Hippy New Ear

The day before NYE we drove back up the hill and met Chris at a crag in the mountains (Mt York). I lead up two easy things (a 5-8 corner on gear, with a 5-9 unprotectable start) and a 5-8 overhang on bolts, very runout. It was a good morning. Chris followed these routes, and mikl just hung around, at one stage he soloed up the bolted 5-8. he was basically at the top when a huge huntsman spider ran out and over his body. After much wriggling and yelping, the spider eventually fell and scrambled away. There are loads of these spiders, I have probably seen close to 80 at close range since I've been back. In fact, on the way to Katoomba shops a couple of hours later (Mikl went to check out a new crag and Chris went to find Sue) theer was one inside the car, and I stopped and had to get it out. Ther are roughly the size of your hand and look like this:


The ones in the mountains are striped black and white, really weird looking. Anyway, they are totally harmless (they can bite - but it just hurts a bit), only thing is they scare you to death.

NYE was spent at Moss and Coke's place in Katoomba. Chris and Sue, Robyn and Mike were there for dinner (which was awesome), and then Monique and Simon turned up for drinks later on. I was tired from the previous night (bad sleep) and struggled to stay awake, although Mikl just caved in and slept on the floor, much to my horror. The new year came,a nd we all hugged each other and then retired to the outside deck where there was this hot north westerly wind blowing - at 2am!! It was odd - I started to tell the spider story 9spider in the car) and as I was telling it I noticed there was another huge huntsman just on the railing where I was standing. Spooky. We talked about how hot NY day must be going to be.. well, it was yesterday and it was the 2nd hottest day in Sydney ever. 45degrees - which is 113 degrees form those Ceciusly challenged. Inland and country towns often reach these temps, but not Sydney! Most city folk spent the day in their undies getting in and out of a cold bath or shower. Mikl and i were meant to drive back from the mountains, but it was too hot and our car has no air con. Eventually we drove down, and it was a mightily hot drive at 7pm. We stopped off at my mum's place to check out the new air con I bought her - she was sitting in the loungeroom having a cigarette with the fan on! i whined and complained and put the air con on and she asked if i was tired - my mum can see staright through me sometimes (with respect to mood).

The day in between our mountains trips we also found a place to rent - a nice 2bdrm house in Enmore - a very trendy part of Sydney, close to Newtown restaurants, the organic co-op, and the uni I'm working at. Excellent! The house wasn't being showed by the real estate until the 9th Jan, but mikl and I went over there and knocked on the door, and on our second visit (we didn't ask the first time) the tenants let us look through the house, whoch is excellent - and even better for $330 a week (good deal for that part of town!). We ran to the real estate and put a deposit down with an application - they won't show the place to anyone else now. Yay! the house even has a smeg oven, polished floorboards, and a nice courtyard. yay again!