We went to Ian's 29th birthday party on Saturday afternoon to evening. Ian is the support guy who works for Wallingford Software over here for those who don't know. He's from Sydney so knows most of the area quite well. He held his party at a lawn bowls club! It was quite a good idea as it was a cheap venue and it was a lot of fun to have a go at lawn bowls.I was imagining that we would be surrounded by old age pensioners but most of the people there were quite young and also having a good time.
I had a good time and also got to know a few of Ian's friends as well. This first photo is of Roger having a go at the game. I think the awkward pose is just a strange camera shot rather than him doing an impression.
I even won a couple of my games while playing in teams, but it helped that I was in a game which turned out to be quite competitive with Ian's friends.
On Sunday Roger and I arranged to go mountain biking around the Manly Dam course. It's rated as an intermediate course apparently so there's nothing like being chucked in at the deep end again for me as it was my first time.This is Roger at the start of the course which is a short cycle from the Manly ferry. He's done this course at least once before so had an idea of where to go and what it was like.
It's been a sweltering weekend over here with temperatures just above thirty degrees. It reminds me how hot my apartment gets when it's warm here. At least the hot weather makes cycling a very pleasant pursuit for a weekend.
This is a view from one of the higher points of the course. There were some lengths of the course which were very 'technical' as Roger puts it. What he meant was that they were quite tricky and either very difficult to ride up or quite scary to ride down!I was expecting some tricky moments but nothing prepared me for how rough some parts were going to be. The uphill parts were the most difficult as you need to maintain quite a bit of momentum to keep moving, especially when you come across some steep and rough rocks which were almost bigger than the wheels on my bike!
Going downhill was much more fun though. I say fun in that you have no choice but to keep flying down the rocks on your bike hoping that you can maintain balance and don't come to a sudden halt into a rock or tree beside the track.Even though some bits were very scary it was also lots of fun. I came off my bike in a controlled manner quite often when going up hills and loosing momentum on the big steep rough rocks. Going down hill was loads of fun and when you're moving at quite a rate and your bike is bouncing up and down quite fast below you it was fantastic!
There were a few moments when I could have come off and if I had fallen off it would have resulted in quite a messy accident but fortunately I maintained my balance and had a big smile on my face. I did fall off once unexpectedly, but fortunately I wasn't going very fast, but I did fall into a bush and get some twigs in my face for he pleasure!
The above photo is me on the ferry on the trip back at the end of the day. You can just about make out the mud from my knees downwards. There was even more mud on my bike though! I'd love to go again (and again).
Even better was that I came across a great ice cream stall at the Manly Ferry port. It has 32 flavours of milk shakes! I was like a kid in a sweet shop, I wanted mango, mint choc chip, chocolate and coffee flavours, but not at once. I eventually settled for coconut after changing my mind many times. :-)
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