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A few days ago saw me and Dave camping at the Mount Clear camp ground in Namadgi National Park in the ACT. The last time we camped there was back in June 2008. The weather this time wasn't so kind. It was raining as I drove the last few kilometres to the camp site. Luckily it stopped within a few minutes of our arrival and remained dry for the rest of our trip. It was overcast though - which being in the mountains meant it was cold. The plan was to camp there for two nights.

That evening Dave had leftover pizza (yum) for dinner and I had a beef 'pot noodle' which tasted overwhelmingly of polystyrene. The highlight of the evening was young Dave trying to light the camp fire. After much effort he finally did it. Though he now has a much better appreciation and respect for the flammability of Shellite. That night Dave slept like a baby (well like a 5 1/2 year old to be more precise) and lost his second 'milk tooth' in the process (it had been threatening to fall out for weeks). I on the other hand spent a restless night listening to kangaroos hopping about outside the tent. Why kangaroos feel the need to hop around in the dark at 3am beats me - maybe they had insomnia too - perhaps it's hard to sleep with that great big tail getting in the way.

The next morning after a quick breakfast we 'broke camp'. In other words we bundled everything back into the car. I decided against the idea of leaving the tent there during the day just in case we decided not to stay another night (the weather was looking a bit dicey). I also wasn't convinced it would still be there after a day of being left unattended (it's not a cheap tent after all). Also the idea of driving all the way back down to the camp site from Canberra (a good hour long drive) just to pick up the tent if we decided to go home didn't thrill me.

First stop was Yankee Hat to view the Aboriginal rock art. The 6KM round trip walk from the car park took about 1.5 hours which is pretty good going when you've got a 5 year old in tow. I spent 7 years living in Canberra, always intrigued about 'Yankee Hat' but never actually visiting the place. Though the weather was cold and the sky overcast it was a lovely walk. Walking past literally hundreds of Eastern Grey kangaroos, across open plains and through a remnant forest it was a great way to start the day. The rock art itself was nice to see - not exactly Lascaux Deux - but still impressive.

Now that I don't live there, every time I now do a bushwalk in the ACT I think to myself 'why didn't I do this sort of thing when I lived here?'. Seven years wasted. Maybe. Perhaps if I had spent all my time down there bushwalking I wouldn't have left - and then life would be completely different to what it is now. Anyway - enough of the navel contemplation.

Next stop was Corin Forest to ride the bobsled. First time I did that was in 1991. That's 18 years ago. Bloody Hell! I was 21 then, a mere boy. Almost half a lifetime ago. Oh god, he's back to navel gazing again...

This was the second time Dave had been on the Corin Forest bobsled - he loves it the little speed demon! Just as I did all those years ago I took a video of the trip down the hill - you can see it if you click HERE (viewed best in HD mode!). Last time (back around 1991) I recall we hired the video camera (VHS tape) and it weighed a ton. This time my little ultra-compact Panasonic did the job - in about 5x the resolution and 1/20th of the weight - amazing how technology has improved over time. Some things don't change however and I still hummed the James Bond theme tune as we barreled down the hill.

Next we drove to Canberra and visited Questacon. Questacon for those who don't know what that is - is a hands-on science centre for kids. The highlight was seeing a live 'science show' subtitled '10 rockets in 30 minutes' - lots of fun for all those budding rocket scientists in the audience.

By this stage it was mid afternoon. We were both exhausted - me particularly since I hadn't slept very well. Should we drive for an hour (south) back to Namadgi NP and pitch our tent? Or drive for three hours (north) and be home in time for a proper meal and a comfy bed. The decision was easy! While it was a long drive just for a one night camping trip we both had a lot of fun.

If we do go back to that camp site then a) we should do it no later than March as the weather was too cold and b) we should only come up to Canberra on the day we intend to drive back home - as the temptation to just say 'stuff it' and drive home was too much of a temptation as the drive back down to the camp site is 'an effort'. Oh well - enough of my rambling! Oh and of course - I took photos - just click on 2009 and you'll find them.

Our RV-7 wings and fuselage have finally left Van's in Oregon. They are scheduled to leave the port of Long Beach, California this weekend and should arrive in Sydney by mid May. Hopefully they'll reach me in good shape shortly thereafter. They are on the Callao Express (pictured above). So to all you Somali pirates out there - if you're thinking of doing a really really really long range mission into the Pacific - please leave this ship alone!

Our RV-7 empennage is finally complete. Well, almost. The rear spar of the Vertical Stabilizer hasn't been riveted on yet to allow another SAAA quality check. Also I haven't done any of the fibreglass fairing work. I intend to do all the fibreglass work at a later date (once I've learnt how to actually do it - I see some fibreglass courses in my future).

So that's the Horizontal Stabilizer, Vertical Stabilizer, Rudder, Right Elevator and Left Hand Elevator (complete with trim tab) done. Even though it's only a small step in the grand scheme of things I've got a great sense of satisfaction that I've got this far. I started this project without knowing anything about metal work - and now I've managed to create something - something that will one day be flying through the air at 200mph - what a great feeling.

The next phase of the build is the wings. Followed by the fuselage, followed by all the plumbing (electric and fuel), the panel, avionics, firewall forward stuff, engine etc.etc. In other words there's still a long road ahead - there's ton's of stuff I don't know about yet - stuff I don't even know I don't know (if you know what I mean) - but it's all great fun.

The wings and fuselage will be ready to be shipped from Van's in Oregon next week - so hopefully they will arrive here some time in early May. Then it will be straight into building the wings.

Here are some more photos (just click on 2009).

I've just got back from a week in New Zealand. I was on a mountaineering course in the Southern Alps. Mountaineering? Mid life crisis? No I don't think so. I've always fancied mountain climbing - and having spent enough time around the mountains of NZ (but not actually climbing them) I thought the Southern Alps would be the place to go. Couple that with the fact I'm fairly fit at the moment, now seemed like a good time to go (climbing mountains is only going to get harder the older one gets). I flew into Christchurch (staying in a diabolical B&B that was recommended by the mountaineering company). The next morning I took two buses - the first Christchurch to Twizel, the second Twizel to Mount Cook Village. The accommodation at Mount Cook village was spartan to say the least - somewhat akin to being in the army. That turned out to be fitting as the other three course attendees were either serving army or ex-army. Some of them were also half my age. These three were super fit and by comparison I was a laggard.

The first afternoon of the course was spent rappelling off a bridge. Lots of knots were involved - my knot tying repertoire runs to tying my shoe laces and tying a tie (but not very often). So it became abundantly obvious what I would be doing in the evenings - practicing my knots. The next morning we planned to climb to Mueller Hut (a Department of Conservation hut about 6000 foot up on the Sealy Range - sort like a high altitude youth hostel). It was a 3500 foot climb up to the hut - an almost vertical climb that would have challenged me if I was only carrying nothing more than an air of confidence and a mildly crazed smile. No such luck - I had 30 KGs of junk to carry up there - my pack was filled with my clothes (spares/waterproofs), the technical gear (climbing harness, crampons, helmet, snow stake, ice screws, ice axe) plus a share of the food (really un-light stuff - like family sized tins of tuna (for really greedy families with a tuna fixation) and enough rice to feed Bangladesh for a month). About 4 hours after starting out I finally dragged myself to the top of the mountain. I surprised myself actually - I honestly didn't think I could make it at times - it was a really tough climb. But that was just a warm up.

The next day we trekked out to Annette Plateau (a return journey of around 18KM). If we had done this course back in December we wouldn't have had to walk anywhere - but we had to walk that far just to get adequate snow and ice to do such things as cramponing, self-arresting falls on ice slopes using the ice axe, securing ropes with ice screws and snow stakes. The trek was tiring - well, exhausting if I'm honest. The trip there and back was nothing but scrambles over boulders, sliding across treacherous scree slopes or cramponing across the ice plateau.

The next day found us inside the hut for the bulk of the day - the weather had closed in and a gale was blowing. In the evening we had a small weather window and rock climbed up Mount Ollivier (which was Sir Edmund Hillary's first summit in 1939). Unlike Sir Ed I suspect this is the beginning and end of my technical mountaineering career. We climbed along the ridge line to reach the summit of Mount Ollivier - roped up with our partner, kiwi coils around our chest. If my partner had fallen (there was a 3000 foot drop right next to us) then it would have been curtains time. I really wasn't that thrilled about the situation.

The next day we down climbed in a howling gale - one of our party got blown off his feet - luckily he wasn't close to the ridge or things could have got nasty. The day before an Israeli girl had fallen down the hill, broken an ankle and smashed her face - she had to be helicoptered off the mountain to hospital. She was lucky - in the same area several people have died - including one in January. In fact the following day I was in the visitor's centre leafing through some memorial books (as you do) and quite a few people had died in the areas we had been in - including a poor girl about 4 years ago who had died on our very course - covering the same ground out to Annette plateau. As you can imagine I was thrilled to bits about that.

The penultimate day of the course I finally saw sense and decided to pike. The action men were to go on a 12 hour trek across mountains and a glacier - I knew I physically just wasn't up to it. By the end of each long day of exertion I was within a heart beat of hurting myself - either going over and breaking an ankle or going head over heels down a slope. It was time for a rest. So instead I took a ski-plane and landed on Tasman Glacier!

We went in a Pilatus Porter turboprop (which is a STOL (Short Take Off and Landing) skiplane). I wouldn't have gone in a piston engined aeroplane as they just don't have the reliability of a turboprop - this after all was true 'tiger country'. Yet flying around Mount Cook, flying over massive glaciers, crevasses and mountains filled me with nothing but ease and calm. For a week I'd been anxious and in fear of imminent death or injury - and here I was in a single engine aeroplane over extreme terrain and I was as calm as calm can be. Weird I suppose - I guess it's just what you're used to.

The final day was (I thought) going to be spent sitting around, packing up. Instead we found a cliff face to climb - going up 350 feet and then rappelling back down. Phew! The theme for the week seemed to be 'what new and exciting way can you think of to try and kill me today?'. I was happy to get back on the bus(es) to Twizel and Christchurch. Back to the scungy B&B but it didn't matter - the highest thing to fall off was the bed.

So the question is - will I do it again? Will I go on the more advanced course? Will I then go on to start climbing real serious mountains by myself? Will I #@$!.

No - while this was an interesting experience you can't teach old dogs new tricks. I found the technical side of it painful - too many knots, carabiners, slings, harnesses, this and that - all too tedious. Also the constant threat of imminent and painful death was a bit of a downer too. So I think I'll just stick to climbing small mountains covered in grass, without great big drops to scare the proverbial out of me.

Oh - and of course I took photos - I bought a tiny Panasonic ultra compact camera before the trip - trying to lug an SLR with big lens up there would have been madness. So HERE are the photos - just click on 2009 - it should be clear after that!

And... that little Panasonic camera has a High Definition Video option - so I've taken a few videos along the way. The most interesting one by far is the Glacier landing on the Tasman Glacier. Check it out HERE on YouTube. Click on the little 'HD' icon to view the video in High Definition!

Also here's a video of me at Mueller Hut.

Well today was a milestone - David's first day at school (Kindergarten). He was very excited about going to school (the summer holidays were probably a tad boring (there's only so much Scooby-Doo a human can watch)). When we took him up this morning he went into the classroom without giving us a second look, off he went! At the other end of the day he come home exhausted. By coincidence today was Groundhog Day in the US and the logistics of getting Dave off to school every morning so he arrives on time will soon seem like Groundhog Day - I'm sure the novelty will wear off pretty quickly. Before we know it he'll be graduating from university (in about 16 or 17 years, not next month, he's not that brilliant!). That time will fly so we should enjoy every moment of his (and Chelsea's) school days.

Just click HERE are some photos. Just select, "2009", then it should be fairly obvious.

Last weekend Dave and I went camping in Yengo National Park. Given our abortive expedition to Jervis Bay last September (when poor David was car sick) I thought it would be wise this time to go some place that was closer to home. Yengo NP is about 100KM from home, up past St Albans on the old (dirt) road to Wollombi. We camped at a spot called Mogo Creek. When we arrived (around noon) the place was empty - however it steadily filled up during the afternoon until it was completely full (6 camp sites) by around 4pm. That's the trouble with camping in (relatively) close proximity to Sydney and Newcastle. When David is older we'll avoid 'car camping' and visit proper wilderness locations where you have to hike in and out carrying everything on your back. It won't be long before he will be big enough to do that sort of thing. As camp sites go it was a nice spot. As national parks go it wasn't. There's nothing wrong with the park as such - it's just that it is not my type of place. I love mountains - camping in Namadgi NP is my idea of a beautiful location. Yengo NP by contrast is coastal and scrubby, with no views. Mogo Creek had a resident goanna - it wandered about perilously close to our tent and camp area - it even tried to chase me when I got too close while taking photos (it obviously hates the paparazzi). Dave called it Lizzie, I called it Joanna the Goanna. I'd forgotten how hot it can get at night in summer in a tent. The sleeping bag was unnecessary till around 2am when it cooled down somewhat. Dave is a squrimy thing and wandered around the tent all night - keeping me awake. It's supposed to be a 2 man tent - 2 pygmies perhaps - but not nearly enough room for even 1 medium sized man and 1 large 5 year old. Oh well, when Dave's older we'll probably change to 2x1 man tents - then we can carry one each. I took some photos which you can see here.

I decided to take last Wednesday off and go for a bush walk. Waking up at 5am I was on the road a tad before 6am and I'd managed to reach Narrowneck in the Blue Mountains in reasonable time as the traffic was light. From Narrowneck I descended the 500 odd feet down the 'Golden Stairs' - a mixture of track and steps down the side of the Narrowneck cliff face into the valley below. From there I walked out to the 'Ruined Castle' which is a collection of large boulders thought by some to look like a ruined castle - hmmm... obviously named by people who haven't been to many ruined castles.

From there I climbed down off the ridge to rejoin the main track to Mt Solitary. When I say 'main track' I really mean 'vague path through vegetation' rather than say a fire trail or even a well trod path. After a while the track climbs again, eventually you wind up having to scramble up some quite large rocks - this area is named the Koorowall Knife-edge and it's easy to see why as the ridge is quite narrow falling away steeply on either side. Eventually I made it up on to Mt Solitary where I sat down and had a spot of lunch.

By this stage I'd been walking for about 3 hours and the day was beginning to heat up dramatically (it reached 36 degrees C in Sydney that afternoon). Given this wasn't a 'loop walk' - so with 3 hours of 'walk-in' time it was probably going to take a similar time to walk out it was an easy decision to head back instead of pressing further on along the Mt Solitary plateau. I'll save exploring Mt Solitary for another day - probably on an overnight camping trip with David. Another factor in the decision to turn back was all of those rocks I'd just climbed to get to the top of the mountain. Obviously I was going to have to climb back down them! The major concern of course being injury - Mt Solitary is 'as advertised' - a long way off the beaten track. While only 10 kilometres or so away from Katoomba as the crow flies it's literally out in the middle of nowhere - not a place you want to sprain an ankle or worse.

It took only a little over 2 hours to get back to the car - and that included climbing the Golden Stairs again. I think using walking poles helped a lot - they helped me speed along - particular over rough terrain. So 5 hours of walking and I'm guessing a distance of about 15KM (yes - I could work it out more precisely but it'll do). As always I took some photos which are HERE.

Oh and HERE is an aerial photo I took back in 2003 - with my track superimposed on it.

Last night we saw 'Pig Iron People' at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. It's the debut play for John Doyle (aka Rampaging Roy Slaven - who I last saw live doing a performance of 'This Sporting Life' with HG Nelson at the Canberra Theatre around 1992!). The play is well worth catching if you can.

It's set in 1996 - as John Howard takes over from Paul Keating. As an aside we saw John Howard (and Jeanette) going down the escalator in the first class Qantas lounge at Sydney when we were going to France in September. They were going down, we were going up. I was psyched up ready to argue with the Qantas staff about not allowing our small (and noisy) children into the lounge so I didn't even notice them. Caroline did and told little Johnny that she hoped he wasn't on our aeroplane. The reference being to our noisy children - but perhaps he took it as a political statement! I'm just gutted I didn't get the chance to shout out 'I voted for you John... Rudd has only been in for 6 months and already he's buggered up the world's economy'... oh well, another missed opportunity.

Back to the play... Me circa 1996 could easily empathise with the play's younger characters (well, maybe) - young, skint, with the Howard government offering nothing but cuts. That was true for Canberra - the Liberals coming to power spelt the end of my Canberra days - we were being outsourced so I left for Sydney. 12 years on I don't empathise anywhere near as much - now I just see the younger characters as a bunch of whingeing labor voters! Times change.
The older characters were fantastic - Jack/John Howard (Danny Adcock) , Janette Howard (Judi Farr), Claude (Bruce Venables) and his wife, Rosie (Jacki Weaver) were all highly amusing. In places the play was a bit predictable, but on the whole we really enjoyed it.

Just finished the right hand elevator. Having completed the rudder this elevator went together quite quickly as these control surfaces are of similar construction. The next sub-assembly to complete is the left hand elevator. This will be harder (or so I'm told). As well as the elevator itself there is the trim tab to do, and there's an electric servo to mount as this elevator hosts the electric trim system for the aircraft. I still have my goal of trying to complete the entire empennage before Christmas (2008!).

Mid September to early October saw us on holidays in France and the UK. Flying with Qantas from Sydney to Singapore we taxied into Changi, passing Qantas' first Airbus A380. The aeroplane was on its ferry flight from Europe to Sydney. So we saw this historic aeroplane before it landed in Australia - that was cool.
We then changed flights to an Air France Boeing 777-300ER for the flight to Charles de Gaulle. Both kids were really good on these flights - it's helped that this is David's third long haul flight to the Europe (all before he was 5 years old) and Chelsea has been to New Zealand and Perth. Landing in Paris we picked up our hire car (a Peugot 407 - all our luggage just squeaked in). We had a villa booked at a Marriott resort next to Disneyland Paris. Luckily the villa was ready for us, so after a quick shower and change we drove into Paris. Parking near Parc du Champs de Mars we walked up to the Eiffel tower. We then queued for well over an hour and finally headed up to the second level. After some photos we finally made it to the top. Next day - Disneyland Paris - the kids loved it (that's the most positive thing I have to say!). Leaving the area the next day we headed down to our second destination via the relatively new Millau Bridge - an amazing feat of engineering. We had a house booked in the little village of Poilhes in Languedoc - right next to the Canal du Midi. While down in this part of the world Dave and I visited the Airbus A380 facility at Toulouse Blagnac airport. We saw several A380's in construction - including the soon to be finished second A380 for Qantas. We also visited Carcassone and the ruined chateaux at Peyrepertuse. We only had 4 nights in Poilhes (which was OK as the place was nosiy - even if it was a small village - it was harvest time and tractors and trucks roamed the roads and the village church rang its bells on the hour and half hour all day and all night - twice!).

Our next destination was Simiane La Rotonde - a small village in northern Provence. We had a beautiful villa in a beautiful little village. From here we visited Mont Ventoux, Avignon, Arles, Gordes and generally drove around the local region a fair bit. A lot of fuss has been made over Provence - some people likening it to some sort of nirvanic (is that a word?) heaven on earth. Well... I beg to differ. It's certainly a nice part of the world, very pretty, but there's not a great deal to do there (especially with young kids) and just simple things like buying groceries is a hassle (as we often find in France). So while we enjoyed Provence I don't think we'd rush back.

We left France via Marseille airport, flying to Gatwick. From Gatwick we picked up our next hire car - a crummy Vauxhall Safira (even though we'd booked a VW Passat). I drove us in the driving rain (and darkness) down to our next destination - a cottage we had rented in a small spot called Talybont-on-Usk in the Brecon Beacons. We had a great 5 days here - visiting Mary and Danny and Mary and Mostyn, going shopping to Cardiff without the kids (we usually only going shopping sans petit enfants biennially in Cardiff - on the other side of the planet!). Our final stop was with Caroline's cousin Linda in London. We took the kids to the Tower of London and as it was David's 5th birthday that week we took him to the mega toy shop Hamleys.

The flight back was again a piece of cake - which is amazing considering we were traveling with two small kids. On reflection it was a lovely holiday - in many respects I wish it had been longer - there were so many things we didn't get to do as time was short. However spending 3 weeks away from home, doing a lot of driving, and living in various different locations is hard work on young kids so by the end of the holiday we were all ready to come home again.

To check out some of the photos we took just click on this GALLERY link, select 2008 then, France/UK holiday 2008. Enjoy!

I've just finished a couple of really good books - "Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut" by Mike Mullane. Unlike the 'traditional' autobiography (or biography) of super-hero astronauts this is a down to earth (pardon the pun), hilarious and at times very poignant story. Well worth a read.

The other book I just finished is 'Weeping Women Hotel' by Alexei Sayle. It's the third novel of his that I've read and like his comedy routines they're amusingly surreal. They're sort of a blend of Ben Elton and Will Self. Also highly recommended.

I've reinstated our RV-7A Builder's Log (it's now one of the selectable 'categories') as I'm actually starting to do some work on it (after a hiatus of nearly a full year). My aim being to complete the empennage by Christmas (Christmas 2008 that is!).

Last night we saw Bill Bailey at the State Theatre in Sydney. The combination of the bearded maniac's surreal ramblings coupled with his musical prowess made for a very entertaining evening. There were lots of highlights (most of which I've now forgotten only 24 hours later). I particularly liked his critique of Australian TV News theme tunes. Of course he did that before with his BBC theme tune skit but I enjoyed the localised version. To finish he sang his 'love song' - there aren't many songs where you hear the line "The duck lays shredded in a pancake, soaking in the hoisin of your lies".
The only disappointment - he didn't do 'Das Hokey Kokey'

This new blog engine that I'm using allows me to add additional blog categories. So, to make things a bit more interesting for future readers (including myself) I've added categories which cover books, films and music. That way I can record what I was reading/watching/listening to at a particular point in time. So - perhaps not of real interest to anyone else but I like the idea!

To kick this section off - I just finished a book called "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. As well as numerous anecdotes on people surviving in extreme situations it also described some of the neurological mechanics of what goes on in a survival situation. Basically 'Zen and the art of staying alive against the odds' sort of sums the book up for me. Well worth a read.

Last night David and I went to see 'Jump Mania 08' at the Acer Arena (Olympic park, Homebush). We were let in despite the fact that I wasn't wearing the de rigeur "Jack Daniels" t-shirt and David hadn't grown a mullet. Having spent over $100 on tickets I was expecting something better. In terms of excitement and spectacle the show was on a par with paint drying. The monster trucks were driven rather tamely, not surprising perhaps given some of them had 1700 horsepower engines. The fuel bill must have been eye watering. The show would have been great at a country fair, charging $10 a pop. But for the money we paid it was nothing short of a rip-off.

Even David had had enough by three quarter time and wanted to leave. Which we did and thus avoided the chaos which always ensues when ~4000 cars all try and simultaneously exit the car park.

It's heartening to see a boy who isn't even 5 yet that is discerning enough to know when he's getting bored and is happy to go home to bed. Amazing. Given David has already been in helicopters, lots of aeroplanes (small and big), jet boats and been to some of the world's biggest air shows I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he enjoyed it, to a point and then had his fill and wanted to go home. Or perhaps the answer is he's like me and doesn't particular like spectator activities. I'd much rather being 'doing' rather than watching - so things like motor racing, football or any sort of organized sport that one watches just bores me silly. I've got to the point where I can't even stand sitting around watching an air show - maybe I've been to too many - but I find them really boring.