stlucia.blogg.se

...As a matter of fact. Sunday brought the rain indeed. but on Saturday night, I planned on doing my first long run in a long time on Sunday morning. And plans are not made to be changed. So out I went. 13 km along a flooded coronation drive and in pissing rain. Gotta love it! The best way to start a Sunday morning.

'

Also found a very good way to start a Monday morning as I found out about passport2fitness which is an amazing website that hookes you up to a number of different gyms for a very good price. Me and my neighbour Alex decided to take a 5 day trial and first out was yoga. Holy! Im sold! Always used to hate yoga, because I never felt enough exhausted or relaxed enough to do it. But I am so ready for it now! I decided to try a new thing every half a year I'll be living here and yoga is first out. It got me! Even went to buy a nice pair of yoga pants later today when waiting for Nick to submit my applications for a new phone at the phone company. Crossing fingers Australia will approve me for a phone plan as the prepaid service the offer otherwise is a rip off. If so. I might be owner of a.......I don't even want to say it.....................hm......smartphone (NOTE: NOT an iphone!!! though) very soon. Will let you know!

Rest of the day is off. Most public aussie day celebrations have been cancelled due to the weather. Two years ago, Aussie day looked like this:

I'm arfaid it will be a bit more of an indoor-activity this year. Time to get the day started!

Brisbane weather forecast. Rain times 8. (have abt 10cm more rain on my driveway now then this pic shows). Heavy rain the last 24 hrs have created a mini flood in areas of brisbane where up to 160mm rain has fallen only during the last few hours. Another 50mm is predicted tonight and many roads and parking houses are closed already.

I thought that working in Ireland, riding horses 6hrs daily in pissing rain would have made me tough enough to ride my bike to work today. Which I did. And ended up soaking wet 3 times in one day since I had to go to the supermarket after I got home to buy corn flour for my rats. So my clothes and bags are def flooded and the rain doesnt seem to stop at all. Might be time for this man to prepare for floods again if trusting the news.

.

Also. Since I refused to go and watch the american version of "the girl with the dragon tattoo", in order not to be one in the statistics that went to see it, I downloaded it yday. And really?? Wasn't that a bit of waste of money? And did they try to make fun of the Swedish accent? Hmmm. Not worth seeing for anyone who has been thinking abt it. Swedish version is waaay better!

'

Ok. Time to go in and shake the bottles!

Springbrook nationalpark with Ross and Xenia. Weather conditions couldn't have been worse. We were lucky enough to make it back to the car before the heavy rain started though. But. On the highway on the way back, it was so rainy and foggy so you couldn't actually see the car in front of you. Good for the café buissness along the highway.

'

Monday morning. Still pissing down. Going to get wet on my way to work. BUT. I am happy today so it doesn't matter! Remember Sophia?

She has just returned from her exchange in Canada and will arrive to my place tonight!! Very excited. Have missed this lady so much=))

'

Anyway. Last Monday, my first 10 ladies arrived to lab. Went in with them yday for the first time to record their body weight. OMG! They are crazy! Def need som TLC before they are gonna accept that I weigh them once daily. These rats are only for me to trail the diet on, so I can make sure they are all eating the same amount of kcal etc, altough one group will have alcohol in their diet. It is insane how hard it is and how much planning that is required. You have to monitor estrous cycle, food intake, weight etc, and calculate which days you have to mate them for the rats to be a specific age a speciic weekday etc. Assuming they are in estrous that specific day as well...  Really confusing. I guess I will get used to it...

'

Third. My computer seems to have reach the end of its life time. It kept dying on me but listen to this! Miss technical here might have saved it! Downloaded an antivirus program and scanned everything by myself (proud). Although, I had no idea what was going on and which folders my little laptop deleated, it seems to run pretty smoothly again. A bit worried though as it said it deleated 1.62Gb of commonly used data and folders. However, most of my stuff should be backed up though but still... Is this normal?

Im still not sure whether its a good idea to tell this story or not. Probably not. Its def NOT made for ears older than 80. That is, granma will without doubt be better off not knowing. (Prob mum as well). BUT. To start with. I'm FINE!  So let's take it from there.

'

Yday, me and my friend Tom went to Tweed Valley with a double kayak and were going out abt 800-1000m to Cook Island. The weather conditions were fine in the morning and the water really calm. Plus the island was amazing! Saw thousands of seagull babies newly hatched and sea turtles when snorkling on the reef around the island. Stunning!

'

Spend a few hours on the island before we decided to head back. Conditions didn't look too bad and we were aiming to sort of zic zac back since the waves were coming in from the side. It was even pretty relaxing and Tom told be a story about a man who kayaked from NZ to the Australian coast during 30days. But who ended up being eaten by a shark on his last day of the journy when he was expected to arrive and the whole celebration welcome party was already set up on the beach for him.

In the end of that story, a wave was rising behind us and we decided we were better of catching it. However, it was hit by another wave from another direction so we went of really fast and were actually on top of the wave when it started to break. So our kayak pretty much went nose down 90degrees and we were thrown out. I was just underneath the kayak and got hit in the head pretty hard.

'

Even after this happened. It wasn't too bad. The kayak and my paddles were floating away in the waves and Tom went off to collect them. He managed to get back into the kayak and came back to me. At this time, we were still joking about that we both lost our sun glasses in the waves and Tom told me to get back into the kayak.

'

However in that very second the whole water turned completely crazy. Waves were coming from all directions and I just couldn't get back in. Held on to the kayak until a new massive wave came in which separated me and Tom. He drifted of to the cliffs much faster than I did.

'

At this stage, I was still pretty calm and started to focus on whether it was a better idea to try to get thrown onto the cliffs or try to swim away from them. Australians who are brought up with this pretty much know what to do. Its harder for us internationals. Since the cliffs were really sharp and slippery and the waves just growing bigger I decided I had to get as far away from them as possible. So I started to paddle away from the cliffs with all my energy. I thought nothing except "I need to get away from here". So my plan was to go back out and then sort of come around the cliffs and just be washed up on the beach. But I realized pretty soon that I was just getting closer and closer to the cliffs with every wave that hit me. And then 3 massive waves hit me in a row and I looked to the right to see Tom thrown off the kayak again abt 100 meters away from me. In that momant, I started to panic cause I realized I had no chance of making it and I started to get really tired. I had probably just been out of the kayak for abt 10 min but constantly fighting 3m high waves is really hard.

'

The thought of sharks being in the water had luckily still not crossed my mind, despite the story Tom was just telling me minutes before we got thrown off. If I would ave pictured a shark in that momant I would have started to breath in way more water than I already did. Anyway. I started to realize that it wasn't a chance I would make it. And I looked up on the cliffs and saw a few people standing there watching me. I sort of thought that maybe they can get help so I started to wave to them but they all were just poining out the sea so I turned around. Heard a voice and saw a red little boat with two lifeguards in. The second later I felt this very strong hand around my stomach and suddenly I was in the boat. The only thing I could say was "I love you guys" which I will remember I repeated a few times on the way back.

'

The guy was pushing me down and the girl went off to collect Tom who was with the kayak a bit further away on the cliffs. He was a bit better off though since the waves he had managed to get up on was a bit more protected from the waves so he actually managed to walk up the cliffs and eventually ended up on the beach behind them, where also the kayak and most of our stuff ended up eventually.

'

The ride back to the beach was as rough as the rest of the story. At one point, we got hit by a massive wave that made the whole lifeboat stand up 90degrees...again. I have no idea how we did not fall out, cause I was basically holding on to two small strings on the boat. But we stayed in and later on I was safe on the beach. Dizzy, exhausted, thirsty. But very happy! Tom ended up with a pretty scratched body since he ended up on the cliffs and the kayak got a bit ripped as well but we were both good. The ambulance stuff came down to check blood pressure etc and then we were free to go.

'
I was pretty torn between wheter I should tell you or not. It's pretty hard for me as well to realized what actually happened and how bad it could have ended. The fact that life guards even exist didn't cross my mind when I was out there and it didn't cross my mind until I was actually on the boat. These people are voluntering, doing this amazing work on their free time with no payment what so ever. They rely on the public's donations so from now on, every time I walk past life savers (who usually collect money at a lot of different places) I'm gonna fill their money boxes with all that I have. I am just so thankful for these guys being there and turning up just in the same moment as I would probably really start panicing since I just realized I had no chance of making it. All love and cred to them!

'

Also, they told us the waves quickly had picked up that afternoon and the weather conditions just changed very suddenly. So it wasn't us picking a really bad day. We were just really unlucky.

'

Thats my very adventurous weekend story anyway. Remember I am fine and I would never have taken a risk like this if I even would have realized it was a risk. I was terrified of waves and water before and had a huge respect. I never hardly went into the water between the flags when it used to be high waves. So that respect is even bigger now and I will never put myself in a similar situation ever again so you dont have to be worried for me. I just wanted everyone to know what an amazing job the australian lifeguard service are doing and how easy it is to appreciate this when something like this happen.

'

So I guess this is true: "The thin line between a good experience and a serious accident is whether you can walk away from it in one piece and are able to tell the story"

'

Have had such a relaxed Saturday. West end markets and breakie with Lauren this morning and then forced healthworks gym to give me a 7 days free pass. The lady there wasn't very pleased with that but if a gym has free weeks to hand out why wouldn't day? Can't say Im very impressed though. Pretty small. Almost no classes. A screaming kid running around annoying everyone while his dad was working out. And way more expensive than my very beloved SATS at home. Really doesn't seem like it's worth joining. But. Need to keep fit somehow.

Ohh, I guess I haven't introduced my neighbour sausage dog Snuffy yet! Found on our kitchen floor one day when she escaped the heat from outside. Adorable!

Feeling incredibly lonely in my Pippi house. Its so quiet and clean....since I spend the whole day yesdarday keeping busy cleaning every part of the house. To do something useful of the day, I'm gonna head to Milton to get my bike serviced and going for the new year.

Last Rudolph of the year spoted on Sea World's car park 1st of Jan?

'

The last week didn't really follow the plans. But we had an amazing time anyway. Decided to just pack the car with essentinal things and drive north. This is where we went:

Kayaking on bribe island. Then, due to completely booked out accomodation. We slept half the night in the car. Half the night on the beach while searching for the southern cross on the sky.

Next say, we couldnt decide wether we should drive back south, to Sydney or continue north. However, eventually we decided not to go interstatet and went to Buddina beach to visit John and Mon for a few days. Some beach hang and mountain climbs...

On the top of Mt Ngungung, Glass house mountains section.

Had an awesome bbq with John and Mon (which for some reason didn't end up on pics)...before driving back to Bris and west end for markets and new years eve celebration.

((Went to IKEA as well on the way back only to buy new Kalles kaviar but got informed that IKEA globally will stop to sell Kalles. I'm destroyed. Will a Kalles survive 2 weeks in a postage pack??))

Had an incredible hippie veggie new years dinner in Brisbane's soho before watching the fire works at Southbank. Plan was orininally to drive up to Mt Cootha but Brisbane decided to cut off every single bridge so we colndt cross the river.

Ended up very good anyway...

And then....Last day of visit. First day of the new year. Monique was nice enough to give us passes to sea world since she is working there. Had an awesome day together with the animals. Lots of smiles and seal kisses!

Never thought I would see a polar bear in australia but sea world are trying to make people aware of the sad destiny of our polar bears and how the are suceptible to global warming etc. This one was totally amazing, swimming around in the cold water. Such a peaceful and beautiful creature!

Almost all animals on sea world has been taken care of due to injuries and disease. Feels so much better knowing that the animals are there for another reason than someone greedy just wanting money.

The highlight of the day was when Mon took us to pet the seal Beerleigh. Totally siked!

Beerleigh was so gentle. Even kissed us on the cheek=)))

Fell so hard for Beerleigh that Johannes bought me my own seal (named Beerleigh as well) from the gift shop.

And then a last quick picnic on the beach...

And thats the end of 3 beautiful weeks. Couldn't have wished for a better holiday.