Snowy Christmas adventures

Our Christmas adventures so far in pics:

This was lunch on Christmas Day when we hiked in knee deep snow into Bon Echo Provincial Park and were the only people there...  We met some people coming out as we went in and theirs were the only footprints we saw.  It was cold! But so beautiful and so quiet.  We had chicken noodle soup and bread and cheese and then went home for turkey and trimmings.

While we were staying with T and M we got the opportunity to play on some random forms of transport (T had to go along a non-ploughed trail for 5km to find his grader, deep in the snow with a flat battery....)

 

On our last day we hiked in along the trans-Canada trail (old railway track) to have more lunch in the snow.  Our little jet-boil stove is getting some good snow training!

 

Me in the snow:

 

 

The little house in the Big Woods where we were staying:

Snow art.  More on F's page:

 

Christmas tree - outback style

 F and I spent Christmas in Canada this year, in the wilds of Ontario at Lake Missisagagon, where F spent some time as an exchange student about 15 years ago.  Our first task on arrival was to go and find a Christmas tree.  Around this area, one drives onto Crown land, spies out a suitable tree, whips out the chain saw and gets to it!  Here's F sussing out a tree of the right height:

T gets the chain saw out, and starts cutting:

F inspects the downed tree, and declares it fit for purpose:

It gets loaded onto the truck:

And gets removed from the truck once at home and carried inside:

Me assessing the positioning inside the sitting room:

F adding the final top decorations:

And there we have it, a Canadian bush Christmas tree, as fresh as you can get!!  With thanks to HRM the Queen for "allowing" us to plunder "her" land!!

Bhutan 2012 Part 2: Road geology

After the adventurous trekking part of the Bhutan trip, Daniele left and Tom (PhD student arrived), along with Ruth (intrepid archaeologist; we're trying to come up with some cunning inter-disciplinary ideas for rocks-landscape-human settlement-type of stuff).  We did a LOT of driving, at average speeds of ca. 30km/hr, from Thimphu-Gasa, Gasa-Wangdi, Wangdi-Trongsa, Trongsa-Thimphu, trying to do some road geology, and some archaeo-pot-sherd-finding along the way.  We were a bit frustrated with the condition of the roads - much worse than they ever have been in the past, partly due to major floods and partly due to major construction of hydro-power plants south of Wangdi and Trongsa.  Think hundreds of rock-filled trucks trying to dispose of all the rocks being drilled out of huge tunnels in the mountain side.  Thick dust, lots of noise, lots of traffic, all very Isengaard (Lord of the Rings)-like, especially at night when all is illuminated by bright orange lamps.

However, away from the bedlam, Bhutan is still beautiful, the Gasa hot springs have been re-built (and the water is still hot), and we got all the work done that we needed/wanted to.  Huge thanks to Aarjen the driver, who did sterling work responding to the calls of (duh, duh: Dzhonka for stop, stop) every couple of km.

 Gasa from the road - the road now goes all the way to the dzhong.  Strictly speaking it's not a "road" in places, more a track, and a bumpy track at that, but it is in general navigable with a car.

 The village of Damji, south of Gasa.

Floods last summer washed out large tracts of the road up to Gasa.  This is the fresh road cut through the landslide.  A treacherously long way down to the river....

 Moon rise over Punakha valley.

 Ruth washing her hair, farmhouse, Punakha.

 Persimmons drying at the farmhouse in Punakha.  Fresh persimmons have a horrible mouth-drying texture when wet, but they make quite a tasty snack when dry.  We were given about a kg bag each....

 Dump trucks streaming out of the Wangdi power plant tunnels dumped their load of rocks (migmatitic gneisses for anyone interested) straight down the side of the valley, basically filling in a small stream valley south of the tunneling site.

 Camp in Trongsa, in the garden of the second king's winter palace.  Very fancy.

 

Road block west of the Pele La pass.  We were stuck for about an hour.   At one point an ambulance forced its way to the front of the queue and we thought we might be able to get through but sadly not.  The ambulance and its passenger has to wait like the rest of us.

 The "road" being "improved".  We eventually just about managed to bump our way down the ramp under the yellow digger.....

 Archery in Thimphu with traditional bows.  The target is 145m away and is hit with remarkable regularity.

 Team phot at Tahksang.  We didn't make it to the top but it was nice to get to the look out point.  Tom had to pose many times for the camera - evidently he looks like Harry Potter....

Bhutan 2012 Part 1: Jhomolari

I'm just back from my fourth trip to Bhutan, this time introducing my postdoc, new PhD student and another colleague to the delights of this mountainous kingdom rather than specifically working on my own research.

The trip was fantastic: one of the best ever.  We had obviously done something right to please the deities, as the weather was fantastic, with blue skies and sunshine every day; we found some amazing rocks (and were given permission to ship them out of the country), and had a great crew looking after us, including the best cook I have ever had in Bhutan.

For the first ten days, postdoc Daniele, colleague Dave and I trekked up to the Jhomolari Massif, along the western border of the country, to determine the structure and lithology of the region.  We found different rocks to those mapped, and were continually amazed by the scenery and the tenacity of the people eking out a living at 4000m altitude.

 One of the first views of snow capped peaks - this is probably Jichu Drake, the 7000+m peak north of Jhomolari.

 On one of our first forays up into the valleys which run east-west into the massif we found this very head-like rock formation along a ridge at 4500m.  Were we hallucinating?

 This cat print is about human-hand-sized.....  No wonder the dogs barked at night! We found some dry cat scat as well, higher up.

 

The view west up "valley 2".  Snow-capped Jhomolari is peaking out above the ridge on the right hand side of the photo.

 I'm looking for a tame galcio-morphologist to come out to Bhutan and map in / date these great lateral moraines in conjunction with some social archaeologists looking at changes in yak herding lifestyles in Bhutan.  Any ideas?

 Modern yak herding camp - a mixture of "old style" woven yak-fabric tent material and modern blue tarpaulin.

 At the highest point we reached, at 4700m, we hung prayer flags. 

 The trekking team: me, Daniele, Rinzin (all round super-help), Dave, and Ogyen (guide).

 Me and Jichu Drake!

 The survivors at the bridge by the army camp, Shana.

 

Team jump: Ogyen, Rinzin, Pemba, (Daniele behind), Dave and Yeshi.

 

9-day unwashed hair.  Mmmmmm......

C and M's (mis)adventures in Montreal

Well here it is, June already, and the last post was at New Years.  Apologies to all, and I hope any avid followers of this blog have realised that F is much better at reporting all our adventures than I am!!

Anyway I am currently in Montreal for the Goldschmidt conference, one of the big geochemistry conferences that I have never been to.  It's been a bit of an adventure getting here... and so far the (mis)adventures show no sign of stopping....

It all started with the alarm not going off yesterday morning, so F and I woke up at around the time we would normally leave the house.  So much for going for an early swim before heading to the airport.

I decided to catch an early bus from Bedford to MK Coachway,but was 7th in the queue for 6 seats so was denied boarding.  It then started to pour, so I decided not to wait for the next bus in 1/2 an hour, but to walk home and drive to the Coachway instead*.  Good thing I did because the next bus was late and it arrived at the Coachway 5 mins after the scheduled departure time of the airport bus.  The airport bus was 25 mins late anyway though, but I wouldn't have known that at the time.

We arrived at the hotel in Montreal only to find that our reservation for a twin had somehow morphed into a double.  Hmmm, a rather small double at that.  Eventually we were given a room with 2 beds, but only for the night, as the hotel was fully booked.  Sadly the carpet was soaking wet in the corner, the room stank of wet carpet, and the room was desperately hot, so all in all not a great nights sleep.  Luckily we got a refund and we're now ensconced in the very nice McGill University residences, which looks way more like a hotel than any hall I have ever stayed in.  Not much more expensive either, but 15 mins further away from the conference centre.

When I was looking for a new hotel this morning the fact that this one had a swimming pool caught my eye...  M was especially excited, and made all sorts of plans for an afternoon lazing by the pool.  However when we got here the receptionist explained that that was a mistake on the hotelbookers.com website and although there was a gym in the shopping centre downstairs, there was no pool.  Hurrumph.  When we finally got to our room on the 15th floor (after 2 failed keycard  attempts) and looked out of the window, the main thing to catch our eye was a fantastic view of the outdoor pool that belongs to the next door hotel.  Arrrrggghhhh.  Oh and a lovely view of a tramp changing his trousers.

Lastly, while I was unpacking last night I realised that I had left my headphones on the plane under the seat in front of me.  So that's one set of noise-cancelling headphones, one iPod, one other set of headphones, one eye patch, one neck pillow and a bottle of melatonin sleeping tablets.  Air Canada's lost property dept were not all that helpful on the phone this morning.... but you never know, I may get it back eventually.  Montreal airport lost property is closed at the weekend so I will have to phone on Mon.  Fingers crossed.  GRRRRRRR.

Hopefully that's plenty enough misadventure for a while, let's hope the conference goes smoothly from now on!!

*F very kindly cycled over after work to pick the car up - only a mere 90 mins cycle ride.....

PS.  It's  HOT.  Very hot.  Very nice.  So although today has been a VERY long day (we woke at 4.30am), at least it was pleasant to be outside.  And we went to MEC for some retail therapy.

Happy New Year 2012!!

F and I have been spending a happy few days in Berlin, partly visiting family, some visiting of old haunts and some exploration of new parts of the city. We've had a few frustrations with higher-than-normal numbers of tourists jamming up the museums and other city-attractions but overall we've had a relaxing few days.

F's Mum and stepfather have moved to Schöneiche, a south-eastern suburb of the city. They used to live in a large flat Prenzlauerberg, right in the city centre, and now live in a semi-detached house 30 train-minutes away from the centre. It's a bit of a shock to the system all round (we had gotten pretty used to the easy and great access to all parts of the city) but oh it's so much quieter!

For New Years we met up with fellow German-Canadians S and K, and cooked/partied the night away at S's sister's place. I thought the Dutch were pretty crazy with their fireworks but oof, the Berliners can teach them a thing or two! Narrow streets, high buildings, rockets that aren't sent straight up into the air crashing into windows and exploding glass everywhere... The street was a war zone for at least 4 straight hours over midnight. Crazy! Luckily we were on the balcony on the "safe" side of the street....

Hopefully a few pics coming soon but for now, have a happy, healthy and wealthy (ha!) 2012!!

Wedding Time!

No, don't worry, not me and F, but my little sis to a lovely chap originally hailing from Lytham St Annes. F has already posted some of the pics of the wedding preparations on his blog, and there are some more excellent ones on the official photographer's blog. There's a great one on there of a very dapper-looking F making the demo-Feurzangbowle. Here are two of the pics I know you've all been waiting for though, me in a dress!!! And make-up!!! And hair spray!! (Lots of hair spray...).