Time flies
Although I'm certain to have alienated most of my readers by now, I assure you that the reports of my death have been highly exaggerated.
In the last three months, much in life has changed. I completed and handed in my thesis, mannied for a good friend, caught some sunshine, lazed about, moved to Calgary, set up house with Louise, and started to turn the next page of my life.
We have a lovely little town house in Calgary and managed to set up home by the generosity of family and friends.
I'm not yet sure how to continue this blog, but I will find a way. Louise and I have set ourselves a special challenge this winter, which will likely form the next focus. More on that later (once the snow gives a hint that it is about to fly).
Anyway, just a shot update to let you know that I haven't forgot about you.
I think I'll start going through the back catalogue of photos from the past few years. There's much yet to share.
Mostly Hadrian's Wall
So, a few days after arriving back from France, we made a quick trip to Bristol to visit Louise's family there, followed by a passing glance at Cardiff in the south of Wales. The next day, she and I shot off to Newcastle, which is clear across the country, almost at the Scottish border. It was also the first time that I was released as driver-in-command upon the roads of Britain. Now, you make think that the roads get busy in Alberta at certain times of the day, and I certainly won't deny that. But, you have never driven in traffic until you've driven in British traffic at 80 miles an hour with what seem like peak-hour traffic volumes. It doesn't really matter what time of the day it is, there are always lots of cars getting people everywhere. Not only are there are lots of cars, they are all going very
fast. Anyway, the reason for the cross-country voyage was because one of her good friends was getting married and the ceremony and ceilidh (something like a barn dance) was set in an old country house (above left) in the fields near a town called Matfen, ouside of Newcastle.
Because I was a bit of a latecomer, there wasn't enough room for me at the ceremony and dinner, so I went on a little tour while Louise was enjoying the wedding. It just so happens that the ruins of Hadrian's Wall (right) are in this part of England. Hadrian's Wall was built about 2000 years ago by the Romans and mark the furtherest north that their empire got. Emperor Hadrian came for a tour, so to speak, and found that the northern frontier of the (to-be) British Isles were inhabited by the rather fierce predecessors of modern-day Scots, the Picts. Hoping to keep them out of Roman Britain and to preserve whatever peace there was to be had in that part of the Empire, the Celts were assimilated, the Picts were excluded, and 80 (Roman) miles of wall were built from east coast to west coast. There were guard fortress-turrets (big enough for 12 soldiers) built at Roman-mile intervals, with two equally spaced smaller turrets between each mile turret. A ditch was dug on the north side of the wall so that attacking Picts would always be forced to fight upward. There was also a series of forts built later to house cavalry regiments and house the bulk of the 10000 soldiers garrisoning the wall. It just so happens that one of these forts was around the corner.
Chester's Roman Fort was built to house 8 regiments of calvary and the original Roman roads and aqueduct entrances and exits are preserved. There is also a spectacularly preserved bath house down near the river the ran north-south on the east side of the fort. Those of you with in-floor heating will be pleased to know that the commandant's house and the bath house both had it, 2000 years ago.
The sophistication of the latrine is probably typically Roman. It was placed nearest the river, so that the flow of fresh water from the aqueducts passed all the way through the fort first, coming out in the bath house and passing through an extravagant latrine setup on it's final passage to the river.
After all this touring, and after getting soaked in the rain, I rejoined Louise at the wedding. The rest of the evening was danced away at a ceilidh, which is 100% pure fun (I suspect that you all will someday experience one, at which point it will be made clear).
We travelled home the following day and stopped in at the Angel of the North (left), a sculpture that towers over the motorway just south of Newcastle. This is a giant iron man meant to symbolise all sorts of idealism, in the way that most art does. Makes for a good stop (that's Louise in the green jacket at the foot of the angel).
The next stop was Durham, which is home to a spectacular cathedral. Durham cathedral has been in continuous use for the last 900 years. The city itself is home to a fairly high calibre university which has taken over the castle next to the cathedral. How would you like to live in student residence, but not just any residence, a castle residence?
That's it for this trip. I'll do my best to organise another one soon! Ciao for niao...
France, cont'd
No trip to France would be complete without a visit to La Tour Eiffel. There is, however, a 2 hour long wait for the elevator to the second level. It's much faster to take the stairs, with the added exercise bonus and the extra time to take in the views. Because seemingly all the buildings are white in Paris, one understands why it was called "the city of light" in times past. This was the second and final day of our lightning trip to the big city, so we soon departed the vicinity of the Tower and hopped a boat cruise up and down the Seine (the river through Paris). That is quite possibly the most concise means of seeing the city, without actually experiencing it.
Luckily, the cruise passes Notre Dame, gargoyles, flying buttresses, and all. The French are well known for their flying buttresses, which you don't see in England. The Gothic style, pioneered, more or less, in Durham (England), had well and truly taken hold. Amazing what was done at the behest of the church. There is an endless variety of (to we Canadians) fabulously old architecture to see in Paris. Later in the day, we went up to the artsy precinct Montmartre. Fans of broadway movies may remember it from
Moulin Rouge. There we listened to Evensong in the
Sacre Coeur and ate a sloping, sloppy, delicious meal at a roadside cafe (the roads ain't built for Hummers, either).
The
Sacre Coeur (above). The rest I leave to you.
The trip continued on its next phase the following morning when I was able to fulfill a life-long goal: riding the TGV. This is, like, the original high speed train, and high speed it certainly is. Wikipedia tells me that there are a couple of different grades of TGV lines with the highest grade of them capable of sustaining trains at 320 km/h. It just so happened that the line to where we were going, Narbonne, is one of the high grade ones. Let me tell you... 320 km/h with your eyes a couple of metres above the track feels like warp speed. But the decadence doesn't stop there, oh no, we had first class tickets, so we were at the pointy end of the train. After the trains left Paris, it was very soon at cruising speed and stayed there for about 3.5 hours of a ~4 hour trip. The track is all welded, so there's no clickety-clack of the rail joins as the wheels hurtle themselves past. There are no level crossings, either, and the stations and signs go by so fast that you can't anticipate the sign, locate it, read it, and process it before it is past you and well on it's way to the horizon. The whole thing is very elegant and soporific. Hoo-wah.
On reaching Narbonne, we were picked up, lunched, then driven to Albieres, which is where Louise's parents were holidaying. Albieres is not terribly far from the Mediterranean or the Pyrenees, which mark the Spanish border. The following morning was beautiful and sunny and the flowers outside our room in Albieres were resplendent in the low temperature morning light.
What a start to a fine day. This was the day I got see my first, proper, defensible, meant-to-keep-nasties-out castles.
We started at Peyrepertuse, which is a chateau first mentioned historically sometime around 1000 A.D. There are Roman influences in its construction, but it's not clear exactly when it was built. The most significant events in the recorded history of this area of France, called Languedoc, occurred in the 1200s with the
Cathar Heresy. The Catholic Church (in those days) didn't care very much for the Cathars and over the course of ~40 years, went on a series of rather horrific, genocidal crusades to eliminate them and their beliefs. The crusades basically culminated with the initiation of the Inquisition in 1233 and what we know about Catharism is mostly through the Inquisitors own records. Poetic justice.
There are a series of such chateaux throughout Languedoc where many Cathars took refuge before they were found out, taken out, and massacred. In the distance from Peyrepertuse, you can see another one: Queribus.
Queribus is a castle that never truly fell; it was handed over because it was impregnable and it's occupiers could no longer hold out the siege. This is the obstacle facing attackers of Queribus. Eek. And it could be defended completely with 20 men.
On that note, enjoy the architecture, and the next installment will be about the rest of the trip: Bristol, Cardiff, and Hadrian's Wall in the north of England!
The times, they are a changin'
I could never call anything from Bob Dylan a cliche, but my times sure have changed in the last six weeks. Apologies to anyone I haven't yet told, but I'm back in Canada.
On short notice, I left Australia for (possibly) greener pastures in early March. I wasn't yet done my thesis, but I had completed the research and was spending all my working days writing up. The possibility of a most excellent job came up, but I had to be back in Canada to carry on with the application. So, I packed up, said my goodbyes (as best I could) and moved back home. Since then, I've completed my entire thesis to draft stage and it is now awaiting what I hope will be its final revision. Later in May, revisions allowing, I'll print it, bind it, and hand it in remotely. I was reluctant to leave a very good group of people, but it was time.
I can assure you that I have an accent of some description now. Judging by the number of Australians who asked if I was Irish and the number of Canadians who ask if I'm British, I'm guessing that my linguistic pedigree has become something of a mongrel. The temperature transition was the most shocking thing, I think. Going from a month at 40 above to Calgary at -30 was a stimulating experience, to say the least. I've accepted that my blood has thinned and that I'm a disgrace to any self-respecting Canadian, but if I have to wear insulated coveralls more often to prance around in the snow again, I'm okay with that.
However, never one to let moss grow on my shoes, I completed all the revisions to my thesis that I had, submitted the new version of my thesis to my supervisors, and three weeks ago took off to visit someone special in England. I do not aspire to a career in academic geology, so spending more time making my thesis into a series of papers would only serve to cause a deep depression. Therefore, while I was waiting for corrections to come through, a trip was in order. The details of this trip are rather decadent, so I apologise to everyone who chooses to read it.
After arriving in London at the beginning of April, I went up to the north Midlands and spent the first week there experiencing the places and meeting the people who made life great for the special someone that I was there to spend time with. This first involved a 1980s Fancy Dress party for which I went dressed, rather unsurprisingly, as Maverick, but for which my date went in something a bit more saturated in 80s fluoro fabrics (only the top of which is shown at right). I've since decided that the best way to party is to party with the British. Keep that in mind if you are planning something involving fancy dress, food, and alcohol.
A few days later, we rolled eggs down the drive of a friends' house for Easter, fattened ourselves on chocolate, then got ready for a proper journey to France. We took the train to London St Pancras station, then changed to the Eurostar, which is a highspeed train to Paris. This train goes through the Chunnel, which though you hardly notice it, is an engineering marvel. For 40 minutes we were under the English Channel, which was about the only time I allowed myself to read something while on this trip. I consider it almost a sacrilege to read while travelling... there's something about the constantly changing scenery under an airplane or outside a train that begs to be watched, not ignored. As a result, I work little on long-haul flights, and trains are a write-off during the day. A couple of hours later, we were in the City of Light and navigated the metro system to find our hotel in Le Place de la Nation in east Paris. After a fine three course French meal, we wound our way back to the hotel.
In the next installment: the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, and Montmartre, followed by the south of France including 4 hours on the TGV, two 11th Century Chateaux, and a Ryanair flight back to England. I leave you with a close up of spring dew on some leaves in the back garden.
A thesising we will go...
The bush fires have come and not yet really gone. Marysville and Kinglake are not anymore. You may remember a little update a while back about a trip to Marysville just before Christmas. The resort is no longer, either. It has been pretty horrific, but in typical Aussie "she'll be 'right mate" spirit, they are already getting a move on and starting to rebuild. Over $100 million has been donated by fellow Aussies.
I'm going to be madly, truly, deeply writing for the next month and a half with little to distract me from being sensible and having a life. However, it is all for a good cause. Canberra went exceedingly well. Full stop. This all means that I'm not expecting to breathe terribly often until the beginning of April. Please don't be discouraged if there is not a return to frequent updating as I'm mostly wearing my fingers to little bloody nubs on my keyboard during the day. I'll try keeping things flowing bloggerly throughout the writing up process... In the meantime:
While I was in Canberra, we celebrated Australia Day. They really put on a show with the fireworks in the nation's capitol, preceded by skydivers:
The flag was fluttering proudly:
And, did I mention that it was windy on Kosciuszko?
Beware...
The world economy seems to be on a pillar of sand taller than I originally thought:
The US is gambling freedom on a risky printing press policyEeek.
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And in the news this week: how to defeat illegal immigration with song!
US uses songs to deter migrants
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...
