**February 2012 Reading Challenge – Valentine’s Day **

The Aussie Readers group on Goodreads has the February Challenge – Valentine’s Day;

Romance is in the air with February 14th – so pick out:
2 books with a love interest (not necessarily a romance book)
OR
2 books with flowers/hearts/plush toys on the cover
OR
2 books that are from your favorite genre (one you love)
OR
mix and match .

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – training tales for the Oxfam Trailwalker

G’day folklings,

♫ On the road trail again … ♫.
Training has started in earnest now as the walk is less than 12 weeks away.

The four of us have finally trained together, instead of 2 by 2, a pastime that we intend to continue for the next 11 weeks.
So, this week we decided to try out the first 2 sections of the actual trail, from Jells Park to Lysterfield Lake, which adds up to 22 km, to see what it would be like and how it compared to our preparatory training.

This section of the trail is mostly undulating. In fact I think our trail notes calls it ‘gently undulating’. Then, once it has lulled you into a false sense of security, it throws a steep hill at the unsuspecting and innocent walker. You go up it veerry slowly, you lean on the sign at the top and pretend you’re looking at the fabulous view (see attached photo), then you go down it, and return to the gently undulating terrain feeling slightly shell-shocked and finally end up crossing the dam wall at Lysterfield Lake and heading through the BBQ area to the checkpoint.

Saturday's team training from the Start to CP2, top of the hill

Let’s see … compared to our preparatory training walks;

• Similar in length, so we were doing well there.
• Steeper, Gwen and Frances discovered that their previous training walks hadn’t included any real uppy and downy bits so we need to put a little more work into practicing those. (Guess what we’re doing next weekend, ladies…, Eltham has lots of uppy and downy bits to practice on).
• Hotter, somebody forgot to dial the temperature down and we sweltered a bit. Who’s big idea was it to walk on a 34 degree day?!? Ooh, that’d be me, shhh, don’t tell anyone.
  Well, being hot, we went through all our water and all our sugar-laden cordial and when we reached Lysterfield Lake we found a shop that sold icy-poles. That was, just possibly, everyone’s favourite part of the day. We really felt that we had earned those icy-poles.

I suggested to Gwen (from memory it was on the up bit of the hill) that the purpose of walking hard on the training sessions was so that she was too tired at the end to hit me, but she has threatened that if necessary she’ll take a contract out so it won’t matter if she doesn’t have the energy. Frances, on the other hand, plans on going straight to a higher authority and is teeing up a lightning bolt for just in case.

Runkeeper Activity Log (click image to visit)

Darren is already thinking logistically, on things such as how much water we need to carry, what we need to eat and when, and whether hiking poles will be a good idea for the hills. He’s the one finding the walking easiest, so we’ll leave all that stuff to him.

So, next week is off the trail and closer to home (well, my home anyway) and concentrating on some hill practice.

Cheers Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

The Wrath Of Fate – Audio Book (Abney Park)

The Wrath Of Fate – Abney Park’s Origin
This story in the origin of Abney Park, it takes the narrative found in each Abney Park song and joins them into a narrative of the band. You can buy the novel at http://www.abneypark.com/market.

Abney Park Radio Serial?
Well, sorta. I’m currently recording the audio book to The Wrath Of Fate, and releasing each chapter on YouTube weekly. You can listen to the first two chapters now, starting here:
Although I’m not going to give the whole audio book away, I’m planning on releasing at least the fist half of the novel, this way. My goal is, of course, to get everybody hooked so they’ll buy the book!
However, the weekly serial is so much fun, it stands on its own merits. Go try it out!
– “Captain Robert” (2012-Jan-31)