The Cluster hops are doing well, and because the other rhizomes didn't take off we've liberated one of the other stakes to give them some more climbing possibilities. I've tried training them, but however many times I've shouted 'sit' nothing's happened...
My beard has been getting increasingly irritating over the last couple of weeks, and the recent humidity wasn't helping. I had originally planned to grow it long and weave some beads into it, Vikings style, but after a frustrating couple of hours fooling around with some gloopy hair gel and some slick, slippery beads we decided that the only reason they had the time to do that was because they hadn't invented television in the 12th Century. So it was time to shave. Of course when you shave a beard it's traditional to showcase the various stages of facial hair...
The beard post-beading attempts...
Fluffed out with the gel, bushranger style
Tidied up a bit at the sides, aka the Hipster
The classic chopper 'mo. It was tempting to leave it like this and go and heckle at a Movember gathering
The Egyptian
The Ned Flanders (aka 'The Andy F')
The Adolf
And finally the clean-shaven look.
Liz keeps saying that my head looks really small but I'm loving the fact that that I can feel my top lip again...
Thursday - Taking the tourer into town for some shopping and swinging past the Gabba, where something seemed to be going on...
Friday - shakedown ride at Daisy Hill for a new build, details to be revealed soon...
Saturday - Solo breakfast ride as the guys were all busy. Their loss as they missed out on an awesome roti murtabak at West End markets
Sunday - dodging storms to fit in a ride at Daisy Hill. Sitting in the car park watching the lightning, leaving ten minutes after the rain stopped, riding mainly dry trails with a backdrop of rolling thunder and getting back to the cars just as the downpours started again...
Boo to the coming working week!
*For the bike nerds, four different gear changers too...bar end shifters, rapid fire triggers, brifters and a singlespeed.
Magpies are notoriously territorial in Australia and are famed for swooping on passing cyclists, skaters or even passers-by. You never quite get used to having a bird bouncing off your bike helmet and squawking in your ear as you ride along but after a while it becomes more of a nuisance than a danger, once the initial panic subsides that is.
What I didn't realise is that crows will also swoop if they feel that their young is threatened. Crows are a lot bigger than magpies, and we have a family of crows living in the tree next to the back garden. Last week I think one of the young tried to fly and failed, ending up in a low tree close to our back fence, and the parents switched to Def-Con One...(this should be displaying as an animated gif)
Luckily things have calmed down now, because hanging out the washing or taking out the compost became far more exciting than it deserved to be...
I dug out my drift / freeline skates this week as well, and tried them out on Burleigh Hill. I forgot how quickly they picked up speed - this may look mundane, but at the time it was terrifying! It's amazing how much I don't bend my knees as well...
When we weren't in the water or sampling local views we spent a lot of time just hanging out on the apartment balcony just watching the world go past and soaking in the views...warning - picture intensive post...
The last time we were down in Burleigh we decided that it would be the perfect place to set up a craft beer bar. Unfortunately someone beat us to the punch, but fortunately they located it right next to our hotel. The Pigs & Pints is well worth a visit for friendly staff, its fine range of Burleigh Brewery beers on tap, a wide range of bottled beers and some very tasty American-themed bar snacks.
It's on the Gold Coast Highway just behind Burleigh Arcade and looks like this
Sadly it's also only open on Wednesday - Sunday, which on a hot Tuesday afternoon with a thirst for hops was a very unfortunate thing indeed...
They need a flag they can hoist when they're open so that local hotel residents need only descend from their balconies when it's worth it...
One of the reasons for going down to Burleigh Heads was to get back in the water, and our apartment on the 15th floor of the Burleigh Beach Tower gave us a cracking view of the water. Sadly it also clearly showed us the weak, late breaking waves...
We were keen to go though, and managed to get into the water at least once a day for a couple of hours at a time.
It may not sound much, but to our untrained bodies it was pretty exhausting. This sums it up...
We surfed Burleigh & Currumbin, and checked out Kirra as well. And on the way home we stopped off at our 'usual' spot on the Spit
It was pretty blown out but that didn't stop the crowds...
We've decided that this year we'll try to fit more surfing in and get a larger, more stable board that will give us a chance of standing up - the 5'6 finless Albacore just isn't a good board to learn on! So in advance of a Summer chasing the curl, here is this week's tune - Bombora, by the Atlantics. Who bizarrely are Australian despite the fact that no part of Australia touches the Atlantic...
The hops are loving the rain and the coffee grinds trick seems to be working (thanks Mark)...I think next time I'll plant the rhizome nearer to the stake though, as it'll be able to grab hold and start climbing quicker
We're off to Burleigh Heads tomorrow for a four night break so things may be a little quiet. I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with Liz, and also intend to get back out into the sea again for some gnarley 'repeatedly-humiliate-myself-with-a-piece-of-buoyant-foam' action. Generally when I go away there's always a touch of sadness that I won't get to go mountain biking over that period, which is another reason why I'm liking these storms - a bit of rain isn't going to stop me getting in the water but it does mean that I probably won't be missing any dirt sessions. Sorry guys.
With that in mind, here's an old-skool classic to keep you entertained when BOM starts to get you down....
After a long dry spell the storm season has finally hit Brisbane. The days are hot & humid but every afternoon the clouds start to build on the horizon and all eyes are on the skies or the weather radars. If you look one way the sky is clear, but the other way looks like impending Armageddon.
When a big storm front rolls over the sky turns a weird, troubled & turbulent green. At this point you just want to get the car undercover, as the hail can dent the bodywork and even shatter car windows.
When you're somewhere safe you can sit back and admire the awesome beauty of the storm. Much to Liz's amusement I've developed a bit of an obsession for trying to take photos of lightning.
The pros use tripods, remote shutter releases and even lightning detectors that pick up the initial flash and trigger the shutter instantaneously. I settled down on the porch steps with an ultrazoom and a couple of beers. I took a lot of photos of the night, but got a couple of reasonable shots too.
It was very relaxing to sit back and watch the storm roll past and try to see patterns in the clouds, although after a while it seemed to be taunting me. Every time I focused on one part of the sky there seemed to be a ground strike in another, and when I finally gave up and walked inside there was a huge flash and a roll of thunder so loud it shook the house.
In light of all this there's only one tune that I can put up today...
Only one of the hops has budded, but she's doing well despite the pot being used as a toilet by one of the local cats...we've added anti-cat pellets and I'm investing in a high powered water pistol...
I'm slowly getting back into the local time zones but last week has taken its toll. Jet lag is a weird & insidious sensation best summarised by a colleague who said ' I woke up in the hotel and found I'd locked my chewing gum in the safe but left my passport on the desk'. You lose the initial doziness and spaced feeling fairly quickly but for me at least it takes a few more days for everything to start feeling right again. I'm also waking up every night panicking that I'm late for my flight home and not recognising that I'm in my own bed, and now I think of it I think I get this after most overseas trips (but oddly I never get that confusion when I'm overseas). It's a shame because the weather over here is perfect for evening rides but I'm just not feeling it right now. Hopefully I'll be able to kickstart myself over the weekend - I have a bike rebuild on the cards as well which should inspire me....
Until then I'm just relaxing and recovering. Which brings me to the tune - the seminal, beautiful and quite possibly unique 'Chill Out' by the KLF. This last for just over 44 minutes (I'm sure it's not a coincidence that that is the length of one side of a C90 cassette) but it's worth listening to the whole thing. So sit back with a couple of your favourite relaxing beverages close to hand, turn off your phone, close the door, relax, enjoy and of course chill out...
An overseas visit wouldn't be complete without a bike analysis. The locals use bikes quite a bit, and these are regular workhorses for the local delivery guys
Every local shop & restaurant has a couple of these outside and you can phone through orders for delivery, be it a bottle of water, a meal or your dry-cleaning. Most of the time a two wheeler works well and can easily be salmoned against the flow of traffic, but for the larger shops they need more boot space...
There's also an odd trend in high-barred BMX bikes, although I think the pegs are used more for taking passengers than grinding the local ledges. The wheels are cool though
Seems to be a bit of a 'thing'
as are branded bikes - this one a hummer. Not so sure about the mountain bike it's locked to though!
Regardless of the frame material, wheel size or componentry always remember that a bike is a bike and therefore cool... the text on the right says 'Ride Bike, Enjoy Life' and that sounds like a mantra to live by...
I'm a middle-aged English bloke that moved out to Australia in 2005. Life's been good to me out here - I have great mates, a beautiful partner and a pretty good life all round really. Previously I prattled about bikes & beer but earlier this year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, so I've started a second and darker blog where I muse on all things prostate. Apologies to my mates if I share too much :)
