d-d-d-diving Julian Rocks

Ah diving, is there anything else that is quite so likely to bet me a-blogging?

Quick bit of background - family gathering near Byron Bay. Sal's folks, siblings and all the grandkids having a get together as the UK contingent are down under for a holiday. Nine kids, 12 adults, The Old Church at Newrybar. Somehow I managed to get  free pass to do a couple of dives out at Julian Rocks, so I booked with Sundive and at a little after 7am this morning I was at the dive store. I'd dived with them before, probably 14years ago, so when they asked if I'd dived before I said...effectively no.

I was booked on for 2 dives and the group I was in had no newbies (hurrah!) By 8am we were on the beach as the RIB was launched, we hopped on and started the 10min journey out to Julian Rocks. The trip took a little longer today as we stopped to watch a passing whale that was maybe 50ft from the boat. There were a few albatross about, so before we'd got in the water things were looking good.

Arrived, moored, geared up, rolled off the side and descended. The water was a little chilly but certainly felt OK in my 3mm...yeah, more on that later. The water was a bit green and planktony but visibility was 6-8m which is fine with me. We started to the north (nw) of the rocks, somewhere near the sand gutters so we could head towards the Cod Hole, hopefully via some grey nurse sharks and then get picked up at the south (se) end, current assisted. Which made sense, because there was a reasonable amount of north-south movement. We're not talking drift dive, but strong enough that swimming against it for too long would require a bit more effort than you'd want.

Julian Rocks are really quite pretty. The colours were a bit muted in the milky water, but there is plenty of fixed life and you can tell it would really pop in clear water. Fish life was pretty good - schools of jewfish, a couple of moorish idols, anemone fish, cleaner wrasse, grouper and plenty of wobbegong on display. I clicked off a few pictures as we bimbled around.

Traveling with only hand luggage, I had dug out my old TZ5 and its housing. I think I last used them about 5years ago so figured they'd either be OK or if not then it was not too much of a loss. As it turned out the camera and housing were fine. As was my old Citizen watch that had also spent much of the last 5years in another draw until Sal had the battery replaced for me and it failed its pressure test. Seems that it is just fine to 22m though, which is good to know.

I'm not sure of the sequencing, but let's say we saw the 3m wobbie and massive turtle just before our dive guide pointed out the first grey nurse shark - the stars of the show that we were all there to see. One become 2 and then 3. They were close but not too close as we dropped down onto the sand so not to spook them.

Happy divers all around, we moved on and found more wobbies (there were a load of them), and a lot of the other usual suspects on the way to the Cod Hole, a nice little swim through. Just after that we found another few grey nurses, so again we dropped to the sand.

I'd not been that close to the first group but this time I found myself in the prime spot. One in particular started to drift up behind me, getting close...and closer...and closer. He had a remora on his head, a few small fish hanging out and needed some dental work. He probably got to about 3ft above me. Really quite special.

I was going to get out of the way so one of the other guys could get some good idea, but he motioned for me to stay in place so he could get some perspective on how big this shark was. One of the video guys was a little bit off of the sand and the shark got a little irate and with a crack of its tail changed direction and swam away. It had been a special experience though.

From there it was a bit of a gentle bimble upwards and towards the surface. The 3mm was starting to seem like not such a good idea by the time I got to the surface, and back on the boat I was a bit
shivery. The guy next to me said he was still toasty warm, but hey, a 7mm wettie helps.

A little post script; as we got back to the beach we saw an echidna waddling along around 8ft  from the water. Clearly lost, our skipper picked him (her?) up and relocated her (him) to the scrub. Crazy critter.

Back at the dive store and I'd lost all feeling in my now-very-yellow-and-blood-free fingers and toes. Back in the day I would have powered on through, but I'm getting sensible in my old age so decided to can the second dive. I should really have done the morning and afternoon dives instead of booking the back to back(ish) morning dives. And hey, dive one had been great and the bacon and egg roll plus large cap topped the morning off nicely.

settling in and setting up

Day one was all about getting settled in and setting ourselves up for the rest of the week. Which is best done over a decent coffee. And in Seminyak that means Revolver. Or at least that is what the internet was telling us. At a little under 3km away it was a good choice for breakfast as it would take us a long a main shopping drag before the shops were open and before it got too hot. So after a quiet night - weirdly quiet considering the hustle and bustle all around - we got up and got wandering,

After a reasonable wander past a squazillion knock-off shops (I dread to think what Kuta is like!) we found our cafe. Not put off by what appeared to be a security guard on the closed-door-in-an-apparently-windowless-wall we went inside to find a cool - in both ways - bar. All dark and skulls and criminal underworld themed. Should really have clicked off some shots of the inside but didn't. If you find yourselves over here then you can do a lot worse. And yes, the coffee is pretty decent.

After brekkie we continued our wander. It was pretty warm by now, despite only being about 9am. I got into a conversation with a hawker; nice chap, a rep for a local hotel chain. I enjoy a natter, Sal not so much so she drifted off towards some better looking shops. I followed soon after, caught up with them in a clothes shop and then exited to keep on walking, camera in hand.

I found a few interesting things to snap pictures of. Some graffiti (of course!), the...er...petrol stations I guess? Loads of the tat-shops sell petrol to the scootered. The petrol is sold in plastic water bottles, or booze bottles - Absolut seeming to be a favorite. I particularly like how close people stand and smoke to these petrol stands.

Anyway, the rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent wandering a bit further along and then back to our villa. The turn point was on the beach at a hotel called Ku De Ta - bit out of our price range for this trip but looked rather nice. I dragged my heals on the way back - camera made me do it. A few pics of this and that - random diary stuff. My google pics album is here, unedited. I'm still a little taken aback whenever I see the Hindu swastika on a building and I know I should not be. They are relatively common on the temples.

We all had a collo off in the pool and then Sal went for her first massage. I booked into do some diving on Tuesday and Thursday and the kids entertained themselves picking pebbles up from the bottom of the pool before having a go at some Indonesian cartoons. The iPads came out pretty quickly.

Just to make sure my last post did not end as a lie, a few other things.

Holy shit, I forgot the most important thing from the morning (after Revolver.) H lost her tooth overnight. She got AUD$2 for it, bit in Indonesian Rupiah that is IDR205000. Her mind was a little blown.

Sal had spotted a rodent in a tree. I thought it looked like a squirrel. On the way out to dinner I confirmed my suspicions that said rodent was a
Plantain Squirrel. Go me! Other local wildlife news is so far summed up as:

• sparrows, to make me feel homesick
• other little tiny birds that I've yet to ID
• brown frogs, one of which was looking a bit skinny and unwell yesterday afternoon and very dead yesterday evening. It is currently being recycled, and I reckon it will be a small pile of bones by the weekend
• stray dogs, of which there are plenty, but they seem relatively unconcerned by people. And cars. And scooter, and, and, and...

And as is usual for my just before bed on the day after blogs, I'm running out of steam and think it is time to relax for a bit then go to bed. Out for dinner tomorrow night, so don't know if I'll get to blog about today's visit to the rice paddies at Ubud, the Kopi Luwak coffee and local teas, the Monkey Forest....but I'll get to it. And if I don't, at least you have a link to my photo album now.

meanwhile, upstairs and in the nation's capital...

Just a quick post to let the blog know I still care but not enough to stay up too much later this evening after a rotten sleep last night.

Downstairs is mostly done. It needs paint and carpet, a couple of doors, a new new toilet to replace the first new toilet that didn't flush properly. It has been undercoated and this weekend coming it gets a topcoat. Stuart has moved upstairs and as paint is added to one end of the house plenty of the other end is ending up in a skip in the garden.

The former sunroom and master bedrooms and Harrie's old bedroom are now a single open space with no ceiling but some impressively large steel beams strategically placed to stop the roof from falling. The back wall of the house is gone, replaced by a large hole that is almost exactly the same size as the bifold door that has been leaning for some time against the silky oak tree in the garden.

Wires criss cross the roof rafters waiting for lights to be attached. I got home this afternoon to see our toilet and bath in the garden, so it is now the shower and WC in the laundry or nothing. Yes, things are coming on apace. I doubt we'll be having Xmas on the deck, but soon after. Already the hole on the left-hand corner in the picture above has been bricked, apart from a gap for the splashback window.

In other, related news, I took the girls to Canberra last weekend. Alex the painter was here on Saturday and Sunday just-gone so Saturday at home was paint fumes to the north, brick dust to the south, not great for the ladies. I really should go into more details as the little ladies had a great weekend. We left at Saturday lunchtime and they slept while I drove to Marulan, a truck stop with a little history that is about 30km north of Goulburn. Dinner was Chinese and complaints about don't-like-it until the ice cream arrived. Sunday morning we drove to Canberra and the Floriade flower show, which occupied our morning before a drive to spend the night with Derek and Jo in Berry on Sunday night. Good to catch up, more fun for the kids an then an early start on Monday to drive the kids to daycare and then head to work. Sal meanwhile house and dog sat in the dust and fumes and relative peace of a kid-free weekend while we did our 660km+ road trip.

Yes, a simple list of we did this then that then this. Not especially inspiring and I should do better. But we're up to date.

The City2Surf

Today was Sydney's annual fun run from the City to Bondi, aptly named the City2Surf in a nod to the San Francisco 'Bay to Breakers' which the race emulates. I've done it a few times and will probably do it a few more. The optimistic aim this year was to break 55minnutes. Having broken the curse of the Rose Bay piss-stop thanks to my new approach to hydration 55 was achievable at a minute and a bit better than my PB.

But preparation had not been great. I've done no speed work as such, although I did pick the pace up a bit when I ran with Andrew Fletcher a couple of weeks ago. And I have clocked PBs in the Six Foot Track and over the half and 10k this year. My cruising speed is up, so you never know.


Preparation was borderline awful. Harrie is back to waking several times a night and I'm tired pretty much all the time. Saturday night was bitter sweet pasta with two dear friends who I see rarely. We used to meet several times a week, go diving, have beers...then, one by one, we all had kids. The reason for the meeting was that they are both moving to the US; Justin for 3yrs and Vince is moving back to the homeland after 13years in Sydney. We had a good evening; the fact they will be half a world away is unlikely to make much of a difference in how often we meet. Such is life. I had pasta, apple crumble and water and was back home and in bed at around 11:30pm.

I had to deal with Harrie 4 times, Alex twice and Rowlf once before I got up at 5:30. So it was a thoroughly disturbed sleep. I went through the pre-race motions of getting the bus to the City, wandering to the start, dropping my bag off, having my last piss and then hanging around in the red group pen for 40minutes before the gun. The MC tries to gee-up the crowd with mixed success. I did learn that there are now more people helping along the course than the number who ran the first event. The wheelchair athletes went first (Kurt Fearnly, for my money Australia's greatest athlete, won), then the elites and then the red group.

I don't like the start of the C2S. The sheer number of runners, not all whippets, makes for a choppy first km as you try to get some clear air and into your stride. And so it was today. It knocks my confidence a bit because it feels slow. By Double Bay I was running reasonably unobstructed but
feeling that it was all a bit too laboured. My head was all wrong and I had pretty much convinced myself I was not going to get a PB today.

As I ran through half way the clock was somewhere around 28/29mins. That gave me a glimmer of hope, albeit very faint. The first half has the choppy start and the big climb, so a reverse split is always a possibility. It was an uninterrupted run to Bondi; not too crowded and I wasn't planning on any drink stops. My hydration approach was to belt 600ml of water at a little over15mins to the gun. Doing this shocks the body into shunting water around and not into the bladder, which is what happens if you drip feed. Apparently. It seems to work for me. I figured I could run for an hour (in winter) without water breaks.

Much is made of Heartbreak Hill but a lot of runners will tell you it is the bastard little hills on Military Road and up to Dover Heights that are the unpleasant ones. I'll certainly tell you that. I kept a fairly even pace on the second half. I didn't look at my watch because I wanted to run to how I felt and not chase anything. If I didn't have a wife and 2 kids I'd probably batter myself, but nowadays I tend to run to what I think is the limit of not-being-a-zombie-for-the-remainder-of-the-day-and-the-following-day. My mood improved as I got to glance out at the ocean, and I always get goose-bumps when I see Bondi and the southern coastline. It's a bit special.


I got a shout from my sister-in-law Mara just before the drop into North Bondi. She is in the SES and helps marshal the event. It was a good job she recognised me as I was peering at her colleague and not her. In my defense she was in a cap, sunglasses and shapeless orange fatigues, so was not standing out. From Mara the course is run at a decent pace down into Bondi before a fairly nasty 700m gentle climb along Campbell Parade. Then you turn for the last 400m along the beachfront to the finish.

As I approached the finish line I saw the clock; it was still under 55mins. I didn't go flat out (I probably did the whole thing at about 90-95%) but I kept the foot down. I went over the line at a clock time of 55:22 and stopped my watch at 55:01. A personal best...but had I officially sneaked in under 55mins? I didn't know. Seeing 55:01 pissed me off a little. It's like bowling 199.

More logistics; get medal, collect bag, chat to colleague who did about 57mins, call Sal to see where she and the kids were - Bronte, same as last year. I skipped the coffee with colleagues and did the Bondi to Bronte walk to join the family. It was a stunning day; ocean flat and clear, skies blue, warm sun. I stopped to watch a couple of dolphins at Tamarama - proper good-to-be-alive stuff. I met Sal and the kids at the playpark at Bronte Beach, we loaded up and headed to Charing Cross for a full-Irish refuel, black and white pudding and all. Marvelous.

Oh, and for the record, I ran an official 54:53. Not a bad days work.

Oh fuck. It has just occurred to me that I might have grown up...

By all rights I should have hated today, spent the majority of it like a bear with a sore head and now, instead of blogging, be cursing Dry July for stopping me having the beer I so richly deserve. (I do of course realise that Dry July is merely two words and it is my own determination to have a dry July (small D, I am not "doing" Dry July) after a wetter than usual June that finds me eating chocolate and chocolate covered Hob Nobs and salted peanuts because that is so much better than a couple of Guinness. I digress early; back to today.)

Today started typically early with H's 04:20 call of "daddy I want milk." I got up, she had milk and went back to sleep and I spent the next hour logged in to work fixing stuff. With stuff fixed I went back to bed and failed to fall back to sleep, convinced that H would be waking up again any minute, so what's the point? I did get up to her again and managed to convince her it was too early to get up, scoring maybe 30minutes of light shut-eye before the whole house woke up in pretty much reverse chronological order.

The epic fail of the Virgin Australia computer network on Friday night meant Sal was at home and not in Queensland. She was rebooked on a 10am-ish flight which meant a delayed start to my near-5-days-solo-parenting. When Sal is away Rowlf has a dramatically reduced exercise regime so I took the opportunity presented by the 90mins before Sal left for the airport to get the big lump down to and in the Harbour for a swim.

It is a shame that the happier the big lump is the more he can piss me off. In winter he knows a walk in the hours of daylight will almost certainly involve in a swim. When we head from my coffee stop towards the water he launches harbourwards with a shoulder dislocating pace that would probably pull most people off their feet; I have learnt to lean back a bit, bend my knees and hope he doesn't hospitalise me. If only that were poetic license and not gospel truth. He does calm, a bit, but never really walks to heel. He can. He does sometimes. But when he is off for a swim there is no heeling.

I got a couple of OK pictures of him swimming and was back home by 8 to deal with the brief our-world-is-coming-to-an-end tears and tantrums that can sometimes accompany Sal's departure for a pilates course, let along 4 days away. But armed with a new video of Rowlf swimming I employed distraction and things calmed down. I hung out with the girls and we packed lunches and changes of clothes and at 10 headed to the pool for their swimming lessons.

Their official lessons are an hour apart, H first and I go in with her. I was hoping AJ could slot into a lesson at the same time as H, but in case not we packed a book and her camera so she could remain occupied and hopefully where I could see her.

I had a bit of luck and AJ got a lesson at 10:30, same time as H. It really is not much fun swimming with H in her lesson. If I go in alone with her she will happily and fearlessly hurl herself from the side, hang on to my shoulders and kick her legs, laugh when I dunk her and generally have a great old time. In the lesson she screams her arse off and insists "I'm done, I'm finished!"Lesson ends and she is fine again. Ah well, she'll get there. While it was good to not have to worry about AJ it was a shame I could not watch her continued morphing into a fish; she is going great guns in her lessons.

Swim done we had some lunch at the kiosk by the pool. I had my second coffee of the day and would have loved to share the hot chips I bought the little ladies to go with their packed lunches, but on my 5:2 regime I was not allowed to eat until 3pm. The girls destroyed their food, I finished my coffee and then paid for their continued lessons, a little over $200 dollars each. Money well spent on AJ and a step nearer me needing hearing aids and therapy where H is concerned.

There is never an issue with getting the girls down for their lunchtime snooze on a swim day as they're usually knackered. As soon as they were both asleep I grabbed my old Nikon D70S and 300mm lens to take a picture of our ocean view. Yes, I need a 300mm lens, and yes I get the view from the roof, or rather the scaffold, but I don't care; we have an ocean view. I needed to patch up some of my poorer painting efforts from Wednesday while the kids slept, but as I went to start a reasonably heavy shower, that had not been forecast, arrived. Annoyed that I might not get to paint I was half pleased that I may get a catch up nap of my own. So the weather cleared and I painted.

Once the girls were both awake we all got changed and headed for the supermarket to do the grocery shopping. This would, for sure, be the moment my levelheadedness would evaporate and I would revert to type. But no. I had a great time.

You can read that again or I'll simply type it again. I had a great time.

The girls were probably still a bit tired from the swim so not their utterly mental selves, just a bit mad. I plonked H in the trolley and armed AJ with the shopping list. H was on put-stuff-in-the-trolly detail and AJ was finding the things we needed and crossing them off the list. Lots of spelling and counting and, thanks to the short checkout lines of a Saturday afternoon, I escaped unscathed. Handy hint here; ChupaChups. Buy them last and pay for them first, hand one to each child when at the checkout. It's like a mute button.

Home and I took the girls inside then ferried the groceries in past Rowlf who, despite my food-filled bags, seemed to care little about our return, probably still tired from his swim. I packed the groceries away and cooked dinner. That's right, cooked dinner. Our Salmon pasta is no Masterchef challenge but the kids love it, so first course went down easily. Dessert was custard; I was not facing a challenge getting that eaten. Pretty soon after dinner we hit mental o clock; I called Sal but the girls were too busy running up and down with a small tent on their heads to care much about speaking to mum. As far as I could tell Sal, at her folks along with her two sisters, was in the middle of a heated political discussion of Australia's recent Aboriginal rights and wrongs by successive governments. It was, I was assured, going very, very badly.

So AJ had an early night and all was quiet in the house. I started cooking.

Yes, that's right, I started cooking. This is unheard of. Almost certainly a first. Another of Sal's signature dishes is her "zucchini slice" which the girls love and is packed full of veggies. I'll happily throw fish and chips down them tomorrow night at the local club, but the slice means Monday and Tuesday will be veggie-packed dinners.

And that took me to a little after 8pm. A day of running around and chores, a day doing things I rarely do and have convinced myself I like even less. A day without a run, without getting in the water, without time to myself. Until now, and this blog.

I think I'll go and watch some cricket and eat some more peanuts and Hob Nobs. I've already done the washing up.

Oh fuck. It has just occurred to me that I might have grown up...

Before I forget, I have to mention Sal's contribution to today's parenting duties. While I walked Rowlf she took the girls out to the local bakery to get some bread and breakfast croissants. I asked AJ how H had traveled, walking or in the pram to which she said "no, mum drove." Distance to bakery from home - 400m. Just saying...!

a funny thing happened on the way from the beach...

...I have become slightly interested in Australian politics. Who would have thought?

As I drove home with Harriette (aside: fuck off spell check, I know how to spell my daughter's name!) from our semi-regular whale watching session at the North Bilgola Lookout I passed an advertising hoarding for the Palmer United Party, the political party of Clive Palmer, mining magnate, Titanic replica builder (yes, he actually wants to build a replica of the Titanic) and wannabe Australian PM. He's a big bloke and thinks Greenpeace are funded by the CIA, which is one of many reasons he is unlikely to get my vote.

Anyway, it did get me thinking about the upcoming election in which I believed, until this morning, that the Labor Party (that's how they spell Labour Party in Australia, without the 'u') would kop an utter hiding in the upcoming election. But as I drove home I started thinking that Labor might have a slim chance. Yes, last week knifed their supposedly vote-losing leader in the back and replaced her with the previous supposedly vote-losing leader - who they'd knifed in the back three years earlier. There is no doubting that the disunity in the Labor party has been laid bare and played out in public over the past few years.

However. Australia has retained its tripe-A credit rating, is regarded as a success story among developed economies for the way it steered a course through the GFC and is doing pretty well, despite the doomsaying of the opposition Liberal party. Yes, we are helped in no small measure because we are made of a large chunk of minerals that China wants to buy, and yes, as China's demand slows we may be in for some lean times - but to date, we've done pretty well. Gillard, the latest knifed-leader never endeared herself to the Australian people and the messy leadership challenges that lead to Rudd taking his second stint at the helm have not been good PR.

Australian press ownership is among, if not the, most concentrated in the western world. What is not owned by Murdoch is mostly owned by Gina Rinehart, another mining magnate. So the past three years of main stream media have been full of stories of division within the Labor party and very light on policy success, of which there has been some. Added to that, the right-leaning media have give the Liberal-National Party an extraordinarily easy ride; plenty of column inches devoted to attacks on Labor and, even when it looks like the Libs will form the next government, hardly any focus on what their polices are. But the Australian people, for all the talk, know what life is actually like in the land downunder.

Abbott, the leader of the Liberals is not a widely popular leader. There are many people who will not vote for him despite the fact they are actually voting for the party he leads. And on the Labor side there are people who would not have voted for her who may now vote Labor with Rudd back in the hot seat.  I'd not be surprised if Rudd moved the election date away from Yom Kippur, which would be a canny move. And he will definitely stick it to Abbott in a way that will be better received than Gillard's jabs (I'll not go into the sexism in Australia bit...) And the smaller parties may play a decisive roll.

Labor now may regain some ground. Right-leaning voters who are uncomfortable with Abbott are unlikely to flip to Labor but they might vote for Palmer. Or Katter's Australian Party (another party named after its leader; as if that isn't worrying enough.) Disciplined right leaning voters will vote Liberal regardless, but the more bogan (if I may be so politically incorrect) might split the blue vote...so there is potential for a split blue vote and a strengthened red vote...

So maybe this election will be more interesting than I thought, and despite not moving far in my opinion that the Labor party is a party of fucktards who could not organise a piss up in a brewery, the election just might not be a forgone conclusion.

the calming power of the ocean

I really do not like the title but can't come up with anything better and so it stays.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty ordinary and being in one of these bad moods where I become such a charming person to be around. Luckily the kids and dog don't kop it from me like Sal does, so once I took the kids and the dog to the small beach at the Spit where I spend most mornings I started to feel somewhat better, and Sal, who had things to do, probably did best by not being around me.

The walk to and from the beach is...challenging. I have a dog who is hell bent on getting to and in the water as quickly as possible and a daughter who either runs like a nutter or dawdles. Daughter number 2, along for the ride on my back is currently far easier to take along. First stop was the bakery where I handed AJ the money to go in and get herself an iced snail and me a coffee. Then it was to the Harbour via the Gallipoli steps.


The steps are quite steep and Sal will avoid them if she can. They are also a shortcut, so I tend to take them. The trip down the steps today was enlivened by a woman and her Wiemaraner overtaking us half way down. We stopped to let them past; Rowlf, of course, wanted to play. Which was fun; a playful pup and 5yr old dog meeting on a precipitous set of steps, me with a 3yr old by my side and 1yr old on my back. The meeting went relatively well, and other than Rowlf wanting to take off after his new best friend the rest of the descent was relatively uneventful.

The beach is always a bit of fun. I split my time between playing with Alex, preventing Harrie from eating too much sand and throwing anything floaty as far out into the Harbour as I can so that Rowlf leaves me alone to play with Alex and prevent H from eating sand. Today was different only in that H is now walking. This week she decided it was time to walk and walking is the new sitting. So that was the start to the day; we popped into the kayak store so AJ could try on a lifejacket - the yak gets wet tomorrow - and then it was home to hand the kids to Sal while I did my weekly sweep of the attic for dead rats. Two this week.


A bit of food down the kids and then they had their naps while Sal went to Pilates and I decided to try and groom Rowlf; it's been a while and he is starting to knot a bit. It went not as badly as it could have. Then Sal got home...and I was given a free pass for the afternoon.

We'd had some rain on Thursday and Friday but not enough to stop me thinking about a dip in the ocean.  The water has been silly-clear for the last week, even the Harbour at the spit looks fairly gin. I'm pretty much over my cold and I could clear my ears. The howling gale (ok, strongish wind) was blowing from the west, so the Bower should be OK. A quick look at the Manly Beach cam showed there was no surf whatsoever. I grabbed the   has-been-packed-for-months bag of snorkelling gear (I can't really justify calling what I do freediving can I?) and headed for the Bower.

Before leaving I said to Sal I was not taking a camera, so it was probably going to be great...

Without a tank to worry about the parking is far easier and I found a spot a couple of streets back from the water. I geared up and took a quick picture of myself in a wetsuit, in case it never happens again. Then it was down and in. The water looked lovely. There was a kid in board shorts and a rah vest standing in the shallows. In my 3mm spear suit, hood, booties and gloves I felt pretty damn soft.

A couple of guys swam past in just their swimmers. Yep, I'm getting old and soft. That said, it felt chilly to me and I was glad of the neoprene. The water was fairly clear; a little "milky" but I could see the bottom, about 6m away, from the surface so i had plenty of visibility. It's not shark season and I didn't see any sharks. I headed out and south, over the kelp and small reef. Plenty of small fish about and a bossy Grouper hassling another kept me company. I dropped down to the bottom a couple of times but on the third time my left ear stubbornly refused to clear. I came back up a little, swam around at a couple of metres and then went back to the surface. Bollocks, thought I. On the surface it cleared, and on the next attempt it took a little coaxing but cleared and from then on it was fine.

The Shelly side was not yielding much more so I turned and head north to what JCJ called "Aztec City" because the large boulders brought that to mind. There are usually lots of fish over there and today did not disappoint. I passed quite a few Old Wives before I met up with the resident school of mullet. I had a swim around with them. I'd drop down a few metres away and then slowly come to the surface among them. They don't give a toss about me and tolerate my presence. Despite the shivering there was no way I was leaving now. Drop down, swim around a bit and then come up through the sun's rays piercing the clear water and a big school of fish. Is it any wonder I feel better in and after being in the water?

I swam over, around and between the rocks trying to find a Wobbegong or Port Jackson shark or maybe a giant cuttlefish, none of which put in an appearance today. As well as the schooling mullet there were plenty of wrasse, more old wives, seargant baker, big eyes...the usual suspects. As I went across another couple of rocks I spotted a huge school of yellowtail and headed slowly towards them. Like the mullet they tolerate people swimming with them. With the yellowtail a few metres off I upended myself and headed for the sand. And then I spotted something else, something that looked a lot like a turtle under a rock. I veered off to find that the thing that looked like a turtle under a rock was a turtle under a rock! Fucking hell! There's a turtle under that rock! On and off I have dived and swam in Sydney for 10years and this was the first turtle I'd spotted. All thoughts of looking for anything else disappeared and the remainder of my time in the water was split between swimming though yellowtail (packed so tight that I felt a bit queasy among them) and the turtle. He (she?) raised a flipper and had a look at me but was unconcerned by my intrusion.

I would have liked to stick around until he/she had decided it was time to breath or swim off but I was shivering controllably and was in no mood to start shivering uncontrollably. I had a final dive to spend some final time with the dude and then headed back to the shore, ending my dip with about 45mins in the water. I got out with stinging feet and fingers that were purple and yellow. I may or may not have my dad's looks but I certainly have his circulation. There is a coffee shop at the waters edge, so still in my suit and dripping wet I wandered in and grabbed a cookie and coffee. I stood for a while at the seawall, looking out over the flat ocean before heading back to the car to start warming up.

I felt a million dollars. Just being in the water makes me feel better, but a day like today, well...

now where was I?

Friday went a lot like this.

 Is there a minimum required sleep required to be able to say you had a night's sleep? If there is I am fairly sure I didn't make it. Harrie gave me a bit of a workout last night. I do the nightshift once the kids are off the boob. If Alex or Harrie wake up before midnight Sal is on duty and after midnight it is me. This, of course, is a stupid deal to enter into. The kids rarely - if ever - wake when bellies are full and they're knackered from the day. But once dinner has settled and they've had a rest...well, by then the clock has struck midnight. Add to the mix the two teeth Harrie has and that she has never got into the sleeping-through routine. Alex was waaaaay better.

So, for the time being I am sleeping on a foam mattress in Harrie's room. I wake easily when she wakes. Laying next to the cot I can distinguish the murmur from the approaching scream. If trouble is brewing I do a quick commando roll from my spot on the floor, gently pat her and she quickly nods off to sleep again. Reverse the roll and I'm asleep again in next to no time. Usually. In fact usually she'll wake twice and I have an interrupted sleep but lose no more than 30mins of my night.

Not so last night. I lost most sleep between 1 and 3; she would not settle. Roll, pat, snooze, roll back. Rinse and repeat. I tried picking her up, talking to her. Nope, last night was not a good night. At around 4:15 Alex piped up asking for milk and waking me from my maybe an hour. I got her back to sleep. She woke again an hour later; I relented on the milk thing and got up to walk Rowlf. (For the record, and in case anyone is interested, I do this mostly to make sure Sal gets a good sleep. I reckon sleep is the key to not going mad when you have babies and small kids. I can get by on far less sleep than Sal and am prepared to push it until I pretty much collapse in a heap. Running, I find, helps give me more energy to cope. I think. I'll probably fall apart in a heap this evening now i've said that. I digress.)

And so started janathon day 6.

I still hadn't given up on the Garmin but it was getting close. Switch on...nothing. Again...nothing...third time...wait...and we're on. And it switched itself off. Bollocks. Another couple of attempts and it seemed to get its act together. At the dog park I threw a ball for Rowlf with my garmin hand and it powered off. I powered it back on and tried again. Same thing happened. I switched it back on and then unclipped it from my right wrist, causing it to switch itself off again. Last night I had done a couple of device resets and had reinstalled the software. It was looking a lot like a hardware fault at this point. I put it back on my wrist, powered it on and it stayed that way until the dog and I got home.

Game for a laugh, I decided to use it on the way to work. An overcast and windy start to the day with the wind coming up from the south as I headed south. Somehow I was protected from the wind all the way to the deck of the bridge. I'd run exactly the same route as yesterday in case the Garmin decided to give up en route, but at the Bridge it was still happy. Not wishing to push my luck I didn't hit the lap button. in fact I didn't hit any buttons. At about half way a guy passed me. He was not running much quicker than me so, despite what I said yesterday about not entering the Commuter Olympics I stuck with him. He didn't seem to be racing, so I stayed with him unti near the end and then put my foot down, easily out-pacing him and maintaining my unbeaten record across the Bridge since moving to the new house. The Garmin was still ticking over, it was a coolish morning. I thought sod it, I'll grab another couple of easy kilometres. Instead of heading straight to the office I doubled back under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers anyone?) and then head along Barangaroo, Sydney's developers playground in the making. I copped a full-on headwind as I did that kilometre or so. I wonder if that, plus the backpack with a change of clothes, will come back to haunt me later? I stopped the Garmin at a little over 14km.

And then I decided to check my pace. I hit one of the screen change buttons and the thing went bonkers, rapidly flicking through the three data screens I'd setup. Eccentric no more, the thing is clearly fucked beyond hope. I took a quick video of the disco inferno screen and switched it off. Showered and changed I went to grab a coffe. I ordered and while waiting I tried to power the thing on. No luck. I put it in the top pocket of my backpack. About five minutes later, coffee and toast in hand and in the lift up to my desk i heard the familiar beep of a Garmin Forerunner 305 powering up. My first phone call of the day was to Garmin support. Now, where is that receipt?

 

In happier Janathin GPS news my brother offered to leave his device with me and take mine back to the UK from whence it came, so it looks like I will be GPS equipped for the rest of the month and maybe not condemned to run the exact same route over and again.

At home time the Garmin seemed to limp into life so I fired it up again and headed home. To be on the safe side I ran the exact route I know and have mapped. Good job too, as the thing crapped itself around 500m from home. That was after it started doing it's disco inferno trick while I was running - no button pressing required. I put it on charge and it started to beep angrily at me. It really is not at all well.

The run home was borderline miserable. Chaffing again and I stopped to lube up. I was incredibly tired. When I got home my modem had died, I was on my last legs and the wheels of my week felt as if they were falling off. I stayed awake as long as I could and then that was it, bed time. Sal stepped on on the graveyard shift and I got a sort of reasonable night's sleep.

and they're off!

A few runs on the board somewhat later in the day than usual, but with good reason. Today started a few hundred kilometres north of Sydney at Stoney Park where AJ, my 3-in-a-fortnight year old and I were overnighting, about half way through our road trip back from Queensland's Gold Coast where the big Xmas shin-dig had been. By big I mean my wife Sal, her 2 brothers, 2 sisters, their partners, her parents and 9 kids under 10. I think think that's big enough. Good times. I was on carting the presents home detail.

Anyway, Janathon business. I woke up at a little after 5am and did ever-so-briefly consider a quick - very quick - blast around the lake before AJ woke up. But sanity got the better of me and I returned to where I am most comfortable, being a parent who does not pull shit like that. Anyway, Alex normally wakes by 5:30, and she did today, and we were on the road by 5:30. No runs yet.

We got home at about noon, by which time my brother and his partner, who are staying for the New Year at our place, had gone out to brave Sydney on a hot, sunny New year's day. Sal and our other daughter are flying back home tomorrow, so as lone parent I'd have to wait until the evening to go for a run when Darren and Ellie could babysit Alex. The afternoon was therefore chored out - house stuff, lawn cutting, grocery shopping and uploading photos. Fun times.

Stick with me, the run is next.

After dinner - barbecued kangaroo sausages for that authentic Aussie feel - I put AJ to bed, where she eventually stayed, and at 8pm head out for a run. We have recently moved to Seaforth, which is just on Sydney's northern beaches, and I have yet to get any "stock" runs sorted other than my commute to work. So tonight I decided I'd knock out what I think will be my first regular fun-run. In a nutshell; straight down the hill to Manly, along the beach to Queenscliff and then follow the bike path back to Seaforth. I call it the Manly Beach loop.

It was a thoroughly pleasant trot; the sun was down and the moon was out as I ran though the fading light. There was a cooling breeze coming of the ocean...and at about this point I cannot help but feel a few janathoners up in he UK could be cursing me...sorry. The bike path was a little tricker. I discovered that it is unlit, and I was a little concerned about turning an ankle on a dodgy lump and a lot concerned about running into a bollard at bollock height. Luckily I made it home with ankles and nuts intact.

One down.

Oh, the pic is of my new trainers. First pair of Nike (the Pegasus 28) since I was at school decades ago. They were far cheaper than the Asics (Nimbus and Cumulus) I've been running in for the last 7years, so I thought I'd give them a go. Went alright tonight.

normal service resumes

Thank fuck yesterday came and went. This morning I woke up and the foot felt OK. Considering it had been throbbing when I fell asleep last night I was quite glad about that. The house was all quiet. AJ didn't wake up for her morning milk so I quietly dressed, puled on my Asics Eagle Trail, shoes that I'd mashed about 2rs ago but haven't yet retired, and headed out.

Got back and the toe felt a little warm but mostly just like a toe. I was taking a day off of work to pack the house up before the painters arrive tomorrow to add lipstick to the pig and hopefully fool some buyers. At home I did some packing and then, with Sal about to give Alex some breakfast, I ducked out for a stock 7km loop. Legs still ache, heels ached, felt a bit wobbly but I was moving.

At 1.71km - I checked the Garmin - I started to think about my dad. Now I am a fairly simple, scientific, no-nonsense person. No time for sentimental, spiritual mumbo-jumbo. But something happens when I am on the run and need to dig a little deeper. I think about the old man. I want to make him proud, despite knowing that he was SO proud of both my brother and me. And I feel as if he is with me as I refuse - re-fucking-fuse - to give up. Mum and dad were not dealt a great hand, but they did an epic job with me and my bro.

Regular readers and lucky randoms may know that my dad was an RAF physical training instructor (PTO) and parachute jump instructor (PJI.) For my entire life - well, until he died - he was registered disabled. He had an accident while testing an ejector seat. That damn near killed him. So did the treatment. After mum died I thought a broken heart or the booze might get him. In the end it was a nasty stomach cancer. Anyway, dad taught me to swim without ever getting in the pool with me. He taught me to ride a bike. He helped and advised me on my exercise. I engraved my first marathon medal for him "For my dad, my inspiration." When the going gets tough (anyone else hear Billy Ocean? No? Just me?) I feel closer to my dad than I ever did when he was alive. It's not unusual (Tom Jones anyone?) for me to  well up and shed a few tears. But I love that feeling. It means that I keep his memory very much alive. I could do without the occasional sob-of-overwhelming-sadness while I'm trying to run, but what can you do?

By about 5km I was a little more stable. The old man had popped up to help and I knew - KNEW - that today I was going to get my 21.1km completed. In fact I had told myself that even if I had to fucking hop the last bit and finish at 23:59 I was going to get my target miles done.

I just had Sal read that and told her that's why I do it. She corrected me (she is my wife, after all) and told me that's HOW I do it.

So I notched up 7km-and-change and then got stuck into chores. I needed to work out how I'd get my remaining miles and thought a lunchtime loop and one in the evening would do it, but in the end it was 14km at just after 4pm. I decided that the best thing for my feet and mental state was to keep my shoes on all day and just not look at my toe. And that worked out really rather well, although 12hours stuffed inside some minging old Asics is not something I'd advise others to do to their tootsies.

Lap 2 saw the old man return briefly but by lap 3 I was thinking about my kids, mainly 29 month old Alex. Earlier in the day she had managed to thread a pair of her undies over the handlebars of her scooter and down the whatever-you-call-the-pole-at-the-front. She's tried a couple of times to remove them and then given up in frustration. She was telling me "can't do it." I wandered over and showed her what she needed to do. Lift them up, thread them back over one handle...I showed her a couple of times and then asked her if she could do it herself. Yes, she could. We high-fived.  I told her that sometimes you think you can't do something and you feel like giving up. Don't. And I didn't feel like a hypocrite. Which was nice.

House is packed away and ready to be painted, Alex is asleep and 5wk old Harriette is too (though the grunts and snorts would suggest otherwise.)  I have a glass (actually another glass) of red. I've run 21.1km and my oldest daughter knows she can remove her knickers from a pole.

A somewhat better day than yesterday.

There is one more thing; thanks for the tweets and comments of encouragement. I read them this morning as I walked the dogs and that was the extra bit I needed to get my mojo back.

time to relax

Monday

OK, things do get better - far better - so you may like to skip the bit about Monday. Still there? Right. Monday started wet after a wet night and I decided to get an early start on being pissed off that I was stuck miles away from all my toys in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. The rain eased, in fact it may even have stopped for a while and I decided to take the dogs for a walk. We left the gate at the end of the garden and the boys bounded into the water, which proved to be very shallow but no less fun for that. I headed east, walking to the right. I passed a few empty houses, the boat ramp and a few more houses, a shabby little park with a covered BBQ and then walked out over the exposed rocks for another hundred yards or so. And could get no further. There was an oyster farm thing out in the cove that failed to inspire me much as I'd managed to walk for about ten minutes before having to turn back towards home.

Back along the waterfront and I continued to the west, passing some mangroves as I tried and failed to find a track or trail or path. Great. I let the dogs have a bit more of a swim - well, wade - played some fetch games and then headed back to to the house where I would find it far easier to be miserable than in the great outdoors, with the added bonus of being able to bring Sal down with the awe inspiring power of my gloom.

The rest of the day kind of fizzled away. Sal went to do a little grocery shopping while I remained at the house, hiding, to see if the dogs would attempt to escape. Sal drove away and I ducked back inside, hiding behind a sofa so the dogs would not see me. We'd put the tele on and I lay on the two mattresses we had placed on the floor as Alex's playzone. There was an interesting thing on Discovery Channel about the moon; it was once far closer and would have looked fifteen times as large as it does today. That was about as far as I got before falling asleep.

I woke up when Sal returned and when she had put the dogs back into the garden. Our genius plan to see if they would escape had been scuppered by an open gate and me being fast asleep. Ho-hum. They had only wandered to the front of the block, so no big deal.

At some point Sal went to have a kip leaving me and AJ in he playzone and that was very cool, though probably a bit dull for her as I was not exactly full of beans. She is incredibly easily pleased though. Hold on, that is almost upbeat; sorry, let me fix that up. Before leaving home I'd had the choice of my camera or Sal's. I asked Sal if the battery on hers was OK and she said she thought it was and neither of us checked but I can still blame Sal; I mean, I would, wouldn't I? So yes, the camera battery died instantly. I powered on long enough for the low battery light to come on and for me to ask if was likely to have a bit of life left and then to die. no worry, I could use my phone. Which decided to shit itself. The touch screen select button decided to just keep selecting, which is only any good if you want menu-message-create new-select recipient-save in drafts or something similar. Anyway, the camera debacle helped me stay irate but did provide some distraction as I changed SIM cards with Sal and restarted and generally pissed about and failed to get the thing to work. No camera. Fuckety fucking fuck it.

The rest of the day passed into evening and night in much the same way as every other would, with Alex struggling to get to sleep in her cot and then Sal and me having a bottle of vino while watching some tele. Despite having foxtel, a rare treat for us as we've not had pay TV for nearly seven years, here was absofuckinglutely fuck all worth watching and we ended up watching free to air with the exception of Grand Designs. But that hardly sounds because it is on free to air and the series that was running was an ancient one.

So it was relatively easy to maintain a decent level of misery throughout a wet Monday and look forward to more of the same on Tuesday, what with having no phone and hence no internet access and having missed the news so having no idea what the weather would be like on Tuesday.

Tuesday

There was some light drizzle that eased to dry and my phone started to work again. I would be able to walk Rowlf into Tea Gardens. Bugger, the day had started well. If I wasn't careful I may start to enjoy myself. Can't have that. Sal and AJ were sorted with breakfast and a reconstructed playzone, I worked out it would be maybe 16km to walk, grabbed hound, some dog food, a bottle of water and my GPS and hit the road. The plan was to call Sal from a little over half way, at a convenient intersection, give her my eta so we could meet for coffee and brunch.


The walk was a little interesting. The road from Bundabah (that sounds like a song title) heads up away from the water through some nativesque bush and then through rough pine plantation and some more open farmland. There as little wildlife to see; on the entire walk I saw one echidner, one possum and one wallaby or small roo - all dead. The greatest number of animals to see were a herd of cows that started to moo and wander lazily away from us as we walked past. I say "walk" but for Rowlf it was more of a startled, agitated, tail-between-the-legs, get-me-the-hell-out-of-here, what the FUCK are they? stilted attempt at bolting. Offered food treats failed to get his attention. It seems Rowlf is not a fan of cows, even if they are quite a way off, in a fenced field. Weird. At the intersection, and with an innacurate time and hence distance on the GPS (think I'd stopped tracking when I removed my backpack to take a drink) I did a quick pace calculation and gave Sal a call to say I'd be in Tea Gardens in around 70mins.

The greater part of the next section of the walk was not a whole lot of fun. I was still walking on the road - not a lot of pavement on the middle of nowhere - but now there was appreciably more traffic. Not enouhg to slow it down, so the walk was more about not getting mown down tha enjoying the great outdoors; a shame, as the roadside signage indicated we were walking though Koala territory and I would have enjoyed trying to spot them and adding to my lifetime total number of koalas spotted in the wild which has been sitting at one for a few years.

The odd puddle was enough to keep Rowlf hydrated and in the not too warm morning I felt fine as we arrived in Tea Gardens and met up with Sal and AJ. We found a cafe-stroke-gallery with a pole to secure Rowlf to on the front garden and settled in for some brunch. The weather still looked a bit iffy, but my mood was somewhat less iffy as I'd done something semi-energetic. Things were looking up; you can tell because I took my first picture of the holiday.

Time for an AJ interlude.

Banjo's at Bundabah

Our destination was Banjo's House in the small town of Bundabah, around two and half hours north of Sydney. Banjo, as we were to read when we arrived, is the owner's dog. The house, which Niall had found online and had previously stayed at with his missus and hound, is a three bed wooden affair on a good size block with a good size garden that leads down to the waters of North Arm Cove, part of the waterways of Port Stephens. Bundabah is a small collection of houses and a boat ramp and not much else. The nearest shops are in Tea Gardens, around 12km away. To get into Bundabah you drive a small stretch of unsealed road that adds to the away-from-it-all feeling.

As you'd expect I'd not taken he address with me so we drove a lap of the hamlet, passing by a largish, strayish (though I am sure it was not stray, merely local) dog. The homes of Bundabah are spaced enough and the trees tall enough and abundant enough to give you a bit of a Deliverance moment, a reference that may or may no be correct - I've not seen the movie. There is hardly any evidence of gentrification or weekenderification to Bundabah, rather it looks as though people actually live there. That said, we saw very few of them in the time we were there, so who knows. I had the wrong access code for the door to Banjo's House and it was raining when we got there, so everything was shaking up nicely for me to have one of my moments.

A couple of phone calls to the owner, George, and we were in. Not long after we were unpacked and getting acquainted with our home-away-from-home where we would spend the next few days. The indoor accommodation was better than I'd expect for a holiday rental. Open plan living-dining-kitchen, a wood burner, decent tele with foxtel which would be fine ordinarily should it rain, but as I have a no-tele-for-AJ rule it would not be of much benefit on this trip. The view from the back was down over the waters of the cove, where the boys would be able to swim. Damn fine view too, hardly any buildup around the cove, some mangroves and oyster beds, a couple of small yachts. Picturesque.

There was a good deck with a good BBQ but no decent cover, so I had to get some clear plastic from a shed and rig a shelter for the dogs who would not be sleeping inside. Once that was sorted it was a matter of getting a couple of mattresses to create a play zone for Alex and then it was time for me to begin dwelling upon how bored I was going to get over the next few days. I'm funny like that.

you old bastard

A strange thing happens on almost all of my long, event runs. At some point after half way my mind starts to wander and I entertain thoughts of stopping or walking a bit or all sorts of nonsense. I realise this is simply my brain doing its damnedest to stop me. But I'm having none of it. And then I start thinking about the old man. It goes a bit like this, only a bit, because after I've recovered I can't remember exactly what I was thinking when I was, well, fairly bollocksed.

First I think "I'm doing this for you." Then I laugh at the utter ridiculousness of that. Then I well-up, get a bit choked, start to hyper ventilate - quite an achievement considering how I'm breathing at the time - and then I get a grip. I call the old man an "old bastard", have a chuckle, point skywards and I go on. Then I do a bit of analysis of the situation, reassuring myself that I do know better while acknowledging there must be some good reason for this line of thought. And I go on. To date, I've always finished.

I have a bit of a chat to the old man. Weird. I posted a while ago, and I cannot be arsed to search and find a link, that we are all the sum of everything everyone thinks we are. I still believe that. So unless and until I go mad and lose my marbles the old bastard is still with me.

Oh yeah, as well as my brain my right leg felt a bit weird. About three km from the end I had a radiating oddness spreading all around my lower leg. A tad concerned at the time, but fortunately my right is only as buggered as the left today. Phew.