Camping With Mim

  Ok,
You are riding along on a 9 year old hardtail. You know that the front rim is (waaay too) concave and you even have another rim you can replace it with but you are too lazy to fix it "Just one more ride..."
You embark on a two day polaris style ride up in the St Albans area. After a nice downhill section, halfway through day 1, you realise that the rim is blown and the brakes are seriously rubbing on the crack. You ignore if for 10 more k's. It gets worse. Its sticking out 2mm and the crack is along the run of the rim and is about 3cm long.
You have gaffer tape, wire, zip ties, pocket knife a multi tool, and most of all you have a desperate desire to keep riding as you are trying to impress a lovelly young lass...
What do you do?
-----
A: I took off the tyre and built up a new wall out of a thick layer of gaffer tape. I was thinking about using a length of wire as a "bridge" but this was fiddly and I wasnt sure how much it would help as the crack was along the middle of the wall of the rim. I taped tightly around the rim as well. This of course meant that I could not use the front brakes. I rode slowly for quite a while and the blow out got a little larger untill it stretched into the seat of the tape and then it stayed constant. I got brave toward the end of day 2 and clocked up 55km/h on some descents!
All hail gaffer tape.
All that and I got the girly too! :-)  

SuitSat Tracking site

This looks like *I* made it! ;-) SuitSat Tracking site

Moved House

  Yep, I did it! I finally moved out of my roach infested hovel. Im sharing with a lovelly lass, Jane. Sooo much stuff has been happening that I havent even had a chance to blog. More details to follow!  

No F'ing Way: 3D Planes for Flight Tracking in Google Earth

Google Earth Blog: 3D Planes for Flight Tracking in Google Earth

Moving House

 Oh yeah... nearly forgot... ... Im moving house next week. There you go.  

Im Baaaaack!

  Welcome to 2006! I saw Felix this weekend and decided to call the farmer who bought the property where I used to camp. This was a really great campsite and we chatted about it over the phone. He was keen to let me camp there and when he heard my story his eyes bugged out. He was in *exactly* the same situation!!! How bizarre! Anyway, Ive got a key to the property now and Im free to camp, walk and bike around the place!

Felix was tired and grumpy on Saturday but on Sunday he was great fun. We fed the ducks, rode his new bike and went "fishing"... Fishing with a stick, where the "fish" were leaves. We also floated a feather all the way across the pond and Felix fished it out of the water on the other side. It showed that his attention span is getting a little longer.

I learnt that Flopsy (his rabbit) is a bit sick and that he has a kitten too. You can only pat the kitten, you musnt pull its tail! I showed him the photos from my big walk and he loved the snowman I built him... Unitil next time. c.  

Snowline Adventure

 Ive had an awesome holiday! I had Felix for Christmas and Santa bought him a bike... His face was priceless when he unwrapped it: "Awwwwww! A Biiiiiike!!". Form there I headed down to Jindabyne to the XMas 5 days orienteering carnival. It was great fun but it was far too hot so not many other activities were done.

On Sat 31st I headed up to Charlotte Pass and started a 3 day walk. Went up Kozzy and then around to Mt Townsend. Mt Townsend rocks! I camped basically at the top, at about 2200m. I watched the sun set and was then attacked by thousands of moths. At 4am I awoke to a furious wind rocketing over the tent. I opened my eyes and saw stars. The tent was still up, checked again, still there... then I figured it was some wierd high altitude glowing bug so I stuck my head out the door to see, nothing. I can only summise that it was static electricity caused by the windspeed over the 2 tent layers. Whatever it was, it was cool.

Got up and saw the sunrise on Mt Townsend. Then treked over to Curruthers Peak, Mt Twynam and Mt Anton. Backtracked to Blue Lake and camped near Headley Tarn. The wind was around 100km/h and that made walking in a straight line very difficult. Then came the rain, short, sharp downfalls. At one point I crouched behind a small (and the only) rock as the rain was stinging my face and arms even through my Jacket and two thermal layers!. By the time I reached the campsite it was clear and it was lovelly listening to the running water, camped right next to snowfall.

Day 3 was an easy walk out. I followed the Blue Lake River down to the Snowy and then followed it for a while before shooting back up to Chalotte Pass. Along the Snowy I found spa pools and excellent swimming holes. I took a lovelly skinny dip in the Snowy but when I was taking a few photos the camera fell right in 2m deep water. I dried it out over 2 days and all is well! cant believe it!

Im at Merimbula now at Mum and Dads, Heading back up to Sydney tomorrow to change loads from holiday mode to Felix mode, then heading up to Tamworth to spend some time with him. Might even pop out to Dubbo to see my (real) Dad...