Sunday, 16 April 2017

Easter DP

Autumn is the best. We had a great meal at Tani on the Thursday night which sadly will be our last as Hamish and Rachel are closing and setting up their gin palace.
The autumn colours of the Japanese maples I planted last year were out, and we had terrific weather all weekend for the kids to make the most of their new mountain bikes. On Friday I drove down to Omeo to mingle with the locals and had one of the funniest exchanges yet with the bloke in the hardware store who pretty much refused to sell me some timber. We spent the rest of the day sorting out upstairs since the parquetry which looks terrific, and I took Cavey to Precipitous Plain and then the Montane Circuit before having everyone around to our place for a roaring fire and bubbly.
We had a relaxing Saturday morning before driving the cars down to Victoria River and then back up to DP for the long MTB trail back down. Dinner was at High Plains which was very yummy.
Sunday was the polo which was fun, and then family dinner of roast chicken and many rounds of chess. Much to my eternal shame I got beaten by one of my children for the first time, not once but twice! I actually have to think my way through each game now and its exhausting! At least I can still beat Balti, but maybe not for much longer... 
Monday was odd jobs, odd trail runs and several mountain bike circuits and a BBQ at home before the long drive home listening to the Cats wallop Hawthorn. 



























Monday, 2 January 2017

Trountain Biking

Marie-Laure and I ditched the kids and headed up to DP for NYE on the weekend.
Without our meddlesome wombats, we got a lot of work done on the house.
We also had nice meals at Tani, and High Plains, and actually made it through to the New Year after not one but two spectacular fireworks displays (nice to see our rates going up in smoke!). And followed by a late night dance party in front of the fire for which I can post no photos...
On New Year's Day I invented the new sport of Trountain-Biking.
Whilst I'm still musing over the details, it goes something like this:
The trountain-biker must complete a course of not less than 10km, of which around 50% should be technical. Trout can be caught in any manner - they're not as intelligent a beast as fly-fishers would have us believe; and a "trountain tally" is then calculated using the following formula.

Tt = Distance (km) x Number of legal fish (n) x Weight of biggest fish (kg) / time (hours). 

Which gave me a total of 10x4x0.8/2 = 16

I'm still working on the formula including some measure of cuisine, but they sure tasted good for breaky before the drive home yesterday!
    
The last photo has been pinched from some telemarking breathren off Kosi on New Year's Day, which culminated in a search and rescue for an injured skier. 
Surely the first for Australia in January!