Month: November 2012

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Calling Home

Mt Kosciuszko, NSW, AU

Today we cover two interesting and mostly unrelated facts.

1) Though literally miles from anywhere even slightly resembling civilization, Mt Kosciuszko is probably the only member of the 7 summits that has mobile phone reception.

Yep, up there.  Best coverage in the area.

2) Greg’s self confidence most likely comes from his mother’s side of the family.

The last mountain we were on top of in the southern hemisphere had less cell phone coverage but more snarky commentary.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out atwww.CoastGuardCouple.com!

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The 7th Summit

Mt Kosciuszko, NSW, AU

(1/7 unlocked) Life Achievement:
Climb the 7 Summits.

Sure it’s not like it was freaking Everest or anything and yeah, it’s the smallest and kinda a part time member of the list but just for the record,

  1. People have died climbing this thing…
  2. It is without contention the highest point on one of Earth’s continents…
  3. We did make the ascent in full force hurricane winds… Continue reading “The 7th Summit”

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We feel like Pilgrims

Karumba, QLD, AU

For our Thanksgiving festivities in Australia Tiffany made pumpkin pie.

Which, is kinda not a big deal right?

…until you realize that Australians are not familiar with the concept of putting pumpkins in a pie one would eat for dessert.  That means no canned pumpkin to fill the pie.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic: They also don’t know what graham crackers are either so, consequently, no premade graham cracker crusts.

(how do you people LIVE!?!)

What this means is that in order to get to this:

a hallmark of American cuisine

 

Tiffany had to start with these:

an Australian pumpkin

And just kinda figure out the rest.

Continue reading “We feel like Pilgrims”

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Self-propelled ski lift

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Having developed a bit of confidence learning the fine art of falling down hills with spikes attached to our feet and discovering how much we actually kinda liked trudging over frozen tundra…

who knew, right?

…we decided it would make a lot more sense just to drag our snowbaords to the top of a mountain and slide down that way.

Continue reading “Self-propelled ski lift”

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Snow bush walking

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

With a total of 4 ski lifts to entertain us for 3 months it’s probably little wonder how that got old.

Luckily, our ski resort was smack dab in the middle of a national freaking park and our friend Chris volunteered to show us how to successfully get lost bush walking without killing ourselves.

Why is it still called bush walking when all the bushes are buried in the snow?

Continue reading “Snow bush walking”

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The Servants

As we just talked about, the people of our home country have the privilege of choosing who will be arguably the most powerful person on the planet.

And yesterday we remembered one of the primary sources of that power:

The servants

Continue reading “The Servants”

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Vegemite and firearms

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Being as Australia isn’t exactly known for its alpine ski industry pretty much no one outside the natives typically makes it to the slopes here.

The upside of this is that working at a ski resort in Australia enabled us to meet one of our main goals for our time down under: we spent 3 months working and living with actual Australians.  As opposed to our previous job where we spent the majority of our time around European cowgirls; here for three months we were immersed in a, granted atypical but nonetheless genuine, Aussie cultural experience.

This, inevitability, led to the conversation on Vegemite.

Because Vegemite in Australia is a lot like guns in America.

Continue reading “Vegemite and firearms”

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The weight of the world

While romping from the snow-capped mountains of Australia to kung-fu training in China to Germany’s Oktoberfest with a quick side trip to the London 2012 Olympics, one can assume a few interesting conversations were had:

British friend: I wish I could vote for the US president

Yes people, this is about that.

Continue reading “The weight of the world”

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Australian snow is cold…and hard.

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Greg loves video editing.

So easy to make something look really awesome that, in truth, went so very, very, VERY wrong…

The doctor recommended stitches but Tiffany convinced him to go with medical tape first.  She still has the scar.

Continue reading “Australian snow is cold…and hard.”

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