Back on Snow!

Well, at long last I managed to get back on snow! My wonderful fiancé took me south to the mountains for my birthday, we stayed at Lake Crackenback and skied a day at good old Perisher... Lake Crackenback is a great spot to stay, rather luxurious! Being early season, there wasn't much on offer skiing wise... but we had fun on the front valley, mostly on man-made snow. It was good to put my new binding setup to use and I'm happy to say that the Axl is a great tele binding! Maria also got to break out her new setup, Black Diamond Mystics w/ O1's, and she loved 'em! It took more than a few runs for me to get back any semblance of style but once I got going, it felt great!
Day 2: We drove up to Thredbo on Friday morning, which was suspiciously warm, and arrived in the village to some rather heavy drizzle and warm temps (+1 at the top station)... so we aborted the mission, saved $200 and decided to head home. Maria got me to take a different way home and we stopped for lunch in Gundaroo at a great restaurant called Grazing, an absolute top-notch spot, perfect to lift my rained out birthday spirits!
Well, it's forecast to snow a fair bit in the next few days so hopefully after my next work trip there'll be a better base down so we can get out for a tour or two!

Dawn over Lake Crackenback

Thredbo! The natural snowline is quite high, and thin.

View out to South (?) Ramshead from just below Dead Horse Gap

For some reason - I think having a high pivot point on my new bindings - my boots were pinching a little making my foot a little sore and swollen.

ski rack locked & loaded

Thats right folks... tomorrow morning it's time to head south & into the mountains after faaaaarrr too long away! The cover is half decent for June & some sunshine is forecast so it looks like it'll be good conditions for me to get my groove back on after sooo long off the snow! Bring it on! :D
Mt P cover shot:

more bluey's

Got out to Mt Boyce today to climb the fun, easy sports route Baby Carrots ***(13)... It's a rap in - climb out affair with a hanging belay, with your ass hanging a good 25m off the deck with some serious air all around you! I loved it! Maria & Dave didn't like the exposure so much so this'll be their last rap into hanging belay climb ... (for a little while at least!) Not much to say, but pics! - sorry they're a bit over-exposed, but hey, they were shot with my iphone. cheers!

... from the top

Looking south

Maria getting close

Can you spot Dave? (or at least his helmet!)

'nam

Well, it was a tough trip away for me! I got to pop into Vietnam on the way southbound for a couple of days - awesome! Got to catch up with Jase & Ollie who are working up there for a little bit - they let me crash at their place, which was very awesome of them - thanks guys! They also took turns babysitting me around their favourite haunts in Ho Chi Minh City... First up a brief wander past some markets and after booking a tour for the morning we somehow ended up in a pub followed by the start of the highlight of the trip - eating! Vietnamese BBQ first up, followed by a seriously needed sleep. We got up for an early start for our tour out to Cu chi for a look at the tunnels from the war - impressive stuff out there. We retired to a french cafe back in Saigon to meet with Ollie and had dinner at some corner stand - the best food ever! We also wandered past the old palace & went to the War Memorial, which besides having some serious hardware out the front, was very sobering! Anyway, pics say a million words...

Nutty Saigon traffic

   The Pho ^^^ above was awesome! beef noodle               mmmm BBQ!
   soup that you dump fresh herbs into

    A booby trap - note the pungi sticks
 

    Me at the entrance to a tourist tunnel - bigger than the original

    Sorry about the view! We crawled through about 100m of tunnel and I was exhausted.

    The former Palace, where the...

    Tank came crashing through, signalling the end of the war.

    A cessna 180 with rockets?

    A fairly serious field gun

out to windsor

Well, I took advantage of some time in London courtesy of work and spent a sunny 30 degree day (in england!) out at Windsor with Matt. Caught a train out and kicked around the castle playing the tourist with an audio tour, which was very informative, so much stuff has happened. And I like stuff. We then had a pint in the sun & a pasty sitting by the river before heading back into town for beers at the Serpentine in Hyde Park with others in the crew - brilliant! Anyhoo, I took my camera up and snapped a few shots............

Hyde Park in Spring

The Castle Outer & Windsor Village

That's St George's Chapel on the left, lotsa neat stuff in there, my favourite fact of the day from there was the stunning section dedicated to Princess Charlotte who died in childbirth and the crown then went to Victoria who then got busy...

Sundial was 30mins out! Maybe it hedged it's bets between summer time & normal time :)

Some crooked house done up as a tourist eatery, right by us having a pint in the sun