I can hardly begin to tell you how beautiful the surf was this morning at Illaroo.

I swam out beyond the surf just after sunrise with my trusty spongey and watched a perfect wave rise up. The sun was visible though the wave, a hands-breadth above the horizon. When I belly surfed back in I scudded way out in front of the breaking wave leaving all the crashing foam behind. It reminded me of scooting down the hill at Lezerea on my 'Chipper' bike. It was great, couldn't help but laugh out loud as I shot back in. 

I have just had a great weekend with Cheri, Jay and the boys. They are all happily camping at Illaroo/Minnie Water. Evan and Emrys are getting on so well, they seem to be doing lots of stuff together. Lots of odd little clay sculptures round the fire. They found some exposed clay on the headland and have been making stuff. 

So now I am 39 years old. Holy cow - I'm so immature.

Sunday, Di, Emma, Chris and I went up and down the Syndicate Ridge. It was a fantastic workout for our legs and lovely mornings walk. Chris went all 'Bush Tucker Man' on us and distributed lots of odd berries which I nibbled, took home and planted. It was great climbing up into the clouds although very chilly when we got up there. Check out how close the contours are on the map on the left. Or just see the pictures I took of Di and Emma walking up the slope. I reckon Lisa will love this. Those muscley soccer legs will power up this trail :)

I stuck the rest of the photos (that I took with my crud camera) over in the Kokoda Gallery.

We did not see hide nor hair of the so called SA Extreme Walking Club I spoke to Nev (here he is the handsome devil) on Monday. He told me they did not even get on the trail until 12 and they just walked from the car park to Lanes Lookout and back. C'mon Nev call that Extreme?? :p

Us Real Super-Extreme Walkers visited Paulina who was extremely kind and fed us the most delicious Raspberry Muffins and Almond biscuits. Ayone who knows me and my history with buns (or 'Miggins' as they are also known) will understand my bliss.

The perfect end to a perfect day.

Cheri, Jay and the boys are camping up at Minnie Water. It has been pouring with rain pretty much all week. Poor buggers.  I'm going to spend the weekend with them, hopefully Evan and I will catch some fish.

Hey Lady Jo!
This ones for you, I know how you like mouldy fungal things. Why else would you marry my brother. 

 :)

Ow ow orggh ug.

OK, so I finished it. I've had a soak in the bath, an aspirin which did not help so I followed it with a beer, which is helping. Have doctored my one blister and am just sitting, which is, currrently, all I am capable of. I set off at 5:30am, the same time as the Kokoda Compass team. They seemed very 'teamy' so I ran ahead to let give them some space. I figured they'd soon catch up and we could chat.

Once out on my own I enjoyed the night sky and the pounding surf. The waves were quite exhilarating as they reared up in the moonlit sea and thudded and crashed onto the sandy shore. It was a lovely start to the race, I did not see another soul for about an hour. The sun eventually made an appearance and it was not long before I was slapping on the sunscreen. I did the first 15k's pretty quickly, running and walking but not pushing hard (I knew it was going to hurt later).

As I approached Arrawarra the runners who had set off at 6.30am began to catch up with me. I was rather excited to see a walker ahead of me who must have set off at 5am. So I ran for a while and overtook her, on passing I saw it was a sweet old lady and felt a bit guilty. Shortly afterwards I ran out of steam and started walking. Approaching Mullaway I got into a good walking rhythm and powered on for a long time.

I stopped at Woopi, for a banana and to rest my feet. The little old lady caught up with me with a devilish grin on her face. She stopped to chat for a while and that was it. We stuck together for the rest of the race. Sometimes I'd power ahead and sometimes she did. We did the last 20km together and it was great to have some company. Her name was Beryl and she was an amazingly fit 77yr old with lovely legs.

All in all it was great day, the weather was perfect and the company was wonderful. Near the end I was struggling to put one leg in front of the other. I'm not sure if that is because I only stopped for one break or if it was just pschological. I think it was actually because I am not fit enough.

Today I joined, Di (powered by leech speed), Emma, Chris, Liz (Tanty chucker), Alan (our unflappable leader), Geoff and Claudia for a 20/25k walk along Whitney's Road, Brooklana, NSW

Alan led us on a fine walk. It was bit tricky finding the old Whitney Rd due to the logging tracks but once on it we had no problems. The leeches were prodigous and only Claudia missed their friendly attentions.

After a few hours walking Di, Emma and I had stopped to wait for the rest of the gang to catch up (because we are so fast). Emma had just finishing yanking an army of slimy leeches off Di's ankles, when she took a step back. I saw a black snake rear up in the grass behind her as she took another backward step. A shout of warning from both Di and me and the lucky snake avoided blunting it's fangs on Emma's leg. The snake slithered off and we followed at a distance because it was very beautful to look at. Then Di noticed I had been standing right besides another one that was coiled up in the grass. It seemed they were everywhere.

We also saw a rather sleepy looking Carpet Python earlier along the track and again on the way back. I hope we didn't annoy it too much.

The old Whitney Rd bridge was gloriously abandoned and decrepid. We had lunch further up the track.

Alan found a great spot free of leeches with a view over some big old Wollemi Pines. There were lots of interesting looking shrubs and moss around us but we were too busy, discussing methods to deter leeches, to worry about such things.

On the way back Liz accidentally filled her right shoe up with water and spat the dummy... I should probably explain... As she bent down to pull off a charming ankle passenger (leech) her camel-bak dribbled water into her shoe. This was after failing to actually quench her thirst. So Liz took it upon herself to remove the offending item and chuck it. The leech was grateful for the distraction.

The SCU Wanderers climb Big Boambee Mountain

 I met Chris and Liz yesterday on my first training walk along with Dianne. We walked probably about 15-17km on  Saturday morning. The walk was good and hilly up the mountains behind where I live. I think I'll be returning there a lot over the next few months.

Antagonistic
I rather like the name of one of the paths we passed, 'Antagonistic Trail' It is shown on the  map as a dead end however after much wandering we actually finished our walk by exiting from it. Not very antagonising at all really.

Chris seemed to know where we were going most of the time and made a few good judgements. She is an excellent map reader. Not that the map seemed to reflect reality much. I think a GPS (nailed to my forehead) would be a good thing....

See the area we walked

OK, time I got serious.
The 2008 Kokoda Challenge happens in 18 weeks and I need to grow some hill climbing muscles. I have imported the google earth kmz file into google maps. So now you can view the map of the 96km walk without needing to install google earth.

Later this week I'm going to do an afternoon/evening walk in the firetrails up in the ranges. Then we have a walk on the weekend, it'll be my first with Dianne and Emma but they have been at it for a while.

The record is 11 hours and 59 minutes by last years 'Nike Hammer' team. I don't think we'll be even getting close. ....Especially if I don't start training very soon.

I have set up a google calendar for our training sessions and other stuff. Subscribe to it using ical, xml or just view it in your web browser.

I love this picture of my two big brothers. Danny looks like he must be all of 4 or 5 but Charlie looks very much older and wiser.
He is probably just miffed he has not got a teddy bear.

The two most beautiful things, My little sister in front of the Blue Anchor......