Chris's Random Ramblings
If Canberra is the capital Australia why do I always end up sending my passport to Sydney to get a visa for a foreign country?
The Linux.conf.au 2005 organising committee arranged for speakers at the conference to go on an early morning balloon ride over Canberra as a thank-you gift for speaking at the conference. On Thursday morning, Kelly and I went along with some of the speakers, meeting at the Hyatt hotel at 5:30am.
We drove along with the basket and uninflated balloon to a field near Canberra airport where our balloon and 2 others were setup for flight. The winds were blowing in different direction compared to the previous time I had been on a balloon ride, and this time we headed westward over parliament house towards Schrivner Dam. It was a beautifully clear morning and visibility to the surrounding mountains very clear.
About halfway through the flight, there was a rather strong smell of burning hair, and I turned around to see Kelly patting at her hair which was on fire. It turns out that some leaves had fallen from inside the balloon and caught fire as they fell through the burners. Luckily Kelly only lost a small amount of hair. A small part of my jacket was melted as well. Afterwards the pilot claimed that it has never happened in a balloon he has piloted before, though apparently someone else was singed during the inflation of the balloon the next morning.
Since Kelly had not been up to Mt Kosciusko before, we decided to go up to Thredbo for the weekend and walk to the top. Leaving Gizzy and Pipe at my place to keep each other amused, we left early Saturday morning for the 2.5 hour drive to Thredbo.
The weather was absolutely amazing - sunny, a little bit windy and a lot warmer than I had expected. The walk felt a whole lot easier than last time when I went up with Martin when it was very windy, wet and cold. Had lunch with great views towards Charlotte's Pass, though was buzzed at the top a few times by some army helicopters. I think they are the new ones the government recently purchased, and someone was taking them for a joy ride.
Sunday morning we spent walking around Thredbo. Quite a few places there that look really good for a longer stay. We headed back to Canberra via Khancoban and Kiandra, along the narrow mountain roads, along which Kelly had a lot of fun driving.
Yesterday we went on a big road trip down through Cooma where we had lunch at a great little, almost gourmet, burger place. The chicken/corn/avocado burger was really nice. After that we headed further south to Bega where we visited the cheese factory. We then headed up north, stopping at Narooma where saw "Australia Rock" (a big rock by the sea with a hole roughly the shape of Australia), before heading on to Batemans Bay and turning back towards Canberra.
Travelled around 400km in one day which is a record for my car which has only gone about 18000km in the last 3 years. The mountainous countryside was really interesting and I'll definitely be back in the future to some hiking. I even picked up a couple of good hiking trail books in Cooma - hopefully not too much has been changed by the recent fires.