The US of A - The fun stuff - Part IV

After checking out the oldest trees in the world I figured I should go and see the largest. Unfortunately as I hadn’t planed any of the trip I was on the wrong side of the Sierra Nevada range and had a rather long day in the car as a result. This was not helped by my GPS unit which decided that there was a shorter route and would shave a few minutes off the trip. In the end I took the "short" route which took me through some nasty mountain pass with millions of hairpin corners and turned out to be a very long route. The next day I headed into Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park to check out the Sequoia trees.

A local

To show the scale of these trees look at the tree that is laying over the road, see the hole in it, you can drive through that!

The General Sherman Tree - The largest tree in the world (by volume)

The US of A - The fun stuff - Part III

From Death Valley it was off to check out the ancient Bristlecone Pines (oldest trees in the world) in the White Mountains. The oldest tree is known as the Methuselah tree and is almost 5000 years old, although only a few people know which tree is the Methuselah. As it was early spring there was still a lot of snow about which meant the road was closed and I had to walk a few miles to the trees. But on the plus side there was absolutely no one else around which made it even nicer.

A Joshua Tree - Like the U2 album

A Bristlecone Pine, this one is probably around 4000 years old.

Some of the dead trees are over 10 000 years old.

This photo shows the growth rings in a ~5 x 5 cm block.

The US of A - The fun stuff - Part II

From the Grand Canyon I headed to Death Valley. Unfortunately I miscalculated how long it would take to drive there and ended up having to spend the night in some dodgy casino on the boarder. Death Valley turned out to be a pretty sweet place although the dust storms sucked. I managed to befriend a couple of locals who naively invited me to share some beers with them. Well, a few hours later there were no more beers left but they didn’t seem to mind, they even cooked me a traditional breakfast the next day (eggs, bacon and hash browns). Turns out not all Yanks are ring-wing-religious-nut-jobs, some a bloody friendly normal people.

The local drop (the good one)

A few photos from Death Valley

The US of A - The fun stuff

I figured that as I was in the US I should make the most of it, so I took a week off and did a bit of a road trip. For once the road trip was completely unplanned, which is slightly unusual for me but it all worked out in the end.
The first adventure was attempting to drive out of LA. You see I haven’t had the best experiences driving on the other side of the road. I decided to hire a GPS unit for the car and while it didn’t tell me when I was driving on the wrong side of the road it did make driving out of LA a lot easier. From LA I headed to the Grand Canyon and after getting lost in the car park I managed to find the big hole. It was pretty impressive so I stayed there a couple of nights. Much to my surprise there was a bit of snow about which made for a few chilly nights in the tent, this was not helped by my new leaking thermarest.

Camp and car.

The Grand Canyon, but you probably figured that out by yourselves.

It wouldnt be a road trip without taking some funky long exposure photos, this one went for 18 min.

The US of A - New Orleans

Well after a 13 hr flight from Sydney to LA (6 movies and no sleep) I arrived in the chaos that is LAX. After a refreshing 6 hr stop over we were looking forward to boarding the plane, unfortunately someone forgot to tell us that paying for a ticket doesn’t mean you get one. Apparently the flight was over booked and they had decided that those who just spent half a day getting to LAX could wait another half a day. Thankfully some people decided to take a later flight and we managed to get on. It is not surprising that half the airlines in the US are going bust when they treat people like shit. Anyway, 4 hrs later we arrived in New Orleans and much to my surprise it resembled a normal looking city. After a quick trip to the golden arches in the city centre I realised that the place reminded me of Dunedin during O-week, but with more sleaze and booze and a little bit more sleaze.
The conference had a pretty busy schedule of talks and I could only manage to take one morning off to see the sights. I decided to go and check out the swamps and saw a good collection of critters.

In the end the conference was pretty good and the 5 people who decided to stay for my talk on the last day seemed to like the work. I may have even managed to score a post-doc position in Canada, but there are a few details to iron out

Kosciuszko National Park

Aleisha and I decided to make the most of our new found freedom, as well as sweet new camping gear and headed to Kosciuszko National Park for a spot of tramping. We skived off work a bit early to avoid the Easter holiday traffic and after 6 hrs arrived in Jindabyne. It turns out that Jindabyne is a bigger crap hole than Manapouri (long story) and even though it was the Easter long weekend all the accommodation in town had shut up shop by 7 pm. It turns out that this was a blessing in disguise as we ended up spending the night car camping in the National Park where we spotted a Wombat. The next day we headed off into the wilderness...

Wilderness - The main highway heading up to the summit, sorry summit is a little misleading as even though it is the highest peak in Oz it is only ~2300 m.

Camp Day 1 - After a few hours of nice weather it turned a little crud.

Camp Day 2 - We decided to be unaustralian and walk off the main trail, we were rewarded with having a valley all to ourselves.

Panorama from camp made with Autostitch.

This little critter is either an Agile Antechinus or a Broad Toothed Rat, although we are leaning toward the Antechinus.

After four years in Oz we finally managed to spot our first Frog, I will not even try to identify which one it is.

Kanangra-Boyd National Park

As we have had the new car for quite a while but not put it to good use, Aleisha and I decided to take the Hulk out to stretch its legs. The destination was Kanangra-Boyd National Park just west of the Blue Mountains. Much to my relief the Hulk did not fall apart on the 30 km of crappy gravel roads. While it was too hot for serious tramping it was a nice weekend away from Sydney.

Jacky Lizard (a really fat one)

The Hulk at the campsite

The Kanangra Walls

Western Australia - Critters

A Wedge Tailed Eagle

Perentie

Stromatolites - The oldest known living organisms on the planet. You have these little buggers to thank for the oxygen we breath today (or that God dude if you are that way inclined).

Dugong - Apparently these fat beasts are surpose to be what started the tale of mermaids.

A friendly Quoka on Rottnest Island, which is just off the coast of Perth.

A White-breasted Robin

Western Australia

Just a few photos from out WA honeymoon road trip.

The great wee Corolla that we flogged for 5000 km.

The Pinnacles just north of Perth.

We were lucky enough to see a the Carnarvon river flooding which was due to rain inland a couple of days earlier. In my rush to take the photo I didnt put my shoes on and subsequntly severly burnt the bottom of my feet on the molten concrete, so enjoy the photo.

Termite mounds on the road to Ningaloo reef.

Coral Bay - A bit more like your usual honeymoon location.

Wedding Reception

Due to popular demand I have decided to post the photos of the infamous bouquet tossing.

The Fishing Trip

As the madness of the last few months has finally come to an end I finally have time to post some photos of the fishing trip.

Iain hooks into the big one, it got away, but it was huge! Honest!

Sneaky Pete took the prize for best fish. It must have been due to the gigantic sunglasses that allowed him to peer into the depths.

Tasty Fish.

One of many fish caught on the day.

Wedding photos are all online

Well the wedding photos are all online now, all 600 of them. We have set up the old website again so just go to www.kiwishooter.com or click on the link.

Wedding photos are here

Well our wedding photographer just dropped off the wedding photos, and all I can say is wow. Aleisha and I are now trying to figure out how to best share the 300 digital images, 200 Black and white film images and also the 100 film colour images. The job is made even harder becuase there is only a couple of images that we dont like! If you are thinking of getting married then we highly recommend Alex Pasquali as a wedding photographer.

Wedding Day

The weather held, the food was great and now it is time for a well deserved holiday.

A weekend

Since the submission on the thesis I have rediscovered something called weekends when apparently people don't work. To celebrate this discovery Aleisha and I headed out to Maitland Bay for a quiet day on the beach. The water was a little choppy so the snorkelling was not the best, but any day away from the office is a brilliant day. I managed to take a few photos before the dogey underwater housing for my camera started to fail.

It is done