Aussie tramping, take 2!

Last weekend Jacs and I joined up with a pair of Germans and headed to a place called Wilsons Promatory National Park. It's located on the Southern tip of Victoria and reminded us alot of the Able Tasman area in NZ. We had 2 days tramping through this area and it was awsome. I'd love to go back.

Going for a snorkel at the beach we were camping at after a days tramping. The water was a lot colder than it looks though...
Nice hair!
The bay in which we camped
Jacs on a typical section of the track. Very similar to NZ in parts
Out of the forest and onto the beach. Magic.

Have a great christmas everyone.

Pucon Goodness

Rio Trancura

Scouting a stacked section on the Middle Llancahue. The really long rapid ends in a difficult 60 foot waterfall. It has all been done once apparently. Staunch!

Our wagon. Bashed in rear end thanks to the thieves, and no racks thanks to the language barrier. Both are now sorted....

Rio Llancahue

Rio Turbio

The natives are friendly... really. We found a bunch of these fellas which were about half a paddle with across! Em is doubtful about the camping thing now, but we´ll put it to the back of our minds and push on.

Rio Nevados - such a sick river on Pucons back doorstep. We ran this a bunch while we could as the water is now dropping coz its a snow melt run.

Paddling the shit in Chile. Ive been pretty slack on the blogger thing lately. Now you see why!

My Office...

Hi guys, just thought Id give you a little taste of what I have been up to. My work is finished now for the year, currently I feel like a stay at home house wife cooking all the boys muffins! But enough of that these photos below are from the last program I did with work last week. We were right on the border of Victoria and South Australia along the coastline. It was a year 8, 7 day school camp preparing them for next year as for 1 term they live on an island, kind of like what Shaun did with Tihoi. It was like a little journey, heres what we did...

We canoed for 3 days on the Glenelg river, starting from the river mouth and heading up stream, the river is so flat it dosn't matter which way you paddle! yup extreme!

I saw a koala!

We then got transferred to the coastline and went sandunning on these mammoth dunes (probabaly one of the highest peaks in the area, which still isnt that high prob only bout 100m high) But it was like walking through a desert, with emus running around - very weird

We then hiked around Cape Bridgewater which is part of the Great South West walk, I have never hike anything like it, pretty spectacular. The photo on the left is hiking over the higest sea cliff in Victoria. Passing a seal colony.


The flies were pretty bad, you just had to put up with them or else you would actually go insane!


We went through a petrified forest!


And then we hiked some more...


After hiking we went back to the river and attempted to build a raft, but ended up swimming and pushing it along. We then finished the journey with a tour through one of the local caves, I wish I had taken my camera because it would have made for some awesome photos!

Anyways we have big plans to head to Tassie on Boxing day so we will keep you posted, I hope all is well and wish you all the best for Christmas and New Years -Hope santa spoils you!

- Jacs XOX

Reaching for the stars

This past weekend Jacs was away working so I decided to join a group from the outdoors club we've joined on a weekend away climbing in the Grampians National Park. It turned out to be a truely fantastic weekend. Unfortunately theres no pics of me but I promise I dominated it!

We conquered the 3hr drive on Friday night (despite some doubts of our van's ability to dominate) and settled in for a good sleep. The alarm clock (and by alarm clock I mean noisy birds) ensured a sleep in was not necessary and we were up and ready to rock nice & early.

A short drive and a 45 minute walk lead us to the cliff.

The weather on Saturday was fantastic - clear skies with just a little wind, probably around 25-30 degrees. The cliff we were on was mostly in the shade which made for a great days climbing.

All the routes were unbolted which makes the prospect of falling onto that sketchy looking piece of gear you just placed a little nerve racking.

My climbing partner for the weekend, Alice, was a champ and definitely girled me on more than a few occasions.

After some well earned beers on Saturday night we were back into it at a different location on Sunday. Here we did some more trad' routes as well as some bolted routes. Another excellent day which finished just as the thunderstorms arrived. Couldn't have planned it better.

There you have it. Until next time

Some down time for the South American Crew

Well after 4 days and 3 nights on a bus we finally made it to Pucon. Our first day in Pucon we managed to get our first taste of Chilean whitewater - pretty sweet! This is such a beautiful part of the world and there are so many rivers so close to town. Planning to stick round this part of the world for the next month or two, hitting up the rivers and national parks. Managed to buy a car to aid us in our kayaking adventures, only to have it broken into and a bunch of stuff stolen the first night we had it - stink! Good thing I talked Nicholas into that travel insurance. We lost my pack (pretty much all my stuff except my paddling gear) and two day packs. The main hit we took was the tent, which puts a bit of a dint in our camping plans. But there is a sweet crew of paddlers here and we have been well looked after, with a place to stay and more boating to be done. At least we managed to hold onto our passports and credit cards and Nicks camera so will have to post some more photos soon.
Peace, Em.

Huru to heal the wounds

After a dark winging friday evening and a pretty disappointing Phoenix Foundation gig in that bad venue that is the Civic, I needed my heart to be taken to the heart hospital, along with my well wounded mood.




The sunny Hurunui came along, flew us gently, whirled us in its warm water and gave us a bright new smile back. Me and Andie Kennedy (mo) took Greg Seaton down along with his girlfriend and charming Lucy.

Greg, who we picked up after a hard night drinking Wodka (with a W for Whip-your- ass) was fine as long as he was still drunk ...Later on his great entertainer side took over and he decided to show us some solid intestin-backflipping skill. Here, in-between too gaging spasms. This is probably the real purpose of the wetsuit afterall.

Then I decided I would impress people with my boat tying skills, picking boats from the the bridge to the take out. "She ll be just fine, I am just going down the road" And I was right, they were still there.

After some chilling under sun at the take out (without sandflies!), headed to Waikuku beach to dedydimo the boats ( that was the intention anyway), just like in the old days.

The next day at Cattle stop, the weather is with us. Tina and Greg take me this time, lead climbing, because its good for me. Here Tina featuring on what could be used to promote climbing in the Port Hills overseas.

Aussie tramping, take 1

This past weekend Jacs and I decided to meet a group of people from the melbourne uni outdoors club we've joined at a hut in the Great Dividing Range for a night. The other group left Melbourne the night before us and we planned to hike up a different route to them, meeting them at the hut. Unfortunately fate wasn't on our side for this trip and a number of factors including a severely overgrown track, cronic hayfever, bad route markers, HOT weather and eventually general frustration led us to defeat. Never mind though, we were in a beautiful area and there was plenty to do despite not being able to join the rest of the group. We camped at a magic lake high up near a skifield and swam into the evening. Heres some photos from the following day.

Tits out for the pretty shelter at the top of the Mountain
The Great Dividing Range
Jacs makes a new friend
And I do too
A magic gorge where there is plenty of potential for rock climbing and a launching ramp for hang-gliders
A random shot - Jacs struts her stuff at the local bouldering wall in Melbourne. A free wall thats been set up under the freeway.