The last of Australia for a while

Everything is packed and now I am just left to procrastinate while I should be cleaning my room. Back to Oregon today for another season at OB wilderness then to ........... somewhere.

My last week at OB Australia has been great with lots of time spent hanging out with groups and sleeping in a cave to meet groups early morning for the "descent" (basically a massive abseiling/flying fox activity). This has been great and stopped me thinking about leaving too much as well as the early nights in the very cold cave allowing me to catch up on some sleep. So here are the photos, the next ones should be of glaciers

Clare (the bear) and peter perfect at the start of the descent, early morning with the rain clouds brewing behind


Clouds spill into the honeysuckle valley at dawn as we meet the first group of the course.


Bear coiling ropes at the end of another long day (in some very scottish conditions)



Pabi belaying bear as she abseils down the first level of the descent just after dawn.

Cave life, Ali and Bear

Bear making the strongest hot chocolates in the world just before getting in our sleeping bags (5pm!!)

Cooking dinner from my two sleeping bags.

Just before course started. One final climb at Booroomba rocks with Tipu and Caleb. Beers on the summit after climbing the beautiful "determinant" with the "termination" finish. My hands still bare the cuts from having to jam up the final crack with frozen hands.

Some work/home photos of Australia

Its getting colder and the stormy season looks like its arrived. My Blog appears to be working again so I thought I would get back to what I originally intended to do - put up pretty photos for people to check out. Enjoy

(I have been accused of only photographing sunsets and sunrises so have tried to throw some others in there as well!)

Storm passing in the valley (taken from outside the staff accomodation block)

Below- waiting for a group to turn up at an abseiling site







Evening sunlight over base
A couple of minutes later the kangaroos (in my garden) pulled one of my T-shirts off the line. (really - I have photographic evidence)


Evening Light on the gum trees






















"Rhino" and the brumbies on the Cooleman plains










Below - Life in base camp around the fire drum


Tom and Roman cooking dinner at Cooleman base camp











































Sunset from base camp, Cooleman

Sunrise in the bush

Roman in the spectacular "Claustral" canyon, blue mountains

Sunset through the bivy, Cooleman

Students on the side of Tantangra dam

Argentina Photos

Storm clouds over "El Bolson"
On the edge of the hielio azul glacier
Looking towards the Chilean border (the small person is me)
Moraine colours below Aconcagua
Cold and windy, 1st Camp for Aconcagua

Refrugio Frey with Cerro Cathedral behind
The South face of Aconcagua, we are standing at 4200m
Laguna Frey
Oh yeah!

one last photo (nick leading the crack, wanaka NZ

just back from new zealand and start work tommorrow, have decided though to kill this site as it is not really behaving itself. my original plan was to have loads of pictures up to show people what i am up to but they dont seem to upload properly.

one last shot at a photo and then i think its back to the good old group emails.

merry christmas and have a great hogmanay.

aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

sorry folks

cant get the photo function to work, and am about to head off to a mobile season for a couple of months. Will try when i get back.

The kindness of friends.....

So it has taken a while to settle back into the rhythm of my australian life and not just sit daydreaming of the cascade mountains but now that I am firmly back one thing sticks out from 4 months in the USA. The people are kind of weird. Without most people knowing me too well I was lent (in no particular order) beds, crampons, tents, backpacks, cars, socks, dry tops, stoves, wetsuit shorts, mountain bikes, computers, guitars, rafts, guidebooks, books and was of course given copious amounts of good food and drink. This process was finished by Jason an old friend from hong kong who I stayed with at the end of my trip and who seemed to think it was his duty to not let me pay for anything for the 2 days i was with him and his wife.

I am currently sitting in the office and it has just turned 8 at night still waiting for one of my groups to make a call in on the radio. Unfortunately a season working for another OB school seems to have convinced the people who organise my life that i have just been on a 4 month holiday and I am now in the middle of co-ordinating 2 courses while preparing to co-ordinate another (which basically means I dont have time off for a long time). The good news is that I will have 5/6 weeks off from March the 10th so if anyone is planning any trips or looking for freelance instructors just drop me a line.

I cant really thank the people who made my US trip so amaazing enough especially those who had to share a tent and therefore my sleeptalking antics (you know who you are). I will be back