Balladonia Track in 2006

My memories of our round Australia trip often seem to drift back to the Balladonia Track and Mt Ragged.


On the Balladonia track to Mt Ragged, in 2006 on our round Australia trip

It was early in our road trip around Australia and it was one of the more remote areas that we travelled in. Everything felt so adventurous at the time.

We only saw one other human being the entire time.  A guy in a big Oka truck came into the campsite at the foot of Mt Ragged.

Mt Ragged jutting out of the dead-flat landscape

 The track was a straight line that ran straight to Mt Ragged, and as we bounced along the track it gradually came closer and closer.

The amazing Tawny Frog-Mouths at the campsite at the foot of Mt Ragged.  The baby in the middle hadn't quite got the hang of the perfectly still, camaflouging sleep during the day and he kept opening half an eye to check us out, or he would move ever slightly unlike his perfectly still parents (presumably they hang out in family groups?)

I DID IT!

Cottesloe beach had an aura of un-reality with the pre-dawn light and floodlights - making the registration, waiting and starting process feel just a little weird.  My zen feelings had completely gone by the time I was near the start, getting my mum to rub anti-chafe cream on me while I struggled to put my suit on in time, getting more and more nervy all the time.

Even on the start line it just didn't quite feel like all these people wearing white caps were actually going to swim to Rottnest that day.  But at 5.45am we did just that.  The sun was rising behind us and it seemed like the conditions were, in fact, perfect.

The first 10km were fantastic!  I was buzzing, I was really positive, I felt great.  Every drink stop everyone would say ‘you’re doing great, you’re swimming strongly’ and I would tell them I was feeling great.  The food /drinks were working out really well, not too much, not too little - just enough!

Feeling zen...

...surprisingly zen. I thought I'd be a nervy, twitching, dishevelled mess by now!

I had imagined sitting on the couch, relaxing, chilling, visualising a successful Rottnest swim for at least part of today, but that didn’t happen.  I thought I was organised, but there was still shopping for fake carbo loaded food and organising to be done.  But I managed to keep my calm all day. 

The weather obsessing begins

Just five sleeps until the big day... and try as I might I can't stop myself from looking at weather websites. 

Love this synchronised swimming (a stolen photo from
last year's Rottnest Channel Swim)

Given:
a. the forecast has completely changed since this morning, and
b. that each website is saying something different

I should really know that five days away we aren't really going to know with any certainty what the weather on Saturday is going to be like.

We're buying a house!

So how about that! A beachy kind of house near the ocean and near the inlet in Denmark.

We didn't really mean to... we thought the smartest thing to do would be to move to Denmark, cash in hand, rent for a while and take our time to find the right place.

But this house ticks quite a few boxes - it is affordable (big tick), close to Ocean Beach (~3km away), cycling distance to town, on half an acre, lots of space for people to come stay with us, did I mention affordable?  Really, what took us so long to put the offer in?

On a less serious note

There is always swimming to think about!  I'm not thinking about much else right now.

The Rotto swim is 2 weeks away.. after so many months of training, preparation, obsessing, dreaming.

My sister asked me today 'do you ever think of the S-word?'

And mostly not. Although looking for images just now was a bit confronting.

It is the other S-word that causes most of the angst  - the common stinger.

I'm glad...

... that we weren't waiting for this particular cyclone. 

It has been some start to 2011 in Australia. After 2010 set all kinds of records for extreme weather events around the world.  The Russian heatwave, Pakistan floods - anyone seeing some kind of pattern here?

One of the world's biggest insurance companies Munich Re have! And they have:

built up a comprehensive natural catastrophe database, which shows a marked increase in the number of weather-related events. For instance, globally, loss-related floods have more than tripled since 1980, and windstorm natural catastrophes more than doubled, with particularly heavy losses from Atlantic hurricanes. This rise cannot be explained without global warming. Worldwide, 2010 has been the warmest year since records began over 130 years ago.

Given this is an industry that is already directly impacted by climate change and have been really outspoken about it for years, I would expect they would be taken more seriously or to receive more attention.  But if someone publicly suggests that just maybe this greater frequency of extreme weather events is likely to be connected to climate change they are howled down for trying to politicise an event or generally ignored.

The standard answer seems to be "look back at history, we've always had floods/ droughts/ cyclones - this is just natural".  As though weather events resulting from climate change have to be something new that we've never experienced before?  People... climate change just exacerbates existing weather patterns, exacerbates the extremes... it doesn't create something entirely new!

A weekend of waiting for weather to arrive

On Friday all the talk was of Tropical Cyclone Bianca to arrive in the SW on Sunday.

Saturday brought intense humidity and extreme heat. Just perfect conditions for working outside to clear away random crap in preparation for the cyclone.  I was utterly drained at the end of the day.

I spent the entire time wondering if Sunday's (10km qualifier for first-time Rotto solos) swim would be happening.  When a later arrival for the cyclone was forecast, I was all 'right, it will be on'!  Cue a quick supply run - carbo gels, gatorade, seasickness tablets.  And much worrying about how much energy I'd already expended that day.  I needn't have worried - at about 4.30pm the organisers cancelled the race. 

So, of course, on Sunday morning there was no sign of a cyclone, except for the still extreme heat and humidity. Even worse, the ocean looked just fine.

From the archives I

You know how you have all those folders of hundreds of photos that never really see the light of day?  I'm going to liberate some of my favourites.



After rain: at Leith & Chris' wedding in Youngs Siding, April 2010



Perth's very own Spiegeltent

In our Perth Cultural Centre wanderings we spied, at the end of the Urban Orchard, a Spiegeltent being constructed.  Being a little waterlogged, this was the first I'd heard of Fringeworld, a precursor to the fully fledged Fringe Festival in 2012.  Some great shows between the 4th and 26th February, and some might even finish early enough for me!

I first fell in love with a Spiegeltent, and the intact 20s/30s sensibility, at the Edinburgh Festival in the mid-90s.

Source: http://www.spiegeltent.net/

And now Perth has one of its very own! Called 'The Pearl', built in 1905 and toured through Europe for decades.

We watched, for just a moment, the construction process and admired the afternoon light streaming through the stained glass windows.

T's lovely photo of the coloured light

Just to prove...

... that I'm not entirely obsessed with swimming and that I do, in fact, have other interests...  T and I went into the city last Friday to see the Peggy Guggenheim exhibition. Which was small but fabulous and gifted me an extremely surrealist dream that night.  I think this painting was responsible:



Max Ernst 'The Attirement of the Bride'
Source: http://www.fantasyarts.net/



This painting may have also contributed:

Victor Brauner 'The Surrealist'
Source: http://www.terminartors.com/

So we also wandered around the new-ish Urban Orchard outside the Art Gallery, which has transformed a brutalist concrete space into a thriving productive edible garden.  It is all completely open and (surprisingly?) seems not to have been vandalised or damaged.

And the formerly bland concrete water feature nearby, is in the process of becoming a wetland.

Hats off to EPRA! 

The big swim

So I started this blog with a vague idea of chronicling our move from city to country via 6 months in a fancy beachside suburb. 

But right now life is really all about THE SWIM.  In just four weeks I am swimming around 20km from Cottesloe Beach to Rottnest Island...



Source: http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2010/02/20/2825527.htm

Every time I think of it, or I’m asked about it, a [flock?] of little butterflies take flight in my chest.  If it is like this now, what will I be like the day before? Or in the morning?  I won’t be swimming, I’ll be flying thanks to the SWARMS of butterflies.