megalong 30th

I just got back from the most amazing weekend away with some friends under the pretense of celebrating my 30th... I say that 'cause it just felt like a great weekend away and we need to find excuses like that to do it more in the future! A huge thank you to you all for making it such a great time and to my amazing wife for bringing it all together!

We headed up on Friday arvo and made our way down the valley by 3pm or so and it was a nice 8*C, far nicer than the 5* up in the mountains! Eventually everyone showed up and we settled in for some dinner with a few relaxing beers & vino's...

The next morning, the sun rose to a lovely day, we pretty much just hung out in the morning, drinking coffee in the sun!

We took the opportunity to brush up on centre-court... it's in a pretty sad state. Note the footwear!

Little Oscar, cute as ever!

Some nutter's actually went for a 10km run! (not me)

And yep, Evie is still adorable!

The wind got up and so did the kite...

Pete & Brendan then joined us for an amazing feast and we ate and drank our fill well into the evening... And I received some very nice, thoughtful gifts from some very special friends! (ipad, some nice vino, a very nice jumper and a very nice scotch decanter!)

The next day dawned an absolute stunner and a few of us decided to saddle up and hit the trail! It was a great way to relax and soak up the vista, despite my stubborn steed Hank.

And then came an amazing surprise as my little sister Nicole showed up! Lunch with her was the perfect way to end an amazing weekend! Thanks everyone!!

stitch up!

So, I've got this cool new app called Photosynth, click the image below and check out the pic, it's pretty cool! First is looking out of my hotel in Singapore with a huge thunderstorm moving through.

If you click, it won't take you away from the page, just activates the frame, then click and drag your mouse to check out the pics! Enjoy!

Next up is a shot from work...

And from the other week on The Spartan;

Well, back to work this week, I hope I remember to take my camera away this time! (Caro, you around this weekend??)

the late shift

Things are slow in the world of fun lately but had a cool trip up to London however, I'm sitting in Singapore with the arvo thundery's crackling away whilst i try to stay awake! The trip up to London was a little different to usual with us taking a more southern route to normal, we headed up over Afghanistan as usual but then headed just to the south of the Caucasus' (Azerbaijan, Georgia) and over the black sea. Usually not too interesting but with summer on it's way up there the sun was up early and gave us an awesome sunrise treat as we cruised past the very scenic range which includes Mt Elbrus - highest peak in Europe at 18,500'/5642m. I only had my iphone for pics, I really have to make a habit of taking the dSLR away with me! 

The 'terrain map' shows the Caucasus Range to the right of the green line which is our planned track, the purple stars & letters are airports. The airports starting with "OI__" are in Iran, "UB__" are in Azerbaijan, "UG__" is Georgia, "UR__" is Russian and "LT__" is Turkey. Where it says "TERR" with numbers below, this is the height, in thousands of feet, of the displayed terrain map.

It's hard to spot it but Elbrus is on the display, just below the top, below the '30' line

Still in Azerbaijan 

Pure, morning.

....and we have Elbrus! It's amazing how high it stands out from it's surrounding peaks, it's a volcanic cone amongst regular alpine style mountains.

Up in London we headed out to Camden to check out the markets and general scene, pretty cool place... 

A fun little Photo stitch of the view from the 17th floor in Singapore, the red roof in the foreground is the pre-eminent Raffles Hotel with the approaching storm in the background.  

(lots) More pics from The Spartan

Angela was kind enough to let me use a few of her pics from the other day so I thought I'd pop 'em up here as there's some nice ones! Thanks Angela & Eric for some great snaps!

The weather was unbeatable!

A few of our warm up, me on 'Think Kink' (17)

Eric

Angela

Happy to be underneath 'The Spartan'

'S' marks the spot, cake hits the spot.

"We need big gear, right?!"

The opening pitch

Belay beneath the roof

You can see the start of the 2nd pitch, the massive trench on the left

After many knee-jambs and a few foot-stacks later, I reach a rest stance before heading out into space...

Just to my left here is where the roof cramps down and the sweat starts beading!

...and up the exit squeeze

relief.

Eric's turn, this is where the camera battery dies... thanks for looking!