Rest of the week in Spain

The week in Spain with the students was good, the weather was kind to us. The students were a good bunch and worked hard. They had one big evening really in the week and then just worked and behaved for the rest of the week, at least up until the second to last night.

I left them in the Pizza restaurant at about midnight. From there they managed to find the disco and most of them made it back by 3am. I was then woken up by lots of noise in the streets at about 5.30, I lay in bed listening to the shouting and I at first thought it was the students, then I heard some Spanish, and then some Norwegian, what was going on?

It was all very loud. I looked out and there was a couple of our guys, exteremly trashed with some Spanish girls. That was fine but why do they have to shout? I had told them to be quite in the hotel – that was the one rule that they have to obey. I considered getting up and bollocking them but I couldn’t be arsed, so I just lay there thinking, fuck this, I don’t need this stress. Its not the work, or the lack of sleep, it’s the hassle of feeling bad about these idiots waking the whole street and all the other hotel guests. I just thought why am I bothering with all this?

Next morning I thought it through in my mind – they had been told not to make noise in the hotel and they were not in the hotel. They had worked pretty hard and deserved to let off a bit of steam. It was not like I have never been out partying on a field trip and its pretty cool that they have hooked up with some locals. And what’s more it’s not my problem, they are adults! Its my fucked up British reserve that makes me disproportionally angry when people are loud and inconsiderate in the street at night. In Bergen (or Oslo or where ever) on almost any night of the week and especially at the weekends drunk people shout at each other at 3am and nobody seems to be bothered, its just a fact of living in town, so why does it make me angry?

After breakfast, down at the classroom they all looked fresh as daisies. Even the two guys and the girl who had been out until 6am didn’t look that bad – god I want to be 22 all over again. So I mellowed a bit and I read them the riot act just for good measure. They look genuinely shocked and a bit hurt. We headed to the field and they all put in a good days work.

Then last night we went for a big meal, in the square and everyone was on good form. They are a really nice bunch of people and I happy to have run this course with them.

Looking for the Wizard, Part 3

(Gareth requested more photos of himself - hows that?)

From Laverton and our brief brush with “civilization” we headed back into the Bush, stopping to take photos by signs that said outback highway and Alice Springs 1600km. The first few 10s km were on a graded road. Big, wide, fast and not a whole lot of fun to ride on. We knocked off about 30 km and found a spot to camp. Next day we dispatched another chunk of graded road before things got more interesting. Justin proposed we took a road that he had seen on the map but never tried. We found it and got on to it. The track was a vast improvement on the large highway we had just left. After about 20 km of riding the track split. The main route bent around to the right while the route straight on seemed far less travelled. We parked the bikes and waited for the Cruisers with the maps and GPS.

The map told us to go straight ahead, and the main drag to the right wasn’t marked. The riding got even better as the track degraded quickly, it soon had lots of bushes growing up through it and fallen trees across the way. There were no other vehicle tracks, just camel and emu footprints. The track deteriorated further until we got to some low scrub and could not find it at all. Ben was “using the force” to trace the remnants of route but eventually even he lost his powers. We waited for Obi Wan Justin with his magic map. They arrived and we split up. While the bikes zigzgagged back and for through the bush looking for tracks Justin went ahead in the cruiser with the “moving map”. We regrouped again and Ben and Justin headed off again, Garth and I refueled the bikes and with our usual ineptitude and I ended up with an eye full of petrol, which hurt like hell.



Ben and Justin returned with word of the way, so we headed into a clump of bushes. Almost immediately, Gareth’s bike broke down, some would suggest sabotage, others dirty fuel but me, I prefer to think of it as karmic justice for my eye! Either may it was 4 pm so we opted to camp while we fixed it. Gareth and Ben pulled the carbs apart while we made camp and they soon had it going again, but since the fire was roaring we opted to stay put for the night. We camped and Ben the animal slayer slept on a small lizard, just so he could be extra comfy.



Next morning we set off bush whacking with absolutely no sign of a trail. The next 3 km took about 2 hours but we were at least heading in the right direction. Eventually we picked up the remnants of the track again and were underway. It was great riding, trying to spot the track and making good time through the trees. As the track improved once more so did our speed. After a couple of hours, whilst canning it, trying to catch the boys I glanced down and spotted a termite mound just at my right foot. Next thing I knew I was flying through the air and loosing contact with the bike. I landed on my shoulder and the bike landed in a heap 10 m way. Ow and Fuck! Fortunately, apart from a dirt sandwich all was ok and I climbed back on board and gingerly headed back along the track. I found the guys waiting and exploded in a continuous stream of gibberish while I spewed out my tale. Gareth noticed that the front of the Alpinstar boot I had borrowed from Rich was smashed to pieces. That could have been my shin! Scary, but they pointed out that that is what the gear is for and it had obviously done its job – rather well.




Eventually we were back on graded roads. Jen and Justin had been on the Anne Biddel highway several years back and had been keen to retrace their steps. Unfortunately someone had come along with a grader and what had been a cool bush track was now a wide graded road. We even meet a car coming the other way! That evening we camped at Pulpit rock, an odd shaped granite monolith, looking more like it belonged in Utah’s monument valley than the outback. We hiked up to the top and Jen found a strange “snake tail” sticking out of a crack. It was black and looked very odd. A later inspection revealed that it was actually the tail of two lizards that had buried themselves deep in to a fissure and were pretty sleepy with the cold. They certainly weren’t doing a very job of hiding, but nobody could quite pluck up the courage to pull them out for a better look.

That night we listened to a recording of an interview with Len Biddel. Biddel was the surveyor who armed with a landrover and a bulldozer had put in many of the tracks and routes we were following. That was back in the 1950’s when the interior of Aus was basically still blank on the map and various western governemnst were keen to have wide open place to play with their nuclear toys. Whatever the political reasons beyond it all, Biddel was clearly quite a character and extremely dry and funny. No matter how remote it all seemed to us, it must have been a different world to those guys. They were out there for months at a time and totally self sufficient.
Next day we decided that however cool Len Biddel was, we needed to get off his track. We stopped for water at a shack in a nature reserve and then headed out. That afternoon saw us tick another confluence point (124E/28S). This one was much closer to the road and we dispatched it in two hours. This time there was no obnoxious orange bollard but we knew that this close to a recently improved road meant that it was probably already visited (which it was).
More good riding following some old and massively washed out tracks. Incredible ravines and drops in the road and alternating between hard packed clay, loose sand and very loose gravel. There was more terrain here than in the previous week and we were having fun as the bikes came into their own. One time as we waited for the cars to catch up, Ben suggested that he could improve the set up on my bike, I was keen for anything that we get rid of the pain in my bike from stooping over while standing on the pegs.

That night we found a good camp site as we maneuvered the cars, Justin staked a tyre on the trailer – apparently just to make Jen feel better about her efforts. Once again the tyre was fixed in less than two 2 minutes – these guys are good.

Next day the scenery improved even more, beautiful glades and nice sandy tracks. At morning tea Ben changed the set up on my bike and as soon as we got going I promptly fell off – twice. In fairness to him I am sure it had more to do with my riding than what he did to the bike, but we blamed him anyway. The riding was on very loose sand that had recently been carved up by a mining company drilling bore holes. Gareth the sand master was in his element while I was trying to keep up – and failing.

We then stopped at a water hole by some low granite hills. While the others went for a walk I started practicing my jumps. Ben was quick to give me some useful tips and it was getting better, but it was only really ever going to have one outcome. The inevitable came after about 20 minutes, following the “keep the power on through the jump” piece of advice and I came down at an angle, ending up on my arse. It was a good day for the gravity monster and a bad day for me! Good job the bike is so tough.




That afternoon we came into some more granite terrain. It was really beautiful, this old red granite, weathered into weird shapes in low outcrops. There was a grave dated 9-7-94 which was actually 1894! Ruter was one of the old explorers and a guide book suggested he either got sick and died or blew himself up! You would think it would have been easy to tell what the cause of death was!
From Ruter’s grave, Justin took us to another granite outcrop that was covered with carvings of the old explorers names. Really cool to see and a great view from the top. More good riding on gravel tracks before we rode past a water hole with dozens of camels. Jen got some great photos.

We pulled up to camp and that was the end of the riding. We opted to quit there and while we began to sort the gear Ben was off, like a small child who refused to come in from playing at the end of the day! Eventually we hauled him in, the bikes got loaded and we got stripped off the riding gear for the last time and put on some cleanish clothes. It was all rather emotionally.
The ridding was done but the fun was not all over just yet. We had a great day visiting the ghost town and excellent mining museum at Leonora before spending our last night under cover. Gareth was keen to show his Oz tent which we had carted around on the roof of the cruiser and he claimed he could erect in 30 seconds. The challenge was set. He actually managed it in 45, which was still pretty impressive and “the love nest” as our sleeping arrangement had become known moved under cover.
That night we had a final big meal, drank the last of the beer and turned in. The tent was amazingly warm and when I got up at 6am for a piss there was a lunar eclipse. Fantastic end to the trip.
Next day we drove back to Perth. The transition from the outback, through the gold fields, into the wheat belt and then over the coastal escarpment was really striking. It was a long drive but we made it back in time for tea.
Spent a couple of days in Perth, spent so time with Sue and the girls, did washing, cleaned the bikes, visited Ben at his boat building work shop – awesome hand built RIBS that do 58 knots; and had a final meal with the guys before heading back to Norway.
It was an amazing trip, saw some awesome scenery, learned to ride a dirt bike, got to camp in the middle of absolute nowhere and best of all got to meet some fantastic people. I have known Gareth for years but it was cool to actually spend a couple of weeks with him after so long. It was also brilliant to meet Ben and Jen and Justin. They made me feel really welcome I just hope they got to Norway someday so I can repay their hospitality and companionship.

Snakker Du Norsk?

One of the good things about living in Norway as an ex-pat is that everyone, or almost everyone speaks some English and most people speak it extremely well. It makes life very easy, although things like letters from the council can still be pretty bewildering. Despite that you could easily spend your whole life here and get by without any of the lingo, still chuckling to yourself every time you see signs that says ”Fart” (speed).

When I first arrived I was keen and tried translating all my out going emails into Norwegian. That was until I sent one inviting people to a software launch and my translation read ”if you would like to come and join us to watch Roxar throw their new software into the sea...” the phrase I chose for launch (sjøsette) being specific to boats... The mail did the rounds of the Norwegain geo-community faster that a dose of clap in a mining camp and I became the laughing- stock.

Shortly after that I managed to pay 350 000 nok (£35 000 / $70 000) to the electricity company because my English keyboard put in a ”.” instead of a ”,” as the decimal and the internet banking system didn’t recognise it. I went on a course at the Uni but was away so much that I only got to half the lesson, pretty soon I had an offical looking letter in norwegian saying - well I don't know what it said so I asked a friend to translate it and he said
"you have been kicked off your Norwegian course for not attending enough!"
I said "oh really and they write to me in Norwegian to tell me that I failed my norwegian language course?"
"It would seem that way" he replied.

At the point I kind of unofficial put things on hold until I had time to do it properly. And that is the problem, there never seems to be time to do it properly so you muddle on and you get by. Before you know it you have been here six years and it's a bit embarrasing so you lie to shop keepers and taxi drivers and say you only arrived two months ago.

However beyond the embarrasment, the tolerance of the locals hides the problem. It’s tough to mix with people. While they are very friendly and very accommodating, if you are in the pub with a bunch of them, they will chat to you in English, but if left unsupervised will immediately lapse into Norsk. It means that you can’t go to the toilet because you know as soon as you come back you are out of the conversation! You become fantastically adapt at: a) not going to the toilet and, b) drifting off into your own private space as the World babbles around you in a sing-song white noise.

I have many Norwegian friends and they are fantastically forgiving of my pathetic attempts or even my lack of attempts at the language. The rest of the community as well. Can you ever imagine going into a shop in Manchester and just saying ”do you speak Norwegian? Or even French, or Spanish, and then just assuming that they will. It will never happen.

My concession is to try and speak clear and simple English, its any attempt to at least meet them half way, I have British friends who not only speak less Norwegian than me but also speak fast, garbled and parochial English – come on guys you know who you are… I also have a couple of British friends who have learnt the language fluently – a great effort this has generally involved two things: 1) a lot of time, effort and dedication and 2) a Norwegian woman! Since I have neither of these, I think I’ll stick to throwing my software into the sea and lying to taxi drivers about how long I have been here.

Classy blonde girls on tour - Ainsa fieldtrip 2008

Spain field trip going well. The weather is warm and the rocks are behaving themselves. The students however...
The trip has the usual possi of blonde girls that get the locals excited where ever we go. These particular group is especially classy - events to date
1. A girl gets so trashed that she climbs into a random car which the poor unfortunate owner had neglected to lock. She voms everywhere and then sleeps in it for the night, waking up at sunrise to stumble home and leave the owner with a pleasent suprise for his morning drive to work.
2. Girl wakes up with the keys to the town hall - where did they come from, nobody knows.
3. Another girl pronouces that she has had diaoreha and may be pregnant because her birth control pills "slipped straight through". The next day she annouces to the whole group that everything is ok because she got her period! Hurray!
4. Meanwhile the guys are locked out of the hotel at 2 am and are clambering up the outside trying windows and terrifing the owners 80 year old mother

Its only day 3! I think I need danger money!
Maybe I am just getting too old for all this?

Have you ever had breakfast with a geologist Stan?

At last someone appreciates that we are actually pretty cool and not all a bunch of bearded wierdos in check-shirts, utility waist coats and birkenstocks

Waffles anyone?

Looking for the wizard, Part 2

The day after our evening of shooting cans dawned very cloudy. The cloud at least meant it had been warmer the preceding evening. I photographed a tree full of parakeets looking cold and puffed while the guys made breakfast and packed up. More great riding in the morning before we stopped for lunch. An interesting river crossing through a gorge (well 1 m deep) and some soft sand interspersed with hard ground covered in gravel.


We stopped about 11 for a planned detour. While chatting around the fire I had mentioned confluence points, where you visit the intersection of integer lines of latitude and longitude (eg 128S and 14E) then take photos of the point and post them on a website. Jen had heard of this and the others could, somewhat bizarrely, see the merits of visiting and photographing random points on the earth surface. So after a few false starts, a quick look at the map suggested that 29S/125E lay “just” 20 km of the track. How hard could it be?

Justin opted to stay at cars and let the bikes go cross country. Jen climbed on the back of Ben’s bike. There are a lot of thing you can say about KTM’s but they were defiantly not built for pillions. They don’t even have rear foot pegs. This was going to be interesting.

We plugged the details into the GPS and headed cross country. In the wrong direction. So we checked the GPS after a km and corrected our course and headed off again. In the wrong direction! It is amazingly difficult to keep a bearing while weaving through brush, bouncing over grass tuffs and dodging trees. After much diversion we eventually found some vehicle tracks which was a bit disheartening. Maybe somebody had been there before, out here? Twenty km from the track, surely not? We followed the tracks for a bit but they seemed to go in the wrong direction was we were encouraged again. Visiting a CP is obviously much better if you are the first!

After an hour or so we met a large vegetated sand dune about 25 m high. The bikes climbed it in good fashion although at this point Jen had to walk. While Ben was doing a sterling job of carrying her he didn’t think he could manage the climb up the loose sand two-up. From the top we had a fantastic view. The region is amazingly flat and gaining a bit of elevation really demonstrates how vast, expansive and empty it is. Dropping off the other side of the dune Ben said the immortal words to the camera “here we go” as he promptly dropped the bike and Jen – fortunately they were doing about 2km/h and it was soft sand – but it was very funny.

We crossed another dune and then into the final interdune corridor. The GPS said we were only 500 m away so we rode 1000 in the wrong direction before being corrected. We then dispatched Jen on foot and she quickly spotted a large orange bollard sticking out the sand. It was pretty unequivocal, someone had been there 4 years ago. We were a bit put out by such an aggressive mark, it somewhat detracted from the situation, but we took our photos and laughed about someone carrying all that crap, all the way out here.



We then headed back on the bikes, opting to go around rather than over the dunes. Most of the time we were riding through tufts of spinefex – a hard, spinny grass. It looks nice to drive through from a distance but the reality is pretty horrible, impossible to avoid and bone rattling bouncy. We pushed on, each suffering in our own private misery. It was much better for Gareth and I, we could at least maneuver the bikes and stand up. Ben and Jen were stuck sitting and had to endure the full pounding. It was very obvious why the aboriginals don’t use dirt bikes for transport!

Towards the end we got into a more forested area and rather than bouncy over spinefex we got to dodgy trees. That was easier, especially in areas were it was burnt. The only hazard was fallen logs, Ben and Jen did an impressive hop over one of those with a flying wheelie. The circus was calling.

Back at the car we had tea and snacks before heading off again. That eveing we stopped early as we had planned a treat for the bikes. They were going to get an oil change. KTM’s are so high maintenance that they are supposed to have their 3 (yes 3!) oil filters changed ever 500 km. We found a nice camp site and did the mechanics. It all went pretty much without a hitch and we were treated to an amazing sunset just as we finished.

Next day we started fairly late and refueled the bikes. The bikes were filled with petrol from a large tank in the trailer via jerrys every day. Gareth and I were notoriously bad at doing this job. In almost very case we managed to cover the bike with fuel and at one point later one I ended up with an eye full of fuel. Much to Ben’s continuing disbelief at our uselessness.





Another morning of great riding on fast, sandy tracks through forest. Just after lunch we arrived at sign in the road that said school crossing. This is 200 km from any children! Heading up a side track we came to a corrugated iron shack which announced itself as the “7 mmillers bar and grill”. Justin explained that it was built by some red necks who come out to hang out and cull camels. The name comes from the fact that they use 7mm rifles, of which they are obviously very proud, in an “I have a big gun” type way.

The view of the shack was stunning. It sits in a glade of trees overlooking a huge salt pan. To the guys who built it, the hut is obviously a passion. They must have figured they couldn’t stop people breaking in and staying there so they opened it up to any guests to use anytime – nice gesture. It was pretty easy to see the growth of the place as a series of construction projects. These are the kind of guys who like “making stuff”. There latest addition was a wood fired pizza over that had been fashioned out of a couple of oil barrels, some rocks and a lot of cement.

The hut is rough and ready, practical in a very masculine way. Stickers and juvenile graffiti adorn the corrugated iron walls, while bullet shells and car and porn mags are piled on the homemade, beer crate shelves. Recipes hacked from magazines are stuck to the walls and testify that these guys, who probably never lift a finger at home are actually, secretly domesticated. At least in their own space.

So we decided to stay there and hang out. We played the golf hole and Jen got the kite out. I took some photos of Ben pulling wheelies on the salt flat and we opted to go explore. Riding on the salt was strange, with speed the bikes glided across it but with no sideways slipping. It was like being on an awesome road bike on sticky tarmac.. If you want to far away from the edge of the lake you would start to sink and yo could feel the power being sucked out of it. Had a few unnerving moments were I though I wasn’t going t make it out. That would have been messy!

The edge of the lake was very indented and it was really easy to lose your sense of direction. We rode in and out of embayments for about an hour and a half with an unspoken plan to go around the whole thing. Then we rounded a headland and both stopped dead. The salt flat stretched further than the eye could see. It was fuckin huge. We admired the view for a bit and headed back to the shack.

Back at the shack the guys were shooting stuff again - when in Rome... We used the last of Justin’s shells and Jen started cooking up Pizza. I went off to take some photos as the sunset. Then when my bike wouldn’t start (battery flat – alternator trouble) I sat down to wait for rescue which came after about an hour in the form of Ben with a bottle of fuel. He assumed I must have run out. We bumped the bike and headed back for pizza.

Gareth, having lived in Oman for several years warned strongly of the effects of salt on the bike so we got busy cleaning. He said his friends chain had fallen to bits after going on a salt pan, so we spent about an hour on each of the bikes while Gareth watched, laughing in a knowing fashion. Jen cooked a set of great pizzas and we drank beer and spent our first night under a roof in a week. It was also our first warm night in a week – maybe there is a connection

Next morning we breakfasted and then headed back on the road. Within about 3 km Gareth pulled to a halt, indicating all was not well. A quick check of his bike revealed a broken chain! He immediately got a ribbing for not cleaning his bike and not going on the salt flat. The chain had actually stuck in the sprocket so it took a while to un-jam. Two hours later all was fixed and we were back on the road. Maybe this was part of Gareth’s plan to use up all the spares.

Another day of good riding and we came across some real hills. Mid afternoon we arrived at a strange rocky alcove. It was a hollow with vertical walls on three sides and a water hole at the back. The place was like a war zone with various animal bones strewn across the ground, it was really rather spooky. The wild dogs were obviously hunting there, a lot. Not wanting to camp in a grave yard we headed back down the track and found a good sheltered spot and climbed a nearby hill to watch the sunset.

Next day we headed into town and supplies. Justin and be building Laverton up to be somewhat less than desirable, with tales of drunken aborigines hiding children in the bushes so they could get more drunk etc. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It was clean and pretty quite. The locals were friendly (and sober) and the police didn’t hassle us for having no tax or number plates on the bikes. We were in and out in a couple of hours, fully stocked and fueled up and heading out for the second half of our adventure.

Its that Spain time of year

Annual trip to Ainsa in the Spanish Pyrenees with group of students. Always great to be here, I love Spain. The geology is cool, the sceanary stunning and the people friendly.

Yesterday we got up at 4.30 (after 3 hours sleep) flew to Toulouse then drove across the mountains. We normally fly into Barcelona but when I tried to book back in June KLM said the flight was full! That's only 4 months in advance! So we flew into France and KLM only lost one set of bags, which by their normal standard is pretty good. Got the cars from Avis, who had decided that my booking of 5 cars must be a mistake and then ended up in a panic trying to find 4 more! Don't you love big organistaions. I picked up a TomTom to make sure we didn't get lost! I am highly scpetical of the route we took but it got us here.

I was then totally knackered so after dinner I headed to bed, about 9.30 and got 10 hours sleep which was only disturbed once, at 11.30 by KLM calling to say they had found the missing bag! Very glad to hear it!

Good day in the field today, Statoilhydro fund this course but couldn't get organised enough to send anyone along so it was just me. Big organizations! Fortuantly I have been here enough times that it doesn't really matter anyway, ended up with everyone swimming in the river - very pleasant.