Uncallosed hands

Foolishly tried to do some work while I'm back home on the farm for a month. This resulted in a few hand fulls of blisters after just a few hours of removing battens from a fence. I then foolishly decided to go kyacking today for two hours. Luckily the scenery was really good and that distracted me from the pain.

The christmas tree

The seven different branches strapped crudely together that some euphemistic individual proclaimed to be our christmas tree is still standing there slowly decmposing and crumbling and looking even more miserable than it did when it was obscuring the presents under a haze of dropping pine needles. Might sacrifise it to the bon fire tomorrow if I'm not to lazy.

Christmas

Had a pretty good christmas altough I didn't eat anywhere near as much as I should have. The surprise has gone out of it though as all of my relatives just ask me what I want for christmas, still that's better than getting unending supplies of socks. It was nice to catch up with all my cousins even though they are all taller than me now, even my 12 year old cousin is only 4 inches shorter than I am.
A few people even managed to sort of teach them selves to drive in the paddock racer which was interesting.*



*This is a pretty boring post.

The bronze crayfish

Finished off my christmas shopping today in the local craft shop now I just have to work out who to give the life sized bronze crayfish to.

The dentist.

Went to my friendly dentist today and his assistant poked around in my mouth for an hour causing me to lose half a litre of blood in the process of her trying to scratch off some small calcified deposits on my teeth but generally missing and getting the gums instead. Have to go back tomorrow to get a few fillings as well, luckily going to the dentist is alot cheeper in New Zealand than it is in Australia.

Back Home

Arrived home yesterday after a rather harrowing flight that had numerous delays and hour long cues to get through immigration. I was eventually greated by a rather bleak day of constant drisle and eight degree celcius temperatures. It was certainly colder last night than it has been all year in sydney and I had a lovely relaxing sleep with no mosquitoes or giant flying cockroaches pestering me through the night, its also quite nice not to have to pull your curtains as there is no street light or city light out where we live. Might even be able to see the stars if it ever stops raining and the clouds clear.

One more day of heat

Only one more day to go before I get to go home to New Zealand and finally be able to stop sweating uncontrollably and I might even get a good nights sleep.
The weather looks like its going to reach a scorching high of 12 degrees at home today compared to 25 for Sydney and 34 for Sydney on Sunday.

Also taking a break from being a glorified property press the SMH copied this article from the AFP today; Bloggers stars of the net.

Christmas Party

It was alot of fun and people certainly seemed to enjoy themselves, I certainly rapidly deteriorated once the beer had run out and the wine was started, luckily I only fell over once though and I blame the slippery floor for that. Didn't win the bloody hamper again must be rigged.
Speaking of rigged the commonwealth bank has installed a diebold ATM machine at my local bank, made sure I got a paper trail when I got my money out.
Watched king arthur last night on DVD it was interesting mindless fodder which was probably good as I was still feeling rather poorly at the time.

All the best leave

Well I did anyway although its questionable wheather I was ever in the top 50 % let alone the best.
Anyway wouldn't want to stay as there is too much chance of being raped by an all black (see post below).

Off to join the brain drain

Blue Gum Forest (II)

Some pictures from the blue gum forest walk.

Beaucamp Falls


The fog on the first morning.

Go the homeland

Kiwi shearer fastest in world

NZ in midst of obesity epidemic - report

It's all in the fine print.

Please read the footnote especially if you are from southland.

http://www.longdistancewalks.com/hollyford-pyke_route/day04.html

Blue Gum Forest

I did the blue gum forest walk over the weekend with Adelle. The weather thankfully was quite cold for this time of year and when we started out everything was shrouded in fog and you could only see 50 metres. The walk from the blackheath train station to the start of the track was a dead flat 3 km that went remarkably quickly with a short side trip to the parks and wildlife building where I resisted the urge to further increase the weight of my pack with some of the lovely books that lay within. From Govetts leap car park we then had to walk to evans lookout as the track down govetts leap was closed due to a land slide. The walk to evans lookout was also dispatched rapidly as due to the fog there was little to see, however the fog started to clear as we approached evans lookout and it unveiled some nice views. The wander down to beaucamp falls was slippery but very interesting and due to the stream running through it was very wet and full of tree ferns which reminded me of home. At beaucamp falls we stopped for lunch on a large rock with splendid views of the valley and the falls. After eating so much we could barely walk we waddled on down to the valley floor passing some great swimming holes and a few eastern water dragons on the way.
We soon hit junction rock where we had a quick break before carrying on towards acacia flat on the way Adelle managed to catch a lovely little dragon which was quite friendly, although it eventually leaped to freedom and scampered off before we could get a photo.
After replenishing the water supplies at orangutang creek we headed on to acacia flat where we set up camp amongst some lovely blue gums and I discovered a leech had hitch hiked along in my shoe although for some reason it had not bit me. That night it rained steadily helping to lull oneself to sleep.
The next day we went for a quick walk through the blue gum forrest where we were attacked by hoards of hungry leeches luckly only one was quick enough to draw blood before I noticed it. After this it was time for the steep climb up to perry's lookout despite the sign at the bottom of the hill saying it should take 2-3 hours we did it easily in two hours with plenty of short stops to admire the view along the way. At the top we had a delicious lunch of soup and lebanese bread that Adelle had kindly hauled up the hill. All that then remained was a quick wander along the road to pulpit rock where we could join all the tourists gawking at the view from the cliffs as we wandered back to govetts leap car park. Had a good look around blackheath before getting some greasy burgers to subdue our hunger and a train back to sydney.

Hero

I went to see the movie Hero last night and contary to the expectations of the person I went with it was very good. It was by the same people who made crouching tiger hiden dragon and in many ways is very similar to that although the action is faster and not quite as unrealistic. Worth watching for the scenery alone I think.

Now I can be searched.

In a narcissistic orgy I just managed to find my blog on yahoo search engine thing. Sadly it only listed it as the numer two site when you type in lost and cold". Crappy old google still hasn't gotten around to listing it yet though.

Cycle Sydney

Still recovering the 10 litres or so of sweat that I lost on the cycle sydney yesterday from the north shore to paramatta in horrid 37 degree heat. God it was awful, well the heat anyway the cycle was very scenic and pleasant.

Quake

If only it was in Auckland and caused a giant tsunami to destroy that filthy hole.

Quake upgraded to biggest in 73 years

Stupid ebay doesn't have any snakes or lizards for sale.

Procrastination

Must work faster and finish my 1st year report.
Only 20 pages to go.
By the way if you haven't yet you should get firefox you can click on the link in my side bar.

Mmmmm Sky Prawns

Locusts rebranded as 'sky prawns'

Some lovely climbing

The Dihedral Wall

Didn't win

Lost my free $10 token in about 5 seconds and I wasn't going to spend my own money so it was a fairly uneventful night. Eels were nice though.

Gambling

As much as I dislike gambling and think it is only for the statistically challenged I have been persuaded to partake in it tonight. As long as I'm not too drunk and only waste about ten dollars I should be happy.

Jealousy

To all those people in my research group who were mocking my admittedly fairly mediocre blog I strongly recommend you get your own and see if you can do better. At the very least I'll then be able to write some abusive comments on your blog to use up a little more time when I should be working.

Still haven't crashed yet.

Although I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike my abilities have certainly deteriated, which is quite worring as they were far from good to start with. Nearly managed to crash once when I underestimated the brakes and locked up going down a hill. I blame the fact that my last bike did not have brakes, or for that matter just about anything that could have contributed to the safety of the rider.

Due to popular demand...

And the specifications are as follows;

colours Red or Gloss Black
user Recreational rider
frame ALUXX 6061 Aluminum, Integrated Headtube Gusset
fork SR XCP75 pre-load adjustable Mag forks w/colour matched paint/graphics 75mm travel
headset 1 1/8th Ahead
rear derailleur Shimano Alivio 8/9 speed
front derailleur Shimano Altus
crankset TruVativ X-Flow 22x32x42T
derailleurshifters Shimano Acera 24 speed
cassette Shimano 8 speed 11-30T
chain KMC Z-72 8 spd
hubs Shimano Acera 8 speed cassette (rear), formula (front)
rims Alloy double wall black 26x32H
spokes Stainless
tyres Hutchinson Scorpion 26 x 2.0” knobby
brakes Tektro alloy V-brakes
brake levers Shimano Acera alloy V-brake
stem New Giant 1 1/8th ahead
handlebar XC Riser

Bike

Yesterday I brought a bike.
Hopefully it will last a few weeks before it is stolen.

Restaurant

Went out to dinner last night at a restaurant just around the corner from my house called Zenith which was extremely nice. I definitely recommend the truffled sausage.

Mountain Dragon

A lovely little mountain seen in the blue mountains.
Sorry the photo is out of focus I took it myself and didn't know what I was doing.

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

uglybird
Originally uploaded by jarrodamoore.

Saw this pesky critter in the blue mountains.

Newtown Festival

An interesting news article; http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10414

Also forgot to mention I went to the hippy fest in Newtown over the weekend
it was rater nice although very crowded and hot. The large gentleman doing
the hoola hoop routine was definitely the high light of the day.

The Lion King

Went and saw the lion king at capital theatre last night. It was surprisingly good.

Lets see if I can email myself.

Horrible addictive little blog keeps distracting me from my work.

Black Rock Skink

brs
Originally uploaded by jarrodamoore.

Was seen on the ruined castle in the blue mountains.

Nebuchadnezzar

Went to watch the band Nebuchadnezzar play last night in Sydney they were very good as always. Feel free to check there website if you would like to see more.

http://www.nebamusic.com/index.html

My first post

Hello just testing to see if this works.