On the weekend, Kristy and I joined up with DJ Puu for a camping trip to Seven Sisters. With it’s lilly-white cliffs, it looks like Dover, but it isn’t.

After a pleasant drive (just under two hours from our door), we parked our car, grabbed a clotted-cream morning tea (well, one of us had the clotted-cream), then got our kit on to go “canoeing” – which was really “kayaking”. Not being equipped with a waterproof camera, I am short of photos of this event, however we were not dressed for style, so perhaps that’s a blessing in disguise. Anyway, the water was cold, and the wind was strong – so after two solid hours, we were completely exhausted, and rather pleased to be setting foot back on dry land.

The kayaking was absolutely great fun overall, but it left us with a killer appetite. We sat on the bank of the river and hoed into the food that Matt had brought for lunch.

The campsite was about one mile from the carpark, so after lunch we locked up Matt’s wheels, and hiked our way in. The scenery was very pleasant, and we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather!

Unfortunately, the camping grounds had already filled up by the time we booked, so we weren’t able to tent it up. Instead, we were to be staying in the “sleeping barn”, which – apparently – holds up to 38 people. We couldn’t find any pictures of the “sleeping barn” on the website, and once we saw it, we knew precisely why; no-one would ever want to stay there if they saw it first.

Less than appealing. We also figured that to fit 38 people, you’d be quite snuggled against random stranger number 37 sleeping next to you.

We decided to get over ourselves and go for a walk around the area. It really was a beautiful spot – lovely green fields with a river running through it, and right next to the beach and its cliffs.

It was also really windy while we were there. We were (see how many w’s were in a row then?) having trouble just trying to stand up straight!

Looking around the landscape though, I got the impression that high winds were not too unusual for the area.

After walking to the beach, up the cliff, then back to the campsite, we decided that we’d seen pretty much everything that we wanted to see in Seven Sisters, and the call of our own comfy beds was too strong to turn down. We ate dinner at the “camping barn” (it was quite effective in lightening the load of the esky), then hiked back out again.

Still, a lack of camping and high winds didn’t stop a bit of spontaneous frisbee from breaking out!

We had a smooth ride back to London (a little too smooth for Kristy – she was fast asleep within about 10 minutes), and after an exhausting day, we were very pleased to crash into bed that night.

A few more photos from the day are in the Seven Sister’s photo album.

Julian and Shelley came to stay this weekend, so along with Stacey, we had one crowded fun house! The weather has (unsurprisingly) been a little overcast for both days, so yesterday the girls made cupcakes, and we all watched movies (both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).

Deciding that we needed some outdoor time, we chanced the weather today and went to explore Gunnersbury Park, which is about a 10 minute walk from our place. Turns out, the park is absolutely beautiful! One great thing about the weather always being overcast, frequent rain, and a not-so-intense sun (when it does decide to appear), is that parks here are really green.

We took advantage of the outdoor time to play some frisbee (which you may remember we’re experts at). We even managed to pick up a very excitable extra player at one point!

After our arms were tired out from frisbee, we took a walk around other parts of the park. Turns out there’s some old house there (I didn’t really understand why, nor did I care); as well as a golf course, a lake, and even some mock gothic ruins! Not to mention all the beautiful trees – we even found one that was twisted and deformed, to the point where it looked like Gonzo sticking out his tongue!

(Ok, you need to use your imagination a little bit, but hopefully you can see it.) My only complaint about the park – I wish it was closer to our house!

Our weekend was so huge, it’s taken me four days to write about it!

Things started off on the right note – literally – with Powderfinger playing to a sold out crowd at Hammersmith Apollo. This wasn’t my first time seeing The ‘Finger in concert, but I’d probably say it was my favourite. Not only did they crank out hit after hit, but there’s something quite special about seeing one of your favourite Australian bands playing live, overseas – even if the rest of the audience is also a bunch of ex-pats.

On Saturday, we caved into our consciences, and joined up at our local gym. Though I enjoyed the six months off gym that we’ve enjoyed, my waistline hasn’t! Must admit though, I was pleasently surprised that I’m not completely unfit – I managed two, 20 minute runs back to back on Saturday and Sunday, without feeling too wasted afterwards. Resistance training has been a little more painful, but I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before it all comes back as well.

On Saturday afternoon, I got to enjoy the Chelsea versus Sunderland game from the comfort of a corporate box! Turns out that our work has one for the season, and there was spare seats, so along I went with a few of the other lads from our team. It was fantastic! The view was great, and the nana-blankets helped keep us warm whilst it poured down with rain!

I was so excited to be going to a corporate box that I turned up exactly when I was told at 1pm, and for about 20 minutes I was the only one there. Ordinarily that would be fine, but there were three staff in the box waiting on me, which was a little uncomfortable… especially when one girl came and just stood next to me with a tray of canapes for me to pick from! I said, “you don’t have to do that!”, and she replied, “well, I have nothing else to do!”. Indeed.

Kristy had a girly day organised at our place on Sunday, so I headed over to Ben’s place for some boy time. OK, it’s going to sound really nerdy, but we spent the afternoon upgrading our iPods and PSPs. It was really, really satisfying – especially the PSP upgrade, which had been on my “To Do” list for about 3 months. Nothing like running on the latest firmware…

The weekend finished off with another concert – this time, Crowded House at Wembley Arena. Our tickets for this came very last minute, but Caroline had six spare so we helped her out by buying a couple from her.

Crowded House were great – not as good as Powderfinger, but what can you expect comparing a bunch of Kiwi’s with some Brisbane boys? Anyway, the great thing was, not only did they take requests from the crowd, but they played right up until the stadium’s curfew! The bad thing however, was that they played right up until the stadium’s curfew – which meant we missed the last train home. We almost got stuck at Green Park but luckily Nathan and Kirsty knew that there was a night bus we could grab. Thank goodness for surface transport – the whole, “The Tube Closes at Midnight!” attitude totally bites.

Anyway, the concert was somewhat soured by the awful trip home, and I don’t think I’ll be going back to Wembley unless it’s something I really, really want to see.

Originally today we were going to head to Windsor Castle, which looks totally wicked – until I worked out it was going to cost us about USD$80. And since we’re not getting those GBPs in yet, I thought it best to postpone that for a while.

So instead, Kristy, Ben and I borrowed bikes from John and Kirsty, and joined Stacey and Wes for a ride out to Richmond Park. The ride from J&K’s place took us about 15 minutes, and involved a lot of carrying bikes up and down stairs. Ben and I brushed against some nettle bushes on the way there too, so we were both rewarded with stinging legs for the next hour or so. Ouch!

Riding around Richmond park was great fun. Generally the terrain was smooth, flat dirt roads, but occasionally a hill would break out to test our fitness. Still, it was pretty easy going, and we managed to ride the whole way around in a little over two hours.

The coolest thing about Richmond park though, was the deer! We saw three or four packs of them just roaming free like they owned the place. They seemed pretty friendly, but we didn’t test our theory by getting too close. There was one pack which was running straight towards us quite quickly, until they saw us and then stopped on the spot and started moseying around, as if thinking, “yep, we meant to do that… this is exactly where we wanted to be”.

By the time we got back, we had been riding for over three hours, and we were thirsty, hungry, and generally exhausted. We definitely earned the thai green curry with prawns that we ate for dinner. Yum!

Ohhh man, did we eat bad yesterday. We started off ok with an apple, but it was all downhill from there:

• Two Krispy Kremes (but at least they were fresh) with a coffee for morning tea
• A “Dodger Dog” (basically a hot dog, but from Dodger Stadium so you pay a fortune for it) for lunch – and covered in tomato sauce, of course!
• Another Krispy Kreme for afternoon tea
• A strawberry milkshake for a pre-dinner snack (was going to have chocolate but their chocolate machine was playing up)

Dinner, thankfully, was fairly good with a seafood pasta (Kristy had butternut squash soup), because by that point we couldn’t face any more junk food!

My buddy Claire kinda tricked me into going to the dentist in the first place with promises of great views from the chair. It sounded great in theory, but when you’ve got your eyes shut daydreaming of being somewhere else, the view doesn’t count for much!

Tonight’s visit started with a cherry-flavoured cotton bud being rubbed against my gums – I guess this was a mild anaesthetic to prepare me for the needles to follow. That’s a great idea in my book, except that I hate all things cherry-flavoured. I also wish I’d shut my eyes a little faster before seeing the size of the approaching needle!

What followed was an hour-and-a-quarter session of deep cleaning, and bondings where my teeth have recessed from night-time grinding. I don’t pretend to understand what bondings or recessions are exactly, but I do know I was grateful to some anaesthetic! Maybe next time ear plugs would help too, to block the trauma of the buzzing and grinding sounds.

I think I frustrated the dentist too with my inability to simultaneously “open wider” and “relax the floor of [my] mouth”. Can any of you relax the floor of your mouth? on queue? when you can’t even feel the floor of your mouth? I don’t know the difference between a tense and relaxed mouth floor, but apparently I shouldn’t add that particular ability to my resume.

The visit ended with a muffled cheer from me when she announced it was over, a numb face and a lopsided smile. In fact, when I tried to roll my bottom lip down into a pout, I found that my bottom lip would shift to the right and my top lift would shift to the left. Very weird, but kind of funny to watch yourself do in the mirror. Now, a few hours on, there’s no pain or swelling left though so I’m pretty happy with that.

One of the resolutions that I made to myself this year was to get fit – maybe fitter than I’ve ever been in the past. Unfortunately with the move, my gym routine has been a bit erratic over the last two weeks, but now that things are settling down I’m getting back into it.

Yoga has definitely been a big help, as not only does it stretch out the muscles that you stress doing other exercise, but it also works on all the supporting muscles that are hard to target with weights. Plus it’s super relaxing, which helps me sleep a lot more restfully at night!

I like using a heart rate monitor when I’m running so I can see how hard the old ticker is working. My old heart rate monitor died at the end of last year, so I was faced with two options – either replace the battery and the chest strap for a cost of about $75, or replace the entire thing with a newer model for about $100. Seemed like an obvious choice really! But, as it turned out, the battery in one of my other watches died around the same time, and since it was my travel watch (with compass, thermometer, etc) I decided to replace them both at once with Polar’s top-of-the-line AXN-700.

Now admittedly, this thing doesn’t come cheap, and it’s a bit of a beast – but Polar have really improved things since I bought my first heart rate monitor. Plus, this baby does everything, coming fully equipped with an altimeter, barometer, compass, and thermometer – all essential when running on a treadmill . OK go ahead and laugh, but the compass has proved invaluable on previous travel trips – and the altimeter (with ascent/descent counter) will be awesome for when I go skiing! It also has much more advanced heart rate monitoring functions than my last model, plus I can download the information to a PC for further analysis.

The other gadget that Jason and I both got our hands on last year is a Nike+ kit. We both already had iPods, and completely coincidentally I bought a pair of Nike+ shoes while we were in Vegas (I didn’t even know they were Nike+ shoes until Jason pointed it out to me).

Anyway – the Nike+ kit has a sensor in the left shoe that talks to a sensor attached to your iPod, which lets you know how far/fast you’re running. You can then set a goal for yourself every time you’re about to run (e.g. “Run for 20 minutes” or “Run 3km” etc), and while you’re listening to your music, a voice-over will come on every so often and tell you how you’re going (“Half way point! 1.5 kilometres to go!” for example). Tapping the centre button at any time tells you your current time, pace, and the number of calories that you’ve burnt.

I’m amazed at how accurately the system works once it has been calibrated. Since I do most of my running on a treadmill, I can verify the distance that the Nike+ system is telling me against the distance that the treadmill tells me, and usually they’re very close! And since Jason has the same system, we can set up challenges and then compete with each other on other sides of the world. It’s awesome, and it has definitely inspired me to do more running, hence get fitter.

Both gadgets are highly recommended!

Let this be a lesson for all you kids out there – go to the dentist often! Kristy and I haven’t been since we left Australia back in late 2004, and boy did we pay for it tonight. Well, not in a monetary sense – thank goodness for dental insurance – but boy the dentist was rough!

First came the most painful x-rays that I’ve ever had, involving biting down on an oversized piece of metal which stuck uncomfortably into pretty much every crevice in my mouth. I’ve never seen anything like it. Unfortunately, this had to be repeated about twenty times over, to cover all the angles!

Then came the actual cleaning. I’m not sure what hurt more – poking at the gums with the sharp pokey thing, or the high pressure squirty thing that blew away all the nerve endings on my gums. Either way, it was all bad. There was more poking, prodding and pulling, lots of bleeding, and one very dry mouth. Yes, it was not pleasant.

Finally she finished by telling me that I grind my teeth in my sleep (apparently more New Yorkers do this than anyone else, due to the stress); that I need to get one filling, and I need three teeth bonded (which I’d never heard of, but it’s like a coating over the teeth to help prevent further decay). Overall apparently a fairly good report given the time since my last appointment.

Kristy’s experience was much the same – lots of pain and blood – but next time she goes back, she has exactly double the amount of work to be done! Worse still, she has to have a “deep clean” under the bar behind her bottom teeth – which will require a needle, ouch!

So there you have it – dentistry in New York. Probably much the same as dentistry in the rest of the world – except, perhaps, for the temporary photo ID required to get into the building!

Winter is definitely on the way. Though it was unseasonably warm today, the early forecast is that by Friday it will be a high of 8 degrees celcius. 8 degrees! That’s cold! So to make the most of the remaining warm days, and to check out the leaves changing in “Fall” (aka “Autumn”), Kristy and I joined Fabia and her friend Luis yesterday, for a trip to Bushkill Falls in the Pocono Mountains.

It was absolutely spectacular! Most of the trees complied with our wishes, having already turned various shades of green, yellow, and red. We followed the Bridal Veil Falls Trail, which was about two miles long, and cascaded through the woods past about five distinct waterfalls. Breathing in the fresh country air, taking in the beautiful scenery, and getting some outdoor exercise was a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Words alone aren’t enough to do the scenery justice, so I’ve organised a few of the photos and put them into an album for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

I just ran my very first nine minute mile. Woohoo! How many miles in a marathon again?