Ellis’s first sports day

First school sports day. Well, Ellis is in Pre Primary so it was all light hearted and fun for the girls.

Waiting for their turn, they were all together in their house teams, chanting and having fun

lined up, the whistle went off and they all kind of looked around wondering what to do, as soon as the first one bolted they all bolted as well.

There was a lot of looking around and waving to parents as they ran past, bit young to be competitive. Not the case for some parents who where screaming words of encouragement at their children, some louder than others (Lara was a little embarrassing……)

She definitely didn’t win, but she was very pleased to take part and enjoyed it.

Half paddling, Half swimming the Avon

The water has finally arrived in the Avon river. With a few last minute phone calls I met Mark and Andy at 6am in Bells rapids car park to start the car shuffles to go up to Posselts Ford where we started our valley run.

It was pretty cold at around 3 degrees in the fog that hung onto the river. We got paddling and soon warmed up. To the first rapid, super shoot – I fell in. Amazingly the water was warmer than out! I was a bit miffed at falling in as I had expected to have better balance this year compared to last with all the sea paddling I have been doing, but obviously not.

We made it down to Emu falls, this is probably one of the harder rapids on the river. Not crazy but a few nasty rocks that catch you out easily, we go out and had a look at it to try to remember the lines through it

By the time we had been looking at it for a few minutes we were all shivering uncontrollably. I hadn’t been this cold for some time.

Andy took the honours and went through. He cleared all the hard bits but managed to bang into a rock at the end which tipped him in. I made a mental note to avoid that rock.

Next up was Mark – flash twat got through it no worries and made it look easy.

Then it was my turn, a few star jump and sprinting on the spot to try to get some warmth back into the body

Got my line perfect, thought I had nailed it, remembered the bottom rock that had caught Andy out….. where is it?…. There it is, stop staring at it… steer, steer….. THUMP

Next time I will have it.

the ‘Valley run’ as it is known, is 42km + change long, and what is cool about it is that once in the valley there is no points of access for 30km along it, so it is pretty committing. I think that is half the appeal, the only way to get into it is by paddling, and if something goes wrong it is a long nasty walk through bush out. The sun was beginning to burn off the fog now – still wasn’t that warm though, if we stopped the shivers came back pretty quick but it was nice to have the sun on you.

A lovely day out, hopefully manage to do another valley run before the water disappears for the summer. Both Andy and I got pretty beaten up while swimming down the river bouncing off rocks after we had been tipped in at numerous rapids along the way. Good bruising and good memories.

Julimar State forest exploring and Learning expensive Lessons

Met up with Will a mate from work and he had a couple of friends along as well, we went to Julimar state forest for an explore with the 4×4. It had been raining a bit during the week and we were expecting it to be wet

One of the guys along with us who I had never met, was hell bent in driving through any water he could find. Looked fun, but potentially very expensive. Normal protocol is that you leave water alone unless you have a snorkel on the car which raises the air intake to roof height so that if you go through water the engine doesn’t suck water into the engine. Unfortunately he didn’t have one.

after about 5 seconds his engine cut out, and the car was stuck and just taking on water everywhere.

Ryan had to jump into the puddle and fish around under water until he found where the recovery point was ( wasn’t pleasant as there was a dead rotting Kangaroo next to it that stunk). We pulled the car out of the hole and assessed the damage.

The end result was that the engine had sucked water right through the engine and was dead as a door nob. We had to tow the car back out 15km to the road where it was picked up the next day on a low loader. the car was a right off. A very expensive mistake. I have now learnt that water and cars don’t mix and might put a snorkel on my car just in case!

Weekend in Guilderton

Spent a lovely weekend up in Guilderton camping next to the Moore River. Was lucky enough to witness the sandbank break and the river empty out into the sea ( apparently it happens 10 ish so times a year). Started as a little trickle and ended up huge all within 2 hours. A great weekend camping with the Staffords, biking, paddling and playing on the beach with the kids.

: Family bike ride

: Ellis and Kai riding together on their new bikes

: a HUGE change with the 16″ wheels for ellis

: Ellis and Kai tying to see how deep a hole they can dig

: Before the sand bank was broken

: Ellis and Lara riding around the River

: Of course stopping for flower picking

: Mark and I went for a paddle

: In some cool T trees, trying to get the Avon feeling

: great day for paddling

: saw a sand dune on the river so had to drag boat up it

: and slide down it into the river

: Huge pelican eyeing me up

: the dam thing followed me

: Breaking of the sand bank ( about 10 minutes)

: Ellis and Kai enjoying playing in it whilst it was small and manageable

: mark trying to stay on a stopper

: getting bigger ( about 30 minutes)

: Mark running down it

: My turn

: Was getting bigger all the time

: great fun white water

: the point i fell out and got washed out

: the state of it after about 1hr 15mins

: 1hour 30 minutes

: 1hour 40 minutes – was just huge and amazing to watch the river empty into the sea

: the mess of water as the river met the sea surf, why i stopped paddling it as it got too big and scary!

: Ellis and Lara playing on the beach

: what it looked like after 2 hours and when we left

: a good fun day on the boats

: Ellis and Kai playing in the tent

: Ellis after shower

: Night time tree climbing by head torch

: After it had emptied the next day.

: Lara and Sam’s turn

: Ellis running after mum telling her she forgot her paddle

: another great winter day

: sunday afternoon explore up the coast from Guilderton to seabird

: stopping at the little beaches not he way

: a lovely coast, shame camping is not allowed here….

: green tongued tired girl!

Bells rapids with the Kids

Spent a lovely Sunday at Bell’s rapids, 5 families, a herd of kids and a BBQ. Played in the river, went Geocacheing and then the kids tried paddling. A nice way to pass a day playing with the kids outside.

: Playing with the kids and teaching them how to cross flowing water safely

: then that was it, they were everywhere!!!

: Van and Ro playing in the water

: feet (yes i have just got a waterproof camera)

: Van showing me his best poses

: then they found mud!!!!

: Tim couldn’t refuse some mud as well!

: Seth getting his face pack on

: Seth and Storm crossing

: The happy Ots playing

: Then it was time for the kids to have a go at paddling, ellis got the hang of it in the shallows

: so went out further

: The avon Descent for her next year!

Climbing in the Porongurups

Friday night after work we jumped into car and drove down to the Porongurups listening to Rhys 90 mega mix playlist. Once getting there we went to Mount Barker to find some beer. The town was completely shut at 8pm on a Friday night, how can people live here!!! bitterly disappointed we drove on to the hills and found a place to sleep.

Got up bright and early and set off to climb Raven *** on Gibraltar Rock. A large granite slab with amazing friction. a great climb, emotional.

I think we shall be back to try and climb few other routes as it was a great day out, fairly low stress climbing in a beautiful place. Great to do some climbing in WA.

Racing cycle cross in Perth

CX in Perth, apparently this was the first race they have ever had with real CX conditions! It rained, hailed and was awesome. I wore my disc pads down to nothing and had no brakes for the last lap. I won a 6 pack of beer. Thank you to Tony Meldrum for the photos of me.

: having a quick ride around the course, still clean

: Tom firing around

: through some of the mud

: had stairs to run up

: final result, i got third in my category

: they even gave doughnuts out at the end!

Morning paddle Sessions

Most wedensdays during the winter I go paddling before work. I have been meaning to take my camera for ages to try and capture how beautiful it can be in the mornings paddling in the middle of the swan in the dark, paddling away as the sun slowly comes up to another day. We usually go out for around and hour doing Will’s lovely pyramid sprints and finish with achy tired shoulders. The fear is always there of falling in when it is dark as who knows what lurks in the water. Usually it is dolphins but they still put the shits up you!

Winter here is still pretty good fun!

Saturday in the hills riding MTBs and Geocaching with the Elks

Saturday was spend going for Will’s last mountain bike ride. Pete showed us some of the new trails he had been building. Letting out a small squeal when he though Will was going to not clear the gap jump and had horrible visuals of sending him home to the UK in a sling. It was wet and sloppy out there, which even made some mud for us! nearly felt like home.

Afterwards we went to the pub for lunch then on to Jorgenson Park to go geocache hunting with the Kids. Good fun and the kids loved rummaging through the push hunting for the hidden treasure.

Bye Bye Will

Will is sadly leaving us to go back to Blighty for good. As a last bash he organised a mini race for all of us. He found a cool phone App call Loquiz where he set out an orienteering type course with a three hour time limit. Different check points were worth different amounts depending on their difficulty. We had a choice of how we got to them, Running, biking, paddling or however else you wanted.

teams of two, i was paired with Jo. Three hours and the rest you can see below. A very good fun afternoon – some racing competitively others not so much……

after the race we all retired to the pubs and then onto a gig where the night got messy.