Campertrailer trial

Smithy and I bought a campertrailer last year and took delivery of it in September. Very excited to try it out, we booked ourselves a weekend away, but it poured with rain that weekend and we didn't go. Once we came back from our India trip, we booked another camping weekend, but it rained then too. Then of course, we had all that dreadful weather over the summer and so had no opportunity to go camping. Then March this year, we made another booking to go to Binna Burra in the Lamington National Park on the Gold Coast hinterland. Bucketed with rain, didn't it? So we didn't camp, just drove down on the Saturday to join our friends for a bushwalk along the Ship's Stern circuit and drove home again that same evening.

So, not ones to give up, we picked this weekend to have another go. This time we decided we wouldn't book - we'd just take our chances. After all, every time we booked, the weather conspired against us. So, Friday afternoon, we packed up and headed off on our inaugural campertrailer trip - to Binna Burra. Well, it is one of our favourite spots and very accessible from inner-suburban Brisbane. Got down there in good time and trotted up to the lodge to get a camping spot for the weekend. Wouldn't you know it, we could only get a site for one night. Totally booked out they were! Oh well, one night it is. We found our site and set about organising ourselves. Since it was the first time we had used the campertrailer, it took us a little while to sort everything out, but we soon had ourselves nicely established. Poured some wine, broke out some dips and crackers, and made ourselves comfortable whilst we watched our Japanese neighbours trying to put up their brand-new straight-out-of-the-box tent. Smithy had to lend a hand when it turned out none of them was tall enough to get the fly over the ridge-pole.

Had some cute dinner-time visitors - a pair of brushtail possums. They were very tame and happily took food from our hands. One of them bit me when it mistook my finger for more food. No more hand-feeding after that!

We didn't have a great night's sleep. Nothing to do with our campertrailer - it was very comfortable and we were certainly warm enough. Just kept drifting in and out of wakefulness. So, we were well awake by 6.30 and brewing the first cuppa of the day. We had to pack everything up before we went off for our bushwalk, but that went very smoothly and by 8.30 we set off for the Coomera Circuit - a 17.5 km walk.

What a great day! The wildlife was terrific. Lots of pademelons bounding across our path. Never seen so many in one day as we did yesterday. We were almost tripping over them! The birdlife was prolific too. Couldn't see many birds, but the air was filled with their songs - including the uncanny baby-cries sound of the catbird. We also saw a python. Actually, I nearly stepped on it! It was laying across our path and it took a moment or two for my brain to register what it was. When it became obvious the python wasn't going to move, we very carefully scrambled up a small embankment to go around it. Good stuff!

I love the Coomera Circuit. It has lots and lots of waterfalls along it, which are quite spectacular. Of course, waterfalls mean rivers and creeks and we had rather a lot of crossings to negotiate. Some were straight-forward but others necessitated some tricky rock hopping and wading through water. Many of the rocks were very slippery and at one point I found myself emulating a cartoon character on ice. You know how their feet go slip slip slip before they fall on their bums? Well , that was me - both feet doing that little ice two-step, before I managed to retain my balance and complete the river crossing.

By the time the track rejoined the Border Track, we were both feeling a little footsore and I suddenly remembered the reasons why I had bought new leather trekking boots instead of sticking with my Goretex and suede Kailash boots. Sure, they are lightweight, but the trade-off is a reduction in cushioning. So with sore toes, we trudged our way closer and closer to the Binna Burra Tea-house, spurring ourselves on with thoughts of the big bowl of hot chips waiting for us when we got there. We opted for the wedges, in the end and very delicious they were too. A fit reward after our 5.5hr, 17.5km hike.

Tucked up in our own bed last night listening to the rain on the roof, we were not at all disappointed that we'd only been able to camp for one night. And we can finally say we've tried out our campertrailer!

Bootcamp 2011: Month Four

Smithy and I had our final weigh ins at Jenny Craig today. Smithy has done really well over the past three months and reached her goal weight. Me - not so good. My weight yo-yoed a bit, but I did lose just over 5kg. Three kilograms short of my goal weight and less than half a kilo a week. But a good weight loss all the same. We're both going to continue with a reduced calorie diet to see how much more we can lose - I definitely want to lose at least 3 more kilograms.

The best thing about the weight-loss so far? I can now fit back into all my jeans! Haven't worn them for a couple of years, so it's nice to have them available again.

We're five months out from our Himalayan trek, so still have plenty of time to ratchet up the exercise and training. Now that the weather is getting cooler, we're starting to look at doing some regular all-day bushwalks and I'll be starting some strength training work in the next month. My back really needs to be stronger and I want to build up the muscles around my knees. It sure won't hurt to get some definition in the ol' biceps either. For now, I'll just keep up with the walking home from work each day. That's maintaining my fitness levels nicely and giving me a good platform to build on.

Bootcamp 2011: Month Three

The mornings are getting a little darker these days, so I've stopped getting up to go for a run/walk. I get to enjoy an extra twenty minutes sleep in each work day. The trade off? I get home about forty minutes later each night as I now walk home from Newstead. That's about 6.5km and it's taking me about 75 minutes at the moment. I'll be working on getting that down to around 65 minutes over the next few weeks.

We're two-thirds of the way through our Jenny Craig program and it's been going well, although I had thought I'd lose more weight in that time. It's taken me eight weeks to lose 4 kilograms, which means I've got four weeks to lose the other four kilograms I planned on losing!

We've also booked onto the Manaslu/Tilicho trek in October, so we'll be ramping up our fitness regime in a couple of months. I want to be as fit and strong as I can be for this trek, so that will mean weights work, situps, pressups and lots of stair work... but not until July! Til then, it's just keep up the walking and keep losing weight.

Book Of The Month: March 2011

So, this year I've been reading books I own rather than going to the library. But, this month I got withdrawal symptoms and paid a visit to my local library. I spent a wonderful hour browsing the shelves and came away with a terrific haul of books.



Among them was this month's Book of the Month: Riding the black cockatoo by John Danalis. It's the story of the author's journey into Indigenous culture and community when he decides he has to return the skull that's been sitting on his parent's mantelpiece for the last forty years to its rightful place. Along the way, he raises questions about the morality of museums keeping in storage the remains of Indigenous Australians for "research", tagged and numbered like so many specimens. He also discovers the warmth of Indigenous Australians, who far from condemning his family for having the skull, welcome and thank them for their actions in returning it to its traditional home.

Riding the black cockatoo is a heart-warming story of one man's reconciliation with his upbringing, his family and his own lack of understanding of Australia's first people. A very satisfying tale and one I would urge everyone to read.

Where the wild things are: part three

In my socks mainly. And spilling my blood. Yup, leeches and lots of them. I was in Lamington National Park yesterday with Smithy and four other women from our walking group. The original idea was to camp Friday night, tackle the 20km Ships Stern Circuit on Saturday then return to Brisbane on Sunday. Well, the unending rain on Friday nixed the camping idea for Smithy and I and we decided to head down to Binna Burra very early in the morning to meet the others, who had decided to camp, but in the tent huts that are on site at the camping ground.

We knew there would be leeches. We just didn't expect legions of them. We'd have a dozen each creeping up our boots every time we stopped to admire the view or to look at the pretty fungi growing on picturesque mossy tree trunks. Flicking the leeches off became an exercise in futility as three more would be sneaking up the back of your boots whilst you were triumphantly removing the one trying to lodge itself in your bootlaces. I ended up deciding to leave the one leech that had succeeded in latching on to me and let it fall off in its own time once it had feasted on me. A good theory, but of course, my blood ran into my sock and became a beacon for others. Eventually, I gave up trying to dislodge the little beasties that had burrowed into my socks. I figured there were more of them than me and trying to rid myself of them was a losing battle and detracting from the otherwise very enjoyable day we were having. If they got through my socks, well good luck to them. I'd deal with them at the end of our hike. For the rest, I'd remove any that landed on bare skin. This was a much more successful technique as they were easier to spot and flick off as they hadn't had time to sink their little teeth in to me. A few did still manage to get through my defences. Someone spotted two on my neck and very niftily got rid of them for me and after experiencing what felt like a bite on my bum, I had to ask Smithy to check my buttock where, yes, a leech was trying to settle in for a feed. Towards the end of the hike I noticed blood streaming down my thigh from under my shorts and realised a leech must have had a good ol' time there until it got full and fell off. I must have been a right sight to the few walkers we encountered. Blood trickling down my leg and neck and with blood-soaked socks! My leech count for the day - 11 very itchy welts on my ankles, thigh, neck and *cough* bum. I think it's the aftereffects that are the worst thing about leeches. The idea of them doesn't creep me out nearly as much as walking into cobwebs does. Arrgh! I hate that! But boy, do those leech bites itch. It's driving me mad trying not to scratch at the moment!

Not all the wildlife we encountered yesterday - pademelons, skinks, bush mice - was as unpleasant as the leeches.  Oh, except for the snake. It was only a little thing, no longer than 10cm, but boy was it aggressive! Smithy must have disturbed it as she passed by and it coiled and wriggled and lunged about in the middle of the track looking for something to attack. I backed off from its rearing head, waiting for it to settle and slither off. But it wouldn't. The others soon caught up and thankfully, one woman had a big stick. We all stood behind her as she carefully hooked the snake on the end of the stick and flung it into the scrub alongside the track. We all rushed along the path as the little snake reared about amongst the ferns. I could just imagine it saying "Who did that? Where are you! Come back here and fight!" 

You can just see the little snake - head raised in a striking pose at about 8 o'clock from the passionfruit.

Photograph courtesy of Christine Easton

We completed the hike in just under 6 1/2 hours, which was pretty damned good going, if you ask me, and we rewarded ourselves with delicious mugs of coffee from the Binna Burra Teahouse before setting off for the long drive home and much-deserved hot showers

Boot Camp: Month Two

I'm not sure where I've lost it, but I've managed to shed 3kg since the beginning of the year - 2kg just in February itself. Gotta be happy about that! Certain pairs of trousers are noticeably looser now, so I'm starting to feel better about myself already.

We've been on Jenny Craig for a month now and it's very apparent that our main problem was portion size and eating too much fruit. Once we come off the plan, it should be fairly easy for us to maintain our weight as the food we're eating now is pretty much what we used to eat - just a lot less!

The exercising is also going well. I go for a walk/jog each morning before work and, whilst it's no great distance as yet, I'm noticing that my jogging is getting stronger. I'm probably jogging about 1.5km non-stop of the 5km circuit and am slowly building that up. Eventually, I hope to jog the whole route. Time may be against me though, as the mornings are going to get darker and darker. Once that happens, I'll switch to walking/jogging home from work instead. That's about 7kms, so a good distance.

We've joined a weekly walking group that goes around West End, taking in some of the steeper streets along the way and lately Smithy and I have started to do a walk around the trails at Mt Coot-tha on the weekends. Last weekend, we hiked up Mt Warning. That was a good workout and it took us just 3 1/2 hours to get up and down. I was very pleased to have only a little tightness in my calves the next day. About the only area I'm falling down in is the strength training side of things. Not doing enough weights, situps etc. We're still eight months out from our planned trek, so there is plenty of time to start working on that aspect of my training.

So, very much on track with the weightloss and fitness goals. If I can keep posting these small wins, it'll be so much easier to stay motivated.

February Book of the Month

I'm on my tenth book for the month but am unlikely to finish it before tomorrow night, so my official tally for February will probably stand at nine books. The list includes Ian McEwan's Solar, and The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World by His Holiness XIV Dalai Lama, which I got for Christmas.



A significant proportion of my private library is made up of books about trekking in the Himalayas, mountaineering and travelling in general and I am slowly working my way through the collection. This month, four of the books I read were about the Himalayas and my favourite book was Friends in High Places: a season in the Himalayas by Peter Mayne. It's a bit dated - published in 1975 - but a delightful tale of the author's stay at the Indian Himalayan home of a descendant of an exiled Nepalese Rana. Mayne is particularly fascinated by his host's ancestor, Jang Badahur Rana who was the first of the century-long line of Rana Prime Ministers who effectively ruled Nepal, and the reader is treated to a fascinating account of Jang's rise to power as well as an investigation into the infamous Kot Massacre of 1846 that cemented Jang's hold on the reins of power.

I found the history really enjoyable, but what I loved the most was the account of Mayne's stay at his old friend, Jagut Rana's, country home in the Indian Himalayan foothills near Dehru Dun. His descriptions of the estate and the people who call it home are whimsical and comic without belittling. I found myself totally immersed in the daily routines of this seemingly chaotic household and was sorry that the book had to end, but it has motivated me to seek out his earlier writings - A Year in Marrakesh and The Narrow Smile.

Musings on the flood levy

I've been doing a bit of reading and thinking about the flood levy and people's reactions to it over the past week and I have to admit to feeling somewhat disgusted by the mean spiritedness demonstrated by many people commenting on the issue.

I'd be happy to pay the levy. That's easy for me to say since I don't actually earn enough money to be liable for the levy. I went and made another $100 donation to the Flood Appeal as soon as I learned I'd be exempt from the levy. So I find it hard to imagine that people earning at least $12,000 pa more than me couldn't spare between $35 and $50 a year - for a single year. That's less than a dollar a week and you can't afford it? Really? Your budget is that tight, you're accounting for every last dollar? If you're anything like me, you toss more than that into your change jar every day!

Yes I know, you've got mortgages, cars to run and kids to feed. But it's still $50 bucks a year, folks. A year. For one year.

And yes, I know you've already donated to the Flood Appeal and why should you be forced to donate again. Well, the Flood Appeal monies go directly to assist people affected by the floods. The Flood Levy goes to rebuilding lost infrastructure. You know, stuff like roads, bridges, railway tracks. If we relied on donations to raise funds for infrastructure, nothing would ever get built.

Of course, if you're really upset by the Flood Levy you can always donate $50 to the Liberal Party's Stop the Levy Campaign, so they can save you from having to contribute $50 to the Flood Levy.

Festival of Tibet

 

The 3rd Annual Festival of Tibet is now on at Brisbane's Powerhouse. I'm down here volunteering on the Australia Tibet Council stall and thought I would blog about what's happening.

Last night, the audience of the Mystical Tibet concert was treated to a sublime fusion of strings, Japanese bamboo flute and the soaring vocals of Tenzin Choegyal as he joined forces with the Camarata of St John and Taro Terahara to bring us a beautiful moving performance of Tibetan songs.

Earlier in the evening Lhamo, Tashi and Jamyang, three Tibetan women, entertained the audience, singing traditional Tibetan folksongs. Each of them looked gorgeous in their traditional costumes and we thrilled to the sounds of their voices singing songs of their homeland.

Today's program is the highlight of the Festival. A hundred or so people are taking part in a meditation session as I type. The place is buzzing with people wandering around looking at all the stalls, playing on the singing bowls and tinkling meditation cymbals.

Shortly, a panel discussion on the Art of Healing will take place. Sonam Dagpo, the Dalai Lama's representative in Australia, Tenzin Norbu, a Tibetan environmental activist and Geshe Jamyang will be the speakers.

Later this afternoon, Ama-la Jetsun Pema, the Dalai Lama's younger sister will be giving a talk on educating children. Ama-la has been instrumental in the running of the Tibetan Childrens Village in Dharamsala. The TCV offers an education to any Tibetan child. Most exile Tibetans have been educated at the TCV school and many many Tibetans in Tibet risk everything to send their children over the Himalayas so they can get a Tibetan education. The talk promises to be very interesting and we are honoured to have Ama-la here.

The Festival will wind up tonight with another wonderful concert featuring Tibet2Timbuk2 and other special guests.

I'm off now to get ready for the Art of Healing panel discussion, as I have been lassooed into asking a couple of questions to get the discussion rolling.

Bootcamp 2011: Month One

It's been a month since I started my weightloss and get fit kick. The good news: I've lost one kilogram, I've bought a skipping rope and I can now run around the local park without stopping. The not so good news: I haven't used my new skipping rope. Nor have I done any situps, weights, pushups or star jumps. I've cut out the biscuits at work, but replaced them with a hardboiled egg. And I'm not convinced that all this is going to lose my unwanted kilos.

I seriously contemplated the Quick Start Three Week Program that John Birmingham mentioned on Twitter. He's had good results with it, so I thought it worth a try. But it's a really restrictive diet. Ok, I may lose the promised 7kgs, but what happens when I've finished the program and go back to my usual (healthy) eating? Will the kilos creep back on? That's been my problem with every weightloss idea I've tried.

Time for something different. Today, Smithy and I signed up with Jenny Craig for a three-month weightloss program. Already I can see the meal portions provided on the program are a lot smaller than what we usually serve up. This just may be the key to us both losing weight. And we get to eat pancakes, pizza and chocolate pudding!

Watch this space. I hope to have some real positives to report next month.

Book of the Month

This is the first in a monthly series of blogs highlighting one of the many books I manage to read each month. I've read nine books so far this January and the standout book for me this month is Salmon fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday.

I first came across Torday through the book club I belong to, when we all read his The girl on the landing. I didn't enjoy that very much and wasn't particularly inspired to go and explore his other works. But, whilst browsing the returns trolley at my local library I came across Salmon fishing. The blurb intrigued me and I decided to give it a go. And am very happy I did.

Salmon fishing in the Yemen is Torday's debut novel. The basic premise is that Alfred Jones, a staid fish scientist, is approached by a rich Yemeni sheik to head a project to introduce salmon to a wadi in Yemen. At first, Jones dismisses the idea as impossible, but slowly begins to think about how it could be done. Told via letters, diary entries, police interviews, newspaper articles and emails, the story unfolds in leaps and bounds, giving the reader insight into the various characters' perspective.

On the surface, a whimsical tale about salmon fishing, the novel explores love, faith and belief whilst at the same time offering a satirical attack on New Labour politics. I found it very entertaining and whilst the ending was unexpected, I came away most satsified with it. It's definitely a novel I'll be recommending to friends to read.

Generation who?

There's a lot of talk in the media these days about baby boomers, Gen X, Y and Z. We all get lumped into these broad categories and have gross generalisations made about us based on the years we were born as if we all share the same characteristics regardless of what end of the generation we were born at. My partner, Smithy, and I are both baby boomers, but she was born in 1947 and I was born in 1960. The influences that formed our childhoods were very different. Her parents fought in the war; my parents were still children. She grew up watching I Love Lucy and Bandstand. I watched The Partridge Family and Countdown. She did the classic overland trip from London to Kathmandu in the early 70s. I went to primary school. Woodstock was current affairs for Smithy. To me, it's history. My first protest march was against nuclear weapons, not Vietnam. My parents were teenagers in the 50s, listening to the likes of Elvis Presley and Cliff Richards. Hers were middle aged in the 60s.

My brother and younger sister, although only three and five years younger than me, are Gen X - as is my son. Yet we all shared the same childhood circumstances (not my son, obviously). We all watched the same programs on telly, read the same comics and argued over who was better - Sherbert or Skyhooks. My son wouldn't have a clue who Skyhooks were. His musical tastes were formed in the 1990s, ours in the 1970s.

See, I think that is what better defines us - the decades we grew up in. All people born in the 60s have similar experiences, as do those born in the 70s, 80s or 90s. And they have much more in common with each other than they do with those born at the other end of their generational span.

Those born just after the end of the war grew up in a world very very different to those born at the start of the 60s. Calling us all baby boomers hides the reality of our different experiences. I don't have very much in common with the baby boomers who are currently retiring and whenever the media mentions them, they are not talking about me at all.

Now, if they talked about the children of the 60s...

Brisbane floods

Terrible images on the television of the devastation wrought by the floods in Brisbane. Thankfully, my home and street are safe, although surrounding streets are under a metre or so of water. Friends in Flower Street, around the corner, are overseas and we moved a stack of their belongings onto our back deck yesterday for safe keeping as most residents in the street evacuated their homes. The floodwaters did not get as high as first feared but there will be a lot of cleaning up of under-house storage areas in Flower Street.

Police checking homes in Flower Street, Woolloongabba

Other areas of Brisbane are not so lucky. Whole suburbs have been completely inundated. The clean-up and recovery from this disaster is going to be massive. My heart goes out to all those affected.

Bootcamp 2011

Smithy and I are planning on doing a trek in the Nepalese Himalaya (surprise surprise) later this year, so I have decided 2011 is going to be Bootcamp Year. Yep, I am going to get serious about losing weight and getting as fit as I can possibly be. The goal is to lose at least 8kgs and my belly. We've got a treadmill and an exercise bike, cardio workout DVDs and some weights - every thing we need to work out and get fit. I'm gonna be trim, taut and terrific by October and it all starts today.  Did the official first weigh-in - and no, I am not going to tell you what the scales showed - and went for a 45min walk/run this morning. The plan is to go running/walking every morning before work and do some weight and cardio training in the evenings. We're cutting out alcohol until Smithy's birthday (end of February) and cutting down on the snacks and nibblies (bye bye chippies and Venetian biscuits).

For a while there, I was even contemplating signing up with Jenny Craig. It worked for Madga Szubanksi, why not for me? But then I heard that Jenny Craig had been bought out by Nestle. I don't know if that is true or not, but it doesn't sit right with me. A company that generates a vast income from sales of chocolates and sweets now owns a weight loss company? That just feels wrong.

The hardest part of all this will be staying motivated and persevering with it. I find it really easy to talk myself out of doing an exercise session, so sticking with it will be the big challenge. Oh, and resisting the desire for a glass of wine on a Friday night...

Part of my strategy for staying on course is to write a blog article about my progress at least once a month. With luck, the prospect of having to confess to being a slack arse will be enough to keep me on track! An added incentive are the trekking trousers hanging in the wardrobe that I can't quite get into right now. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend money on buying new ones. I also have a few pairs of jeans I'd like to wear again...

Right now though, it's lunch time...

A year of reading adventures

As regular readers of this blog know, I keep a record of all the books I read and, at the end of each year, write a short article about the year's reading adventures. In 2010, I managed to read one hundred and twenty books - an average of ten a month. The most books I read in one month was sixteen - in March - and I only managed to read one book in November - William Dalyrymple's City of Djinns: a year in Delhi - but I was travelling (in India) that month.

The books I enjoyed the most: Parrot and Olivier in America, The Book of Salt, Wolf Hall, Dreaming in Hindi:coming awake in another language, My Name is Red and The Lacuna.

The book that had the biggest impact on me was Waste: uncovering the global food scandal. It explores the monumental waste that occurs at all stages of food production and the environmental costs of that waste. The one fact that shook me to the core was the story about a sandwich company that insists that not only the crusts from each loaf, but the slice of bread next to each crust is also discarded - a total of 13,000 slices a day, from just ONE factory! How many acres of land are needed to grow the grain to make those 13,000 slices that will never be eaten? The extent of food wastage around the world is breathtaking and is probably one of the key environmental concerns of our time. I recommend this book to everyone.

And my least favourite book of the year? Orhan Pamuk's The museum of innocence. Read for Book Club and not one of us liked it. As a portrait of obsession, it was very good. But having to read about that obsession. Oh My God - it made my eyes bleed!

My reading habit is very well supported by my local library service (Brisbane City Libraries) - only twelve of the 120 I read were books I owned.  I found most by browsing the shelves at my local branch. Several I reserved from other branches and two I got on inter-library loan. Things will be different in 2011 as this year, I have resolved to read every unread book on my bookshelves, rather than library books. The only exceptions will be Book Club selections, and new releases by my favourite authors. But first, I have to finish the stack of books I brought home from the library just before Christmas!

Here is the full list of books I read in 2010. The titles are split fairly evenly between fiction and non-fiction. I like reading travelogues and, because I was going to India in November, the list features a few books about that country.
January: Parrot and Olivier in America, Truth, Write Away, Luminous Bliss, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, China Cuckoo, The Lieutenant, Meltdown, Cleopatra's Needle: two wheels by water to Cairo, Indian Balm: travels amongst fakirs and fire warriors, The Book of Salt, The Lost City of Z
February: The cactus eaters, High Crimes: the fate of Everest in an age of greed, The Library of Shadows, An Echo In The Bone, Peaks and Lamas, Vanishing Tracks: four years among the snow leopards of Nepal
March: Chasing Lightning, The Boat, Travels with Herodotus, Dreams of My Father, The Broken Shore, Skytrain: Tibetan women on the edge of history, Dead Europe, In Turkey I Am Beautiful, The Secret River, Bangkok Days, The Lord of Death, The Compassionate Life, Freeing Tibet: 50 years of struggle, resistance and hope, The Love Children, China's Great Train: Beijing's drive west and the campaign to remake Tibet
April: Singing for Freedom, Get Her Off The Pitch: how sport took over my life, Wolf Hall, Stones of Silence: journeys in the Himalaya, The Honey Spinner, Too Much Happiness, A Snowball in Hell, Dreaming in Hindi: coming awake in another language, You Must Die Once, The Last Men: the harrowing story of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party, Love and Punishment, Kingdom, Halfhead
May: Eat My Globe, The Jadu House: travels in Anglo India, Red Tape and White Knuckles, Xanadu: Marco Polo and Europe's discovery of the East, The Writing Class, The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: a biography, Hold The Enlightenment
June: Birdwatching watching, The Constant Art of Being a Writer, The Museum of Innocence, Dharma Bums, A Life Stripped Bare, The Path to Buddha: a Tibetan pilgrimage, The Longest Climb, The Audacity of Hope, Think of a Number
July: No Way Out, Neon Pilgrimage, The Lacuna, Making News, Dear Fatty, A Fraction of the Whole, The Opposite of Me, Let's Face the Music and Die, Caught In The Act
August: Stronger Than Death, Tasmania's Convicts, Come Back Como,Jerusalem, Shattered, Bleed for Me, Absurdistan, Adventures in Caravanastan: around Australia at 80km, The Untouchable, Googled: the end of the world as we know it
September: My Name is Red, A Year Without "Made In China", American Vertigo, Bombproof, My Mercedes Is For Sale, The Girl On The Landing, No Stopping for Lions, The Art of Travel, After Amerika, Long Ride for a Pie, Trick of the Dark, The Nature of Ice, Sizzling Sixteen
October: Among Flowers: a walk in the Himalayas, Magic Bus: the hippie trail from Istanbul to India, Saraswati Park, One Hit Wonderland, Waste: uncovering the global food scandal, Vroom With a View, Bad Boy, Brown Skin Blue, Suspect, The Winter of Our Disconnect, The Elephant Whisperer, India
November: City of Djinns: a year in Delhi
December: Mortal Remains, Liberty or Death: India's journey to independence and division, A Balcony in Nepal, Body Work, To The Holy Shrines, The Last Family in England, The Snow Tourist: a search for the world's purest, deepest snowfall, The Athiest Manifesto, A Beautiful Place To Die, A Beginner's Guide To Dying In India, Indian Nocturne

Three books I started but never finished were: A room in Bombay and other stories, Snow and Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed

Any books in there that you also read? Any of your favourites? Let me know in the comments below.

12 Days of Christmas

A friend challenged Smithy and I to come up with an Himalayan version of the 12 Days of Christmas just a few days after our return from India. Not the types to back down from a creative task like that, we quickly came up with twelve alternatives to the traditional verses.

After a bit of polishing the next day, this is what we came up with:

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me

a wild chicken from Nepal

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me

two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me

three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 seven painted elephants, six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 eight garlic naans, seven painted elephants, six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 nine charging rhinos, eight garlic naans, seven painted elephants, six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

 ten temple bells, nine charging rhinos, eight garlic naans, seven painted elephants, six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me

eleven Tibetan lamas, ten temple bells, nine charging rhinos, eight garlic naans, seven painted elephants, six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

twelve lemon sodas, eleven Tibetan lamas, ten temple bells, nine charging rhinos, eight garlic naans, seven painted elephants, six blue kingfishers, five vegie momos, four white khatas, three banana lassis, two marigold garlands and a wild chicken from Nepal

Running with rhinos

Smithy and I signed up for Intrepid's Kathmandu to Delhi trip last month, which was a whole lot of fun and I hope to share more anecdotes here. One of the early highlights of the trip, was the 3-day stay at Nepal's Chitwan National Park, where we hoped to spot a rhino or two. The adventure began with a 2-hour trip down the Rapti River in a dugout canoe, that had no wriggle room at all. Almost as soon as my bottom hit the 2-inch high seat, my right knee seized up and got progressively more painful as the trip went on. Bird and alligator spotting provided some distraction from my discomfort, and I was mightily relieved when the canoe beached and we all scrambled ashore for our jungle walk to Ghatgai.

Our guides, Ram and Lascar, led us along trails that wound through the lush jungle, pointing out spotted deer bounding away from us and the occasional bird. Eventually, we arrived at a spot along the river that rhinoceros apparently favour, and Lascar decided we should have lunch and wait awhile to see if any turned up. We spent a couple of hours whispering to each other, watching beetles, butterflies and various other insect life, and catnapping under the canopy before Lascar decided no rhinos were coming and led us off into the jungle once more.

After another hour or so of ambling along the trails, Lascar suddenly hissed, "Quick, come this way!" and leapt off the path and ran, crashing, through the undergrowth. What had he seen? Was it a rhino? Excitedly, we all raced after him, tripping over and plunging through bushes and vines. All of a sudden, an elephant emerged from the trees, then another and another. They each had people, tourists, atop who looked very surprised to find eight or nine scruffy hikers running alongside them.
"There it is! There it is!" someone called out, pointing off to the left. We all stopped and peered into the greenery, straining for a glimpse of the elusive rhino. Then, there it was. It stood about 20 metres away, swinging its head from side to side, taking in the elephants and then looking straight at our small group of trembling travellers. Remembering our guides instructions to climb a tree if a rhino came towards us, Smithy promptly leapt behind the nearest, and only, tree. The rest of us stood stock still, holding our collective breath as the rhino assessed the situation then turned and disappeared into the jungle.

"Come on," Lascar waved us all forward once more and we raced after it, just in time to see it plunge into the river, and escape to the safety of the far bank.

The following day, we went on an elephant safari of our own and encountered another rhino, this one with a calf. Neither of them showed the slightest bit of interest in the six elephants that circled them, and totally ignored the tourists onboard busily clicking away with their cameras, as they calmly grazed. Exciting as it was to see these rare and wonderfully ugly animals in such close proximity from the safety of an elephant's back, it couldn't beat the exhilaration of the previous day's pursuit through the jungle. That was one unforgettable experience!

Planes, trains and automobiles: travels to India

Smithy and I have just spent two weeks travelling overland from Kathmandu to Delhi and have utilised a mind-boggling array of conveyances to get there. We've travelled down the Rapti River in Nepa's Chitwan National Park in a dugout canoe. Ridden elephants through Chitwan's jungle. Cycled alongside elephants in Sunauli. Bounced along a road in the back of an open-air jeep. Crossed the Nepal/India border on foot, then travelled by private sedan to Varanasi. Sailed down the Ganges in sailboats. Been rowed alongside the Varanasi Ghats to see the evening puja. Journeyed to Sarnath in tempos and around Sarnath by cycle rickshaw. Gone from Varanasi to Orccha on an overnight sleeper train and to Agra and then Delhi on local  trains and survived several trips on Delhi's Metro train system.

We're now in Shimla, in the foothills of the Indian Himalaya, which we got to by travelling on the famous "toy train". Running on a two-foot gauge, the train goes through 102 tunnels, crosses 988 bridges and goes around 937 bends on its 96 km journey from Kalka to Shimla.

We've still got a few local bus trips and one very long overnight train journey ahead of us, but travelling through northern India has been a wonderful adventure.

It's been a gas, gas gas

A few months ago, Smithy and I decided to convert from mains gas to bottled gas after receiving a gas bill in which we'd used about $3.00 worth of gas, but had to pay $60.00 plus for the privilege of having it supplied to the house. So we went about buying the bottled gas and getting it all connected and everything and then Smithy rang the gas company (AGL) to organise the disconnection. It took quite some time for the operator to understand that yes we wanted the gas disconnected, no we don't have a forwarding address as we're not leaving, but yes we do want the gas disconnected. Yes we do understand that means the meter will be taken away. No, it won't cost the new tenants anything to get it re-installed because we are not going anywhere. Yes we want the gas disconnected...even though we aren't moving house. Eventually someone did come around and disconnect us from the mains gas and took away the meter. A little while after that we got our final reading bill, which included a penalty fee for terminating the contract with the gas company before the two years we had initially signed up for had expired. Money-gouging scoundrels, but we'll cop that since it's the last we'll ever have to pay.

Fast forward to last week when we received a bill charging us for the mains gas we've used for the past three months - the gas we no longer get because we're disconnected. Intrigued as to how they managed to read a meter that's no longer there, Smithy rang AGL and explained to them that we've been disconnected from the mains, the meter has been removed and all that's left is a pipe sticking out of the ground. Oh, says the operator, but our records show a new meter was installed there as the previous residents had moved out. No, we're still here, but there's no new meter because we're on bottled gas. Turns out, a meter had been automatically ordered, but its return never recorded or something. Anyway, the operator said she'd sort it all out and arrange for someone to come out and remove that pipe that's sticking out of the ground.

Fast forward again to yesterday, when we received a letter welcoming us as new customers to AGL. They don't know who we are as the letter was addressed to "The Customer" but they've signed us up for a two year contract. Thoughtful of them, ain't it. Smithy's going to call AGL, ask if she's speaking to the Left Hand or the Right Hand and then ask to speak to the other one as obviously half the people at AGL have no idea what the other half are doing.

Meanwhile, that pipe is still sticking out of the ground.

Stand by me

A video of non-professional singers from all around the world singing "Stand by me". Enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741