2018 Xmas Letter

Hi All,

At the end of last year's letter we said that we planned to do a month-long trip to New Zealand early in 2018 to do three different cycle tours and two great walks (Abel Tasman and Keppler). Karen also wanted to use as little plastic as possible while I made a commitment to become a much more militant atheist. Somewhat surprisingly, we achieved all three things plus more!

Please read on ... or at least check out the pictures by clicking on the thumbnails below to make the images bigger, then click the larger images to make them small again.

If you want to find out what we are doing more than once a year at Xmas, you can visit our Facebook pages by clicking Karen's FB page and Brett's FB page. You can also see a whole lot more of our photos of bushwalks and trips on Brett's Flickr page.

New Zealand (February and March)

Karen and I were joined by two friends (Vic and Jan) for a cycling and walking tour of New Zealand. A severe weight loss program prior to departure to make the cycling and hiking easier saw me lose 7kg in 7 weeks (but I had put most of it back on by the end of the year). Our first cycle was the 3 day Rimutaka Cycle Trail which starts on the eastern side of Wellington Harbour on the North Island. It was excellent, despite some very dodgy creek crossings with water levels higher than normal due to a passing cyclone.

We then ferried over to the South Island and walked for 3 days on the Abel Tasman Coast Track before bussing to Greymouth on the west coast for the 2 day West Coast Wilderness Cycle Trail. From Hokitika another bus took us to Wanaka, where we hired a car and drove up the Matukituki Valley to do a day walk on the Rob Roy Glacier Track in Mt Aspiring National Park. We also hired bikes from the YHA and did a ride from Wanaka to Lake Hawea and back via Albert Town.

Our next cycle was for two days on the Roxburgh Gorge Trail and the Clutha Gold Trail from Clyde to Lawrence, with a compulsory boat ride on the Clutha River and an overnight stay at Roxburgh.

A couple more busses got us to Te Anau for the fantastic 4 day Keppler Track full-pack hike, and we finished our NZ stay with a day of sightseeing in Queenstown followed by a day ride out to Arrowtown and back.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images - then click the large image to make it small again

The Kitchen Renovation - April to July

After the New Zealand trip we spent the rest of Autumn and half of Winter planning the complete replacement of our very tired looking kitchen. The textured yellow benchtops from the 1980s were impossible to clean, the sink was rusting out, the gas stove was on its last legs, we had multiple busted hinges that were no longer available, and our gas oven only had one temperature no matter what the setting was - burn the shit out of everything.

We pretty much stayed with the old design apart from a couple of tweaks - bigger breakfast bar with more knee room, sink moved to give more stacking space, corner cupboards accessible from the outside for easier use, and we moved the wall oven to underneath the cooktop to provide more bench space.

I mocked up a design in Photoshop and the finished product looked remarkably similar to our original vision - compare the second photo and the last photo below.

We replaced our gas oven with an electric oven, our gas cooktop with an induction cooktop, our tiled splashback with black glass, our rusting sink with stainless steel, our yellow formica benchtops with Caesarstone, all the lower shelves with soft-close drawers, and we also replaced our microwave oven (after our old one gave up the ghost right in the middle of the installation when it was our only available cooking appliance!).

A new toaster, a new electric jug, and much improved overhead lighting were the final touches, and we are very pleased with the result!

South-west Queensland - September and October

Despite Marriage Rule #1 which states "Nothing is to be arranged in September because it is AFL finals month", Karen committed us to 8 days of bird surveys on a Bush Heritage property named Naree, 150km northwest of Bourke in outback NSW.

And as we were going to be out there anyhow, why not continue on afterwards to Eulo, Quilpie, Windorah, Birdsville, Bedourie, Boulia, Winton, Longreach, Mitchell, St George and Mungindi?

The bird surveys went really well and we worked with some really outstanding birders (Karen and I consider ourselves to be average birders). Our donga accommodation on Naree Station was excellent, and I even managed to ingratiate my way into watching the last half of the AFL grand final with the two caretakers of the property in the homestead!

Because of the lateness of the season - Grey Nomads head for cooler climes come October - we rarely sighted a vehicle on our 4,000 kilometre circuit of outback southwest Queensland, and we had campsites (and entire national parks) to ourselves on the banks of the Paroo River in Currawinya National Park (the first photo below), the Bulloo River, the Barcoo River in Welford National Park, and even in the caravan park in Birdsville by the bore-fed lagoon on the southside of town (photo #4).

At Birdsville we visited "Big Red" which marks the symbolic edge of the Simpson Desert, the first sand dune of 1,140 further west (see Karen on Big Red in photo #5).

Birdsville also presented us with our first "lifer" for the trip (a lifer is a bird species seen and positively identified by an individual birder which that birder has never seen previously). The bird was the Flock Bronzewing - a pigeon endemic to the drier parts of Australia - which (as the name suggests) hangs around in very large flocks. We must have seen about a thousand of them (see photo #6).

Highlights of the rest of the trip included a second lifer - a Spotless Crake - at the Winton Sewerage Works (water treatment plants are must-see places for any outback birders), the 90 million year old dinosaur footprints at Lark Quarry south of Winton (photos 8, 9 and 10), and the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre just outside of Winton (photo #11).

Photo #12 shows Karen at the One Ton Post near Mungindi which marks the eastern end of the straight section of border which separates NSW and QLD (the western end is Cameron's Corner). As trig points go, they don't get very much more significant than this!

Murray River Cycling - last week of November

Karen organized a 5 day cycling circuit with me and 8 friends starting at Walwa on the Victorian side of the Murray River, staying in cabins at Colac Colac, Bullioh and Ebden before a night in the Granya pub. We covered about 300km in the 5 days, with the highlight being the High Country Rail Trail which starts near the highest railway station in Victoria at Shelley and heads west for 65 kilometres along the southern shore of the south arm of the Lake Hume Reservoir to Wodonga.

On the final two days of the trip we followed the southern shore of the north arm of the Lake Hume Reservoir and the Murray River back to our starting point.

Falls Creek Hiking - first week of December

After our 5 day cycling trip finished at Walwa, we drove to the YMCA camp at Howmans Gap near Falls Creek (Victoria) for a week of walking with 11 friends organized by Judy and Graeme on the plateaus and mountains around the ski resort. The accommodation, company, weather, walks, scenery and wildlife (even the feral horses) were all excellent!

Bushwalking

Karen is now into her 7th year as President of the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers and in the past 19 years with the club has led 231 walks, more than any other club member and 30 more than her nearest rival. She has also been the Weekend Walks Coordinator for 16 years, and only this year relinquished the job!

I have been the webmaster for the Bushwalkers for 19 years now, but have only led 116 walks - which still places me 7th on the club's "Leaders Hall of Fame".

Along with our administrative duties, we still continued our adventures with the Shoalhaven Bushwalkers, in a variety of environments as you can see in the photos below, including walking on beaches and rock platforms, swimming across lakes, camping in the Budawangs after being helicoptered in to do track maintenance, exploring overhangs, old mines and abandoned railway tunnels, and clambering around numerous clifflines!

Sport and Fitness

I am not as fit as I once was, but a bit of work got me fit enough to successfully complete the long bike rides in New Zealand early in the year and in Victoria in November. I also walked myself into the ground through willpower in a few rogaines during the year. In a 12 hour rogaine at Wingello in May with friend Michael, we came 3rd in the Men's Veterans division (over 40) and 7th overall. It is tough giving those 40 year old youngsters 25 years head start!

In the 24 hour ACT Rogaining Championships at Yarrangobilly in April with friend Bill, we came 3rd in the Men's Super Veterans (over 55), 3rd in the Men's Veterans (over 40) and 11th overall. In the 24 hour NSW Championships in the Abercrombie National Park in September, again with friend Bill, we came 2nd in the Men's Super Veterans, 2nd in the Men's Veterans, 6th (out of 17) in the Men's Open (over 18) and 10th overall. Bill reckons 24 hour rogaines are harder than the Iron Man Triathlons he has competed in!

I managed to play golf 38 times during the year, starting the year with a handicap of 8.6, blowing out to 9.8 and finishing the year on 7.8. I won A grade a few times and generally played pretty well.

Unlike me who relies on bushwalking on Wednesdays and golf on Thursday to keep fit, Karen exercises regularly. She swims every week with the Wobbegongs - a Winter swimming club - at Huskisson in the colder months and trains with them a couple of times a week for the rest of the year. With fellow Wobbegongs, Karen competed in the Australian Winter Swimming Championships at North Sydney Olympic pool in September. All events were 50m long, and Karen is definitely not a sprinter!

And while I am playing golf on Thursday morning, Karen is riding her mountain bike with the Shoalhaven Bicycle Users Group (BUG), and she still does occasional walks and weights and stretches as well as bushwalking.

Photography

I am still the VP and webmaster of the Bay and Basin Camera Club which meets twice a month at Vincentia. Below are four photos I submitted for competitions this year. As usual, they are just snaps that I take while doing other things.

The first image below was snapped in a hut on the Keppler Track in NZ, entered in a "Triptych" competition. I also entered the fourth image below in the same comp, snapped with my mobile phone on the way home from Nowra.

The black and white mushroom shot was also taken on the Keppler Track, and entered into an "Odd Couples" comp. The cracked mud shot was snapped on our SW QLD trip.

Birds and Birdlife Shoalhaven

Karen is still the treasurer of BirdLife Shoalhaven, and I am the webmaster. We also organize occasional birdwatching walks for our members. Our birding highlights for the year were mentioned above in our SW QLD trip when we added two birds to our life lists - the Flock Bronzewing and the Spotless Crake.

We still feed our resident magpie pair - Ricky and Lucy - who were unsuccessful in their reproductive efforts again this year.

Plans for 2019

I plan to continue fighting for causes I believe in. Right now Karen and I are trying to convince Bushwalking NSW to change its policy of charging reduced membership fees (per capita) for three large city-based clubs, and I believe that this will be successful. I am also trying to convince the NSW and ACT Rogaining Associations to allow solo entries into all their rogaines, but this will probably be futile because of safety considerations.

I also plan to get my weight back down below 75kg in the next couple of months. I also plan to continue my promotion of atheism, which could be working because nobody has complained about my regular "Thank God it's Friday" Facebook posts. Either all my friends are already atheists, or they are quite happy to see me burn in hell for all eternity ...

Karen is planning a week of walking in the northern Snowies for us in February, and maybe a bike-riding trip to Sri Lanka sometime in 2019 as well, which I am not interested in at all. Watch this space!

As always, we hope everyone has a great Xmas and New Year, and that 2019 is wonderful for you too ...

Cheers,

Brett and Karen

P.S. As usual, our previous yearly letters can be viewed by clicking the following links - 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.