Outback Odyssey Day 1 - Oh the dreadful wind and rain!

Maretta and Lynskey - Good to go!

The Outback Odyssey started for us in Melrose, one of my favourite places. It also started with some of my favourite bike touring people, with our mate Nigel in charge of the deluxe camping. After a somewhat complicated drive to Melrose, arriving a little later than intended, I was very relieved to find Russell, from Bike SA, at the Melrose institute with our packages. Preparations were in full swing for tea by then, so Carl and I wandered off to set up our tent.  

Mr Carl, ready and waiting

We had a pleasant surprise when sat down for dinner, finding ourselves seated across from three gentlemen we remembered fondly from the annual tour on Kangaroo Island. Andrew, Ian and Fred were from Melbourne and provided much hilarious commentary as the night went on. They're the type of people that make a bad situation good and a good situation better and they never seemed to take anything too seriously!

The food was awesome, just as good as I remembered from when we at Melrose on the Outback Odyssey two years ago. Pumpkin soup, roast beef with roast veg (the pumpkin was amazing), and apple crumble for dessert. All hot and filling and in good supply. With dinner out the way and a rider briefing that included where there were options to get out on the highway should the going get too tough, we headed off to bed.

The thought was that we'd get a nice, long sleep. As I hinted in my other post, mother nature had other plans. The lightning I saw was just a precursor to  a huge storm that dropped 30 mm of rain on Melrose over night. The winds roared above us, but our tent remained still and calm, sheltered by Mount Remarkable. 

Maretta and Lynskey play tourist

While sleep was hard to come by, we were at least warm and dry. With bleary eyes we emerged for the day and found that few others had successfully slept either. Breakfast made us feel more human, and it wasn't long before we were rolling out for the day. 

Goyder's Line

We were making good headway when we noticed an important monument, Goyder's Line. While there are many reasons why this was important, it's significance to me was that prior to the trip, I had furiously been working on a project, for the Goyder Institute, also named after George W. Goyder. Passing the monument let all the work stress fall behind and the reality of being on holiday set in!

Mud

Unfortunately this relaxed feeling wouldn't last long. Soon we turned onto a dirt road on our way to Wilmington and morning tea. However the rain the previous night had turned the road to slush, red sticky slush to be precise. While riding through it was fun, and good practice for CX, it clogged everything up. After stopping to give things a bit of a clean with a stick, we were reduced to walking on the higher ground on the side of the road until it cleared. 

Maretta playing in Mud

We came to a cross roads at the end of the muddy section and the Mawson markers indicated that we should go right. Straight ahead, at the end of a dirt road, lay the highway, gloriously smooth and mud free. Right would take us on dirt all the way to Wilmington, with the possibility of more mud. But it looked dry, and slightly uphill, so Carl and I took a chance and followed the Mawson markers. 

Happy as a pig in ...

As it turns out, we made the right decision, the dirt road leading to the highway held more of the same mud. We however, saw no more mud. But we were also lacking in both Mawson markers and maps. For reasons unknown, the set of maps for the Mini-Mawson three did not include one that covered the road from Melrose to Quorn. We had come to a cross roads and had no idea where to go. 

MUD!

Fortunately there were other riders to ask. However, in what would soon feel like a comedic movie script, all the riders we found had also just started in Melrose and did not have a map! Eventually we found one rider with a map and headed in what we hoped was the correct direction.

Fat bike from Missouri

Finally we found a Mawson marker and without any further trouble made it into morning tea at Wilmington. The impact of the mud was immediately obvious, riders were trying to wash it off at any available water source. After a cuppa I also gave my drive train a quick rinse, but in all honesty, Maretta had held up well to the mud and, while dirty, was running fine. Other people weren't so lucky and at least one derailleur fell victim of the mud. Another lady, who I tried to help clean her bike, had that much mud that you could only see the teeth of the big ring on a bike with a triple chain ring. 

Caterpillar Train

Leaving people to their cleaning, Carl and I headed off. We were mostly on dirt, rolling hills with an overall tilt upwards. The scenery was lovely, though with the delay due to mud, we didn't want to stop for too long. One thing that did stop us in our tracks was a caterpillar train, crossing the road. 

Guarding the Train

One last hill and then we reached the lunch stop. Lunch was a bit of a surprise, not the rolls I had been expecting but cold chicken and a variety of salads including a very delicious pasta one. We were definitely being spoilt.

Lunch also revealed that the course had been changed due to concerns over mud. Instead of heading through Richmond Gap, a treacherous trail by all accounts and made little better by the inclusions of wheel sucking mud, we were to head towards the highway. I was relieved, as I was worried that we were going to take forever to get to Quorn!

This photo doesn't capture the wind

My relief was short lived. We enjoyed a wonderful, rolling descent on dirt roads down to the highway, even stopping for scenic photo stops. Then we turned, and the full force of the dreadful wind hit us. We had 15 km to go and our speed was barely above 15km/hr. Conversation around the dinner table would reveal that Richmond Gap had not been as treacherous as thought, and somewhat more sheltered than the highway.

Made it

We did manage to find some people to tuck in behind, but they were few and far between. I felt so guilty for dragging Mr Carl on this trip that I tried to power through, sheltering him from the wind. It was a miserable last section and when we eventually made our way to Quorn, we wondered what on earth we had signed ourselves up for.

Smiles of relief

But good food, good company and a hot chocolate does wonders to restore the morale. Nigel kept us company for tea, which included vegetable soup with barley, and an amazing roast chicken with pumpkin, carrots and beans. Our tent was up, we were clean and fed and tomorrow would be when the "serious riding" would start!  

Strava stats here

Outback Odyssey - Nerves

I've been meaning to write this post for the last three weeks, and of course I've left it to the last minute. I'm sitting here in a tent waiting for the rain to come pouring down on us, if the lightning I saw before was any indication, catching up on my blogging. Nothing like getting back to nature!

Mr Carl and I are back to our outback adventures, taking on the mini Mawson three, starting tomorrow. I've been fairly nervous in the lead up to this, and I wanted to write a blog about what I was worried about. But to balance it out, I thought I ought to include all the things that made me want to come back!

Top 3 Outback Odyssey Nerves:

1. The weather.

Did I mention the lightning outside? After our last annual tour at Kangaroo Island where we almost got blown off the island, I've been a bit worried about the weather. Not to mention the last Hector Fletcher road race I did, where lightning was arcing off the fence next to the road. So weather concerns me. But at the end of the day, there's not a lot I can do about it, so I should probably stop worrying.

2. My body

For someone in their mid thirties, my body sometimes feels a decade or so older. I've had a lot of back issues, but I'm slowly understanding the cause of the problem and fixing it. That being said, bike touring is something that doesn't really seem to bother my back, or the rest of my body and I'm hoping this will hold true this time as well.

3. The weather

Ok, so I thought that I had more things that I was worried about, but it really was just those two. But I'm really worried about the weather! (I know, nothing I can do about it, which probably makes me worry more!)

Top 3 things that I'm looking forward too:

1. The people

I've met so many awesome people through Bike SA tours and I'm hoping to catch up with a  few of them on this ride. I'm also hoping to meet more awesome people, and I don't think I will be disappointed!

2. The scenery

The Flinders ranges are amazing, and there's no better way to see it than by bike! I've got my camera and I'm ready to shoot!

3. Riding Maretta

I've got a shiny new, tequilla green steed and she's ready to go! I may not feel quite as ready but I'm keen to give it a go and I know Maretta won't let me down. Five days of riding my bike, who could ask for more?

Ultimately, I love these tours because I know I don't have to worry and if anything goes wrong the Bike SA crew will look after me. I'm also lucky that I get to share it all with my best friend and partner (not Maretta), Mr Carl. So, here's to the start of an awesome holiday!

Photography Challenge of 2015 - Mad March!

Nothing says madness like a full moon!

While February was all about the natural, March was about madness! March in Adelaide is amazing with so many cultural and uncultured events to attend! The Fringe means the streets are full of crazy talented people doing things that most of us clearly remember our mothers yelling at us for doing! There is dance, plays, car racing and most importantly, music! 

March for me will always be about WOMAD, at least in part because Mr Carl and I use our anniversary as an excuse to go every year! So I get to celebrate a wonderful part of my life with an indulgent long weekend of amazing music!

Late night WOMAD

Gordie MacKeeman 

But where is the madness in all of this? Well I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

There's Gordie playing the fiddle on a double bass! He was part of Gordie MacKeeman and his Rhythm  Boys, who not only improvised through a "double bass" incident, but went on from WOMAD to entertain a whole pile of Victorians at the Festival of Small Halls.

Leo

Then there's Leo from Che Sudaka. Don't let that smile fool you, this guy bounced around like the energiser bunny on speed! His whole band was one madcap, energetic mosh pit!

I have no idea what this was!

Spooky trees to add to the madness!

Crazy Colour

And then there was Gruff Rhys. Out of all the performers, he was perhaps the maddest, taking us on a weird an wonderful tale about a 18th century Welsh explorer who went looking for the fabled Welsh-speaking Native American tribe, the Madogwys. Through song and theatre he captured us and took us on an almost down the rabbit hole experience through this crazy story. Yet the craziest thing of all is that it was based on truth!

Gruff

Adam Page

WOMAD is what could be called a target rich environment, yet it is by no means an easy environment to capture good photos in, especially with a point and click. It definitely encouraged me to look at things differently, to try and capture the feeling of the event, not just the performances. What was really interesting was how differently people look at things. Carl and I saw the same performances and were, generally speaking, always together, but what we captured on camera was vastly different.


Carl had a knack for capturing the mood of the performance and some of his black and white shots were truly magical. His photo of Adam Page playing saxophone conjurers up memories of soulful music under the night sky.

Fanfare Ciocarlia

His photo of Fanfare Ciocarlia grabs the whole WOMAD experience, the big WOMADelaide banner hanging behind a group that could make an even bigger sound!

But I think his most magical photo was from the Sinead O'Connor set. We were standing behind hundreds of people, barely able to see the stage and yet he managed to capture this eerily still shot of one of the musicians. 


Mad March, particularly WOMAD, is a special and a little bit magical time of year. It was awesome to be out in it, and it brings a smile to my face even now to revisit the photos that are fantastic memories of the event. 

Photography Challenge of 2015 - Contrast

When I chose contrast for the theme for February, I actually had a particular shot in mind. With bushfires throughout the Adelaide hill in January, February would be the perfect time to capture the contrast between the death and destruction of the bushfires and the regeneration of new life.

New life

In my mind I pictured a shot of a blackened tree stump with new leaves springing from it, glowing in the evening light. Well, life has a way of getting in the way of the best intentions, and it wasn't until March that I actually got a chance to try my hand at the shot I wanted.

A precarious position

Unfortunately, it was an opportunistic shot and the lighting was really ideal, being mid afternoon on an overcast day. I was also trying to take a shot next to a main road, so I had to be a little careful about where I stood! Ultimately, the photo's didn't turn out how I wanted them to, however it was still good to capture the changes that my local area was undergoing. I do like the contrast between the almost white new leaves and the dark, charred tree, though it was difficult to keep the texture detail in the photograph while focusing on the contrast.

Contrast 1

The scale at which to take the photograph was also a difficult choice. I wanted to focus in on the contrast between life and death, but did I need to include more background, to give the scale of death some reference? While I took some shots like this, I ended up favouring the close ups, as they seemed to capture the life/death, light/dark combinations better.

Contrast 2

One of the things I do love about this picture is the way the leaves almost glow as the light hits them. Admittedly, there was a bit of tweaking to bring it out, but it's not unknown in real life to see our native trees glowing in the evening light.

The photos aren't too bad considering they were on a point and click in less than ideal settings and I suspect they'll act as great inspiration to try and capture the luminescent quality of our native vegetation a little better.

Ninja Waldo

While I tried to capture the transient nature of, well, nature, Brett tried to capture a stationary Dalmatian! I'm not sure who had the hardest job, but he made use of his new studio toys exceedingly well to capture "Ninja Waldo". I think Brett definitely captured contrast best, but Waldo does give him an unfair advantage!

The Great Cooking Challenge of 2015 - February

Where to start?

I originally had planned to try out this idea in January, but a surfeit of peaches meant I had to put it on the back burner.

Thankfully, February was still on the warm side as this was very much a summer dish. 

A hint of the end result

It was inspired by a recipe for Cold Noodles in the Feast Magazine which primarily consisted of noodles, chicken, spring onion and a dipping sauce. I felt that may be a little light on for flavour so I had a poke through a couple of amazing Japanese cookbooks to come up with a few more additions for the cold noodles.

One of the things I really liked about this dish was the flexibility to tailor it to your own tastes. The dish is served as individual bowls of cold noodles and dipping sauce, then a whole pile of toppings to share. The toppings that I included were:

Noodles!

• Shredded poached chicken
• Soy simmered dry shitake mushrooms (Washoku, Elizabeth Andoh)
• Wakame
• Blanched vegtables
• Gingery Enoki Mushrooms with carrots (Kansha, Elizabeth Andoh)

I poached the chicken in a dashi stock with some ginger and sesame oil. Dashi stock is a Japanese stock that forms the basis for a lot of Japanese food and is really easy to make. 

Making dashi

Simply take a piece of dried Kombu (a type of seaweed), place it in cold water and put on a low simmer. When small bubbles appear on the Kombu, remove it and add shaved bonito flakes (dried fish). Turn off heat and leave for five minutes or until the bonito has sunk to the bottom and you're done. Strain and refrigerate for further use. It will keep up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

Glorious Mushrooms!

I had actually made both the shitake mushrooms and the enoki and carrot dish previously and knew they would work wonderfully with the cold noodles. The shitake mushrooms are simply soaked for 30 minutes or so in hot water to soften them then simmered in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, sake, ginger and mirin. As they cook they soak up the salty sweet cooking sauce until you're left with these tender, juicy mushrooms that burst with flavour. They can be overpowering, so for the noodles I sliced them finely.

Quite a pickle!

The enoki and carrots are quite a contrast to the shitake mushrooms. They are light, fresh and cooked in seconds. Essentially this dish is a mixture of julienne ginger (young ginger is best if you can find it) and carrots, with enoki mushrooms. This quickly tossed through a hot wok with some sesame oil, mirin and a dash of sugar. Essentially it's a quick pickle. But it's certainly not one that you would jar and store, there won't be any left to do that with!

Straight from the tub

The wakame came store bought, and the blanched veg were a mixture of snow peas, spring onions and bean sprouts. All this was laid out in a pick and choose fashion for us to add to our noodles. 

So many options!

A dipping sauce, which later turned into a splash over your noodles sauce, was a combination of soy, mirin, sake, sugar and sesame oil. All in all this dish was a wonderful combination of subtle flavours that was a pleasure to eat on a hot summer night.

The end result!

Crumbly apple cake

I haven't been the only one busy in the kitchen. Brett has also been outdoing himself in the cooking department. Not one but two delicious deserts have been produced. The first, which I was lucky enough to sample, was an apple cake. I'm beginning to think that Brett is working on starting a patisserie, as he does make the most amazing pastry! The apple cake was delicious, though it was such a long time ago that he made it, that I think he should make more so I can add a better description. 

Where's mine?

The second pastry Brett turned his hand to was the classic Australian Vanilla Slice. Unfortunately I did not get to sample this, however I am told it was also delicious. Again I think Brett should revisit this recipe and provide samples so that I can provide a better description of how awesome his cooking skills are!

So, that rounds up the cooking adventures for February, and I can tell you now that March will bring new ingredients and mushrooms! I should really do a dessert some time soon, but I think Brett appears to be handling that quite nicely. Mr Carl is also promising to do a dish somewhere along the line, so I'm looking forward to seeing what all my friends are creating in the kitchen!

Wheels in Motion - Photography Challenge January 2015

Cycling and Wine -
Adelaide is Awesome!

The problem with taking photos of a cycling event on your doorstep is that you end up with a lot of photos to go through. In my case, I think it was probably in the vicinity of 1500. Combine that with setting up a new computer and getting distracted with a new bike (yes, there will be a blog post), and it was always going to take a while for me to get this written. 

TDU - The race everyone enjoys!

The Tour Down Under is held in Adelaide every January and is basically a week long bike party with ample opportunity for the amateur photographer. I think there is also a bike race going on, but it's hard to tell with all the partying, photos and riding that happens! What's really nice about the tour is that there are a couple of circuit races involved that gives the amateur photographer plenty of time to experiment with different set-ups. 

The following are some of my favourite photos from the event and a bit of a blurb as to why I like them. 

Bikes make the pros happy too!

This was taken at the Peoples Choice race, which technically wasn't part of the TDU, but is a circuit race that gives the riders a chance to see how they're feeling. And it gives the photographers a chance to get their eye in. What I like about it is how cheerful they look, which, considering they've just completed a race, is pretty surprising! It's certainly not how I look after racing!

Concentration is key(Rohan Dennis)

The following three shots were taken during Stage 5, where the riders climb Willunga Hill twice. I really love capturing riders expressions, or lack thereof. Cadel Evans is someone I'd never want to play poker against, if he's hurting, you'll never see it. And by the looks of it he's been teaching those skills to a young Rohan Dennis.

Pain face

A true champion(Cadel Evans)

Feel the rush . . . 

The final day brought another circuit race and a chance to try and develop some technical skills. I managed to score a prime position on the inside of a corner, with the riders barely a meter from me. This posed it's own problems, as trying to focus on moving things that close is difficult, and honestly, the results left me frustrated. Still, black and white hides a myriad of errors!

Wheels in motion!

The other technique I was trying to work on was panning. It was something that we had touched on in a photography course I did last year, but I hadn't really practiced much since then. One thing I noticed is it worked much better with riders who were in brightly coloured kit. There's a bit of a theory that this makes it easier for the auto focus to pick up.

Second favourite shot of the TDU!

Santos Cup - Carl Purczel

Both Carl and Brett had their cameras out during the tour, and shared some of the results with me. Brett also included some technical information about the settings he used. Both of them have much better skill at panning, producing excellent photos that capture the speed of the event. 

Stage 6 - Carl Purczel

Interestingly, we seem to focus on different aspects of the race. I tend towards close ups of riders faces, whereas both Carl and Brett seem to focus on movement and the race as a whole. 

Stage 6 - Carl Purczel

Brett Pulford

Richie Porte (Team Sky) challenging Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) for third place at the end of Stage 3. Photo taken with Nikon D7100, f/8 @ 16 mm, 1/640, ISO 200, No Flash

Brett Pulford

Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) setting the pace on stage 6.Photo taken with Nikon D7100, f/14 @ 48 mm, 1/100, ISO 100, Flash

Brett Pulford

Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ) riding with two teammates on stage 6. Photo taken with Nikon D7100, f/14 @ 52 mm, 1/125, ISO 100, Flash

If you were wondering why my panning shot of the Lampre rider was my second favourite photo, this is the reason. Due to some amazing friends, I managed to get a picture with my favourite cyclist, Jens Voigt. Even better, Karen was right there with me! Actually, I have to confess I actually crashed her picture with Jens. But she was kind enough to let me. She's awesome like that!

JENS!!!!!

The Tour Down Under is always an awesome way to start the year. Can't wait till next year when we can do it all over again!