More pics from my Awesome Aussie Adventure! Swimming, hiking and snorkeling in Maslins Beach and Port Willunga. And a quiet hike through the eucalyptus forest at Waterfall Gully…
And a fig, plucked right off the tree… Oh my were they good!
Enjoy! Ciao!
I am really enjoying my time in Adelaide. I’m staying with a lovely family, who are healthy and active and I’m eating good, fresh, organic food and getting tons of exercise!
I’ve met up with several people from MeetUp Adelaide and have done some amazing hikes in the mountains, beachside cliffs and national parks. Here are some stats and pictures…
Waterfall Gully up to Mount Lofty. Very steep!
Belair National Forest… Lots of Roos and koalas!!!
And yesterday a beachside cliff hike and swimming and a 90 minute reef snorkle (my calves are red!) and then another hike… Wonderful day and only one pic! LOL, my hiking companion took a ton of pictures so hopefully will have some to upload soon!
So, lots of exercise, good food and sunshine! I hope everyone out there is getting at least a 20 minute daily walk in! Get off the computer and go out now š
Ciao! xoxo
G’day Mates!
So I’ve been in Australia, on business, for 10 days and thought I’d share some of my pictures with you. I can’t express the happiness I have strolling through a park and seeing koalas hanging out in the tree. Not a zoo, just a national park. And the kangaroos and cockatoos and kookaburras and Galahs. Pretty awesome š
The family I’m staying with eat all organic and mostly gluten-free which is wonderful. Good healthy eating, lots of hiking and fresh air! I met some people from Meet-Up here and have hiked a couple of times with them.
Here’s the pics…
Three koalas in a tree š
Magpie… You lookin’ at me?
I made yummy gluten-free coconut muffins…
And another sunset…
So, that’s the first ten days… I’ve got a few recipes to post, hopefully in the next couple of days!
Ciao!
I set a goal at the start of the month to walk, run and hike 150 kms the month of September, and I met that goal… More than met it AND 7 miles (11.26 km) aren’t on here from my mountain hikes in NC last week. So here are the results…
160 kms + 11 = 171 kms!!
I’m very pleased with meeting this goal. Goal for October 165 km with a minimum of 60 kms of running š
Ciao!
I am really enjoying my walks and runs. That said, I was in Guangzhou for 17 days in August and pretty much unable to run due to the fact that there was nowhere safe to run š¦ The streets are full of people from 6 a.m. to midnight, so in order to safely run you have to get up and be out the door by 5 a.m.!
Needless to say I didn’t pound the pavement as much as I’d have liked this past month, although I got plenty of walking in. Here’s my August stats:
And here’s my stats since March:
I’ve nearly walked, run and hiked 700 kilometers/435 miles in 5 months! This is the breakdown:
Walking: 468.2 kms/290 miles
Running: 195.4 kms/122 miles
Hiking: 26 kms/16 miles
Staying active is key to losing weight and keeping it off. Just moving 30 minutes a day, even if it’s just walking, will benefit you in amazing ways!
What was your active movement on Monday?
Ciao!
I’ve had a pretty exciting week from a personalĀ perspective. I set two personal records running in the past 3 days. The first was my fastest run at 8:26 avg. min/km or 13:34 avg. min/mile. This is a full 1 minute per mile LESS than before I had my surgery in May!Ā The second was that I ran more miles in July than any previous month! Below is my RunKeeper stats…
The brick color is walking, the green is running and the purple is hiking.
I’ve either walked, ran or hiked 544 kilometers since March. That’s 338 miles š Woot!
Another awesome thing that happened this week is that at some point I reached 50,000 hits on my blog! AndĀ I’veĀ logged nearly 3500 comments! It makes me so happy that so many peopleĀ haveĀ stopped by. I started regularly writing this blog in August to share my journey with family and friends and it has become so much more and that makes my heart swell with happiness!
And that leads to the awesomest things thatĀ haveĀ happened this week. Actually it happened today… 4 people that I personally know, all of us on 4 different continents, contacted me today (yesterday for some of you) to tell me they are starting the Dukan because they want to be healthier andĀ they’veĀ seen my success. All 4Ā haveĀ read my blog and I only knew that one of them was. I wish all 4 of you luck!!! I know you will succeed because I know all of you put your mind to something and accomplish it! 4 amazing women… starting on this journey… Good luck and remember that I’m here if you need anything!
I’ll finish by saying that August brings in the last month of summer. It also signals that IĀ haveĀ 51 days left in China. I can’tĀ believeĀ I’veĀ been here nearly a year already! I get one more trip to Guangzhou where I get to hang with my Int’l crew down there, Rose, Jenny, Liza and Dianna. And get to mentor a friend from the Middle East, Aisha! And then back to Hangzhou to finish out my contract… I’m going to miss myĀ ViviMokaLakaĀ so much! She’s the one that brought me here in the first place. I’m going to try to take as many photos as possible in the next 7 weeks.
But I miss home and my kids and my grandkids and my mom and my family and my friends and the beautiful sunriseĀ overĀ theĀ RooseveltĀ Bridge first thing in the morning. And there’s no place like home.Ā I’veĀ had a fun 4 yearsĀ livingĀ abroad š But on to new projects and fixing up my AirStream!
I hopeĀ everyoneĀ has a wonderful Wednesday!
Ciao!
Friday night, April 23… taxi to AD airport.
Saturday, April 24.. Flight from AD to Casablanca, Morocco. The landing was aborted just before we touched down!!! I laughed my ass off, which is what I do when I think IĀ“m going to die! We had to circle because there was ground fog and they couldnĀ“t see anything (this is what the pilot told us… LOL). Anyway, finally landed around 930 a.m. local time. Train to Tanger 6 long hours! We stayed the night in an Ibis Hotel and had a traditional teagine dinner… bed early… exhausted. Travel Day 1 is done.
Sunday, April 25… HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BIG GIRL CELESTE ALENA THE BALLERINA!!! Took the ferry from Tanger, Morocco to Algecerias, Spain… 35 minutes, but time difference is 2 hours! Talk about being confused! Taxi to Malaga, Spain and we canĀ“t get a train, bus is out because IĀ“ll puke, so we go to the airport and rent a car. a cute little Peugeot. Stop at 10 pm in La Guardia, Spain, about an hour south of Madrid. ItĀ“s a truck stop-hotel. Bacon & Cheese sandwiches for dinner & breakfast the next morning… IĀ“m a happy hiker š Day 2 of travel done and over…
Monday, April 26.. taking us FOREVER to get to SJPdP!!! On road by 900 am. Spanish countryside is amazing! Arrive at Pamplona airport to drop off the rental at 400 pm, taxi to St Jean Pied de Port 1.5 hours… WeĀ“re FINALLY at the start of our walk… 6 days behind, but here! Went wrong way up the steep road and ended up at a wonderful hostel, hosted by Jaques & Francois. I THOUGHT they said dinner was bread pudding, and it was delicious. Lucy informed me after the fact that it was traditional Basque BLOOD PUDDING. LOL!!! Good thing thing I didnĀ“t know in advance. Met some really wonderful people at the hostel, John, a journalist from Argentina and Henri, an Irish/Spanish bloke for Madrid who has taken a year off to travel and the loudest snorer in the world, Pierre, who has horrible sleep apnea, but a lovely smile. CanĀ“t wait to get started in the morning.
Tuesday, April 27… after drinking cafe latte from a bowl for brekkies, Lucy and I laced up our boots, grabbed our walking sticks, strapped our backpacks to our backs and set off with Henri & John. After half hour of climbing up, up, up John & Henri went ahead and Lucy and I continued on the hardest walk of my life! 9 kms, mostly at an incline, climbing to 1000 meters. It took me 5 hours to do it, but I DID IT! At times I would take 70-100 steps and rest for a minute, then do it again. Lucy was amazingly patient, I am so grateful for her. I mostly listened to the soundtrack from G I Jane… quitting IS NOT an option š Just when I honestly thought I couldnĀ“t go another step, Orrison appeared around the bend, al humdilalah! This is our stop for the night and I am so happy! No inside beds, we are in a tent tonite, and Lucy has invited a lovely Japanese girl, Mika, to stay in our tent, since there was nothing available for her… the more the warmer, is what I say!!! More tomorrow!
So Lucy and I went to Amsterdam to buy the stuff for our walk. For those of you who have been living under a mushroom and haven’t heard me say or mention (ad nauseum) the “walk” is the Camino de Santiago, aka The Walk of St James aka the Santiago Compostela. Here’s a link for some info on it: http://www.caminodesantiago.me/board/el-camino-frances/
We leave April 21, 2010 from Abu Dhabi and hope to finish it by May 27th. We will walk approx. 25 km per day, that’s 15.53 miles per day.
Lucy and I flew to Amsterdam on Wednesday, March 3rd and returned on Sunday, March 7th… not long enough! Here’s some pics from the trip:
The top pic is me at the airport in Abu Dhabi as we get ready to leave… good practice, only took my hiking back pack, weight: 4.5 kg, that’s just under 10 pounds.
The 2nd pic is Lucy and me having lunch at a lovely restaurant across the canal from the Anne Frank house, which we didn’t get to visit because the cue was more than 45 minutes and it was raining and it was 2 degrees C!
The 3rd pic is Sacha and me. I met Sacha at this store last August when Nick and I were in Amsterdam before our Italy holiday. Sacha remembered that I said I’d be back! We bought everything we need for “the walk” at this store, the Bever Women’s Swerfsport store and their parent store down the street.
We had a great time in Amsterdam and also had dinner with my friends Peter & Sylvia who were in Vanuatu with me in 2005.
I can’t imagine needing anything else for my trip… here’s a pic of my pack with all the stuff I bought:
From the top and clockwise: My vest, clear document keep dry pouch, little black pouch is my clothesline and the yellow thing is a solar light source, my purple cap, light blue thing is my wind/rain breaker, the red thing in the black net looking bag is my silk sleep sack, below that one of 3 pair of hiking, zip pants and the belt to keep them up with, next to that, one of 3 pair of wool socks, the red thing next to that is the rain pancho that goes over me AND the pack, above that is the tan zip pants, my toothbrush/paste in one thingy and next to that another pair of wool socks, next to the pancho are my sexy black long johns (LOL), my teal short sleeved hiking shirt, above that my black long sleeved hiking shirt, above that my light weight water bottle, to the right of that my map from village to village and it tells you where the refugios are, and to the left of the water bottle my light weight carry all bag, for carrying personal effects, passport and money to the shower, and last but not least, my green short sleeved hiking shirt.
The long johns and shirts and purple skull cap and my buff (in the pack so not in pic) are made by Icebreaker, a company that make clothing from pure NZ merino wool.
Here’s their web site: http://www.icebreaker.com/site/index.html
I will blog about packing and preparing up to the trip. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to blog about the trip at least once per week… keeping my fingers crossed! š If not, you’ll hear all about it when I get back!
Hope everyone is having a fabulous week… I AM š
Peace!
Flamidwyfe's Blog 