Art

I had art for the first three weeks of school, with three one and a half hour lessons each week. The teacher had a strong French accent and spoke fast, so it was nearly impossible to understand what she was saying (and it still is).

In the three weeks, I painted two watercolours - the first time I have used watercolours in more complicated paintings, it was frustrating but in the end it was satisfactory but not perfect.
The first one is mainly using blue, we had to have a headland and a boat. I added a little bit of red at the end on the instruction of the art teacher. The watercolour paints smell disgusting and you have to dive right down to the bottom of the pot for the dark blue of the headland.

The second painting had to have water, mountains and a person. I painted the hills perfectly the first time but didn't paint far enough down so I had to repaint them, and to put it nicely they came out differently. The sky took a lot of effort, possibly too much effort. The paper stretched and crinkled after too much painting but that is hard to avoid, possibly the only way is getting it right the first time.
The balloon was an on the spot idea for the people and you can just see them looking out across the water from the basket.
I like it but I wish I hadn't spent so much time trying to make it perfect.

The last painting was using acrylic paints. I didn't have enough time to finish mine unfortunately, so it has been cut down. It would have been good to spend more time filling in the gaps but the thick paint and clumsy paintbrushes made that hard. On an afterthought I should have started on the outside and painted each square of the edge of the last, no white gaps but hard to plan out...

It was nice experiencing art lessons in another country and the different way they teach. In Australia we have
done a lot more drawing so it was nice to have a change.

France

We started out on the 9 hour trip from Germany to France at 6am on Saturday 14th June. It was early but we had to stop in Switzerland to pick up Linda who had been on a three week exchange.

The House

We arrived at last in Entrechaux to find a really nice house with a pool and a direct view to Mont Ventoux, it even had a BMX track nearby but we didn't bring the mountain bikes.

Nice place to stay in, even with a pool! The mountain in the background is Mont Ventoux

The house was super nice, with a nice big flat screen TV to watch to the Soccer World Cup on, and nice rooms. One of the best things was going for a ride then jumping in the pool straight after!
The first ride we rode around the roads at the bass of Mont Ventoux. It turned out to be more than 100kms with a couple of nice short hills to stretch the legs on...

Bédoin
I persuaded the boys at last to go up Mont Ventoux, so we rode out to Bédoin. There are three routes up Mont Ventou, the first is the route that the Tour de France ascends on from Bédoin; the second is the route that the Tour de France descends on, from Malacène and the last from Sault.
The way from Bédoin is approxiamately 20km with and average grade of 7.43% and 1617m of altitude gained. It was not an easy climb and I had over half an hour to cool down waiting for the others to reach the top. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos that day.
The descent was also cold and my arms started to shake with exhaustion and the cold, giving me the death wobbles going at around 60km/h. I decided to slow down and my hands were truly exhausted at the bottom after holding on the old timers (the 1985 road bike I am using) brakes all the way down.

Sault
It was 65kms into a road ride around the bass that Jo suggested that Jakob and I go up the back side of Mont Ventoux, the weather didn't look too bad so we agreed and started climbing from Sault. It wasn't very steep with and average grade of 4.4%. However we weren't so lucky and the rain kicked in about halfway up. I arrived at the top totally drenched and waited for 20 minutes, getting colder by the minute for Jakob to arrive. The way down was horrible, so cold that my jaw felt like a jack hammer (the shivers you get when you are cold but multiplied by 100). We had to keep on stopping because we only had thin riding rain jackets on and that was nowhere near enough to keep the wind from biting. By the time we got to the bottom my jaw muscles felt like I had chewed a pack of chewing gum as fast as I could without a break and I was truly tired. A warm shower was on the top of my list.


Avignon
We went into Avignon for a day so that they could show me a bit more of France than just the riding side. It was pretty cool to look around inside the castle that many Popes have lived in. In also managed to get a few good photos

The castle at Avignon

The view out across the city from the tower of the castle

Looking back into the city

After Avignon we went to have dinner/lunch at Pont du Gard, a famous Roman aqueduct. The swimming was awesome with many rocks to jump off, and I even managed to get a really nice photo.

Pont du Gard

Food
The food was really good with baguettes for breakfast lunch and dinner, and croissants of course for breakfast. As always there was many cheeses and meats and lots of other delicious things to eat. I even found myself thinking of home when we had steak, salad and potatos

Yummm :)

Exploring
On Friday - the second last day, we went exploring up a small river. We had to walk in the river because the sides were to steep, but that was also a bonus, a nice way to cool off on a hot day. It was heaps of fun with many cool little discoveries made such as a tiny pool that was very deep and rocks where the water ran off them to make little waterfalls of showers. A very nice way to relax after a week of bike riding (but I wasn't quite finished with the bike yet).


From Malacène
After coming back around midday, we went up Mont Ventoux for the last time, this time from Malacène. It was hot and halfway up I realised I was nearly out of water, but managed to make it to the top. The climb starts off flatter than from Bédoin, but makes up for it later with around 4km in the middle with an average of 12%! With my lowest gear a 42t - 28t the climbing was hard. I had started out a little bit fast so by the time I got to the top my legs felt like I had gone up Black Mountain a few more times than necessary.
When I was waiting I managed to get two really nice panoramas from the top.

Looking down the road from Malacène

And looking down the other side and the road from Bédoin

The End of an Awesome Trip
Unfortunately we had to go home after spending a week riding, watching the World Cup, reading and relaxing in France...
We go back to School tomorrow for the last three weeks before I come home, I'm sure it will pass by in a flash.

A Trip to the German Alps

We are currently in the first week of two weeks holiday and instead of sitting around all week, we decided to go hiking in the German Alps...
I had no idea what to expect, but was told that the hut that we were staying in was just below the far mountain in the picture below...

Day 1

We started off walking up the mountain, it was steeper than anything that I have walked in Australia but the packs were light so I wasn't having any trouble.

Eventually we made it to the hut and decided we would walk up to the peak above it because it was still early in the day.

You can just see the hut, to the right of the lake. And the peak is on the left of the photo.

I thought that looked challenging enough but when we got to the ridge of that peak and were presented with the view of the valley on the other side, it turned out that Jo (Jakob's father) had different ideas.

The first peak that we were going to is on the right, the one we went to is on the far left...

When I found out that he wanted to go to the furthest away peak I was a little surprised but was happy to say that if everyone else could do it than I could probably do it too.

The day was starting to warm up by then and the sky was pretty much clear. And I was a bit curious as why there was still snow in this heat. I may have imagined it to be hotter than it really was because we were walking but I am assuming that it was one of the hotter days this year in the Alps so the snow hadn't had much time to start melting.
We kept walking, and came across some of the craziest and most dangerous situations that I have been in, walking along tiny paths with one very steep slope going down on one side for hundreds of metres, walking across snow fields that were one slopes of about 50 or more degrees and walking up super steep shale rubble that slipped every time you took a step.

One of those snow fields, fun in boots meant for the desert.

When we got to the top, it had an incredible view. Unfortunately I didn't know about the panorama application that I have put most of the photos together with and took a video instead, which is a little hard to post here.
The way down was even more fun and almost easier to my surprise. We slid down the shale and two feet skied down on the snowfields which is so much fun! All round by the time we got back to the hut it had been a 7 hour hike...

Day 2











The next day we headed out again, this time to walk back down into the valley where we started but the long way around. It was a nice day again with mostly downhill walking but no lack of uphills.

Me sitting half in Austria and half in Germany.

The rest of the day went well, and it was nice to walk on some flat ground and go for a refreshing swim in the freezing lake. Then head home for barbecue, or grill as they call it.

I have to say that is one of the best weekends I have had here, enjoying the Alpine air after being sick and getting the legs working again... Can't wait to go to France and Mont Ventoux next week!

School Surveying Camp

 At first I didn't want to go because the camp spread over two weeks and the Albstadt World Cup was that weekend (why do Germans have to plan school camps over the weekend?) but I didn't have much of a choice. Tuesday morning I was there waiting for the bus to come with the rest of my class.

The place we were staying in and surveying around was nice with an awesome marble table tennis table outside - lots of people brought bats with them so that was an added bonus.

At first the the surveying was fairly interesting, trying to work out how the surveying equipment worked in German and also starting the initial stages of the Surveying. However after a few days and doing the same thing over and over again the surveying started to get boring.

My groups awesome Theodolite 2 (it even has my initials!)

On Friday I woke up feeling pretty terrible with a really sore throat that meant I spent the day in bed. The next day I didn't feel much better and wanted to go home but Germans are also stubborn so I was still there on Sunday and feeling better, except I had a cough instead of a sore throat.

By Wednesday we had finished the surveying and that afternoon we each drew an accurate map of the areas that we had measured. It was fairly complicated so I don't think I will try to explain how we did it, but here is my map:

- The buildings in brown down the bottom are where we stayed

By the end of the camp I was quite sick of surveying but very happy I went on the camp. My German has improved so much, I understand nearly everything and I can speak much more. And also I know everyone in the class much better and feel like I am part of it, not the Ausländer anymore.

There will always be another another World Cup that I can go to (hopefully racing not just spectating), but I think going on a camp with with a German school was a once in a lifetime experience.

Wet, muddy and lots of fun!

My training basically consists of Wednesday and Saturday with Team SV Reudern on the MTB and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the road bike with a road group. Then the other days going out and riding in the Schwäbishe Alps or resting and recovering.

Tomorrow we have a MTB race at a nearby town and today's training was out at the track, I didn't realise until I was at the normal meeting point and it was pouring down with rain. It was too complicated to to find my way to the track, so when the rain eased up I decided to go and explore.
I thought it might be fun to find the way to a track called Ho Chi Minh -actually the same route as my first ride back on the mountain bike (First Week of School). I wasn't very sure of the way which went through the local forest through some towns then up into the climb. I managed to get myself lost quite a few times but I eventually found myself in a more recognisable place.

I brought my camera along with me thankfully so here are some of the pictures I took:

A bit of scenic German forest, very green after the rain.

Want any more gliders to go with your gliders?  - The local Airfield

Some really nice trails heading up the mountain...

One fairly big rain cloud coming in

Very slippery with lots of tree roots but so much fun!

Typical German

By the end of the ride I was almost glad that I had missed the training, it was such an awesome ride...

Just going out and going a ride like this really brings the motivation back up, it reminds me that it is not just the race results and training that make mountain biking important to me.

Food

One of the hardest things to get used to other than everyone speaking German, was the meal times and the food.

On weekdays for breakfast we eat bread with butter and sweet spreads (i.e. jams and honey), cheese and meat (salami, ham...). Lunch is the main meal of the day, and either we come home, go to the local bakery or eat from the school canteen. Then dinner is much the same as breakfast.
Lunch is usually a hot meal, more often something with pasta or rice and then a salad on the side. It was hard at first having a small dinner and a big lunch, though I think it works better because I don't eat as much in between meals. I also think that the German diet suits me quite well, and if I eat properly, then I don't get hungry on rides.

Linda, Jakob's sister also like to bake cakes. They are often very good and I probably eat a little too much for being a cyclist, but then again I have to embrace the German culture (as I have been told more than once before).

Linda's confirmation was last weekend, and I said I would bake a Pavlova. It turned out the best one that I have ever made, with no cracks, a very nice crunchy outer shell and soft inside, probably mostly because of the awesome KitchenAid that they have (beats the egg whites to perfection) :) Yummm....

THE Pavlova (ok ok, it does have a few cracks)

All that cake!! Mmmm....

My First Race in Germany

Yesterday I rode my first race in about 12 weeks, the last one being the Australian National Round in Echuca, VIC.
Germans seem to like the Le Mans start, where you line your bikes up and have to run to them. I don't think it works very well though because if you are right at the wrong end like I was, then it is very hard to get good position into the first part of the track, I was last in a field of about 40 U/17's.

I am second from the end furthest away.

It was so muddy that there were not many overtaking options and it was on the second lap of three that I finally passed the slow group I was stuck behind, but by then there was a fair gap to the next riders.
I would start to catch the boys in front of me on the uphill but then I would start to lose them again on the incredibly slippery downhills and the fire trails which felt so slow.
On some of the downhill sections the mud was at lest 20cm deep, others it wasn't so deep but even harder to keep a line in. Many times I ended up in the ditch beside the track which was almost easier to ride in! On the uphill of my third a final lap, my back wheel stopped moving altogether and I had to get off and clean the mud off the chainstays.
I passed a of the boys in front of me eventually, but I did't have the strength or stamina to keep the pace going.
The biggest problem was that the laps were short, around 15 minutes, and I didn't have the chance to get into a rhythm over the 45 minute race.
Overall I had a pretty good time considering I have only been back on the bike for a week and a half, and I am looking forward to next the race where I can gauge my improvement...