TreeTop adventure

Jess and Jared took us to the TreeTop Adventure Park, about an 75 minutes out of Sydney. The Park has high ropes courses, graded from Yellow to Black, much like the difficulty grades for ski runs.

We started at Green (the first ‘easy’ adult course) and aimed to get to black.

Blue was okay with a bit of wobbling, a bit of effort.

Red started getting quite hard. At one part of the course, I grabbed a rope and swung Tarzan-style from tree to tree. At the arrival end, I had to let go of the rope and throw myself at a rope net. It was hard, pulling myself up the net to the next platform. The net kept moving because it was not anchored at the bottom. Damjan had to coax me up, every net square of the way.

At the end of the red course, Jess said to us, ‘I just spoke to the man ahead of us. He’s done the black one before and he says he finds it quite hard.’

This is true. I think the black TreeTop Adventure course was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.

At the beginning, I almost made it over a long flying fox but I landed just a bit too slowly and didn’t get onto the platform. Instead, I zoomed backwards to the centre of the rope. Using my arms, I had to pull myself backwards toward the platform.

As I came to the next challenge, Jess yelled out to warn us that the moving platform here would slide back as soon as I let go of it at the other end, so I would have to leap onto the other tree as quickly as I could.

By this time, I had no strength left in my arms. A few times, I couldn’t keep the platform beneath me and it slid away behind me as I clung to wire ropes. As I inched close to the end, Damjan grabbed me and dragged me to safety. I burst into tears and thought very seriously about calling for management help to get me down from the trees NOW.

Forging onwards, there were unstable ladders to climb up, swinging footholds, monkey bars… For one challenge, there was a wooden plank suspended between two trees. We worked out that we had to use it as a ‘half bridge’. We inched over it to the centre, then used our feet to swing (like surfing) the half bridge over to the other tree to complete the crossing.

The man doing the course behind me walked the plank to the centre of the gap before the plank slipped off the first tree. He hung in mid-air, the plank dangling beside him.

‘Is this supposed to happen?’ he called plaintively. ‘What do I do now?’

With no options, he dragged himself to the other side using the guide rope.

I kept thinking the course was almost over but it was obstacle after obstacle.

At the end of it all, I was so relieved. I think I accomplished something but… all I think about, really, is how bloody hard it was.

December 15, 2011

Possum proof

I saw this at the Sydney Botanic Gardens.

Some tourists came up beside me and talked puzzedly amongst themselves. They eventually figured out it was a collar to prevent possums from climbing up the tree.

December 13, 2011

An academic career

I’ve been teaching final year civil and environmental engineering students at Monash University. To celebrate the end of the year, I was invited to the department dinner where I sat next to Dr Dave and talked about sustainability.

‘It’s hard,’ Dave said. ‘We all want to make money.’ Dave noticed my expresion change. ‘You do want to make money, right?’ he prompted.

‘Umm, well… I have a mortgage… as long as I can pay that, then no, I don’t need to make a heap of money,’ I ventured.

Dave looked at me intently and suddenly lit up. ‘Well! If you don’t mind about money, you could go into academia! It’s such a great job, you know. You can make a real difference though teaching. Nothing is as effective as influencing people through teaching. Especially if money isn’t that important to you.’

November 27, 2011

Dippy desktop

On Friday it was hard to concentrate so I updated my desktop using a blue marker and Gimp.

November 24, 2011

Faces in my coffee

I had one of those Melbourne experiences that people talk about but I’ve never had. That is, someone took me down a dingy alley and there was a rather cool cafe at the end. It had a giant bowling pin in it and assertive coffee.

More coffee faces at Manchester Press’s Urban Spoon entry.

November 21, 2011

What I saw at Costco

Carlo took us to Costco. We wanted to buy tennis balls.

We came by public transport, carrying our biggest backpacks. We left with lots of stuff (including 30 packs of chewing gum). We didn’t get tennis balls, though, because they came only in packs of 48.

Here are some things I saw.

Shatterproof Christmas ornaments (soccer ball sized)

Previous frozen cooked crab, product of USA

More cake (man, what do they do with all this stuff if they don't sell it?)

Leon Activo, bilingual lion (speaks Spanish and lion) — Leon Activo, bilingual lion

Pizza production line (some of the pizzas looked quite good)

Perfect protein for perfect people (5kg)

November 15, 2011

Child proof gate

I was running late for my 10am meeting. I caught the wrong tram and had to jump off, double back and wait for the right tram.

So I was quite pleased with myself when I managed to get to the unfamiliar office at 10:03am. I was practically on time! Then I spent the next five minutes trying to work out how to open the gate. Was there a doorbell? Another entrance? A lock of some kind?

I looked next door and noticed it was a childcare. Oh! This was probably a child safe gate. It might have one of those ‘high up’ locks.

Sure enough, there was a vertical rod to pull up from the lock at the top of the gate. I struggled to get enough height and leverage through the bars of the gate to do this. This gate was practically Joan proof, as well as child proof.

Finally, I released the gate and rushed in, properly late for the meeting.

November 13, 2011

Do you like ducks?

It was 5:30pm on Friday and most people had left the office. I was packing up when George came up to my desk.

In a hushed tone he asked, ‘Joan, do you like ducks?’

‘Um, yesss.’ Ducks, I guess they’re cute.

‘What about duck heads and duck wings?’

I thought, ‘I like the whole duck, really. Hmm, I’m confused.’

George continued. ‘I have some, you know. Duck necks, heads and wings. Would you like some? I go to this Chinese restaurant for lunch sometimes and the owners, they know me now. They gave me extra duck necks and wings. At first I was very happy but now I have had too much. Would you like them?’

‘Oh. Yes, I think so,’ I said. Cooking duck would be like cooking chicken, right?

‘Good, good. It’s in the freezer, I’ll show you now.’

I follow after George as he says, ‘It’s easy, do you know çº¢çƒ§ (hóng shāo)? You can just put it in a pot, cook it with soy sauce…’

November 11, 2011

Not landfill

I was walking to the Monash University engineering department when this shocking sight confronted me.

Rubbish in front of the engineering library

Oh no! Someone spilled a rubbish bin and it’s going everywhere! …Hey, wait a second… The bin is half buried in the ground.

Yep, it’s an art installation.

November 9, 2011

Stranger

I sat at the supermarket, minding all the groceries while Damjan dashed into the store to buy eggs.

A man was walking down the street. He bent down and picked something up. A flash of white — I think it was a cigarette. Why is he picking up a cigarette butt?

He put the scrap in his mouth.

Ah, now I see, he’s a bit scruffy and chewing old cigarettes from the ground. What we have here is a strange person.

He walked straight up to me and stopped.

‘Mumble mumble…’ He peered at me closely.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ I asked.

‘Do you want a hug?’ he said more distinctly.

‘No, thank you.’

So he shuffled past.