Those pains don’t feel too good …

November 2, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

I woke up this morning aching all over my chest and back. It felt like I had been doing the weight lifting exercise of my younger years but there hasn’t been any weights lifted for years.

Going back a few months to just before my 50th birthday and I undertook a big checkup with some things requiring looking at including cholesterol and weight. So then started the treadmill regime with 45 minutes / 4 kilometres each day. Over the next few months I had shed 8 kgs but each time I started, there were pains that I attributed to being unfit and worked through it.

That was until Thursday when I felt really bad and even though I recovered quickly, “muscular pain” persisted.

Fast forward to today and after waking up to the aches, I thought a chinese massage would be the go but on the way I thought a chat with the doctor might be a better option.

It was getting close to knock off time at the Medical Clinic and when I asked the receptionist to chat with a doctor, her reply was that “we normally call an ambulance for that”. I convinced her that it wasn’t that bad and I was soon chatting with the doctor.

After explaining my pains when exercising, his thoughts were with angina but it still needed to be checked out. A phone call to the Chest Pain Centre and I was booked in for an immediate admission. Now just how to get there.

I rang Jenny and she was still at Mt Barker for softball. A call to my brother and he was also on the way to Mt Barker. Finally I got onto Dad for the ride down. All said why not an ambulance and the doctor had said that it was not an emergency and even offered to take me when he knocked off.

On arrival at the Chest Pain Centre, I was the only customer so there was immediate attention. It wasn’t long before being hooked up to the “machine that goes bing” and some blood taken.

The results indicated that I had indeed suffered some sort of heart issue but would require more tests to determine the extent so the Cardiac Care Unit was going to become my home for the next 4-5 days. 🙁

12 of 12, Geocaching, Out and About

October 12 of 12 …

October 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After a week away 4WDing and geocaching up Googs Track and back through the Gawler Ranges it was time to head home. We had spent a couple of days trying to clear the map around Whyalla but failed even though we found 200+ there still are plenty still to go.

Before heading north, we spent a couple of hours getting a few of the picturesque caches mainly along the coast, doing a mini power trail as well.

Arriving at Port Augusta heralded a milestone of 12000 geocache finds with a find of the cache, Dead Boats Don’t Float Two. This is the third attempt on this one and good to get it off the list.

There were some interesting caches including a Japanese puzzle box and one near a giant thong.

That’s it for this months 12 of 12 …

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Family Life, Holidays, Out and About, Skiing

Fresh snow – yay but ….

September 19, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After a night of snowing, there was a fresh 8 cm on the ground but unfortunately we had drizzle to contend with to try and enjoy it.

The temperature was around zero and the drizzle was unrelenting which led to some very slow and grippy snow. There has been no grooming of the runs for a few days and it was very hard going.

After a couple of hours we retreated to Cloud 9 to try and dry off and hope that the drizzle would change to snow. The drizzle didn’t look like it was going to let up after an hour so we headed out again but only lasted about 3/4 of an hour.

By the time we got back to the Lodge, we were saturated right through and were very welcoming of a hot shower.

Rather than finding out whether the car would start tomorrow when we left, I had some time to walk down to the car park in sleet/snow and start it up, letting it run for about 15 minutes, which didn’t even get it warm. There was still snow sitting on it after last nights snowfall.

Only one more day left of this years trip, hopefully the weather will be kind to us so we can enjoy what we have been used to with Spring Skiing in the past, T-shirts and sunglasses. 🙂

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Family Life, Holidays, Out and About, Skiing

Big Day of Skiing …

September 18, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

As has been the case the last two days, we awoke to rain on the roof. Oh no, not another day of reduced skiing at Falls Creek.

Turned on the iPad to check the radar and it looked that the rain was just about to pass us with another couple of hours at least before the first cold front made it to us.

A quick bite of breakfast and we got up to the top of the mountain as the rain stopped at 10:30 am.

We skied until 1:00 pm mainly on the northern slopes of Main Street and Highway 83.

After some lunch, (the prices certainly haven’t got any cheaper at Cloud 9) Rachael grabbed the snowboard and headed off for a lesson. The rest of us made our way across to Ruined Castle and Scott’s for the afternoon.

The first cold front hit with about 6 spots of rain and a couple of flakes of snow, so we continued skiing.

Around 3:00 pm, the wind started picking up – a precursor of the second and stronger of the cold fronts.

Rachael had finished here lesson at 3:30 pm, so we did a few more runs with her but the rain was starting followed by sleet. It was time to head back to the Lodge.

It was lucky that we headed down when we did as they shut the lifts down 15 minutes later due to the risk of lightning.

The rain came in strong as we just got into the Lodge (that was lucky), followed by some heavy snow but this was only short-lived, lasting about 30 minutes.

The rest of the evening has been a mixture of rain, sleet, hail and snow so it will be interesting what the slopes are like in the morning and if we will get a full day. 🙂

As well as the GPS I carry in the pocket, I tried an App on the iPhone today called Alpine Replay which seemed promising except that the battery on the phone ran flat 3/4 through the day. Tomorrow I will shut everything down on the phone apart from the App and see if I can get some more time out of it.

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Family Life, Holidays, Out and About, Skiing

Stop raining already …

September 17, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

We awoke again this morning to rain. In fact it had been raining all night.

It is one thing to ski in the cold and even when it is snowing but skiing in the rain is no fun as once you become saturated through you need to call it a day or you may end up with hypothermia and that is not good. 🙁

So for another morning we waited it out in Schuss Lodge.

Finally around lunchtime, the rain seemed to have abated but was still overcast. A quick bite of lunch and it was up the mountain.

For most of the afternoon, we were rain free and considering that the slopes were not groomed overnight, the snow wasn’t too bad and we managed to venture to all the 11 runs that were operating today at Falls Creek.

We skied again until closing of the lifts and managed a not too bad 33 km for the afternoon.

The weather is a little hard to predict for tomorrow as we have a low over the top of us with the last 2 days moisture circling the resort and there is a couple of cold fronts over the top of Adelaide heading this way which should make it by morning. Maybe we will get some snow. 🙂

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Family Life, Holidays, Skiing

Wet, wet, wet ….

September 16, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

After a couple of perfect traveling days to get to Falls Creek and clear skies even last night as we grabbed our skies and settled into Schuss Ski Lodge, it all went downhill around 5am this morning with the sound of heavy rain on the roof.

The thunderstorms that had hit Adelaide only 10 hours earlier had made it to the snow and there looked like little respite for a while.

Checking out the radar, it wont be at least til after lunch that we will get out on the slopes and what damage has the rain made.

I have just had a look at the mountain cams and there is about 10 people that are brave (mad) enough to be out there doing it and most of them seem to be shredders (typical). 🙂

At around 2pm, the rain started subsiding so we decided at least to take our skis up to a locker at the top of the mountain and if the conditions were OK then do some skiing.

There was a light drizzle up there and visibility wasn’t too bad so we skied until the lifts shut down. The snow was very good and it probably had something to do with the lack of people on the mountain – obviously fair weather skiers. 🙂

Nevertheless we did get very wet and cold by the time we finished but a hot shower and beverage around the fire made it all worth while. Even though we were only out for 2.5 hours, the mileage was an OK 23 km.

The rain has persisted into the night and looking at the radar there is some good stuff on the way including lightning. Hopefully there is some snow left in the morning.

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12 of 12, Scott at Work

September 12 of 12 …

September 12, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a average sort of day and for once I was ready for the 12 of 12 🙂

Usual ritual to start with a 7:35am wakeup and how many times did snooze get hit 😉

Called in on the postbox en-route to work (but it was empty) and negotiated a few back streets to get away from the traffic although I had to drop off the Nissan Patrol for its 80000km service at 85000km. I must be coming a familiar face at Unley Nissan as they asked me if I wanted a ride into work and I didn’t have to tell them where I worked.

After starting up the computer, down came the updates so 1/2 an hour later I could finally get some work done.

Around 11:00am the sky was starting to get darker and checking out the radar, there was some heavy rain on its way.

Since I didn’t have a car, an early lunch was in order so that I could still do my 2 km walk to the lunch shop without getting drowned. Managed to make it there and back with only a few drops of rain even with a holdup at the new Victoria Square redevelopment.

The rain held off until around 4:00pm and down it came. It was somewhat amusing to see the Deputy Chief as a drowned rat after walking back from a meeting. He had rang for me to pick him up but without a car it was not possible.

A ride to Unley Nissan had been organised but of course he forgot me so Plan B was put in place with one of the On Shift Commanders dropping me off. We only just got there in time as they were about to lock my car up for the night.

After the initial downpour at 4:00pm, a second and heavier one happened around 8:00pm with 21mm of rain falling for the day following the second front.

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Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About, Sporting Life

We are the champions …

September 7, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

Rachael had her Netball Grand Final today. Her Ironbank team has been undefeated all year and got to play against the Uraidla Netball Club at Piccadilly. The weather was perfect for the game which is unusual for Piccadilly as every other time I have been to watch her here it has been cold, wet and foggy.

The girls played well with:

16 goal lead by quarter time;

22 goal lead by half time;

23 goal lead by three quarter time;

and a final lead of 24 goals for a 50/26 win.

Well done to Rachael and the rest of the team.

With the the perfect weather, it was time to do some geocaching around the area and made 13 finds for the afternoon with a couple of walks.

I had a 3.5 km walk through Mt George Conservation Park following parts of the Heysen Trail and a 1.5 km walk through the H.K Fry Reserve.

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Geocaching, Out and About

Walk in the Badlands ….

August 26, 2013 Scott Leave a comment

I had finished early at a Workshop at the Fire Service Training College and needed to find a cache for the August Geocaching Challenge.

Looking at my map, there were plenty to be found in the “Badlands”. The “Badlands” is a term given colloquially to the area north of Grand Junction Road and is one of our busiest areas in the Fire Service.

I gave my mate Garry a ring to see if he was up for a walk along the Little Para River behind the Old Spot Hotel. I had heard that there were some very good caches up in that area. What I didn’t tell him was that the terrain on one of the yet to be found caches was “4”. The highest terrain rating is a “5”.

But a “First to Find” is a “First to Find” especially out north where they don’t normally last longer than about 30 minutes. I guess the terrain scared off the local cachers. 🙂

We parked the cars and counted the tyres and headed off up the river. The going was easy to start and the caches were just as good. In fact the work put into the cache containers was exceptional.

The bar has certainly been lifted with these caches. They have been engineered by a new cacher called clojo1 who is also a boiler maker.

The caches included:

GC4FTT2 – Ophidiophobia – a snake;

GC4G7G5 – Arachnophobia – a red back spider;

GC4FWY1 – Chelonaphobia – a turtle;

and GC4K56W – Apipobia – a bee.

The terrain for the 1st three caches was 1.5 and 2 but the fourth cache was the terrain “4” cache. It wasn’t raining today but by the time we got to this one, the heart was pumping and the shirt was saturated with sweat. Lucky I have been hitting the treadmill lately. 🙂

After removing the impressive bee from its honeycomb home, time to check the log book and yes it was blank – yay a”first to find”. 😀

A easy walk back down the river to the cars and a check to see if all the wheels were still there and time to head south home. Today’s walk was 3.5 km but it certainly wasn’t a flat 3.5 km.

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Geocaching, Out and About

But I don’t need rescuing …

August 14, 2013 Scott 2 Comments

What are you here for? We are here to rescue you!! What, do I look like I need rescuing!

Lets start at the beginning…..

A geocaching trip and event had been planned for weeks to take a couple of US Geocachers – RoadRoach58 from Alabama, on a boat ride to Wright Island which had one lonely cache – GC12E7X Yeah Wright.

Mark had organised a tinny and I had borrowed my brothers SeaDoo. Fast forward to last night and the weather was getting rough and we are talking gale force winds and 3 metre swell. All the stuff that Gilligans Island is famous for :).

After some phone calls and checking radars, satellite loops and any other weather thing we could find, it was decided that we would cancel the tinny but would keep with the SeaDoo for those that want to rough it.

On the way home from night shift, I grabbed a new wetsuit as the old one seems to have shrunk in the wardrobe, then onto home to start up the SeaDoo and hit the road to Victor. An hour later and I still couldn’t get the SeaDoo started. Mark had arrived and rang to say it was still fairly rough so there was no need to bring the SeaDoo down.

I threw the kayak on the roof on the off chance that conditions would change in the next hour.

Arriving at the meet point and we were greeted with some friendly faces as well as flat seas and sunshine. What a difference an hour makes.

Well the decision was made, the kayak was in the water and I was on the way. There was still a breeze which was coming from behind assisting in a quick passage to the island. The distance to travel was 1 km.

Around 3/4 way, I encountered a couple of large waves and was soon in the water. Oh well, time to paddle the rest of the way like a surfer.

It wasn’t long and I was on the beach on the northern end of the island. Made a phone call to the others back at the boat ramp to say that all was well and I was on the way up to the top to find the geocache.

It was very windy up top with a few rain showers but apart from that it was easy going to GZ. Unfortunately the vegetation was reasonably thick and I was finding the cache a little elusive. Again I rang back to the boat ramp to see if anyone had any clues to where I should look but no luck there.

Another 5 minutes of looking with no luck and the phone rang. Gary said that I had better cut the search short as the rescue boat is waiting on the beach for you.

“What the hell!!! You are pulling my leg aren’t you.”

“No lies, they are down there waiting for you.”

I made the trek down the hill back to the beach to find the Sea Rescue “bogged” on the beach.

“Hey – what are you guys here for?”

“We are here to rescue you!”

“Do I look like I need rescuing.”

“No, but because the Police called us in, we have to rescue you.”

“To me, it looks like you are the ones needing rescue at the moment.”

The tide was going out and the boat looked like it was going to be there a while. In fact they got on the radio to organise another boat to pull them off.

“You won’t need another boat guys. The waves will be here in a minute as they are coming in sets and the boat will float off.”

I am not the local and knew that and sure enough another set came in and the boat was floating again.

So we loaded the kayak onto the boat and I got the limo ride back to the boat ramp. It was a shame as I was looking forward to riding the waves back to shore. 🙁

On arriving back to shore there was a huge welcoming party including Channel 9 News. There must have been a big breaking story around here somewhere. 😉

No chance of not getting photographed around here.

After talking with the local cop, it seems that one of the locals saw me go from being a paddler to a surfer and reported me as drowning and unconscious.

The Sea Rescue guys were good about it and the cop didn’t hang around and even the News cameraman lost interest very quickly. So much for my 15 minutes of fame.

So at the end of the day, I still have to go back to Wright Island to find the geocache.

But I don’t need rescuing ….