Author: Carleen Dekarski

NDAC – National Diving and Activity Centre

I mentioned in the last post that we had to get back to Bristol after the Exmoor marathon as we had something else lined up for Sunday.

We have been looking into getting our diving tickets. Yes, I realise how bizarre that is after 10 years in a stunningly warm location such as Australia. Where as now in Britain we will have to get our tickets whilst rugged up in drysuits as I seriously don’t think we will survive the water temperatures here.

We went out for the day and provided surface support during a diving lesson to get an idea as to what we could expect. With a day full of sunshine it was the perfect time to have a look. We have been to the dive location before which is an old quarry. They have placed all sorts of obstacles in the water (such as buses, planes, motorbikes, cargo containers etc) and the depth range is to 80 metres!

Anyway, here are the pics.

Divers getting ready to go in
Great day for it
Here they come
All accounted for
Surface support

CTS – Exmoor

Firstly, Happy Mothers Day to our mums in NZ. Apologies for the slack memories of your children!!! What can we say in our defense? A gazillion miles of distance maybe???

You will be happy to know that we got home safely from Exmoor. We drove down Friday night after Steve finished work and stayed in a fine little B&B in Lynton. I have taken to using Trip Advisor and posting our comments through there for other travelers. This was a great place although a bit difficult to find in amongst the tiny, steep and winding streets of Lynton.

This was the last of the 7 in the coastal trail series. Yet again, the weather was great. That makes 7 in total with fine weather. That has to be a record. The run went really well and as I mentioned in the last brief post, Steve managed a PB of 2.26. Yet it is figuring out what the next challenge will be. Unfortunately we didn’t hang around for the evening get together as we had other plans for Sunday in Wales. More on that in another post.

The Exmoor course was stunning although incredibly hilly. I think they had 1000ft vertical gain within the first 4 miles. Ouch. I decided this time to walk the 10km in reverse as the path did not cross this time with the half and marathon. Remind me next time never to do this. As you are walking against the markers it is very easy to miss a turn. I did this twice and adding not only extra time to the walk but the extra stress of realising I was rather lost with no one around to ask directions from. Needless to say, I kept my cool (barely) and managed to get out in one piece. So, now, up and on to the next challenge.

View from the B&B
Race Base - The Hunters Inn, Parracombe
The start of the last
Along the track
The moors
The moors
Onto the coast
Follow the arrows

Exmoor

Just back from our trip to Exmoor for the final of the 7 x 7 x 7 (7 months, 7 locations, 7 half marathons. Will do a larger blog on the laptop but just wanted to post that Steve did an amazing PB of 2hrs26. The trail was just shy of 14 miles and in my opinion too many hills (says the person who only walked 10k of it) 🙂

May Bank Holiday

Exercise is quite high on our agenda at the moment. With the days finally getting longer it is a great opportunity to get outside after work and just enjoy what is left of the day.

With that in mind we have been running, walking and recently went mountain bike riding.

I admit I was hoping for a rather sedate, forest rambling, flower filled, nature lovers bike course. Yeah right like that was going to happen! No we went for the full on, mud covered, slippery tree root, low hanging branch, surprise drop off style course! To be honest looking back at the photos now, it seems rather sedate although it didn’t feel like it at the time.

After getting over my strong desire to keep my white shoes clean (yes I have issues), I really enjoyed it. Surprisingly, I only encountered one near miss of the Tree Vs Face category. Nevertheless we will be going back again!

Once we had finally completed the ride which took about 1.5 hours, we headed back to the car park to investigate some more rides. This time we did take the sedate family trail but, not surprisingly, it just didn’t have the wow factor after the last experience. It did however have a really cool downhill section which we took on at a cracking speed. Yee hah!!!!! A good three hours of bike riding later we headed to the pub for a well deserved steak sandwich.

Clean shoes - hooray!
Steeper than it looks!
On the family trail
Plodding along

Run baby run

I am into my second week of running with Steve. With Steve’s last semi coming up which is going to be a killer he has been running to work everyday. This means I pick him up after work and seeing as we drive by a large local park we might as do another run at night. Not that my run pace is very inspiring for Steve but more so that he is a great motivator for getting me moving. Also, I must say that my calling it a “run” at this stage is also rather misguided.
My first week was more of a nana shuffle, this week was looking marginally better. It is only a 1 mile loop of the park but I did start out at once around taking around 21 minutes (yes, I know, incredibly crap!). By the fourth run I was doing 2 loops around the park and averaging 17 minutes. Yesterday was my 7th time and I did a PB of 15.02. OK, so the next lap after this was 16.35 but hey I can see a definite improvement!
So in short at this stage it looks like this:
1st run: 1 lap, 2.1km’s, 21 minutes
2nd run: 1 lap (not much better)
4th run: 2 laps, 4.2km’s, 34 minutes
7th run: 2 laps, 4.2km’s, 31.3 minutes

Best Coffee – Bristol

After nearly 2 years here it has taken us a VERY long time to find the haunts that we like. The key things on the list are a decent cinema complex, coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner and weekend activities. Sadly, unlike Sydney, where you could throw your shoe and easily hit a great coffee, meal, activity or view, these fairly simple items are very hard to come by.

With that in mind I thought I might try and save any other poor saps that move to Bristol from wasting good money and taste buds on such things.

Coffee: by far the best place for a coffee is the Baristas Coffee Collective, 29 Victoria Street, Bristol. Near Bristol Bridge. Professionally made, excellent consistency in quality, perfect extraction time and creamy stretched milk. I am salivating thinking about it. Yum! The price is great at only 1.60 for a regular sized latte (they call it small but it is a good “morning” cup size of coffee). The only downside is trying to get a time when they regularly open in the morning. It would seem the owner is a bit lax, but hey, I’m willing to wait, sitting outside his front door, camped out with my pennies in hand!

Anaphylaxis

Last night was the first meeting I attended at a St Johns Ambulance local unit. I would like to take up some volunteer work that requires contact with interesting people, situations and environments. Having never really done much volunteer work besides Rock Solid I wasn’t sure what to expect. Lasting just over an hour we had a talk on anaphylaxis, how to identify the symptoms of anaphylactic shock and how to administer an epinephrine pen auto-injector. Really fascinating material.
I need to continue going for another 5-6 weeks to gauge if it is a unit I wish to join and then this is followed up by an interview with me, CRB (Criminal Reference Bureau) check, referrals from people who have known me and then first aid training before you are allowed anywhere near a shift. Very interesting night and I am keen to go again.