On the road again. Easter 2015 road trip . Day one.

Today was day one of the trip to Easter orienteering in Canberra.

We were heading up Glen Osmond towards the freeway at 1100, which wasn't too bad considering we were both working yesterday. Good old Ben is holding the fort at home again.

We had only been on the road for an hour when we stopped at Tailem Bend bakery for lunch. We admired the orangutan in the bakery and then headed across the road to the local park to admire the train (retired since 1965) and eat our pies.

Next stop was a lovely secluded spot somewhere just out of Lameroo,  where we pulled over for a quick cuppa (the first of many on this trip I'm sure) , to feel the serenity and to stretch our legs.

This spot is a dirt bike track (none here today) and an old gate hung quietly observing the peaceful surroundings.  I'm sure it would have seen some wild times over the years.

I couldn't help but admire the pretty colours of the natural foliage. I guess this leaf has some sort of disease, but it is beautiful.

We finished up following a river track just past Piangil and finding a spot beside the greenish river to have a quiet glass of red, throw out our swags, chat to a local who was walking his dog and enjoy the fact that we have peace in this beautiful country. How lucky we are to be able to pack up and drive to a beautiful spot like this to camp. 

Tomorrow we will head on towards Canberra.
We are 482 km down in the 1100m or so journey, so we will be aiming to knock off another 450 -500 tomorrow so that we don't have too far to go on Friday morning before competing.

Safe travel to all of you heading to the same spot, and we will look forward to catch ups.

Here is the map of today's route for those who are interested.

Lessons still to learn...the Waite Sprints Champs

Anyone can run in the sprint champs- as long as they pre-register by the given date.  I am no champ, and although I ran in one of the contender races last sunday I certainly proved that all over again on the day.

I could use the excuse of work overload, lack of sleep etc, but when it came down to it I just wasn't a champ.

But let's start at the beginning. This was my map.

In a sprint you expect a lot of shorter legs and changes of direction. It is likely to take you into complex areas, and concentration will be needed at all times.You need to be fast and on the ball.

When I sit back and think about what went wrong I focus in on three problems on the day that made a big difference.

1. I'm not fit
2. I lacked accurate map reading 
3. I didn't stick to the basics when I needed to.

Let's pick them off one by one

1. I'm not fit

There was nothing I could do about this on the day. I could have done more earlier.

Part of my problem is that I really found my sport of choice too late in life.  I had already hit my 40s and was leading a pretty sedentary lifestyle. Even at school I was not the most active. I've never enjoyed running until I took up orienteering. 

So losing extra weight and gaining fitness was always going to be a long road. 

When you are overweight and older it is hard on the body and my body hurts from exercise-more as I get older. It is a fine line of balance between pushing too much (leading to injury) and not pushing enough (laziness). 

Having said all that, training had taken a backseat to other priorities recently and I can see it in my running rate.

So I was never going to be running as fast as some of the other runners in my group. I was going to be relying on my concentration, skills, and consistency.

2. Lack of accurate map reading

There were two spots where I fell down on my map reading.  The first was between control 12 and 13. 

In this case I just didn't interpret what I saw on the map correctly. 

When planning my route coming out of 12 I thought that the solid black line extending around the eastern edge of the building between 6 and 13 actually extended all the way across to the dark green. What I didn't notice was the the pink line between 6 and 7 was actually masking the stairs on the map.

Because I didn't see those stairs, I was actually met with a tricky decision -and none of the choices were as quick as the obvious one (with the stairs). 

I must admit that I thought the course setter had set a beauty of a leg here.  

In the end I chose to wind my way through the buildings (as per the pink line) rather than taking what I thought might be another possible course (in bright yellow)

 When I realised my mistake I was cross with myself for this stupid mistake. I had my magnifier on my compass, but didn't use it to check. At no point did it even occur to me to examine that spot more closely. I could have saved some valuable time here. 

3.Not using my basic skills

As I emerged from 15 and headed into the less defined area of trees for my last small loop I neglected to use my map to ground, distance, and direction skills well.

I  chose to go wide of the more complicated gardens, knowing that my brain was getting tired, but I didn't discipline myself to think about the map well, and went much wider than I needed to.

When I got to the gate I thought I was at the other gate. This was simply stupid.  I watched someone go in the other gate, but still didn't make the connection.  I was somewhat distracted by Al running away in front of me,too, instead of just thinking about what I was doing.

Having come in at a different point, I still ran in the wrong direction for a short time before realising that my direction was wrong, and then corrected-but the damage was done. I ran too far, then came to a tree with a control. At least I checked the number.. and realised it was not mine. So where had I gone wrong?

I had not taken note of distance or direction correctly. I had no idea where I was. Now it did something else I should not do... I meandered around trying to find the control by chance instead of doing something positive. Eventually I realised what I was doing, planned to return to the more open area, located my next control (by some good fortune), and worked my way back to the correct control, then went on. By now I had lost more than 9 minutes in this area, and had no hope of success left.

It is a classic setters trick to place a vague area near the end of a course. When your mind is already tired it is really hard to change your technique, concentrate and use all your skills. They got me well and truly this time.

After all that I finished about 10 minutes behind the next worst runner in my course (at the bottom) . This was all that I deserved for this poor display of orienteering.
And I finished thinking how much I had enjoyed it!!

That's the thing with orienteering.  You are always just that small way away from being better.

Will I learn a lesson (or three) from today? Who knows.  I hope it helps you to learn too, without the disadvantage of losing in the process.

26 cryptic crosswords - Spoonerisms

For Blaugust this year I decided to publish a series of cryptic crossword posts.
I'm aiming for one a day.

Many of our friends over the years have said that cryptic crosswords don't make sense. They certainly do play with your mind, and that is why I take delight in them.  I love the surprising discovery inside a puzzle and the challenge of twisting the usual thought patterns and making them do something different.

Sometimes the setter uses spoonerisms to give a tricky clue.

The indicator always says Spooner or spoon
A spoonerisms is when the first letter of one syllable or word  is changed for the first letter of another.

Cold toast becomes Told coast

So try this clue out for size...

For Spooner, tart can have little decoration (6)
This is a shorter spoonerism than the usual (it is often two words)

Tart can is the important thing
Tart can is pie tin
A spoonerism of "pie tin" is "tie pin" (see that shift of letters?)
So the answer is tie pin

Stalin took over my crossword!

Yesterday we were met with a tricky clue in the daily Advertiser crossword.

The word was 8 letters long and we already had _A_T_R_A.
It should have been easy, right?
We had no idea where to start and no way for extra help from cross words.

Eventually we realised that ACT might be law, and therefore since the Stalin is secret policeman had adopted law that might mean that _ _ R _A might somehow be a Stalinist secret policeman.... but we had to figure out that bugs (the straight clue) was probably BACTERIA (thanks Trev for that flash of brilliance) and then to look up Beria to find that he was the head of secret police in the time of Stalin.
Boy , that was a tough one!

So often we could do better at these if our general knowledge was better.

Here is the completed picture

The Christmas Pageant

Today is a beautiful day in Adelaide.  The weatherman says it will be 23 degrees C (that's 74 f). It's not the lovely sunny morning,or the magpies carolling or the beautiful purple of the jacaranda trees that is the most wonderful thing about Adelaide today.  It is the pageant!

The Christmas Pageant is a big thing in Adelaide.  If you can't get there, you can watch it on TV (this year it is apparently being broadcast nationally for the first time), but any parent worth their salt will be there with their excited kiddies. Jostling for the best spot close to the blue line (you can't be over the blue line) is an Adelaide tradition.  Grandparents head in to the city early and place their chairs and blankets to save a spot, so that parents can bring the kids in later. Offices on the route are hot property because employees can bring their kids in to watch from windows or balconies.  Trucks are parked early and space on the tray is a big treat because you can get a great vantage point.

Because hundreds of thousands of spectators line the streets each year, car parking is at a premium.  Whole streets of the city are closed off for the pageant.

When I grew up the pageant was already an institution.  I even owned a book "Tisi and the pageant" that told a story about a country kid (just like me) visiting the pageant.

The pageant was started in 1933 by Sir Edward Hayward, who owned John Martins department store.  In the middle of the depression the 'Childrens' Christmas Parade' apparently drew 200,000 spectators to watch the 8 floats and 3 bands walk by.  It was a knock over success story.  The following year Father Christmas went from the pageant to the magic cave for the first time.  I consider this to be one of the biggest marketing coups in Adelaide.  Every kid knew that the real Father Christmas lived in the magic cave in John Martins.  You could go there to see yourself looking fat, skinny and tall in the shaped mirrors,  or to ride on Nipper and Nimble.  You could sit on Santa's lap, and of course you could buy your toys there.

John Martins no longer exists, and the pageant is now a government thing, called the Credit Union Christmas Pageant-sponsored by a group of our credit unions and a wonderful gift back to the Adelaide Community.   It still has floats (I think there are over 60 this year), clowns, marching bands, bagpipes (hello Donna),  Nipper and Nimble and Father Christmas.

In Adelaide I think every little girl wanted to be the one who got to ride on Nipper or Nimble in the pageant.  They dressed in pretty clothes and waved beautifully and always looked happy. The closest I ever got was watching someone else ride them at the Magic Cave.

I've never seen the finale in person, when Father Christmas leaves his sleigh float with the pageant queen and they walk triumphantly into the Magic Cave.  It was always too crowded on North Tce.  It is enough to know that it happens.  And I think that David Jones (where the Magic Cave now exists) win in many ways.  They don't have to fund the pageant, but every kid in Adelaide still knows that that is where the real  Father Christmas is. 

According to long standing Adelaide tradition the second Saturday of November has arrived, Father Christams has come to town, and you can now put up your Christmas tree. 

Heading home from Ballarat-day 3

I left off as we crawled in to our warm swags at Mt Monster on Tuesday night. Now the saga continues....

Wednesday dawned and we woke to find a beautiful day awaiting us.  Tonight we were half expected for our regular Wednesday night dinner date with friends. Would we be there, or would we find so many places to stop that we would be camping somewhere for another night?

Mount Monster offers a couple of geocaches to find and also a signposted loop walk. We took a walk brochure from the box, dusted off the spider, and headed off to admire the views, and learn about the local flora and the people who donated this area to be a park.

The walk was easy and the information was interesting as we followed from post to post. We saw a few pretty flowers on the way. 

 The summit has a trig point (note the unusual animal that I found there) and a bit of a view over the local area. The warm reds of granite give way to the olives and browns of the natural bush within the park, and then to the greens and browns of the surrounding plateau.  Also an extraordinary collection of roo poo.  The roos must find these large granite rocks a nice warm spot to sun themselves I think.

Reluctantly we went on our way, finding a large quarry area also within the park as we drove out, and some other potential camping spots too (though not so formally marked). 

Since we were so close to Keith we headed there, enjoyed a free cuppa at the local bakery and bought the newspaper. Can't go without that cryptic crossword much longer.  Now we could head down the highway and be home in a couple of hours or.....

We could go adventuring a bit more.  

Next spot was a revisit to Tolmer Rocks via Tintinara. These rocks, like Mount Monster, bulge unexpectedly from the flat landscape around them.  There is a track that curves around the bottom of the rocks which has some nice flat areas suitable for bush camping.  As long as it is not a fire ban this appears to be allowed. A few friends could easily find enough space to park their vehicles here and enjoy the serenity.

The day was warming up and the reptiles were enjoying the sunshine. In the next space of driving we saw numerous lizards and a couple of brown snakes.

We headed towards Mt Boothby Conservation Park and took the rough track through a small section of the park and around the edge. Although only a short distance this took a very long time due to the very rough track, which required a lot of slow and careful driving. A lot of fire damage was evident in the park, and also many emus, which decided to run on the track in front of us in a seeming mad panic, rather than staying quietly in the bush.  As we took the track around the perimeter we stopped on the rise to admire the view and have a cuppa, before taking the clearer track along the western side. The crazy emus enjoying the cleared paddock on the other side suddenly decided that they needed to get into the park and ran along the fence line, crashing in to the fence over and over until they made it through,  and then running across the track in front of us.  Crazy animals with very little brain! No wonder the poor farmers keep on having to fix fences. Those birds are very large and sure must hit the fences with a lot of force when they do that.

The north western corner of the park offered some flat areas which might  be quite good camping spots, but it's a bit tricky to get to. We left the park via Richardson Rd, but that road might get a bit messy in the wet.  It might be much easier to get in via Lutze Rd to the North. We haven't tried that though, so not sure what it would be like.  We've also realised that the nearby Boothby rocks reserve, a few km down the road to the south,  may also have some good camping and we've never been there, so next time we are down that way we will need to check that out too.

We meandered our way in a vaguely northerly direction, finding ourselves travelling across some very 4WD track (soft sand) along the old gold route. I hate to think what it would have been like in the old days. In various spots along the old route there are memorial stones.

As we reached the start of the Crows Nest Rd Trevor remembered that there used to be a cache in this area.  Sure enough, with the limited mobile phone coverage I had we identified that it was still there.  It has been a long time since we completed a multi cache.  This one used the information on the stone.  We had to use the actual GPS -which meant finding it and waiting for it to lock in on some satellites.  Eventually we drove back over some of the deep sand and traipsed through the bush to find the cache, then turned around again and made our way on towards home.

As we worked our way towards our junction with the Princes highway we came across Mason's Lookout Rd.  Thinking to find a lovely lookout we followed the road, but couldn't find the lookout.  Eventually eagle eyes Trevor noticed the gate into a paddock with the sign "Mason's Lookout". We couldn't even pick out a track across the crop.  It doesn't look like the lookout gets many visits, and we left it that way. Somewhere up in those sandhills is a lookout.

Once we hit the highway we were nearly at Tailem Bend and home was calling, so we stayed on the highway and were back in our own house a little over an hour later.

Thus ended a very enjoyable few days of relaxed travel on the back roads, and discovery of so many lovely places we would usually drive straight past.  Hopefully it won't be too long before we have the opportunity to do it again, and maybe to use some of those newly found camping spots.

Roads less travelled between Ballarat and Adelaide in early October 2016

As we travelled we marvelled at the changes in the countryside.

We took some photos on the way and here is a brief snapshot of some of the roads we took.