Rambling from down under...

Halo halo!

Woa...June...respect!! Backpacking alone in Borneo! Would be a real good experience though. Hehe...don't think I'll have enough courage to do that.

Anyways..here I am procrastinating to study for my test nex week, and trying to make sense of my lecture notes, something bout income flows and GDP...oh wells, that can wait a while. Hehe.. Okies..so let me see...where did I stop last time? Oh ya... my winter hols.

Yep, I went with 85 other people up to the desert in Central Australia. It was a adventure/camping trip organised by the university. Had a really great time up there - pretty walks and sightseeing, and freezing my arse off at night in the tent. It was like -2 deg in d mornings and tryin to get out of my sleeping bag was so so hard. Oh and I climbed Uluru/Ayers Rock...that big rock in the middle of the Australian desert. It was really really steep... 75 deg slope at some parts.. crazy! But reaching the top...that made everything totally totally worth it.

Came back from Central Aus...and the next week I was off skiing!! Was my first time... didn't fall too much. It was heaps of fun just to be out in the snow. Only managed to get 2 days worth of skiing though...but I was doing the intermediate runs on the 2nd day. Wished I had more time there but my friend had to come back to Melb early. Skiin is a real cool sport... but it's so darn ex! 1 day ski rental and lift cost me like AUD110! Stayed with a friend so transport and accomodation was free... but all in all, I was broke by the end of the winter hols! Planned not to go on trips for a while...

The semester started...and here I am back into full swing again. 4th week of classes now.. and I'm playing hockey, Aussie rules football, netball and soccer for college. Heaps of sports trainings every week. And of course... more mountaineering trips! Hehe...oh wells, plans to slow down on trips never happened...

Since d sem started...been on 2 long weekend hikes. First, we had this trip called the Midnite Ascent. It's our mountaineering club's annual ball. Basically, 25 of us hiked up the steepest mountain in Victoria at midnite on Friday. Took me about 5 hours...with a 20kgs backpack! Kinda like climbin to the summit of Kinabalu.. steeper in fact. Got up to the hut at about 6am and waited for about an hour for sunrise. Then slept in till about 11am. The hut was built by the club members about 20 yrs ago...yeah...they carried all d stuff up the mountain... and it's really really cool inside..no beds though...but here I'm talking...normal uni students like us...and they actually managed to build a hut! Respect! Anyways, Saturday..got up, had some lunch and hiked up to the summit. Took about 2 hours trudging in snow.... d weather was perfect...hot sun and snow everywhere. It was so so pretty. We came back down at bout 4 pm..was attacked by snowballs when I reached the hut... and then got changed for the ball. Yeps...we carried our formal clothes up the mountain. Theme was Romans vs Barbarians, so I dressed up in a toga. After everyone got changed, we all went outside into the snow and took a gp photo. 1 hour of freezing ourselves out latter, we went back into the hut to cook our dinner.

Basically we got into pairs and some cooked entree, some main and some dessert. The catch was, we could only use fresh stuff to cook up our meals! One guy even brought up a pasta maker and made fresh pasta from flour!! Hehe....it was good fun though trying to cook a good meal on a camping stove. I came up with butter chicken curry and since we didn't have roti canai, I buttered some lebanese bread and pan-fried them. They really like it...hehe...I can cook! =p And of course, everyone brought up alcohol - wine,beer & spirits...yeps..we carried then all d way up the mountain! hehe...crazy eh? Anyways to cut thing short, we had a great time tat night, and descended the mountain in the afternoon the next day. Everyone was walking funny the next week...gosh...my muscles were so sore...but I still managed to go for all the sports trainings and even played a hockey competition!

And the next weekend, which was the one that just past, I went cross-country skiin! This time my bag was like 25kgs cause had to carry the skis and a tent up. Lucky the hike wasn't as steep...but still was pretty darn long. Started climbin at midnite again...and when we reached the first campsite, we didn't even bother setting up tents. Jus crawled into my sleeping bag on a ground sheet and fell right asleep. Next day, we continued hiking up to the campsite...it was all covered in snow!! Dumped our bags, had some lunch, and then hiked to the summit and skied! Sunset was really awesome at the summit! It was getting dark so we left our skis under a tree and hiked back down to the campsite. Cooked up dinner and by 9.30 pm we were all fast asleep! Next day, we hiked up again, took about 1.5 hours...and skied the rest of the morning! It was really cool cause there were liek 4 summits and no one else there cept the 5 of us. The onli difference compared to the resorts was taht we had to ski up the slopes before we could ski down! It was still heaps of fun! Had really really massive blisters though cause I hiked up the mountain with plastic ski boots! They were so painful...but the fun jus made up for everything.

Wasn't plannin to go away this weekend....but a day trip just came up...and I signed up for it! Hehe...going outdoor rock climbing this Sunday! =p Just for a day though cause I've got so much studying to catch up on. Been practising kayaking at the pool as well, and working a lot on my eskimo rolls....jus hoping there'll be more rain here. The rivers have been pretty dry so not many outdoor kayaking trips...hopefully they'll start running again soon.

Anyways, I'd better stop rambling and get back to work now. Okies, hope to hear what you guys are up to now! Take care!!