Tasmanian Wanderers

We've just returned from our long anicipated trip to Tassie and we can safely say it was everything we hoped for. We were blessed with some awsome weather, only a small sprinkle of rain on the first day we were there which was good for tramping, climbing, site seeingand swimming - the only downside was it meant we lugged around 2 kayaks for 10 days only to see dry riverbeds everywhere! Heres a taste of what we got up to.

Cradle Mountain (above) is a popular tourist area. Heaps of people here but still an awsome place. We just spent an afternoon here on our way to bigger and better things.


Frenchmans Cap (the peak in the centre of the photo) was our target. This photo is taken from a carpark near the start of the track. The 300m high rockface provides spectacular climbing if you have the motivation to carry all your kit for one and a half days to its base. We chose just to walk to the to via the right hand ridge you see the photo.

Even following the ridge we found some steep patches

Views from the top were worth the climb

And we got to meet some interesting wildlife on the way. This falla was dead but we did manage to see some live ones too.


After our tramp we headed to Hobart for new years. The waterfront was busy as all the boats from the Sydney to Hobart yatch race had come in. Heaps to see and do

Further up the coast we spent a day out on an island surrounded by a marine reserve. I made use of my $15 snorkel set again and saw some cool stuff. The water was dam cold though. I think I lasted 5 minutes at the most.

Our final stop was an area called Freycinet Peninsular which boasts some massive sea cliffs perfect for climbing. We spent 2 nights here.
That'll do for now. Hope all is going well with the rest of the crew.

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