Anaconda Demo Day

Last Saturday we got the chance to introduce some of our hobbies to our friends for free at a demo day in Westerfolds Park north east of the city ...

Adrien, Noelle, Dean & Mayank racing up the pinnacle

Dean, Coop & Mayank, hanging out

After that, there was some time to try out some bikes and hit a few short trail rides (I loved the trail/street/park bike I tried, as I have been wanting to try out this style of bike for ages)
Dean, Noelle, Coop, Adrien & Mayank

Noelle and Adrien back on the main trail after navigating through the trees

Time to cool off and get wet after the trail ride, Dean, Mayank & Adrien

Mayank, Adrien & Dean navigating the river



Coop, Dean & Adrien, playing around & ready to race

Us ... just paddling down the river 'on a kayak made for two'

We had beautiful sunny weather all day. We both did a 3km run first thing before heading to the park. Before we left the park, Noelle & I hung out to find out about some race events that I am planning on entering after Christmas (we'll see how the training goes). Then we ended the day the best way; at the beach catching some rays and my first ocean swim of the Spring.

The sun can keep this coming:)

Dean put this great video montage together of our day, just click to play :)

I officially declare winter over!

I have been reluctant to make this declaration as the last Victorian ski fields only closed their lifts for the winter season 3 weeks ago, and they have had significant snowfalls since then. There has also been plenty of hail and wild winds down on the coast where we are. But I have finally had my first sea swim of the Spring and we have been able to spend much more time outside benefit ting from the clocks going forward for Spring 3 weeks ago here.

That said this was our winter:

I love winter as long as snow is involved (even with the insanely early alarm clock on Saturday mornings to drive to the better slopes). This year the snow came early & stayed late which meant we hit the slopes for the first time the first weekend of May. We had some gorgeous weather, blue skies and a BBQ on the slopes :)

Noelle catching some rays on the chair lifts at Mt Buller

Not quite such sunny conditions, some great runs at Mt Baw Baw our closest downhill resort, but only when there is enough snow (we only managed one trip here this winter due to lack of snow the 2nd half of the season)

We also had some very bitter and poor visibility days, this was one of those at Falls Creek (the furthest slopes from us), but when you've driven all that way, you just grin; your face is soon fixed in that position :) - We are in that picture ... somewhere

Buller, and Mt Hotham threw some equally biting days at us in the 2nd half of the winter.

The last 3 photos are all from our final boarding of the season at Mount Hotham at the end of September, it was the 2nd to last day of their season and more than 50cm of snow fell on us and the approach roads throughout the day. The wind lead to almost zero visibility on the summit slopes, but middle mountain (and for me) off-piste were fantastic; tracks were constantly re-covered with powder. This made for a perfect end of the season (which officially ended at Falls a weeks later).

Mt Hotham summit, 26th September 2009

Noelle, protected from the elements

Most people already had snow chains fitted in the morning, we luckily found a fairly protected spot to park, and had no issues with our 4WD locked. We drove down from the mountain on freshly snow covered roads, just enjoying the beauty of it all.

We also decided to go white water rafting only 50km from Mt Hotham the same weekend, which, despite the weather above the snowline, was probably just right on the river :)

We have had great winter. I usually rate my winter activity on the number of lift passes I collect over the season, considering our own boards only arrived from the UK late July, we did pretty well - we hit all 4 Victorian downhill resorts, but with Buller being the closest with reliable snow conditions for day trips, this was tackled most.

Winter camping was included twice to give us more time at the better snow of Falls Creek and Hotham which are further away. I have definitely been impressed with the quality and quantity of snow, and while some might not find all the runs challenging enough, you can challenge yourself on them.

We are looking forward to summer (and those same resorts opening for their green seasons and downhill MTBing), I am not so keen on the transition from one to the other ...

Oh and my only snowboarding injury this winter was a cracked rib from a rail back in June :D

Keeping Cool

Just a question for readers.

Is it conceited, arrogant, or just unwise to use my name within my business name?

I am in the process of setting up a business in Australia (which if the stats for start-ups are correct, will probably make us poorer rather than richer).

It has been a good while since I have had to come up with a new business/trading name, and it is causing me some problems.

The name I am most likely to register at the moment is 'Cooper Cooling' (Just to clarify, to move to Australia I have re-specialised/re-trained as a refrigeration and air conditioning engineer). I want the name to incorporate all parts of what the business will cover, which primarily is the design, construction, manufacture, installation, servicing, and sales of all things that help keep life 'cool'. (Something quite important down under, somehow the 4 million + feral Australian camels seem to cope)

Any thoughts or ideas much appreciated, as this name may well haunt my life for years to come ...

I don't have much time to make a decision as I am already trading, and have to complete the company registration ASAP or risk big fines.

(Yes we are still having lots of fun down here, and will try and get some more of it up online to share when we get this next step up and running)

White and White

Last weekend my Birthday went unnoticed by most except a couple of family members, and a couple of messages from friends - that was fine though as it didn't stop Noelle & I heading off for a long weekend adventure that proved to be quite wet for the most part.

We got to take our new motorbike out for a good run and soak ourselves to the bones before we headed up to the mountains, for what we expected to be a very icy end to the snowboard season for us. We were blessed by the snow gods though and got a fantastic 55cm (22 inches) of dry powdery stuff fall for us. This meant some hairy driving conditions both to the mountain and back off it at the end of the day. There was very limited visibility on the summit, but middle mountain was fantastic and I also got in some great off piste through the trees in deep fresh powder.

However this was just regular winter weekend activity for us, and we had a four day weekend to play ...

So the main event was a first for both of us (although actually a back-up, back-up plan for the weekend).

We headed to the Mitta Mitta River with Rafting Australia to hit some white water :D


After the constant snow fall at the mountains and driving more than 30km on completely snow covered roads on our way to our camp site (fortunately below the snow line) the night before, we wondered if Spring had really arrived, and if the rafting was such a great idea ...








But as you can see, from my huge smile, it was a fantastic day on the rapids for both of us.


I will admit I found it a little bit tame at times, as it was quite a technical river rather than constant rapids.

It has been on 'the list' for some time, and a few years ago we were supposed to do a multi-day raft trip in Tasmania, but the water levels were too low.

Now I just want more, so if anyone wants to visit us, we will gladly hit this river again? We have added a multi day trip back to 'the list' with the same rafting outfit in Northern NSW (but there are still plenty of other things on there that might take priority ...)

Back on 2 wheels

Since Noelle arrived back in April we have been sharing the car, but for the last few months that has got tougher ... (we work in completely opposite directions, different schedules, Noelle has to have a car for work, so I get public transport or cycle. This isn't always possible, which means we have had to rent a car a couple of times in the last couple of weeks as things have continued to get busier for both of us).

Solution? A motorbike of course :D We bought a Suzuki GS500 naked commuter bike last Wednesday. I know, I know, people like Ryan & Ricky are going to be disappointed that we didn't buy something bigger. I have looked at several bikes since I got here, as we expected this would be the best choice for a second vehicle for us at the moment.

In many ways I would have liked a slightly bigger bike, but not much. I loved my trip with Ryan back in June/July on big cruisers, and am sold on something similar one day, but it could not be an everyday commuter bike here. For starters, unlike Utah, but like the UK, bikers in Australia do not have to follow the flow of traffic with the cars, we can ride past all the cars as they sit in slow moving traffic, so a big cruiser just could not handle the weaving that kind of riding entails.

Also, as Noelle only moved onto real bikes a year ago when she took her full bike test (she had been riding Vespas for years before that). She needed a bike that she would be comfortable to ride herself and take me as pillion on. So while I had a short list of several possible bikes, Noelle got final veto, and weight, size, comfort for her, and she had to test ride the chosen bike more than me.

I will still be using the trains and buses as much as possible, but now have the bike when I need it, and it will be me that uses it most. Noelle is happy on it, so some days we may have to switch out and I'll have the SUV and she'll have the bike, which is why she needed to be comfortable on it.

We were determined to get out on the bike but it was a pretty wet and windy week last week.

We finally got out for a 95km ride down and round the Peninsula where we live on Friday. It started raining just after we set of, and rained the whole ride, but we hit some great roads and views of the rugged coastline.

It is comfortable enough two-up, so we already have a couple of long weekend camping trips planned on the bike, so keep an eye out for those as we head into our summer :D

Moootang Woootang, Baby!!

So as Coop has already mentioned in Baptists v Mormons, on the way to the Temple, we got rear-ended and had to have another car for the rest of the trip. Not such a bad thing, really, as I've always loved the Mustang, even the 'plastic fantastic' new ones, as Coop likes to call 'em. I just like the whole lot of them, and since watching 'Gone in 60 Seconds' years ago, I've been in love with the Shelby from it. So as there was a brand new convertible in the fleet, Coop had me sweet-talk the rental agent so that I could fulfil a little ambition of mine.

This is me, as one of our fave O.C. songs says; 'drivin' down the 101', in 101 degree heat, doing 101 (mph) on the speedo! :D And I loved every minute of it!! Hee hee!! Thanks for the opportunity, Baptists!!Santa Barbara, after driving 400 glorious miles from the Binghams in Santa Rosa, I finally let Coop take over for the final stint to LAX ...

Of course the last weekend of our trip was made possible by Chris and Michelle Bingham hosting us. They introduced me to my first oyster at a great farmers market, we played in the Giant Redwoods and Douglas Firs of Muir Woods. Experienced The Cheesecake Factory for the first time, and Chris had us in hysterics when he walked straight into his patio screen door. Thanks so much for having us :D

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Noelle's long awaited blog post

Ok, so while Coop was off gallivanting around the states with Ryan on their huge tourers, Jen and I were left to fend for ourselves; which we did, quite well, I think! Granted, I didn't have responsibility for 3 kiddies, so I got the easy deal, but I think we all had a pretty good time. (Apart from the sickness and daddy-missing, and hubby-missing that the Hamiltons had to trudge through.) Before I sound too callous, yes, of course I missed Coop, but I'd been through almost 3 months apart, so a week wasn't really gonna kill me... Plus I've learned that if you don't talk/think about it, it goes faster, so I didn't...

On the other hand, I really did get to catch up with some good friends, I spent half of my first Sunday with Wayne, one of our English mates who now lives in West Jordan if my memory serves me right, then on the way back down to Jen, I stopped in at Chris and Beth's for the

evening. (These are friends from when we were in Bonneville 3rd Ward.) I spent some more time with them later in the week, also seeing Talita and her oldest girl Tashina while I was with Beth (Tashina reminds me very much of my oldest German niece!) to make some PJ bottoms. During this week I also went shopping with Michelle E, then on to a BBQ with Stewart, Carolyn and Michelle, went to Thanksgiving Point with the Collins and Meg's mum and dad,

I even made use of Megan's photographer's eye to choose my new glasses!


I saw our good friends Geri and (luckily about 10 -15 mins before I was due to leave) Robbie came home and I got to say hi to him too :).

It was quite the little treasure hunt to find Geri, as she's moved and I didn't have a clue where she'd gone, so knocked on their old front door and asked if they knew where the Apels live now, please? The wonderful thing was that they'd done a house-swap, and I found the new house fast! Getting Geri to answer the door: not so fast! :) I must have looked hilarious to the neighbours, as I knocked, went to the back, knocked, tapped the windows, etc. I hasten to add that I wasn't being a stalker - Geri's car was in the driveway and the TV was on, so I knew someone was home - I just had to make myself heard! Eventually, I put a note through the door and gave it one last ditch attempt around the back. No luck... So it was lovely to see her coming to find me around the back, as I walked back around the side!! One of the fastest, yet best visits I made. Coop was sorry to have missed everyone, and was hopeful that I said hi from him too, so just in case I didn't at the time, here it is; 'Hi!'

I also managed to spend a few hours with Jen and the girls going to the dinosaur museum. Now that was fun! The part where they got to build sand moats and islands was brilliant for the kids, even if there was a little know-it-all-boy bossing everyone about and getting in front of me when I was taking pictures. (I do have a problem with know-it-all-kids, plus what is it about little boys that they have this intimate knowledge of all things dinosaur?!) Jen and I went trail running and to the gym - I declined the open water swim invite though:).


As I often didn't come back 'til quite late, and was doing the Lemon Detox thingy, when Jen's mum asked her how it was working out feeding her house guest for the week, I think Jen said something along the lines of, 'What food, she doesn't eat!' I had heard about the lemon detox with the cayenne pepper and maple syrup when I first arrived, so I decided that I would do that while Coop was gone. After a few days I did have fruit smoothies during the day and huge salads when I returned in at night, with Bryn saying; 'I need more!' to the fruit smoothies, which cracked me up!

Jen, the girls and I went to the farmers market, which during all our years living over there, I had neglected to explore! Plus, Jen and I did have one night where I came back early-ish, with about $70 of makeup that she just thought was mad! (I know it seems silly, but it is still waaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper to stock up in America for the next year or two than to buy it anywhere else, eg: $6 US mascara v $27 AUD mascara!) But we watched some film or other, but mainly talked, laughed and nearly wet ourselves giggling at things. (Well, we are both so darn funny when we get together, what do you expect?!!) I wished I could have spent more time with my red-headed mate, but it was not to be - those boys returned on the Friday, just like they promised! But it totally reminded me of why, when I became her visiting teacher years ago, I thought, 'Oh, I really want to be this girl's friend!'

The funny thing was that when Coop and Ryan returned, we went to Wal*Mart (the place that makes me feel I'm back 'home' - I don't know if that is a good thing or not!) and as we were debating on the bread, who would we bump into but Meg and John! Took me a min to remember that Coop hadn't seen them since our last trip, so it was good to agree on groceries for the trip and be invited to the 4th July fireworks at Meg's parents' home that evening!

If I missed anyone out, I'm sorry, it is two months on and I should have done this much earlier, but have been pretty swamped and have been a slacker! That is all I can say - yes I'm a slacker, not sure about this blogging lark, whether anyone will be interested or not, and I know I waffle, so be kind to the new kid on the block and post a comment, eh?




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This just doesn't seem right ...

The 'ute' is quintessentially Australian in my opinion, but when I saw this at lunch today it just seemed wrong, so I wanted to see if anyone else had any thoughts?

Yes, you are seeing right, this is a Rolls Royce ute ... don't get me wrong, I love cars and trucks, but this is much more than the ute was ever meant to be ...

According to the last episode of Top Gear a couple of weeks ago (if you watched this you will know how serious the Australians are about over-powered sedan based pick-ups), and the site I linked at the top of this page,

"In 1932 a farmer's wife from Gippsland, Vic. wrote a letter of complaint to Ford Australia, saying that her husband wanted a car that could carry her 'to church on Sundays and pigs to market on Mondays'"

Thus was born the ute, but while the farmer's wife may have loved the example above for her weekly drive to church, it's not where I'd put my pigs???

Baptists vs. Mormons

Friday 10th July 2009

There was a bit of a mad rush to get the boat back in on Friday, with most of us heading in different directions. The Forbes flying down to Arizona and the Ellsworths driving back to Utah after dropping the Forbes at the Airport.

We had a little more time to get everything off the boat, and the first shower since Monday - (washing in the lake was lots of fun, but I won't put the photos up yet, I'll save those embarrassing shots for another time).

We then headed off to the Sacramento Temple with the Collins. This did not prove to be the smoothest of journeys ...

About half way there we were happily following the Collins in slow moving traffic, when out of nowhere we were hit from behind.

Luckily no one was hurt and although it was quite a hard hit our Toyota Sequoia took it better than the Chevy Van that hit us, but both were drivable ...

A Sheriff arrived first, followed by Highway Patrol ...

... the second officer to arrive found it hilarious as he established why we were dressed in shirt and tie, and who were the driver and passengers of the van ... As he put it,

"Let me get this straight, the Baptists hit the Mormons, who were on the way to the Temple?"

It turned out the van was full of a young baptist travelling choir group. Everything was very calm, no one got angry or tried to blame anyone else and we were soon on our way, (with our luggage trapped in the damaged boot).

We had a great time in the Temple doing baptistry work for just over 30 Cooper family ancestors including my Great Great Grandfather Charles Cooper was born in Melbourne, Derbyshire, UK in the 1816 (funny now that I live in Melbourne), and my Great Great Uncle Frank C. Cooper. We also did work for family, that since moving to Australia, we now have discovered that friends out here (in Sydney) are distant cousins with. We have common ancestors who are from the same area as where my Dad and Grandmother are buried. It is quite likely that some of our common ancestors are in that same graveyard, I will have to see if my sister Jeris can find out more at some point?

It was great to have John & Megan with us to do and we shared the work out. John was one of my companions when we served our missions in Paris. We had been able to do Collins family work for them last year when we were in Palmyra, so it was a great experience to have them help do work for our family. Thanks John & Megan.

It was the first time Noelle or I had been to Sacramento, and means I have now been to a rather meagre 19 Temples, I once had a goal of visiting them all, but there are so many now!

Houseboat - Lake Oroville, CA - 6th - 10th July 2009

Our accommodation for the week - Megan, Noelle, Michelle, Carolyn, Stewart & Jon - ready to leave the Marina for open waters ...

After having Saturday to sleep in and recover from the motorcycle trip a little and get some shopping done, by Sunday it was time to head (back for me) to North California. We left Sunday midday for the 10 hour drive (fortunately Noelle did most of the driving of our vehicle with the Collins’, while Jon, Michelle, Stewart & Carolyn convoyed in a separate car).

Don’t worry, I am not going to go into a long detailed account of our time on the lake. Our days consisted of getting up as and when we felt like it, playing on the water, picking up more people from the marina to play for the day, some more playing on the lake until it got dark, then washing in the lake, and playing card games and chatting until late. There was lots of bruises from the water sports and some serious burning for some. We had a blast and hopefully everyone else did even with the suffering?

Jon - navigating us across Lake Oroville

John & Megan sorted everything on this part of the trip really. John’s Dad got the house boat for us for free from the marina he works at. His brother Mark lent us his old ski-boat and brand new Seadoo. So we just had to pay for petrol and a service for the Seadoo at the end of the week as we put so many hours on it!

I will tell a little more of the fun with a few pictures

There was plenty of time for relaxing as we headed out ...

Until Stew & I decided it was time to get wet & jump off the boat while it was still moving ... we discovered it was impossible to catch up with the boat swimming! We then all spent the first afternoon jumping off different levels of the boat while it just drifted in the center of the lake - lots of fun :D

The Seadoo and first ski-boat arrived Monday evening, which gave us just a small window to do some tubing and through each other off both the jetski and tube before it got dark.

Click on this photo to enlarge it and check our the look on Carolyn's face as Stew gets air ...

Noelle cruises past our houseboat, before doing a slingshot to swim back in after some fantastic runs on the wakeboard!

This was our second ski-boat which we switched to on Wednesday after failing to repair the first boat for the third time ... this one lasted until Thursday afternoon before leaving us stranded again. It was great for towing while it lasted, and I can't complain as we only paid for fuel on all the watercraft ... as you can see, boats are not the easiest of things to work on when floating around.



The thing about getting lots of air on a ski is that if you make tight turns, this is what happens - this time it was me throwing myself and John Collins (yes there were 3 Johns/Jons on the houseboat) - still, all part of the fun ;p

Noelle - loving it

Jon Ellsworth - the big smile says it all

Getting air decent air off boats without towers and off small Seadoo wake is not so easy, but still a lot of fun (Coop above and below)

Noelle got this great shot of the water wrapping around John Collins as he popped out of the water

After impressing us all with his kneeboarding skills, it was great to see The Doctor get up on the wakeboard (the last time he tried with us a couple of years ago in NY he just ended up with badly bruised ribs).

Megan waterskiing blind ;)

The Forbes towing the Ellsworths - despite the bruising everyone seemed to enjoy being thrown from the tubes :D (Even Noelle let us get some speed up in the end)

Megan has put some fantastic photos on facebook here, and Michelle has some great ones here.

Thanks to the Forbes, Collins and Ellsworths for joining us (as well as the extended Collins family on various days). We couldn’t have done the trip without you, and if we could it wouldn’t have been so fun!

You can see the some of my other favourite pictures from the lake by clicking the Picasa album below.

Lake Oroville Fun, California - 6th to 10th July 2009

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