4/10/2016

Thursday was climbing day. I also had a bit of a bad day at work. A patient that I have been working with for 10 months decided to give up on physiotherapy. I was sad but a bit of exercise and Grill'd for dinner cheered me up. 

Friday I worked at Altona. It wasn't the best day but it wasn't too bad either. After work, Damo and I kicked off the weekend with a bit of ticket to ride. Damo was very excited as well because he got an interview for a new job. 

Saturday morning we started with a short run and exercises. Then we went to Coburg market where we got cheese, vinegar, and apple and mint juice. The apple mint juice was delicious. 

From there we went to Brunswick central market for cheap eggplant, chili, and green tomatoes. Since we were in the area we also stopped at the Italian supermarket for cheese, a magnum wine and pasta.

Back at home we played a game of Ticket to Ride India and then had a round or two of Settlers of Catan. We have the Victorian board game championships next week so we are practicing. In the evening we did at bit of cooking and cleaning. For dinner I made Jamacian Jerk Eggplant. It was so spicy but so tasty. We also had some fried green tomatoes. Yum. We started Sunday morning with the local market. We got the usual bread and cronut 

We also picked up a crepe, some vegetables, and a duck pie. The rest of the day was more cooking and cleaning, then at 5pm 4 of our friends came over for 6 player 500. If you remember from a couple years ago when I played with Kat, to play 6 player 500 you need a special deck that goes up to 13. The evening was great fun. I made some fig tart, 4 flavors of wings, 3 dips & a cooling plate. Then for dessert we had chocolatecake with  chocolate & fig ice creams. Good yet busy weekend. Now back to work. 

4/6/2016

Tuesday and Wednesday were both good work days.

Tuesday I was doing home visits and unfortunately had several cancellations due to sick patients. Which meant more time to catch up on paperwork. I also worked for an hour at Altona it was very productive.

Wednesday I had some very tricky lymphoedema patients. I managed through but my brain is exploding with new information. I also had some interesting new patients who were very passionate about making the most of their lives. 

This evening I made African Peanut soup for dinner. I have made it before but tonight it was a total flop. I was so disappointed because I had really been looking forward to it. 

I needed to do a bit of MBA work this evening but was under motivated. I did 1/2 of the work. Maybe I will finish tomorrow morning. I'm a bit brain dead after the tricky patients today. 

4/4/2016

Today was a regular Monday. I was nice and rested after the weekend. I felt very good about work today. This afternoon I signed up for the Victorian board game championships in two weeks. Since three of us signed up I got a free entry for settlers of Catan. I am not very good at that game so Damien and I spent the evening practicing on iPad. I was going to do some homework but the game was too exciting. I also organised my ironman training schedule for the ironman in Perth in December. Only cross training for now but I'm getting excited :)

4/3/2016

Daylight savings time ended last night so the amount of time difference has changed. We noticed this morning driving to the market that the car clock was wrong. I had no idea. I just felt surprisingly rested this morning when my alarm went off at 8am. 

Today was a productive day. We went to the market and got more figs and other goodies. Then we came home and I made fig jam. Damien spent the afternoon working away whilst I got ahead on some MBA work, cleaned up around the house and played a computer game online with my sister Abbie. For dinner I made dumplings with wrappers and a steamer that we had gotten from a Chinese grocer a few weeks ago. They turned out terribly. Th wrappers were thick and dry. I know not to try those again.... Except that they came in a pack of 100 and I have 50 left.......

4/2/2016

Today we went to Werribee gorge. It isn't actually in Wereibee but it is on the same side of the city. We ran a 10km circuit and a 6km out and back. It was lovely or as I kept saying...gorgeous. 

There was a koala in a tree. 

After our wonderful run/hike we quickly drove home, made red velvet brownies, and showered before going out for the evening. We had an evening planned with 

2 friends doing escape room. It's an activity where we you have 60 minutes to solve puzzles to escape from a room. This one had pad locks, key locks, equations, teamwork, and a story about a mining accident. We did it in record time, just under 30 minutes. After the puzzle we went to our friend's house for dinner and games. We played cards and ticket to ride. Damien won. It was a great day. 

4/1/2016

The past 3 days have been pretty standard but u have had a few excitements.

Wedesday we had a university student come in to observe. Her name is also Maddie and she is trying to get into the university of Melbourne for physiotherapy. She came in to observe Kate but spent most of the day with me instead. Wednesday evening I did a bit of MBA work. This is a light week but I'm still trying to stay on top of things. 

Thursday I worked at Altona in the morning. I took on a few extra clients since we had Monday off so was running around all afternoon doing home visits. After work I went rock climbing luckily.none of had been in a few weeks so we took it easy. After dinner we went out for sushi train. It is not as good as Abbie's favourite in Charlottesville but it still has a large veggie range. 

Friday I had the day off. Yay for 3 day weeks! I had big plans for the day but I was a bit stuffy this morning so I took a day to recover. I went grocery shopping made brownies, cleaned up the house and did a bit of work on my MBA. I'm halfway through the last course now! I'm going to graduate May 5th, though the cermony is a bit far away for me to attend. 

Today's adventure has been rescheduled for tomorrow so there will be pictures :)

3/28/2016

So here in Oz we get a 4 day weekend for Easter. How relaxing! Damien and I spent it doing the Viking circuit-the toughest hike in Victoria. As I mentioned in the previous blog we left after work on Thursday and stopped for pizza in the middle of our 5 hour drive up into the mountains. This is where we hiked:

Or more precisely, here:

The first night we arrived after 10pm so we set up the tent right next to the car and enjoyed a night of car camping(aka extra pillows and blankets) before starting the walk. 

Viking-razorCircuit Day 1:

We had a slow start with toasted hot cross buns and packing the bags. I carried: 1 tent, 1 stove, 2 pots, 3Lwater, clothes, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, food for 2 people for 3 days. Damien carried: 15L water, sleeping bag, sleeping mat. It might sound silly but we didn't know where we were going to find water and didn't want to be thirsty. We started the walk easy enough, 3km in we dropped a bag at the junction with chips, 2L water and chocolate. Shortly after the junction our path turned from "doable" to "very difficult to locate" after bush bashing on the side of a hill we made it down to a 4wheel drive track called Zeka spur track, though with the number of 4wheel drives we saw it could have been a highway. It was a long steep downhill and with the heavy packs we slid and struggled down for hours. 

At the bottom was a beautiful river, the Wonnangatta. I wanted to set up camp but we had lunch and kept going.

The last hour was a struggle uphill. We had a 800m climb over 2miles so we split it up between the first two days. We made in 500m up and thought we would find a camp site. We didn't but we made one on a bit of a slope. For dinner we had broccoli cheddar couscous and Haloumi. Then it was straight to bed at 9pm. 

Viking-Razor Circuit Day 2: 

Since we had made it half way up the hill day1, we had to climb the rest in the morning, after porridge and hot chocolate. There was a group of 7 who passed us on the uphill. We hung on to the back and made to the top with them. 

That was South Viking, then we journeyed on to other unnamed peak which I called little Viking, and then up to the Viking on sparsely defined tracks. It was a long slog but we made it.

By then it was 1pm. If up was bad down was worse. We had a very steep down through a chute and some rocks.

We continued down to Viking saddle where we had lunch at 3pm. From there we walked up to the Razor. Past South Razor the track disappeared again and we cut across some rocks. We did find the track again and continued toward Mt. Despair and camped at the base. It was a long slow day of walking and somehow we only made it 7miles. 

Again rice for dinner and asleep by 8:30pm.

Day 3 Viking-Razor Circuit: 

On the third day we finally got an early start. It was also mainly on well defined track which was AMAZING. We made it to the top of Mt. despair, then we dipped into Catherine Saddle. At Catherine saddle we met an interesting guy who goes to the top of mountains to talk to other people on the top of mountains with a radio/fishing pole. I didn't really understand but it sounded cool. Half way up to the next mountain Damien decided to take a semi-defined shortcut. Again it was bushbashing for about 1km. We finally came back out on to the track and continued to a car park/campsite with water from our friend with the fishing rod/radio. We still had plenty but took another 2L just in case. From there we went up Mt. Speculation where we had the best view so far. 

From there we went down into horrible gap and up onto Mt. Buggery.

Then we went into the terrible hollow and onto the crosscut saw.

We made it to Macalister springs camp ground around 6pm. There was a beautiful toilet.

It was busy so we headed back to the car. We walked 2km together then Damien grabbed our drop bag. He was being slow so I stole the chips and walked ahead. He was actually being really slow so I beat him back to the car. I decided to go back and help so I took my flashlight(it was getting dark) and my phone. After a km when I hadn't seen him I started to get nervous. I made it all the way back to the bag drop and didn't see him. By that point it was pretty dark and foggy so I ran the 3km back to the car. When I was almost back, much to my relief I got a text from Damien. He was at the car somehow we managed to miss each other on a single track! Crazy! By that point I was overwhelmed and exhausted. We start driving back toward home and made it about 500m before giving up due to the fog and sleeping in the car. 

That's the Viking-Razor in 3 days! (My car is tired too)