A one-live cat’s life

With the Sydney couchsurfing community and guests.  Playing that night is Gypsy Kings and Queens.

Find me …

Its been like 2 months preparation that the activity has been posted by James in Couchsurfing that he is keen to do a Caving and Abseiling trip in Bungonia sometime in November. At last, November 29-30 the activity pushed through.

James is a caving and abseiling instructor aside from his normal job as a teacher. there were more or less 18 couchsurfers and 3 guests or so who joined the trip.

So us, who have no cars are divided amongst the surfers who have cars and Amy from last week’s trip volunteered to take me. I was having a surfer that week from Thursday and Friday night, Roberto from Spain, that I had to chuck poor thing really early as I was laving the house before 530 to catch the train and bus to Erskenville to Amy’s.

Roberto and I waited for the bus but it did not arrive, waited for 30 minutes and still no bus arrived and so we hitched on a taxi with this lady waiting on the shed with us, I dropped Roberto @ Newtown and just my luck the driver he does not have any sense of direction and do not know where Erskenville is and I am already 5 minutes late.  Eventually after 3 stops of asking directions, we made it through.

I was met by Dorothee waiting at the gates of Amy, then Vallicity and Amy.  We set off around 7am towards south of NSW.  Bungonia is around 58KMs away from Campbelltown.

James and party was waiting at the turn around point to the National park, where we were met by 3 more cars.  Then head off to the campsite.

First activity was setting the camping site. Tents and everything! You see, I never had any camping experience in my life.  My parents did not let me join the scouts when i was younger.  So this is very exciting for me.  But one aim was for me to find who can host me during the night! i did not have any tent but just sleeping bag.  Alas! Michael had a “mother” tent and not hosting anyone and I am lucky that he was accommodating enough to adopt me.  He even had some cots set up that we need not sleep on the ground! I am so lucky!  So i did learn how to pitch a tent (and depitch it on the second day).

After setting like 12 tents in the site, James oriented us the camping rules and activities.  He is only able to take in 8 campers in the cave each time and I was not sure yet as the last time i did caving a year ago i broke my toe.  So I did a bush walk with Tracey.  Did see the canyons and lookouts and geckos and ants and ant hills no major wildlife.

The caving takes at max 2.5 hours and James estimated coming back in two hours.  We waited at the mouth of the cave 15 minutes before they should be coming out as phone signal is bad that if they get distress or we get lost it is going to be challenging.  Right enough, they were back and complete in 2 hours, muddy with smiling faces.  We head back to the camp for lunch!

We had Sandwiches and fruit that lunch and had our picnic at the camp site.  Rested for an hour and James was ready to take the next batch for caving.  There were 11 of us but he took us anyway.

We did the same cave called Grill Cave.  We can go as far as 1.5 kilometer deep.  Its the safest distance we can go as if we go further, high level of Carbon Dioxide is high and so it is not good.  This is more of tourist friendly cave. and an easy one, to James (not for me!).  But I think this is easier than the Sumagiung caves in Sagada.  Just having short legs makes it difficult reaching the steps and careful not to slip.  Fair enough share of stalagmites and stalactites.  We came back at the entrance of the cave ad there was still daylight.  We were less muddy compared to the first batch.

We had our shower, and got ready for dinner time  We had pasta, sausages, grilled veggies, kebabs, and beer and chocolate.  Then we finished the night off with a game of Jengga Michael brought with him.

It was raining when it was time to go back to the tents.  It is good combination that i was tired and the beers and the cot! I was able to sleep well.

Following morning, i woke up wanting to do a run on the trails but i did not have any of my running attire so i just slept in and after I learned that breakfast is ready so I had two pancakes! And then as planned we packed the tents and got ready for the abseiling activity.

Again I was one of the last person to do the activity as I do have a fear for doing free fall activities.  Yet I was happy  I did it.  And now I think I like abseiling better than caving.

We went back to the campsite and had our lunch, left over pasta salad, sandwiches, fruits, chips and chocolate.  Our party went ahead of the group back to Sydney.  The rest of the grup were left at the camp and they did play cricket, frizbee and volleyball.  Before we left we were able to get a glimpse of a monitor lizard.  Some of the campers saw kangaroos while we were on the cave, echidna and we saw a possum.  It was very nice.  The trip was a tiring but fun weekend.

What is orienteering?

From Wikipedia, Orienteering is a family of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass, usually in combination with point to point racing, in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain. Participants are given a map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they use to find control points. Originally a training exercise in land navigation for military officers, orienteering has developed many variations. Among these, the oldest and the one with the most “starts” per year[citation needed] is foot orienteering. For purposes of this article, foot orienteering serves as a point of departure for discussion of all other variations.

I was intrigued by what sport it is, as one of our Woodstock mates: Barry Cole, sent an email regarding the sport which is on this summer. It is a series of orienteering events in New South Wales region starting this spring till the end of summer.

So the event is called Sydney Summer Series.

The event is timed at least to run at 45 minutes having different checkpoints you need to go to. It requires or practices your navigational skills, physical speed and your quick mental capability on logistics. There are number of checkpoints the organizers scatter around the event area and whoever finishes or completes the search in the shortest time wins. Although the tallying is done for the first 12 highest events.

It runs every Wednesday most of the time, and started last October 8 at McMahons Point.

I thought it would be interesting to join, as it will be a variety of my running routine outdoors. I thought of like the “Amazing Race” kind of thing, and or I those activities I have had when I was in high school during summer Science camps.

I meant to joint the initial one BUT since AGAIN every time I tell myself I am going home early from work, work just keeps me too late at work. Anyway, I was able to join the 2nd one.

I posted the event in the Couchsurfing community, as someone might be interested to join me. A few did want to join but not sure of what time they finish at work. This second event i am glad that Marcusof Germany from New Zealand (haha yes it is confusing ) joined me.

Marcus loves biking and running. If i have lost at max 14 kilos, he lost 30 kilos from running. He did his first and only running race last Sydney Running festival. And guess what? he did a Marathon! Crazy isn’t it? No short distance races and broke a spine 4 months ago from a bike race,although he told me he at least do 80KMs a week.

Anyway Marcus and I, were first timers so we did not know how it is done. We need to go the shortest way to go to all checkpoints. In this event there are 30 checkpoints scattered in the area of Iron cove. So we were given a card where we can write and the map and the hint where the check points are. So we learned that check points are little buckets with the check point number and a letter pair written on the bucket bottom that we have to write on the boxes on our card as when we get to the mission.

We started at 1711 deciding to go first to the farthest and finding the nearest last. It was very different to running races as you have o cross streets with cars and you need to be careful, sprint to where the checkpoints are, stop and write, then think the next which target to go next. We finished all 30 checkpoints in 1 hour and 10 minutes. So we get deductions as our time was past 45 minutes. We finished at 1821. It is not like in a running race where you get to see the results immediately, every check point have different scores, which makes the result calculation more difficult.

The Iron Cove results are shownhere.

It was indeed a good activity. And i think it is good to do it with someone, someone who is keen in finishing the “race” as fast and efficient as how you want it to be. Still, again it is very subjective.
I still would join the other events as long as time permits and the location is accessible.

Canberra here I come!

Well yea, at last! i did visit the capital of Australia. yes many might not know that ACT (Australian Capital territory ), Canberra is Oz’s capital city. Neither Sydney or Melbourne. Surprised? Well it is because before, these two cities are fighting over who get to be the capital city, then they decided to create another state to break the rivalry.

Canberra is the state where the Parliament and all of the government offices are. It was intentionally created in a very organized manner, where the buildings of the offices are in circular pattern, and the roads are well planned.

Traveling through Greyhound with Judith, a CS mate from Switzerland, with her friends, Pamela and Martina. We left Sydney Central station at 8 and arrived Canberra by 1145. I slept all through out the trip as i was tired/exhausted from the weeks sleepless nights!

First stop, food! it was good weather when we arrived there and found a Korean cafe that has an outdoor dining. Perfect! We were s Hungry that i forgot the cafe’s name, but the food was really good. after which we started slowly to head to the Floriade Exhibition. The flowers were amazing, lovely, beautiful!

Wow i think its embarrassing i never got the chance really to visit my own hometown’s Flower festival exibit. Just do watch the Parade and street dancing, but never the exhibit as there were too much people. That’s another story.

Took pictures, and it was like snowing because of the pollen from the dandelions. You can feel the season of spring! A lot of exhibit, performance and merchandise tents. What i like best are the promo ladies handing the Lindt Chocs. Mm yum! So that was our desert.

Then we walked towards the “shadow.” The giant fountain, overlooking the Parade of the Flags. Then we headed to the Old and new parliament Building. I personally did not like the architecture and design of the new Parliament building. BUT! another pit stop, was when the smell of the coffee attracted the four of us like metals to the magnet with the smell of the coffee. The girls had their lattes and i had my cappuccino. We can start to feel our legs getting sore from the walking!




Still we decided to head towards the lake and the parade of the flags, did a bit of flag quiz, and identifying and looking for the Swiss and the Philippine Flag.

Anyway, it is an hour and a half before our bus leaves, so we did walk towards the city center, grabbed our early dinner while Pamela and Martina were left at YHA as they decided to do overnight. The bus going back Sydney was more packed compared to the one we went to in the morning.

It was a good trip. Canberra is a very idyllic place. Perhaps because its a weekend and aside from the Government office and few establishments and the Universities that is making it busy during the week. Not much people, not much cars. It is a very very quiet city. It was okey. Well at least i’ve been to 3 cities of Oz now :).