On the Bottom Half

Sky diving, Canberra, and Kosciuzko

Since I last blogged, I did the unthinkable... yes, I went skydiving. My flatmate decided it was time, in her words, to "lose our jump virginity", ipso facto (see picture at left)...

After so much time buzzing about the sky in impressively performing ultralights, my immediate comment upon reaching 5000' of a 10000' climb, 20 minutes after takeoff, was: "Hmm, it certainly climbs like a Cessna." However, I have to give it to the old bird. There were 6 people (including pilot) in a C185, proving my contention that sky diving pilots are just a little bit crazy. Betcha didn't think you could fit that many into a 3 passenger airplane, huh?

It's a rush! But, wow is it loud. Two hundred mph winds past your ears for 30 seconds leaves you a bit deaf when you finish. Such an odd perspective on the familiar airport hurtling deliriously, directly toward it, downward. It is nice not to have an instrument panel in front of you... I do so love airports that the view was pretty spectacular. Oh yeah (Mom avert your eyes) the parachute didn't open ... ... as quickly as my tandem diver was expecting. So, instead of losing less than 1000' on chute opening, we lost 1500' and despite being the last people out the airplane, were first on the ground.

On the way home, I had a drink that contained something called "aeromatic bitters", which I suppose have to do with being imported by airplane, but who am I to be a spelling nit-picker?

The very next day, I was off to Canberra on what will be the last research for my project. For the past two weeks, I've been working in Canberra at a high pressure experimental petrology lab using machines called piston cylinders, which I profiled briefly several months ago. Simple explanation: they squeeze small volumes to high pressure and temperature (25 kbar and 1800 degrees for those of you interested). I haven't really had any time to write blog posts as the machines here are busy and accept the smallest of available downtimes. They look like this:

They have 8 of them here, my lab in Monash has one. They almost always work here, I've never ran a successful experiment at Monash. They have really awesome techs here, at Monash I have me as engineer, experimenter, tech, and troubleshooter - a more inadequate combination I couldn't find anywhere. Hoo-ray for established laboratories! I've achieved more in the last two and a half weeks than I was able to extract from my cylinder in 9 months. Yesssss.

Last weekend, I was taken by a friend to Mount Kosciuzko, which is Australia's highest, ahem, mountain. If you can guess which of the peaks in this picture is Kozi, then you're doing well. All jokes aside, it is a beautiful place. It is unfair to judge Australia's hillocks based on cragginess or sheer height because they are all on a very tall alpine plain. We summited the peak at 2228 metres and lorded our lofty position over all of majestic Australia before eating lunch and leaning on the 90 km/h gusts of wind! It was a beautiful spot. Yes, yes... look at me there, the highest person in Australia (not on drugs), sitting guru-like on the survey cairn atop Kozi... I unfortunately have little useful knowledge for the masses of wishful pilgrims, my brain mostly a gelatinous ooze of useless facts with the consistency of pear puree. You used to be able to drive right to the top of the mountain, but more for shame's sake than anything I think, the road is now blocked to vehicles and you must walk.

We stayed in a lovely skiing (!) town called Thredbo, which was marvellous. Thredbo is situated at the base of an unexpectedly impressive ski hill. It is used as a sweet, sweet downhill biking run in the summer, which considering that this is Australia, the hill is actually a downhill biking track that serves as a ski hill in the winter. The picture to the left is basically the back wall of the headwaters of the Snowy River. The very same Snowy River of "The Man From Snowy River" fame.

The wildflowers were out and blooming, lizards were sunbaking, and wild rasperries were ripe and sweet. All is well with the world, right?



And the vistas are superb. Yes, all is well.













The trip finished off with a float down the Murray River, which is one-half of the Murray-Darling River system that basically feeds Australia. It starts off up in the Kozi highlands and continues west to the ocean at Adelaide. We floated at gloriously named "Tom Groggin", a rest area, camping zone, and cattle station, which, by the way, is a little north of Suggan Buggan. Thought you'd like to know the two coolest-named places in Australia. Ciao...

posted by Kyle @ 18:45