Day 4: To the top of Mt Ossa

Todays mission was Mt Ossa, the tallest mountain Tassie has to offer...and my favourite day of the trip! Mt Ossa is behind covered in fog....Oh dear I think I have caught the mountaineering bug
Marty and Suz sitting at the top of Tassie, yes we are as tired as we look.
Walking/scaling back down is definitely easier, this is the view about half way down.OK, I really enjoyed this meal after a hard days work...the view certainly wasnt bad either.

Day 3: the long walk

Everyone else set of bright and early for the 17 km trek today, but we decided to take it easy having a nice sleep-in and a big breaky. Another beautiful sunny day it turned out to be and a relatively easy walk. I had a very close encounter with a large Tiger snake along the way, just after lunch I set off leading the pack and to my surprise and I'm assuming its as well I came face-to-face with a large and very black snake, I promptly screamed and ran the other direction and it did the same (minus the screaming). From then on I was in middle of the group and on guard..toward the end of the trip I read that only one person in 60 years has died from a snake bite, if I'd known that earlier I would have been more relaxed, but in any case I didnt want to be no. 2.
The start of day 2 walking, we ended up in the distance somewhere

Pellion hut...I could happily live there.The day ended with a lovely swim in the river and a beautiful sunset.

Day 2 - goodbye huts hello tents

To our delight the next day was bright and sunny and provided lots of sunshine to dry off our soggy boots and indeed nearly everything else in my pack (next time a pack liner!). A nice stroll around Lake Will brought us our first meeting with the 'Privateers' which became the butt of most of our jokes for the reaminer of the track. These 40-ish old people pay lots of money to be carted around the track by professionals, dont have to carry anything and have all there food prepared and nice comfy beds to sleep in.

What a view!
Lake Will...some of us look more pleased about it than others.

Spirits were obviously raised today as 'homey suz' parades around in Marty's entire wardrobe.The stunning view from the front of our tent...I could have stayed here for days.This 30 second exposure shot of the night sky reveals more than the naked eye including a shooting star down the in the far left corner.

Day-1: Cradle Mountain is somewhere?

After a gruelling evening at Tamar backpackers in Launceston (dont ever stay there) where our packs got infested with ants and seriously all the locals must have been outside our window all night, we arrived at the start of the overland track with little to no sleep between us. We soon forgot all this however when we stumbled upon the view at Crater Lake and lightened our packs with some lunch. Next up a long windy path to the top where apparently Cradle mountain sits but I have yet to see it as it rained and gusted the whole way past, lots of fun though putting the wet weather gear to the test. After many hours of trudging through the rain which just kept getting harder we arrived a Waterfall Valley where Marty and I stayed in the hut (with 25 other people mind you + one loud snorer) and Jarrod braved the tent.
The beautiful view at crater lake...see that hill behind little did we know the weather up there!
Ah the first of many waterfallsWhat a shot...by this stage we were thoroughly drenched and apparently on our left is cradle mountain, which I still havent seen.

The view from waterfall valley hut, this made the thought of putting on rain sodden boots to the back of my mind

more adventures

Oh my god, off to Tassie tomorrow for the overland track how exciting...get ready for some fantastic photos in two weeks!

The Cat Empire

Here are some really bad quality but quite creative photos of The Cat Empire at The Prince of Wales, St Kilda....some pre-concert mug shots....and some fantastic sunset pickies . All of which I should mention were taken on Lilli's phone, gee how did us eighties/nineties kiddies survive in the pre-mobile phone era?

Aussie Day

...decided finally to have some people over to my new place in Elwood for a Aussie Day/unofficial house warming. Unfortunately I forgot to put in a request with the weather-man so we ended up with a 40 degree day, which as we soon discovered is not the best conditions for a BBQ...however we did find relief (with the other hundreds of melbournians) at Elwood beach.
the girls feeling much better after a swim...the fishman...can you believe these pickies were taken on a phone!the BBQ master!

Chucking things around Sydney....

Well...back to Sydney again for me, this time the main even was to watch Marty chuck things around at Homebush (translation: competing in shotput and discus at the Nationals) with a side aim of 'meet the parents'. Marty came seventh in both shot and discus and we got to see Shervo throw a tantrum :), the parents seem to approve, and we even managed to fit in some touristy stuff!

Marty throwing the discusme and the fam. watching the athleticsoh how cute!suz and mumtourist stuff!

Tennis action

Australian Open time again and its even more exciting because I'm a Melbournian now. Dr G and Mikey were in town for the tennis, it was hot! Actually I dont think that describes it well enough, after sitting in 35 deg heat all day I'm surprised we're all still alive.

Domino (aka. Dominik Hrbaty) and Anastasia Myskina in action.

The paparazzi shots...

The Whitlams

....through a friend of a friend I heard that the Whitlams were playing in Melbourne on the weekend at the Docklands. The Docklands just opened up and looks suprisingly like Cockle Bay, hmmm! Anyway, I assume this nice free concert was to get everyone to have a look around, however, only a few people showed up which was great for me having a personal show but I somehow dont think that was intended.

New years in New York

Finally I have been to New York seen the big apple and that statue thing with the flame :) I absolutely love it, could even see myself living there. Had a few days by myself for starters then met up with Jo, Gareth (her boy) and Gareths family. New Years was fantastic, for starters it snowed on new years eve, we decided not to join the million people in time square for the ball drop and ended up in an Irish pub for the night where we had a great time. At some hour of the early morning we payed a visit to times square just to experience it (without the hoards).

So my holiday is over now, and its back to Melbourne and work.....bye bye USA!

Jo, Gareth and me in times square
Ice-skating with every other tourist in NY.
Time square on New Years eve covered with confetti

Our silly new years outfits...cant take us anywhere!

Vegas....

After christmas in San Diego it was time to move on to the bright lights of Vegas....the drive took about two hours more than expected due to xmas traffic but (thanks to Michaels all american driving) we arrived eventually.
Vegas is great, its so tacky but I love it. Greg, Michael and I stayed in the pyramid in the luxor, v. nice rooms. We somehow managed to get free tickets to see Dame Edna, I suspect its due to being Aussie (note the american accent there), which was a good show but I feel bad for all those poor tourists who forked out $80 to see it. We also, god nows how managed to only spend $20 each on gambling, not because we are cheap but there were so many other great things to do...one of which is going on a roller coaster on the top of a tower, which almost ended in tears, but we all kissed and made up and had fun at the top.
Sadly now I must kiss the boys goodbye and head off to NY to meet up with Jo who is over here for new years (now living in Guernsey).

This is the luxurious LUXOR that we stayed in, good job it has a bright light at the top so we could find our way home.
The bright lights of Las Vegas Blvd, crazy place!
The Stratosphere Tower...see those red lights on the top thats a roller-coaster, yikes.
...and this is the view from the roller-coaster, so many more times scary than a big one on the ground.

Kissmas in San Diego

We hit the road for an all american road trip from LA to San Diego for xmas at Natalie and Terry's place (friends of Michaels) and somehow I drew the short straw and ended up driving...I may have gone slowly but those freeways are scary. Xmas finally arrived and they put on quite a feast for us tourists, with probably the biggest turkey I have ever seen cant imagine what it must have been fed....followed by pressie opening where I think Greg probably scored the best (stupid pineapples). The following night we got into some fancy Mexican tequilla which was very yummy, dont think I'll ever drink cheap stuff again.

Suz attempting to drive on the wrong side of the road.
Of course we had to have xmas pressies. and look at this great kissmas tree in San Diego at Kess and Terry's place.
Oh my god are you alright!