Chris's Random Ramblings

Tue, 23 Mar 2004 - Mt Orroral I've been up to the geodetic observatory near the Orroral valley several times, but never made it up to nearby Mt Orroral. The area was pretty badly burnt out in the January 2003 fires, which had the benefical side effect that it cleared out all the scrub, making off trail walking much easier. Its a pretty steep walk from the observatory up to the top of Mt Orroral (about 300m elevation gain in 1km) but there is rewarding view from the top. By the end I had a lot of soot marks on my clothes and backpack from clambering over dead burnt trees.

I did get a really neat photo of a bird sitting on the back of a kangaroo, looking quite comfortable. On the drive back to Canberra a couple of kangaroos hopping along together tried rather hard to get themselves run over, though luckily the first was just fast enough and the second chickened out at the last second. Much thanks to ABS.

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Tue, 16 Mar 2004 - Lakes walk Spent the Canberra day long weekend up at Kosciuszko national park with Martin and Stephanie. We went on a short walk on the first day up to North Ramshead which is a prominent rocky outcrop fairly near to Mt Kosciuszko. Unlike the previous trip the weather was really good - cool and clear blue skies - so although a little clambering over rocks was required at the top it was pretty easy. Great views from of Kosciuszko and the surrounding areas.

The next day we left pretty early in the morning to do the lakes walk. Its a 22km circuit walk which includes going to the top of Mt Kosciuszko. Its a pretty long walk (given the altitude) but a really nice one with views throughout. The especially nice parts were when the trail ran along the side of a mountain with a hanging lake below, and the top of Mt Caruthers where you could see almost the entire circuit track.

The next day I went up to Yarrangobilly caves. Visited the swimming pool which is fed by a thermal spring and went through one of the caves which you're allowed to go into by yourself.

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Sun, 07 Mar 2004 - Melbourne I'm on an unexpected work trip to Melbourne - it wasn't organised till Friday afternoon and I flew down Saturday morning. There is a little car race on this weekend so the city is rather busy. The hotel I'm staying at is quite close to Albert park and there quite a few people invovled in the race at breakfast this morning. Had a crash course in java virtual machines and websphere yesterday. Now I remember why I like to have source code available when debugging problems.

Note to self: Always bring an umbrella when travelling to Melbourne.

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Mon, 01 Mar 2004 - Digital Clarity Finally got sick and tired of the pretty dodgy tv reception I get (especially during bad weather) and went out and bought a digital set top box. Its only a standard definition one, but my tv isn't that big anyway. Goodbye to Mr Static.

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Mon, 01 Mar 2004 - Mt Tennent On Sunday I took the southern side route up to the top of Mt Tennent. A really nice sunny, but not too warm day for a walk, with a bit of a breeze to keep most of the insects away. There is a fire lookout on the top of Mt Tennent which is normally locked. But this time there was someone there (watching for fires) and he was nice enough to give me a bit of a tour of the place. Not surprisingly there is a great view from the top.

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