Looking back on it now, November 2012 didn't have much in the way of memorable moments. I worked a bunch, climbed occasionally, and brewed/drank a fair bit of beer - fairly typical. A week into December and I found myself on the hellishly long journey of car-rides/airports/security-screenings/flights/more security/more flight/ect that is required to get from Tasmania to it's relative polar opposite in New York (I'm really starting to dislike that 48h day). Once home, I spent my time catching up with family, friends, and relatives while trying to finish off writing an overdue book chapter and journal article in my spare time. Overall it was a good trip and resulted in two noteworthy (at least for the purpose of this blog) developments. (1) I got a new Gopro video camera with all the proverbial bells and whistles as a Christmas gift (courtesy the parents, aunts, and in-laws - thanks by the way), and (2) I purchased all the components I needed to build myself a new computer that might actually handle high-definition video editing.
Armed with my new toy I set out on my yearly New Year's eve pilgrimage to the Adirondacks with a slight detour for an initial stop in the Catskill mountains to hike part of the Devils Path with a long-time friend Alex. Now Alex and I have been coming up with relatively moderate challenges that we can do together for years. Things we're pretty sure we can achieve but also has some sort of element of pushing ourselves a bit. On this occasion we picked the steepest 12 mile bit of hiking trail we could find in the dead of winter with 2 feet of snow - sounded perfect. Unfortunately it was a little less spectacular in difficulty than what we had hoped and a chain of events that occurred the night before for which I'm not going to get into resulted in a late start and shortening of the overall trip. Nevertheless, it was still a good day out, the sun was shining, and we got to get a bit of blood flowing which until that point in my trip had laid fairly dormant. Here's a few still images of the hike that I shot with the gopro, starting with the late-night snowy drive in the night before:
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Following the hike I continued my trip north to the ADK to visit my friends Jesse and Jesse for New Years eve. We went out sledding with their two boys the day before which was pretty cool, I haven't been sledding in years!
Now I'm back in Tasmania. Of course there's a little bit of catching up do be done work wise, but overall things are going well in that regard with things coming together nicely, so hopefully I'll be able to get out and do some adventuring. I built my new PC, which by and large is awesome. I won't bore anyone with the specifications, but it's pretty fast - fast enough to be one hell of a gaming machine (too bad I'm not into that sort of thing), yet more on the minimal requirement side when it comes to fast HD video editing. Still, it seems to do the job adequately and the short straw currently is my expertise with using the software rather than the speed of the computer. With time, I'm sure to learn how to take advantage of some of the advanced features incorporated in the editing software but for now I threw together a couple short videos using my new gopro footage. They're not great yet, but I'll work on it. The first is a compilation of footage I shot on my first time out with the new camera during one of my daily cross-country ski trips (it was nice to have snow at home this time):
The second is of a dive Leanne and I did shorty after my return to Tasmania with my primary supervisor Barbara and her partner John. They were courteous enough to take us along with them and show us around at a really nice spot near the mouth of the Tamar river. It's a great area for sponges, with literally acres of them fielding across the bottom at 20-30m depth. On the way back up we stopped to do a bit of decompression in a reaf-like area with lots of fish, seahorses and other marine life.
I also took a few still images from the vid to better highlight some of the scenery. Still need to work on some underwater color correction, but we'll get there:
And that pretty much sums up the last few months. As I said, I've got some big plans for the coming year. I'll be heading to Spain for 3 weeks in the end of June to attend a conference, visit a laboratory, and do some climbing on some amazing looking limestone. I'm still really excited about the whitewater prospects for the coming winter, and there are a lot of rivers I'd love to try and paddle before I leave this place. I intend to hand in my PhD dissertation this coming December which means that not only will I finally be done with "school", this will be my last year for Tasmanian adventures and I fully intend to make the most of it. And now that I'm armed with three camera's, a zippy computer, and a time constraint on the Tasmanian bucket list, this is looking like it should be a good year for adventure. Stay tuned-
