Antarctic Centre – is it cold in here ….

After a good nights sleep, in fact it was a struggle to get the kids out of bed, it was back to the airport to pick up the Motorhome for our holiday in New Zealand.It took about an hour but we finally got our home for the next 4 weeks. Talk about downsizing. After having the 40 ft RV with all the bells and whistles in the US back in April, this 26 footer seems so small but I am sure we will get used to it.Since we didn’t really have any breakfast, everyone was getting hungry and as luck would have it, the Antarctic Centre was just by the Airport where the pickup spot was located.

Into the cafe for some brunch then spent the rest of the afternoon at the Antarctic Centre. This is an interesting place which is the base for logistics for the New Zealand, US and Italian Operations in the Antarctic. A lot of interactive activities including a ride in a Haggland transporter over a 4WD track that most 4WD’s would fail particularly with the 3m deep water trench where the Haggland actually floats across. There is also a simulated Antartic storm where you donned coats and endured -8C with a wind chill of -50C, some 4D movies and finished off with watching the feeding of the fairy penguins.

It was getting late in the afternoon now, and even with no NZ cash time to go shopping for supplies and SIM cards. Lucky we have plastic.

Time for one more activity before calling it a day. There was a geocaching event GC5G6X5 – Quick Catch-Up & Fish Event in Hagley Park. It provided a good opportunity to chat with some locals and Jenny found some more things to put on here list of things we were doing on this trip. We were not the only international cachers there – three German cachers travelling the world attended as well. We catch up again with them in Adelaide if they make it to SA.

Camping tonight was just north of Christchurch at the Spencer Beach Holiday Park. It was huge with no problems with neighbours as everyone was spread out over 80 acres. I guess this place fills up in the summer holidays.

Nearly a Show Stopper …

Well that is 24 hours that we don’t want to repeat in a hurry. Let’s backtrack a bit. All was going well even if things were going to be a bit tight but it was achievable.

Rachael was at Schoolies over the weekend and apart from being very tired, she had a day to recover before heading away again. No issues here, she was all packed and ready to go.

Jenny and I had a quiet weekend with me having a work commitment on Sunday but we were all packed and ready to go.

Bradley went to Melbourne to the US Consulate for a visa interview. He is doing a 6 month exchange with the University of Illinois so a normal online visa doesn’t cut it. His interview was Monday morning. He had driven over with a couple of Uni mates and was going to hit the road home straight after his interview.

All was going well, Bradley arrived home at 6 pm from Melbourne and it looked like every thing was going to plan for a Tuesday departure to New Zealand.

We were chatting about passports around 10pm when Bradley suddenly realised that he had left his passport with the US Consulate for the visa endorsement. Now this was a show stopper – no way Bradley was getting into New Zealand without a passport.

So what are the options.

  1. Bradley stays home and waits until his passport returns by post – problem is that our mail is on hold so that won’t work
  2. Get a second temporary passport – this is possible but takes 48 hours if it is approved
  3. Get onto the US Consulate and locate his passport and fly him to retrieve it.

There were a flurry of phone calls to various government departments and emails to the US Consulate but not a lot could be done until morning so a very sleepless night ensued.

After a couple of hours sleep it was back on the phone and email to try and get a second passport or locate his current one.

There was no luck with the second passport so the only option was locating his passport in Melbourne. As luck would have it, one of his mates was still in Melbourne for his visa interview and he managed to grab Bradley’s passport and get it to Melbourne Airport.

So with some juggling we got Bradley on the first flight to Melbourne to reunite with his passport and then fly him to Sydney to meet up with us. We ended up meeting in Sydney at the same time.

With crisis averted, a couple of stints in the Qantas Club (Adelaide and Sydney), a couple of flights and we landed in Christchurch just before midnight. A shuttle to the hotel and it was into bed for some well-deserved sleep.

Another great day in Falls Creek …

After some cold temperatures (finally) and light snow falling overnight, we awoke to 5cm of fresh snow with sunshine. We farewelled our new friends from Uruguay and headed up the hill.

The sunshine today brought out the skiers compared to yesterday, with a mountain full of people today while yesterday there was only a handful.

It only took a couple of runs down Main Street and Highway 83 dodging people to decide to trek over to Ruined Castle. It was still crowded in comparison to yesterday but we stayed there all day until the legs gave out.

The MapmyWalk App total for the day was 51 km.

Quiet night in Schuss Ski Lodge with just us and the managers, Russell and Jude. Not bad having a 50 bed lodge for yourself.

Weather from the South Pole today …

One way to ensure you have the mountain to yourself is to have weather around zero degrees, wind around 50 kph and a mixture of snow/sleet/hail. That is exactly what we had and depending what slope you tackled, it was most unlikely to see another person skiing and you got to know the lifties on a first name basis. 🙂

Even though the weather wasn’t the best, the skiing was the best we have had for a long time. The groomed runs kept firm and had a layer of fresh snow on top of the corduroy.

We stuck it out for 5 hours, getting back to the Schuss Ski Lodge a little cold and wet but it was worth it.

Distance on the MapmyWalk app for the day was 52km.

Some sunshine in Indy …

After a couple of days doing pre-conference FDIC workshops with some pretty average weather (not an issue as I was inside all day), the sun made an appearance on the opening day of FDIC. Even though the sun was out, I am sure the temperature didn’t go over 12C.

In fact, this morning I had to wait for the car to thaw out before heading into the city as there was a layer of ice over it. Now I know why the rental car company provided me with an ice scraper. 🙂

The opening ceremony was both a eye opener and a tear jerker. How to make 3000 grown ups shed a tear – bring in 20 bagpipers playing amazing grace as they flash the names of the Line of Duty deaths in the US over the last 12 months. There were a few of them last year. 🙁

The first speaker Bobby Halton certainly was confronting and he was in a good mood. Hate for him to be my Chief and be in a bad mood.

After some interesting morning classes, it was time to get some fresh air and have a walk around downtown to enjoy the sunshine. Indianapolis certainly embraces FDIC with most buildings having some form of FDIC banner on them albeit they are advertising.

Some more classes in the afternoon, then my head cold got the better of me. My nose was like a tap so back to the hotel for an early night. Hopefully it clears up tomorrow. 🙂

Gentlemen, Start your Engines ….

After a couple of ordinary days in Indianapolis with heavy rain and very cold temperatures, the sun showed its face and although it wasn’t all that warm, it was still a good day to tick another thing off the bucket list.

What else to do when in Indy but to get to to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, mecca of motorsport.

A couple of things stood out. One – how big the track and environs are, especially when find out that it is capable of holding 350 000 spectators. Two – how quiet things are when there is nothing on but this makes it a lot easier to get around and have a good look at the facilities.

The museum had a lot of history in the cars and information. It was amazing the names and cars that I recognised from the races of old, even though we didn’t have a lot of race coverage in Australia back in the day.

Got in a couple of laps of the track – unfortunately it was in a tour bus 😉

The full track tour gave us a good look at the track including stopping to kiss the “yard of bricks”, the media centre, timing, race control, the podium and the top floor suite of the Pagoda.

If you are ever in town, I would recommend a visit to the track and even better if there is a race on …

Long distance caching on the same day …

It is not often that you can find 2 geocaches 16174 kilometres apart on the same day but it helps to have the International Date Line on your side and be on an annual trip to the northern hemisphere.

At 4:15 am, on the way to Adelaide Airport, a quick find was made on GC4GQBZ – Lest We Forget…… at Mitcham.

32 hours later and 3 flights, Adelaide-Melbourne, Melbourne-Los Angeles & Los Angeles-Indianapolis it was still April 3rd so time to find another cache.

Despite being fairly tired and having a hotel bed calling my name, I persisted to eventually find a micro cache – GC2Z2VG – Indymonks Trail of Tears – Chippewa Indians. This was after 5 others that eluded me. Some of them could have been underwater, as there had been around 75mm of rain in the Indy area during the day.

Not sure if this is some kind of record but it certainly is for me.

A different sort of Xmas …

This year it was a different sort of day for us but it was no less enjoyable. The main difference was that it was the first one that Jenny’s parents were not to be with us, so present opening in the morning was just us and the kids, which started at an more leisurely time of 9:30 am. 🙂

Lunch was to be at Jenny’s brother Daves house at Mount Torrens but due to the high fire danger, he was placed on active standby for Air Operations so the Pearce lunch was all moved to the Woodside Air Operations Base with a combined event with the air crew.

There were 10 air crew, the CFS Chief and CFS Assistant Chief and 14 from the Pearce clan for an enjoyable lunch on the deck overlooking the airstrip and parked aircraft. There was a visit from “Santa” but he only just fit into his suit. 🙂 The pagers stayed quiet until after lunch when Dave had to go on a flight to Port Lincoln.

It was back home with an hour to spare to ready our house for the Thompson clan. The evening meal is a lot easier with cold platters and salads and a good time with family.

Around midnight, the day was over and Xmas was over for another year. Tomorrow our friends from California arrive …

November 12 of 12 …

It has been not quite a week since getting out of hospital after the “heart attack” and today I needed to go to a funeral of a motor racing identity, Peter Hall, who has driven his last race.

Of course, as I haven’t been driving, the car had a flat battery. Lucky this morning was sunny and the solar panels were soon connected and there was enough charge to get the motor going.

The turn out for the funeral was enormous, filling both chapels, the auditorium and outside. It was a fitting send off for an Aussie Legend.

Part of my rehabilitation involves a lot of exercise to get the heart ticking and the blood flowing. This afternoon, I took off to Belair National Park to grab some of the geocaches that involved a bit of walking near the Upper Waterfall and the old Fire Spotting Tower.

The beauty of this area is that you will always spot a koala or two and today was no exception as well as lizards but luckily no snakes.

Until next month …

Time for some work on the old ticker …

Well after a night with not too much sleep – the beds here are like sleeping on an ironing board (not that I have done that before), it was time to get some exploratory work done.

The vampires had been work over night with more blood taken every 4 hours or so. I am not sure that there is any more to give.

During the morning, I had found out the name of my doctor, Justin Ardill and after some googling it showed that he wasn’t too bad a doctor but also owned a winery. Another doctor friend confirmed that he wasn’t too bad a doctor as well. 🙂

There were 5 patients today scheduled for angiograms, 3 private and 2 public and I was number 2 in the queue. The team didn’t get away from here til 2am and were now back again at 10am. Hopefully the are awake for me. 🙂

At a quarter to 12, I was wheeled in my bed to the OR – no walking around here. It wasn’t long and I was being prepped. Last night in preparation, I was shaved in 2 areas – my wrist and the nether region. The doctor checked my wrist and decided to go in there so that was a waste of manscaping down lower 😉

The team were all decked out in colourful lead coats – hey what about me.

It wasn’t long and the catheter was inserted into my wrist and you could see it on the big screen near my heart – I was awake for the whole procedure with some local anesthetic in my wrist and a sedative in my artery.

After quite a few injections of dye, a blockage was found on my right artery and a balloon and stent was inserted in through the wrist with the whole procedure finished just over an hour after being wheeled in. So at some point in time I have had a heart attack. It will be another couple of days when I found out the extent of the damage when an ultrasound is carried out.

Below are some happy snaps showing the blockage prior to the stent and what the artery looks like after the stent was inserted – quite a difference.

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