May 21st, 2008

Snow, Snowmaking and 16 days to go!

There are just 16 days to go and it certainly feels that way up here at Perisher Blue. The resort received a natural snowfall over the weekend and continuing low temperatures have allowed the new snowmaking system to pump out more snow across Front Valley. With a stream of staff returning along with fresh faces popping up for the season ahead, there’s definitely a buzz in the mountain air at Perisher Blue.

NEW! Ridge Snow Cam

You can now check out the conditions at the bottom of the Ridge Chair in Blue Cow all from the comfort of your own home! A new snow cam has been installed at the bottom of the popular intermediate-advanced skiing/boarding area, adding to the other seven snow cams that are set up across the four resort areas. Check them out!

Book Early and SAVE at Perisher Blue
By booking your snow holiday early this season, you can make fantastic savings with both accommodation and equipment hire. When booking in advance with Perisher Blue Snow Holidays, you can save 30% on all ski and board equipment hire with an Early Season Lift & Hire package or Early Season Lift, Lesson & Hire package before 27 June 2008.

Perisher Blue and SBS Join Forces

Perisher Blue has launched a campaign across SBS TV, radio and online, including the top six languages on SBS Radio: Italian, Greek, Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese. The SBS Television campaign will target “young adventurers” and tech-savvy viewers through South Park and other programs. The snow report will also be broadcast in the top six languages on SBS Radio and Perisher Blue will also sponsor a snow report on SBS Radio’s English-language youth music program Alchemy.

Skitube Alpine Railway Celebrates It’s 20th Birthday

Perisher Blue’s Skitube celebrates its 20th birthday this year. Remarkably, the cog/rack system railway was deemed the most efficient and environmentally acceptable method for travelling to the resort as long as twenty years ago when it was built. This is due to both its energy saving operating system as well as the carbon emission reduction generated as a result of using Skitube as an alternative to car travel to the resort.

fraser island

Take a ferry ride to the world’s largest sand island - fraser island. It is like a desert, there is so much sand. It is special for its wildlife and flora. They have the  purest population of dingoes. It is a beatiful area to visit and is listed as a world heritage feature. There are many different birds and mammals.

The dingos are pure bred and the scientists study them with interest. The dingoes are managaed and maintained by the wild life managers and scientists. Just off the coast in Hervey bay the humpback whales will breach for the tourists that flock to the area. Whale watching is a big business during the winter and more and more whales are coming to hervey bay to entertain the tourists. They come out of the water and delight the many visitors to hervey bay.

Samoa
Samoa is a ten hour flight from new zealand to get to the big island of Savai. Legend has it that Samoa is where god first created life. YOu can get a little hut on the beach all by yourself. Samoa was the final resting place for the writer Robert Louis Stevenson who hoped that Samoa would cure his tuberculosis. If you are in Samoa then you need to get used to Samoan time and do things at a leisurely pace.

If you go to a traditional village on the ocean you may get to help them net some fish. They beat the water and send the fish towards the spear fishermen who get as many fish as they can. The fish will be wrapped in banana leaves and put into the hot rock fire. The men do the outside cooking and the women cook inside. The fish and other meats are put onto the hot rocks and then covered in banana leaves.

At night the villagers celebrate with a traditional fire dance. The main sport of the island is rugby football and they are renowned for their toughness and bravery. In Samoa there is no such thing as a friendly game. Traditional tattooing is done all over the island and is done with ink and a sharp needle. It was traditionally an initiation for the young men to becoming a warrior.

Christmas Island

Christmas Island is in the Indian Ocean and there are whale sharks and manta rays a plenty out in the sea. In the limestone cliffs of Christmas Islands the cliffs create blowholes that shoot out spray from the waves that pound the cliffs below. Inland there are extensive rainforests to explore with exotic creatures and and after a walk you will be cooled by luscious water falls that cascade down from the hills. It is refreshing after a long walk through the rain forest. The water falls are very refreshing and cool. MOst of the island is national Park.

 Christmas Island crabs are land crabs that are bright red and they migrate after the monsoonal rains of November. They walk towards the sea to spawn. You have to be careful where you walk because you will step on them and there are millions of them. They are important for the environment as they turn the soil and eat leaf litter and rubbish on the floor of the rain forest. The crab males go down to the sea and they are followed by the females and then they spawn by the ocean. After spawning they march miles back into the forest.

Another crab on Christmas Island is the coconut crab which is the largest land crab in the world. They are also called robber crabs and are found on tropical islands all over the pacific. They grow up to seventy years of age and they are the islands only omnivores. They are majestic large robber crabs and Christmas Island has the largest population of robber crabs in the world. They are protected now but the miners of old used to hunt them and eat them. the nippers are quite powerful and can break a finger - they will do a lot of damage with their massive jaws.

Christmas Island has giant coconut crabs and has birds as well. And also the huge whale shark in the water of the Indian Ocean off Christmas island. The Christmas island frigate bird is found in the area and have spectacular mid air acrobatics and brightly coloured plumage. Christmas island is a breeding ground for many species of birds such as the booby. It is a bird watchers paradise. The locals of Christmas island help to feed some of the orphaned birds to rehabilitate and they let them go when they are better. The waters off Christmas island are renowned for their rich marine life. You can go diving off Christmas island and it is near the java trench so the seas off Christmas island are very deep.

The temperature of the water is very warm with pristine coral and perfect visibility. The plate corals are pristine and there are other types as well. The reef fish are in abundance and the trumpet fish, puffer fish, lion fish are found under rocky crevices. They are like a painter has painted them. MOray eels are found in the rocky crevices, it is absolutely magic. YOu can find huge manta rays and come in during the whale shark season. They can swim with divers if they are in the mood.

The king of the ocean is the giant whale shark. They love to play among the bubbles and it is a gentle giant. It is magical to be in the water with them and they stay for months. the thrill of swimming with whale sharks is overwhelming and they can swim around and around. They are huge will not harm you and are not frightened but are so curious. Some people say that Christmas island could be a breeding area and the whale sharks head off to ningaloo reef in north west Australia. It is absolutely stunning to swim with the gentle giants of the ocean. The biggest and friendliest of all the sharks are the whale sharks.

Mount Tongariro New Zealand

New Zealand has a truly Sacred Mountain and it is called Mount Tongariro. Fifteen hundred  years ago, the people of the Maori tribe in New Zealand lit a fire at the top  of their favourite mountain, Mt Tongariro, and it then was designated for all time as  their sacred mountain. The Tuwharetoa tribe of the Maoris still live near the mountain until now. Their tribal chief, Tukino Te Heuheu, gave the sacred mountain to the New Zealand government in 1887 under the proviso that the area and the mountain should become a National Park for the people of New Zealand. At this present point in time, the National Park has become a well-visited tourist spot and attracts visitors from all over the world.

The last time that the sacred mountain erupted, the amount of ash from the erupting volcano was such that the skies darkened and the sun was red as blood. In 1818 a shepherd was found dead with an eye torn from his socket in a hut in the mountains. A father disapproved of him loving his daughter and killed him and the daughter followed the lover to her death in the white waters of the raging river. To promote tourism the tourism board built a chateau with its own resident ghost called Charlie. It became a chateau for returned soldiers. It is now a hotel.

A few have actually seen the kiwi and is related to the emu and the ostrich. It is flightless and has many predators like cats and foxes. The kiwis are bred in captivity and released into the wild. The Maoris have protected their mountains by giving them away to become national parks so that they are not developed or exploited and the natural environment is lost for all time.

The surf today was blown out and there is a southerly blowing. No one is out and it is totally crap. I went to Merewether and the waves were about four to five foot and it seems like there is the start of a decent swell coming so I will cross my fingers as well as my toes. I went past Nobbies yesterday and it was a bit smaller than today. No waves yesterday either. I do not think that I have missed any thing at all.  The wind is coming out of the East or East South East at the forecasters are saying fifteen to twenty knots with isolated thunder storms. The water temperature is an okay twenty degrees which is quite pleasant. The air temperature is twenty degrees Celsius as well. And at the moment the wind is coming from the South South East at 32 kph.  

The surfest is over but i missed it all. I have a broken leg so it is hard to get down to the beach. I have only just got some transport now and it is fantastic being able to get around to the beach and have a look. I have been taking some photos and testing my camera so that when there is some surf at least I can take some sick photos. Here is hoping. Adriano da Silva from Brazil won the Surfest contest and there were no aussies in the finals as far as i know. I think it was Jeremy Flores and da Silva in the Grand Final. I saw a bit of it on television but the surf looked pretty bad. The wind had swung around to the south west and was a bit chopped out. Saturday was a better day and the waves were a lot smoother. There was a good coverage on the webcams at surfest.com. Well there was for a few days - quite a number of days the webcam was out of action. I do not know what went wrong but it is not a good look. Professional contests should have professional websites and professional web cams in my humble opinion.

Oh dear i just heard that a kid got killed by a shark near Ballina. It was only the highlights so I do not have any details. It seems like New South Wales has got the most shark attacks at the moment. Not a good statistic I reckon.  

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Some locals say that it snows about eighty percent of the days at Jackson Holes. You can find of the best powder ever at the Rock Springs bowl. There is supposed to be a new tram in December 2008.

canada ski resorts

Mount Cain, Vancouver Island.

There are only two t-bars and they are only open from Saturday to Monday. On Mountain cabins can be rented without power or running water.

Revelstoke , BC

Revelstoke Mountain Resort used to be called Powder Springs Ski Area and  is on Mount MacKenzie near Revelstoke in the BC Kootenays. Revelstoke has steep groomed runs, tree skiing. The lifts have been upgraded at Revelstoke and they have added an eight passenger gondola and a quad chair. Revelstoke is not for beginners, but mainly for more advanced skiers.

Tahoe City Ski Resorts, California

Tahoe City has four resorts within five to seven miles. If you join the concord club you can get beds for around $12 per night. You can get cheap tickets on the internet at snowbomb.com which cover Mammoth, the Lake Tahoe area and Colorado. Homewood ski resort is cheap at $29 for lift tickets for a day  from Monday to Thursday. To get to Homewood from Tahoe City go south on route 89 for a few miles and you are there.  Pundits say that the top Lake Tahoe ski resorts are Squaw, Kirkwood, and Alpine. Some other ski resorts in the area include Sugar Bowl, Rose Mountain, Borreal, Sierra, Heavenly, Diamond Peak, and Northstar. Some of the Californian ski resorts get massive dumps of snow of around twenty inches a night but then it might be a couple of weeks before the next snow fall. Colorado and Utah are said to be more consistent for snow dumps.

Niger River Traders

The captain of a pirogue always uses the same techniques when landing. The villages are compulsory stops and the river traders give presents to the local policemen.  The main cargo is the revered and valuable “white gold” - salt from the Sahara as well as bags of rice. Tuareg traders on the Niger river travel down a huge lake where the waters go as far as the eye can see. The local fishermen supply most of the fish that are eaten in Mali. They wait for the level of the lake to go down and then go fishing. They know how to fish and have great skill at catching fish on the Niger River. The Rivers natural balance is being threatened by the construction of a dam. Some of the captains of the river barges have been sailing down the Niger river for decades. This has slowed down the river traffic and the river traders only know  how to sail the river and trade along the length.

The river traders also carry passengers such as many Tuareg tradespeople, Songhai fishermen and Bambara merchants - to Mopti, a town located 450 km from the port of Timbuktu. It is quite a contrast when the river reaches Mopti. it is a noisy bustling city. The salt bars are unloaded and the white gold of the sahara is changing hands and will eventually end up on the coast of west africa.

Searchers have found the body of a Melbourne man who went missing whilst climbing a New Zealand mountain. Alan Beck was 49 and is the father of two children. He was a New Zealand Native who was living in Melbourne, Australia. The mountain climber had gone missing after filthy weather had forced him and three other mountain climbers to find shelter on Mount Aspiring near Wanaka on the South Island of New Zealand.  His body was found about five hundred meters from the tent site where the other climbers were sheltering and apparently he fell one hundred meters to his death on the Bonar Glacier.

Alan Beck had abandoned the tent that he had been sharing with the other mountain climbers on Sunday morning. He had left the tent without any water or food and just taken off. Police at Wanaka had said that his deceased body had been located yesterday and unfortunately he had passed away. He had been found on the mountain about two thirds up the peak of Mount Aspiring.

A spokesman for LandSAR Wanaka, a search and rescue group for the area said the Alan Beck’s body was located at around midday at about two thousands meters.  It was a pity that the missing mountain climber did not stay sheltered and went missing on Sunday in such terrible weather.  

 Source: AAP

Ancient Olympia

In 200 BC Pausanias The Greek adventurer  wrote a lot about the early Olympic Games and their sites in Olympia. Pausanias wrote his chronicles in the second century. But these sites were only rediscovered in the 18th century. 
At Olympia the archaeological excavations systematically began in the nineteenth century  by German archaeologists. They used the texts of Pausanias to guide them in their olympic excavations.

Olympia in Ancient Greece is the place where the Olympics began but it was buried in mud. All the buildings were covered up and lost. Olympia was the home of the Greek God Zeus and is described in the World Heritage List. Ancient athletes vied for honours on the fields and came from all around the middle east and the greek islands. In the audience there was drama as well as on the Olympic fields. There was no prize for second or third, only the winners were honoured. Winners in disciplines such as wrestling were honoured in stone.

Religion and sport were intertwined as the gods had fought against each other and it was seen as a noble pursuit. Sport also brought the ancient greek civilization a kind of unity as well as entertainment. Arcbaeologists have reconstructed some of the columns to see how it might have looked in the time of ancient greece. Athletes were not allowed to have any criminal records and they were the first olympic athletes. Women were not allowed to participate so coaches had to compete in the nude so that no women could sneak into the games. Olympia is a memory turned to stone. Musicals and theatricals were part of the ancient olympic games and patrons came along and had a fantastic time. Training schedules were rigorously organised and umpires suprervised the olympic games rules and regulations. Some patrons had statues of Zeus made to make themselves look good. Athletes and umpires were sometimes bribed and there were a good deal of scandal and corruption.

Emporers of the Roman Empire made the games in Olympia into grand spectacles but they were banned by a later Roman Emperor. Mud slides and flooding rivers did the rest to destroy the ancient Olympia village. There is a sense of the sacred in the quiet moments in Ancient Olympia.

Famous Explorers and Adventurers

Christopher Columbus (1446-1506) was born at Genoa and went to sea when he was fourteen. After many disappointments he was enabled by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to pursue his idea of reaching india by sailing westward. With three small ships he set out and discovered the Bahamas. He made three subsequent voyages on the third of which in 1498 he landed on the low lands of south america. He died at Valladolid in spain.

Grace Horsley Darling (1815-1842) was the daughter of the lighthouse keeper on one of the Farne Islands. By her heroic deed on September 7th ,1838, in putting out in a small boat tho the rescue of the crew of the Forfarshire, she saved the lives of nine survivors from the wreck. She died of consumption at the age of twenty seven , four years later.

Charles Robert Darwin(1809-1882) was a Naturalist and scientist. His first book described research in geology and natural history made on a five year voyage of exploration in the South Seas. In 1859 his Origin of Species was an outstanding contribution to scientific thought and led to a new approach ot the study of evolution. Darwin’s other books include The Descent of Man which traces the origin of man to an extinct animal related to the orang-utang, the chimpanzee and the gorilla. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Guiseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was a famous italian patriot who fought for the freedom of his country. He was forced to flee to South America, where he aided the struggle for liberation of the young republics. Returning to Italy, he joined the republican movement and took part in the defence of Rome against France, but after the defeat of the republican forces, he emigrated to America. He was in italy when war broke out in 1859, and was given a command, winning several battles against the Austrians. In the following years, with thousands of volunteers, he completed the liberation of his country.

Kublai Khan(1216-1294) was a famous mongol emperor who was the grandson of Genghis Khan. By his conquests he built up an empire, which included Russia and covered the Asian continent except India, Arabia, and Asia Minor. He fostered learning and religion and ruled wisely, encouraging the adoption of Chinese civilization throughout his realms.

Doctor David Livingstone(1813-1873) was a remarkable Scottish explorer. He became a doctor and in 1840 went to Africa, where he spent many years in exploration and also worked as a missionary. He traced the course of the Zambezi River and its tributaries and discovered Lake Nyasa. He set out to discover the sources of the Nile, but his energies failed him and he died at a village near Lake Bangweulu. His body was brought back to England and buried in Westminster Abbey.

Marco Polo(1254-1323) was born in Venice and he went as a youth with his father and uncle to the court of the great Khan the emperor of china. After extensive travels through Persia, Afghanistan and norther Tibet, returning via the Malay Peninsula and Ceylon, the travellers reached Venice twenty four years later. Marco Polo’s account of his journeys was at first disbelieved. His remarkable travels brought to Europe the earliest tidings of the Eastern worlds.