. Fantastic loop walk starting at the power station near Charlotte´s pass, camped near Jagungal, climbed it next day, camped near Valentine Falls (it was freezing there) and then also bagged another 2 mountains over 2000m but cant remember which ones
  • Corang Peak, Budawangs 2 day hike with us, Matt, Laura and Bridget in February. Camped in a cave, beautiful walk with some lovely creek swimming, views and a little bit of bashing (think Laura and Bridget´s opinion is slightly different on this walk)
  • Mt Anne Circuit, South West Tasmania with Matt. 3 day turned into 4 day hike (start of April, easter). Very heavy rain and mist on the first day, heavy rain on 2nd day but intermittent clear spells allowed us see some fantastic views. 3rd day over the ridge towards Mt Anne was also cloudy, very cold and one of the hardest days I have ever done with plenty treacherous edges, boulder hopping and clambering. Made it to the hut before dark so saved the last 2 hours back to the car for the next day. Dinner on vegimite, tea and limited stake bread. Delightful ;) end but what a walk.
  • Walls of Jereusaleum, Tasmania. Super 5 day hike with Matt. Easy going, fab views, cold at night tho, the eastern spotted quolls stoll the show.
  • Cradle Mountain day walk with Matt. Not a cloud in the sky, perfect day after a brilliant week in Tasmania.
  • 3 peaks in 48 hours, Kanangra-Boyd NP in June with Matt. About 80-90kms, 5kms of ascents and descents up and down Cloudmaker, Paralyser (very apt name) and Guouogang, 3 hours sleep on the 1st night, 10 on the 2nd night, many mental and physical highs and lows. Highly recommended. Still managed to play football on the sunday, the day after we finished.
  • Central Australia (August) with Matt, Ian and Debbie. Lots of day walks including around Ayers Rock, the Olgas, Kings Canyon (awesome), Mount Sonder, Ormiston Gorge (stunning) plus lots of other canyon
  • Inca Trail. See the october blog for that one.

Sport
  • Had a fantastic season playing and training (and drinking) with Waverly Old Boys and winning the league and cup double with the SW1s. Wahooo.
  • Rogaining (with Matt). Did a 24 hour in April in the Turon Gold Rush. Did pretty well and came 5th in our category. Very hilly course with lots of knee pain afterwards (and during). Matt had to encourage me lots on the last hill of the day as I refused to beleive or want to walk up another bloody hill. Also did a 24 hour in Central Australia in the Eastern McDonnell Ranges which was the Australian Championships. Think we came 20th overall (out of 100+ teams), but stuffed up somewhere during the night so didn´t do as well as we wanted. Was an amazing course tho with fab scenery, canyons, desert, wildlife etc.
  • Mountain biking - did some good rides around Sydney
  • Horse riding - Dunk learnt how not to take corners ;)
Other bits
  • finishing work for 6 months in august
  • Mik and Shannon´s wedding
  • Tara and Colins wedding (and gate crashing their honeymoon)
  • trip to Ireland in Sept (and catching everyone there)
  • lots of trips with Dunk´s family (to Canberra, Brisbane, Maleny, Tassie, etc)
  • did I mention not working since August
  • leaving Sydney (this was very sad for us thou saying good bye to all our buddies there)
  • obviously all our travels in South America

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