A great visit from Shirley and Norman

Well I'm back in Hobart where I've just spent the day doing substitute P.E. teaching. Yes I said P.E. substituting! It was actually more work than I anticipated but it was really fun showing kids how to take their pulse and talking with them about exercising regularly. Of course we had a few relay races and i showed them a game or two as well.

For the past two weeks Lora's mom and step-father have been over visiting from the states. We had a great time hanging out and seeing the sites. The highlight for me was the three day visit to Bruny Island. It's a quick 30 minute drive from Hobart to the ferry and then a 20 minute ferry ride. We stayed in a great little vacation bungalow and visited some of the prettiest beaches I've seen in Tasmania. I even had a quick surf in the kayak at one of them. In the evening as the sun was setting Norman and I took advantage of the fantastic squidding to be had off of the local jetty. We SLAYED EM! We caught two the first evening and then the next night Norman caught four of the five we took home. The other one was given to us by a young boy whom I lent my squid jig to. Apparently he didn't like squid. These things were HUGE! Norman caught one that would have been close to two feet in length easily. We of course cooked them up and had a feast.

We then headed up to Brisbane where Lora was able to show them one of her favorite field sites. I was bummed because the leeches seemed to be away for the hike so they missed out on one of my favorite things about Lamington Natl Park... leeches raining from the sky.

Some how Lora found a plush beach apartment for us to stay in for the few days we were there. It was nice. Lora and myself introduced the game of Zombies to Shirley and to my surprise she really seemed to enjoy it. She was very close to beating the pro zombie slayers. For those who haven't heard Lora has really turned into a gaming geek. Ok maybe I'm a bit more of a geek than she is. Get ready for some fun boardgames when we get back home to Sactown everyone.

Speaking of that I should be purchasing a ticket home in the next few days. I'm still planning on returning mid May so I'll see you all really soon. Keep your ears open for a teaching job for me. Last I heard Sacramento was laying off teachers because of more budget cuts by Arnie! I can't understand how one of the largest economies in the world can't seem to fund education.

P.S. Sorry about not having any pictures for this post. Lora has the camera up in Sydney. I'll try to post some next week when she returns home.

Tim

More Paragliding

Well since my last post I have left Manilla to hang out with Lora for a week before she drove up to Cairns, and then driven back down to Manilla with a mate from the Gold Coast to do some more flying. Mark and I spent 7 out of 8 days flying around an area of Australia that reminds me very much of the Big Sky country of Montana. I flew with countless raptors (That never gets old!), dialed in my thermaling technique, and just had a blast overall.

There was a laid back comp going on while we were there and both of us did well. One thing I need to get more comfortable with is flying in close proximity to a large number of other pilots. Usually when two pilots collide it's really bad news. Often times reserve parachutes need to be thrown. Although I had two close calls there were no collisions. Some people just have no clue. In both cases it was a newbie pilot looking up at their wing instead of looking where they were going. I of course was and because of it I was able to steer away from a mid-air disaster. One got within a meter or two of me. Not fun.

Now I'm back in Tassie working on uni assignments and doing some sea kayak guiding work. I was shocked to get off the plane and realize that the flip-flops, shorts and t-shirt I was wearing comfortably in Brisbane didn't really cut it down here in Tas. It's cold again.

Well, I better sign off and get down to the boat for some work. I'll post some pictures when Mark is able to send me some. See you guys mid May.

Tim

Lora is still in the field

This is a picture we took to help us label hemispherical photos we take of the canopy

Well it has been a long time since I have posted on the blog. I have just been busy in the field as usual. I am doing my last big lap between all my field sites right now. I really can't believe I am collecting data from my plots for the last time. It really feels final when I pull of the tags from the plants and take the stakes out that mark my plots. My time here has really flown by.

Meet my assistant Craig.

My assistant Craig has been a big help over the last 2 months. He will be helping me for a total of 3 months. I have been putting him to work. I really don't take days off so he has been stuck working too. But he loves field work and since this is my last big season I have allowed myself to have a bit of fun. While we in Lamington we took a day off to walk the Border Track. This is a great 21km one way track through all different types of rain forest, from warm subtropic to cool temperate. I loved the walk and came up with all sorts of new research ideas.

Here is Craig, Richard and Andre

We had a great crew for the hike. It was Craig, Tim and I, we also had Andre the Senior Ranger of the park and who I stay with while I am there. We also had Richard a friend from Tasmania, his parents own the hotel in Waratah, I have spent many nights drinking at their pub.

Here I am in an excellent Jamper t-shirt.

A new post from Manilla... NSW Australia

Greetings everyone. I'm sitting at a very old computer right now in Manilla, Australia. I'm about 40kms North of Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia. Lora is a few hours drive north of me at the moment doing whatelse? Fieldwork. It's going well for her. She constantly amazes me with her tenacity and drive to do good quality work.

So why Manilla? Well some of you may remember a blog I posted back in april about flying here. I'm back for more. I've been here for three day npw and have had some great flights. Launch is at 850 meters msl. The past few days I've been able to use the thermals to soar up to as high as 2000 meters! I've flown away from the hill now twice with one of the flights being 17kms away from launch. This is the furthest I've flown so far cross country and I had a ball. One problem though is that this often means you have to hitchhike back to town. Not a problem usually but here you're in the Country. Yesterday I sat on the side of a road for four hours waiting fopr a lift that never came. Luckily another pilot waiting with me was able to get intouch with someone to come and get us. I was starting to get a little nervous. We then had an absoulutely beautiful evening soaring session to top off the day. Paradise!

During the flight yesterday I was soaring with a wedge-tailed eagle. HE/she was showing me where the thermals were. These birds can be a bit scary though because they have been known to attack paragliders. Thin nylon and sharp talons do not mix. This one was just checking me out.Whew!

A few more days of this and I'll be heading back up to hang out with Lora. As allways she sends her love.I have my first uni assignment due at the end of the week so I'lll be busily shoring that up too. I only havre these last two courses and I'll be finished.

I'll keep you posted as to any exciting events. Oh, I almost forgot. Watch out Baldwin, I started windsurfing and already can beach start, have no problem pulling the sail up out of the water, and make the board go where I want it to go. Now if I could just figure out the tacking. I'm almost there.

Also, sorry for the bad spelling etc. I type two or three sentences on this computer and then wait a minute or two as each character takes two seconds to appear on the monitor.

Cool hat

Not much to talk about these days. Lora is home tomorrow and I've just been doing some relief work and helping some friends out on their reno job on their house (renovation).

I saw this really cool hat while surfing the net and figured if I add a link to the pattern one of our awesome knitters out there might feel like making one for the ultra geek that I truly am. It's an R2D2 hat.

http://carissaknits.blogspot.com/2007/06/r2d2-beanie.html


Even if it wasn't a copy of the coolest little robot out there I'd still like the colors. I can't really think of a reason anyone should bother making one for me but Easter is coming up... or 4th of July... or President's Day.

Catching up

Well, life goes on for us all. Lora is currently in the field in northern Tassie. I am back in Hobart squaring away my California teaching credential and getting all signed up for the last of my courses for my Masters degree.

Before setting out for the field I picked up Lora's new assistant, Craig, from the airport and while Lora was busy on the computer... of course... we took a quick hike up a nearby peak. You can see the ocean behind me.

A picture of me on top of Hartz Peak. Notice the really cool Jamper Industries T-shirt I'm sporting. Be sure to check it out and be one of the cool kids on the block!

Craig is an eager assistant from the states waiting to get into Grad school for ecology of course. He's a really nice guy and seems to really love doing fieldwork. It's nice to have someone traveling with Lora again so that I know she's ok in the field.

Craig on Hartz Peak. 1200 meters

Last week the three of us headed out to the Tassie field sites to set up traps. I hung out to help for two days and then I decided to go on a little bike ride. My plan was to ride back to Hobart from Devonport in the north. This was about 400kms. I set off alone dragging my gear in a really cool bike trailer.

As you can see from the roadside map it bisects the island. It is comprised of about 25% sealed roads, 35% gravel roads and double track fire roads, and 40% single track. I was really excited to be having an adventure again. Even though the sign calls it a "soft" adventure.

Well I made it two days and 115kms before I had a major malfunction of the bike. Apparently, the trailer caused my rear wheel axle to bend. I'm not talking about the skewer that holds the wheel to the frame but the actual axle. I didn't realize I had that much leg power. Who knew!

This of course caused the freewheel to stop acting as a freewheel and every time I stopped pedaling the chain would get sucked up and cause problems. Also, because of this the cassette, the 9 chain rings in the back, locking ring would unscrew itself and come loose. I rode for about 10 kms with this problem. My solution was to just treat my bike like it was a track bike. This means I would not stop pedaling to "coast". This sounds simple enough right? Well try going downhill faster than you can pedal dragging 25 kilos of weight in a trailer. I would have to brake going downhill and I was in my biggest chainring! Also, riding like this on a mountainbike trail is next to impossible when you have to time rocks and logs with your cranks so they don't knock you off the bike.

So being too far from a bike shop and it being the weekend which means nothing was open anyway. I decided to take the bus home the remaining 300 or so kilometers. I was pretty bummed. Of course like any adventure this one would have been better with a close friend. So if anyone wants to go on a ride you know where to find me.

I'll try to get Lora to write a blog soon so you can hear first hand what she's up to. It's just hard for her right now because she's in the field and very busty. I mean busy.

Tim

Sad News

Well I thought I would let everyone know that Lora had a miscarriage last week. We went in for our first ultrasound and instead of getting to see our baby for the first time we got the worst news possible. Apparently the fetus had terminated sometime a week before. Well of course this hit us very hard and we were extremely disappointed and really sad. Lora went in for a procedure the following day and recovered from that quickly. She is so strong.

We just wanted all of you to know about it and to tell you that we are moving on and have a positive outlook on getting pregnant again soon. I guess if there's one bright side to all of this it means we get to have lots of sex again!

Around the World as quick as you can go

She's a monster! But boy can she slice through the water.

Just read about the new speed solo record for sailing around the world. A French sailor reclaimed the record yesterday from a female British sailor who took it from him back in 2005. One of the TV shows I enjoy watching here is Top Gear, a car show from Britain. It's hilarious! Anyway, one of the episodes they had her on the show. They have all of their guests race around a closed circuit track in a factory stocked Hyundai or something like that. She was not only fast on the water but she placed first on the list. She's a fast cookie!

William, what do you think? Could you manage this one?
You have a lot of building to do before this one falls into your price range.

Well, this French guy didn't want to go down like that so he built another boat. This one was much larger, 97ft, and set out to reclaim the record. Well not only did he reclaim it he smashed it. He took off 14 days from her record and 15 days from his previous one! He did it in 57 days 13 hours 34 minutes and 6 seconds. I couldn't believe it. Most of the time I like to just talk about what Lora and I have been up to and how things are going. This story was just too cool and I had to mention it on the blog. A few of our readers are sailors and I'm sure they will enjoy reading this and checking out a few pictures. Be sure to read the previous blogs about kayaking in New Zealand and of course the earlier one where news is revealed to the world.

Tim

A little kayaking in New Zealand

Well as I posted yesterday Lora and I went kayaking in New Zealand after getting off the boat. It was great. However, we didn't get to spend as much time on the water as we would have hoped for but oh well. We ended up hiking up one river and then doing two helicopter shuttles for two other classic runs on the West Coast. Not nearly enough kayaking for me. The one thing it did reinforce though was how lucky we are to live in California where you wake up and decide which of the many classic rivers will we paddle today. That is something that Tasmania just can't offer.

While we were over there we were able to run into a few friends that we hadn't seen in quite a while. My buddy JJ from the Camp Carolina era was over there and it was great to catch up with him. Also, Jess, who is an old kayaking friend of mine from when I lived in Christchurch was around as well. She commutes between teaching kayaking in California and New Zealand. She told me she hasn't had a winter in almost 10 years! Obviously she's not a skier. Also, Lora's friend...and mine now too... Dre was over with her partner, Don, who is a visiting Professor up in Auckland. Don did a bit of kayaking with us and it was super cool hanging out with the two of them.

Lastly, our good friends Scottie and Anna from Utah were over visiting Anna's parents in Christchurch. We hung out with them one day when the cruise ship stopped there but then just Lora and I hung out with them again at the end of the trip. It was so good seeing them and really lifted my spirits. I can't wait to see all of our friends again. No, I'm not home sick. I just realize how lucky we are to have such a diverse group of REALLY AWESOME people that don't seem to mind us calling them our friends.

Well, here's a video from youtube showing a bit of the New Zealand kayaking we did. Of course I didn't shoot nearly enough video and even didn't bring it along on one of the rivers, the Perth. Near the end you can see Lora get absolutely worked as she runs one of the portages. Remember, she hasn't really been kayaking for almost two years now and she was in a rental boat plus most people portage it! Man is she tough. And yes for those wondering, it was not fun watching her run this rapid upside down. There are also a few pictures near the end too.



Here's another video I found on Youtube that is of the Arahura river. It does a better job showing you what it's all about. I was having way too much fun kayaking to stop and shoot video. Plus much of it is done from a heli.

Losing Viewers

A typical shot of the New Zealand scenery near Arthur's Pass, S. Island.

What's the quickest way to lose readers of a blog? Don't put up any new content.

Sorry for that guys and gals but Lora and I have been on vacation. You may be wondering how I convinced Lora to take time out from her very busy schedule to travel to New Zealand with me. Well at first I tried telling her about the amazing kayaking there. Interest of course but no go. Then I told her about the friends we would see there. More interest but still she was way too busy with her work to take time off. Then Frank and Jennifer said they would pay for a 16 day cruise from Australia to New Zealand with the two of them and our youngest brother, William. Well of course she found the time. Of course I'm only kidding about all that. We do have to again say a big thank you to Frank and Ginger for a great time.

We did go on the cruise though. The five of us met up in Sydney on the 20th of December and spent the next 16 days sailing the high seas. Yes, they were high, with swells up to 10 meters at times. This made the Tasman Sea crossing quite exciting. Luckily for me I don't get sea sick. Unlucky for Lora she was not able to take any medications due to the fact that she is pregnant. Yes readers of our blog, LORA IS PREGNANT! You heard it here first... well some of you we actually called first but only if your last name begins with an R or in one case a P. This made for a slightly different cruise experience than we had both hoped for but it was really fun telling my parents the news on board. It was difficult for Lora because she's not able to enjoy red wine and boy did the rest of us have some for her. I'm not sure how many bottles of sparkling wine we went through but let's just say we were seriously concerned they would run out.

How could this not get your kayaking juices flowing?
The put in for the ultra classic Arahura river.
This is the view after the helicopter drops you off in paradise.

After the cruise we headed back to the South Island for some whitewater kayaking. I'll put up another blog with those details and a little video soon. We love you all and can't wait to see you all soon.

By the way, the current plan is that I will be coming home to Cali in May or so, trying to secure a teaching job. I'll then head back here to Oz for the birth of our son\daughter sometime in the middle of August. Then all three of us will be living in Sacramento for at least a year while Lora works on analyzing the mounds of data she collected and writes it all up into the opus that it will become. Look out Nature here comes Dr. R.

Tim