On Deck

So I tried something new ... I videoed outside. 

Also I tried to multitask ... see how I fail.

Also really liked this failed thumbnail.

Ok so I didn't really get to the blogging at this point but there is some in the next part.

Old Facebook post about my Hoya.

So here are the photos promised to come

Wallaby welcoming us

Pack I brought to climb

Group Selfie on top

Trunk Seat

And to finish off the failed conclusion to my re-potting if you can be bothered watching.

Car Adventure

I've talked about driving before and how I don't really enjoy it. One of those reasons is petrol. I mean paying for it isn't great but is a required thing. It's moreso finding one to stop by to get petrol. The way I usually do it is if it's really cheap I'll fill up if I'm half empty. If it's price is okay I'll fill it around the eighth mark. And if it's expensive I'll wait until my empty light has flashed for about half hour ... Yes I know risky right ... The thing is it has to be convenient at the time to get petrol, which hardly ever felt that way. Probably why I've had to get a can of petrol once.  Well I soon learnt about why I shouldn't really do that again. By the way before these short trips my petrol light had already flashed once ... right just a flash, no need to worry right?

Monday morning I had a doctors appointment. This was for a update and a CT scan I got the previous Friday for my elbow (yes I don't update my blog enough). Let's just say the only interesting thing is I felt was that there was like 3 doctors there to give me just a CT scan. The last time I only got 1. Felt like a lab rat. Anyhow I was sort of sick anyways so two birds with one stone. There was really one route to drive to the docs and that was up Station Street ... in the morning. It wasn't just the traffic. Box Hill's been booming and there's like heaps of apartment building which end in temporary road blocks. Obviously I would have avoided it if possible but it wasn't. I live decent close to the place so any other route would take me ages out of my way. However might have considered it if I knew a 30 second driving section would take me 10 minutes instead. The right turn on Station Street was actually considered the fastest part of the trip because traffic was moving so slow that they stopped to let me turn in. So the light flashed again ... didn't stay on ... it's okay.

Apparently my CT scan wasn't great news but it wasn't terrible either. They advised I get a dynamic CT scan. Great sounds awesome. I've mentioned I like to try new things right? Well my doc hadn't heard much about this sort of CT scan before so must be something unique to some degree. Well I thought why not get it out of the way. Booked the appointment in 10 minutes time and quickly left. Had considered getting fuel but no time. This time the light turned on and stayed on. Okay concerning. But no time. So back down station street. Slight block but better than the other way. Then the turn onto Thames Street. Another building site ... was regretting booking the CT scan so close. However this time it wasn't as long. The place where I get my scan has 5 underground levels of carpark. The parking level for those getting scans was on the bottom floor ...

Scan was interesting. Got to move during it because it was a dynamic CT scan. However I had to be in a weird angle and still had to keep my head out of the way. Took a bit longer getting it right. Also the doctor came out to discuss my "injury". Because I had to move he needed to know where it hurt. It doesn't actually hurt but it grind and tweaks sometimes so always hard explaining this. Anyways I couldn't actually get my elbow to act up at the time so couldn't get it exact. What was disappointing was at the end they didn't print it out for me. Guess too many slides. Last still CT scan was already 5 slides. Anyways time to leave ... and here's where the problem happened. I couldn't get my car started. Well I managed to get fuel into it but it stuttered and shut. This happened over and over again. At times it sounded different but it still didn't work. I managed to reverse my car around a metre in like 2 minutes. As I had no reception I didn't even consider calling for help. I just tried time and time again, trying different things. After 5 minutes I finally managed to get my engine sounding right. Every moment was tense, especially climbing up the carpark. There was 2 boom gates I had to stop by which didn't help. The closest petrol station was all on a uphill way ... Well it didn't stall once after getting it working so that was a relief. Always thought I had more time to fill up but all these short quick trips didn't give me many options. Petrol stations always seemed to be on the other side of the road. Right turn in and out is a pain. Weird thing was didn't realize petrol price was actually quite low at the time ... Guess my filling up rule got trumped by convenience.

After that I went straight home this time with no road blocks ... but a few minutes later I was out again to get KFC. I mention it because this whole morning I took so many little trips here and there I didn't actually leave Box Hill ... Think it was all within a 1 kilometre block. The fun of driving ... next time I might just walk it.

Thought I'd Google map it and it came to 8.6km drive. Link is here just so you can see where I drove to.

Not Sick but ...

Okay once again haven't been blogging ... but it was for a somewhat good reason. An old injury has come back to bite me. 5 years ago I woke up one morning and my right elbow felt really weird. Depending how I moved it would click quite loudly. Well that ended up with me not being able to bend my elbow for the next 2 months. So my elbows clicking again.

Back then it had been Sunday morning so I still went to church just thinking that it was just a weird thing that would correct itself eventually. However when I had driven to dinner that night I got out of the car and found that I couldn't unbend my arm. Thought it was a joke. Thought it would fix itself. We had a shared meal and the guys were eating fast, and poor me was unable to keep up with my right hand unable to cooperate. Well next day it didn't fix itself. So I went to the doctor and got myself a referral to see an orthopedic and some x-rays. They asked me if I had been doing any excessive exercise ... me exercise? Got a MRI which was pretty cool but was hard to do because of the not bending. With no private health care I had to wait 9 months to get it seen by the orthopedic. While waiting I had to withdraw from study. Signing my name without bending my arm was difficult and painful. But the worst thing while waiting was actually the fact that my elbow fixed itself 2 months after!?! No idea how, just woke up one morning and it was bendable. By the time I saw the orthopedic they just told me the bone obstructing movement probably just moved into a empty groove in the bone. Said it probably okay and just book an appointment in 6 months just in case something happens. A lot of probablys ...

Don't want that to happen again so since its been acting up I've been watching it ... not that I'm really doing anything about it. Went swimming the previous week, playing badminton, and been lifting at the opt shop. Sometimes it gives me trouble so I have to get out of things. However it's still like the same for a week or so so I went to the doctor to check it out. My GP was out on holidays so I saw the new doctor ... She was blunt about how it was just inflammation even though I told her bout the past. Gave me a prescription, some things to do at home, and shuffled me off ... Think I'll make an appointment to see my usual GP when he comes back.

So now I'm just keeping my elbow warm and taking my meds ... hopefully this is just temporary.

Yes I'm Sick

Oh right I haven't blogged for awhile. Most because I've been sick on and off the last 2 weeks. Was meant to post about my first (at the moment only) day work at the opt shop in Kew, however I started getting sick since then. Since I had started Work for the dole it meant that if I was sick I'd need to get a medical certificate so meant I had to see the doctor. 

The first day I took off I had gotten been pretty sick the night before. However it was short lived and seemed to be okay that Thursday morning. Kind of curious why it was like that and I didn't want to pass it off to the nice volunteer people at the opt shop so I went to the doctor to check it out. Weird thing was the car park at the doctors was pretty much empty but the place was opened. I was actually in the waiting room by myself!?! Apparently one of the doctors had passed away and the other usual doctor was away so the only one there was the new doctor. Didn't realize people cared so much who they saw. So I met the new GP. Seemed to be nothing much wrong with me but it was evident I had something so they gave me a med certificate for the day off.

So when did I get sick again? Sunday night. Slept most of Monday but by the time Tuesday came I was still pretty bad off. So back to the doctor. This time my GP was there. Usually when I turn up to the doctors the symptoms have already subsided but this time I was wrecked when I got there. Was just a cold apparently but had to be pretty bad because he gave me a med certificate for 3 days. Don't ever get that many days off usually. Good to have time off but I had people over the next night so had to be careful not to give them. 

Actually tried to play badminton Thursday night thinking I was better but I wasn't. Quite evident was that I was having a hard time pacing my breathing. Then again I hadn't played for a few weeks. A week or so in bed probably didn't help either.

Now I'm still a bit here and there but I think I'm cycling out. Hopefully I won't catch something else new any time soon.

Another form of torture

Cathedral Ranges. Woke nice and early to make it on time to the meeting point and what do you know, there was only one other person was there early. By 8:30, the time we had planned on leaving, there were only 6 people out of the 20 people who was suppose to be there. Even some BWMC people were shocked but I pretty much knew it be that way. Old habits. By the time we left it was past 9:30. 


On the drive up people stopped for breakfast so it wasn't until 12:15 that we began climbing. And yes it was a climb. When I first heard about the climb and told how we wouldn't need equipment I was thinking 50-60 degree angle climbs. However once we started climbing it most of the climb was 70-85 degree angles. This was a real dread for me as I am scared of heights. Basically there were no man made hand or foot holds. All you had was the natural groves in the wall. To know where you could climb once in awhile there were orange arrows pointing the way. At times I would look at the arrow pointing straight up the rock face and I would think "how am I suppose to get there?!?" 

There were lots of difficult and scary climbs but I'll just recall some of the most "memorable". Start with the scariest. The mountain was on my right side at an angle of 85 degrees straight up with no ledge till more than 1.5m up. Around 30cm off the wall was a vertical rock formation 30cm wide that rose up higher than the ledge but had jagged rocks on both edges to use as hand and foot holds. I was able to pull myself up the rock formation but it wasn't until I got to the top that I looked on the left side. Let's just say it was a drop there that almost made me hug the rock formation I was on but stopped because it was covered in jagged rocks. I stayed really low and managed to get my foot onto ledge, crawling over onto solid ground. The next part was surprisingly easy. A man was showing a woman how to climb a vertical groove but the woman wasn't very confident. We waited for around 10 minutes for the woman to eventually make it up the climb so that we could move through. The couple had climbed on the outside, the wider section, but further in the groove met in a sharp corner. I got further in before I climbed directly up. I was able to push against both walls and get on top of the obstacle fairly quickly. Sometimes its good to be small. The most interesting climb was a crevice that cut through the edge of the mountain for about 30m. The walls get closer and closer together until you have to climb sideways to make it through. Another good reason for being small. 

With the climb to the top finished me and a friend who made it to the top first had lunch with the previous couple waiting for 15 minutes. The others who had gone the climbing path were spending a lot of time helping some of those who couldn't climb up by myself. I hadn't really considered people needing help because I'm not great at climbing but I still managed it. However the other group that took the easier way also turned back because it was too hard. For the next hour consisted of some people eating lunch, some people going down the easier path to get those who had turned back to climb to the top, and me trying to catch lizards. There was a really large one that kept coming out, however it was too difficult to catch because of all the rocks and spaces where the lizard could hide. Even without catching it I had fun. The next part wasn't as fun.

Rocky, windy, up and down path that seemed to be unending.The worse thing is I ended up being ahead of the crowd, well ahead of the others. This is because firstly because I had no idea how far there was left to go or if anyone was actually following me. Secondly I got to the point and waited for over 30 minutes before the next of our group made it to that point. I had no water at the time so that made it even worse, never been so thirsty in my life. Even at this point there was still an hour trek to the road then half hour run back to the car. Eventually a group of us got together at the road but we found out that the rest of the group was going to be hours late. The lack of water and the difficulty of the path contributed to this. It also got harder as it got dark and people started cramping up. We had planned on being back in Melbourne by around 6-8pm so leaving around 4-6pm. We ended up leaving at 10pm. At least everyone made it back safely, because when it got dark there was genuine concern for peoples safety. 

In the end it was quite fun and would be up to doing it again. I probably would of enjoyed it more of the "hike" if I had water. Got to be more prepared with water next time. Also be good to know the difficulty so know what to prepare for it but I guess difficulty is subjective.