Inward Bound 2010

In just under a fortnight 32 brave residents will once again test their skills in the bushlands surrounding Canberra. We have spent the past 3 weeks training hard in night and day, running through the bush and studying maps in preparation for the big event.

O'Neill '09 nearly crashes through a spider's home

The team at Lake Burley Griffin

Mt Ainslie Summit

xkcd.com - Freedom

Both stripping naked and Fiji are fun...who wants a conversation?

Wee Jasper Comedy Festival

Yes, you have read correctly, the town with a population equal to 10 people and fifty sheep have a comedy festival. One of the many summer adventures I had was taking some friends to this grand occasion. Let me tell you that hilarity ensued.

My type of town!

Jan, the lovely owner of Wee Jasper's local, alerted me to this monumental annual event whilst I was passing through on my way to Melbourne for Christmas. It consists of lots of people sitting on the front lawn of the pub, and about six comedic acts being staged from the back of a truck. Named Capital Punishment, it featured comedians from Sydney, Canberra, and the South Coast. It was used as a way for these young performers to fundraise their way to the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Comedy on a truck - its funny even before she starts talking.

The MC tried quite hard to be funny, and he succeeded with his story about the hardships of a trolley, but otherwise he struggled a little. On the other hand, the acts (including Daniel Connell, The Stevenson Experience, Dayne Rathbone and Kathryn Bendall) were hilarious and totally worth the 60-odd minute drive. Other highlights included visiting Yass Macdonalds, who were struggling with the changeover to breakfast menu at 12:30am. It only took 40 mins for them to serve 5 people...

Damn straight we'll be back next year.

The rest of Summer

I've been way too busy with work and uni to keep my blog properly updated, so I'm going to shoot through the rest of summer right here.

Christmas was fun in Melbourne, I caught up with my family and met my week old nephew for the first time.
I went to my first boxing day test with Lucas and got to watch the best run out ever and see Ponting smoke the Pakistani bowlers.

Katich smashes one through covers

I returned to Canberra just in time to ride my new bicycle to the coast for a New Years Weekend with friends from when I first moved into Fenner.

The Beast ready to go!

It was my first tour on my bike. I rode about 160km through Hoskingtown, Tallaganda State Forest, Major's Creel, Araluen and Moruya. I camped in Deua National Park where I met some very nice Canberrans who offered my sore and tired body soft drink, a chair and a campfire.

Tallaganda State Forest

My friends and I stayed in a Caravan Park in Tuross Heads. We were right on the lake and only a few kms from the beach.

The Lake on one fine morning

New Years was heaps of fun, we went to the local club and got drunk, we then returned to our cabins to drink more. Many a game of trivial pursuit was played, and we provedthat women are smarter than men (however this assumes means that Peistche is a chic).

Goofy makes another politically correct joke about Kim's sexuality.

The Epic Journey

12 months ago I followed the road 'less traveled by' and found that 'it made all the difference'. So in 2009 I once again followed this philosophy and made the journey part of the holiday as I rode my trusty Suzuki to Melbourne avoiding the Hume Highway like an old high school aquaintance.

Off the usual tracks - empty roads of national parks are the BEST

My route took me from Canberra to Wee Jaspar - I stopped in the pub and made friends with the owner.

The Stables Tavern, Wee Jasper - this pub will feature in another entry shortly to come.

After receiving some directions and stopping by the local caves I took the Wee Jaspar Forest rd to Tumut, reaching some intense speeds on the wide loggers road.

Wee Jaspar caves - there chairs in the back are a ... different touch.

From Tumut I meandered to Tubarumba and camped the night before continuning my journey to Victoria through Corryong.

The Campsite at Paddy's River Falls, where I wish I had stayed.

The Towong bridge- crossing the Murray to Victoria.

I stopped and visited Jack Riley's grave - one of the bushmen who inspired Banjo Patterson's 'The Man from Snowy River'.The amazing winding roads of the Omeo Highway took me to Mitta Mitta and dropped by the local pub for a beer, a chat, and a walk around Australia's pioneer open cut gold mine.

Decorating one wall of the Mitta Mitta pub are these ingenius devices, zoom in on the photo to see what the locals have been up to

The next leg involved 20kms of a horrible dirt road and finished at another pub in the middle of nowhere.

After many years of searching I have finally found point B the location people talk about when going from A to B

Fourtunately there was a campground next door, so I set up camp, gave my credit card to the bar, and joined the Christmas party of local leadership camp group.

View from the Blue Duck Inn, a pub hidden within the bush!

The following day I passed through Omeo on the way to the coast I visited the memorial of one of Australia's earliest air disasters. I spent two ungodly hours on the Princes highway
from Bairnsdale to Moe before turning off and heading north through the logging towns of Noojee and Powelltown.

An old waterwheel at Noojee, used to power illegal gambling during the settlements early years

I finally reached Melbourne two daysafter three days on the road to be greeted by this smiling face.

The Bike That Phill Built: Construction

An exciting day was in store for me. Phil Byron came over and Martyn (Cougar) Clarke meandered downstairs for this momentous occasion. Stocked with turkish pizza and beer we set about spending the day putting together a bike. There is not much of a story to it, so I'll let the photos detail what we did!

Step 1: crankset

Seat post and brakepads

Rear Derailleur

The shifters attached to the handlebars

Front derailleur and crankset

Two Phils sorting out the brakes

Adjusting the chain

Cougar takes it for a test ride

Completed - a modern day success story

Final Price for a fully functioning awesome bike - $2910.70.
It is worth noting that I have spent more since completeing the bike on things such as riding shoes, better brake pads, light, a rack etc. The above price is what was needed to get it safely on the road.

Well that's all from this series, but stay tuned for Phillip's Touring Adventures, coming to website near you!

P Gatt's CBD Discovery Tour

On Friday last week I was bored and grumpy. In order to remedy this situation I organised a night out for the remaining residents at Fenner Hall that has since been dubbed a lounge tour.

I'm bored, someone fix me a drink!

Not content with the usual haunts of the student group at Fenner I vowed to visit a bunch of places that we rarely, if ever, frequented.

Somewhat incredulous that other drinking places exist outside Mooseheads and the ANU Uni Bar, and Fox Place

We started at North Bar because they serve free champagne and then moved onto The Australian. It was a good start to the night as we witnessed a fight (the bouncer had his shirt ripped off and the aggressor nearly glassed himself), a car accident, and we also nearly got run over by an overzealous driver.

Tanya, Cammie, and Bec were the female side of the touring crew

After the Australain we headed to a bar associated with the Crown plaza - Binara One - which was quite pleasant.

Yup, very pleasant indeed

From there we moved to the Holy Grail, a place which happened to have some sort of open mike night. By entering this pub we successfully doubled its occupants and we owned upstairs.

It was a bit of a find - the music wasn't great but I've heard worse in JJJ

We finished with cocktails at the Kremlin and by visiting Level 3 of Uni pub, a lounge bar I had never been to before.

All of us winding down at UniPub