Revision of Australian Flowers

Ok, I am no botanist but this is part of my studies...studying and identifying flowers. As part of my revision, I will attempt to name all of them. These are the few in my spring collection. See if you know which are the names I smoke out...


Tall grass tree flower, Grevillea alpina, Bearded heath, Pink bells



Early nancy, Golden everlasting, Yellow six petaled flower, Spreading flax lily


Leopard orchid, Spider-comb orchid, Tall sundew, Grampians red flower



One tree hill flower, Dillwynia sp, Honey bee favorite flower, Waxlip orchid


Musky orchid, Pale sundew, Shiny cassinia

Die man! better not let my lecturer see...I forgot the names of so many of them! Actually I not bad already, compared to some on other website which don't even have names to their flowers!

Visitations By...

My mum pop by in Melbourne before staying with Janet in Sydney last month. I drove a total of five hours from my place just to have a two hour tim sum with her but its good to see family members around.


Ha! Gene's turn to be in town last weekend. We went all over town to makan all sorts of food... tim sum, Italian, Vietnamese and guess who we bump into?! Ah Pau (Pauline), ex-OBS Instructor! Sorry. No photo of us together cos she can't wait to siam us.


Gene and myself also went window shopping for expensive boy's toys. Sad that we can only window shop...


I have to say they have interesting brand names for their food here...


Had a great weekend talking cock with Gene. Makes so much difference to have Singaporeans around... helps to keep me sane. Oh well... school is over and its time to prepare for the exams. Time to be a chow mugger!

Its Time To Get Serious!

The first signs of summer was felt today, 35 degrees and finishing my last bit of assignments this week means its time to get racing again! Enough of procrastinating and I need to get out of this rut!


My last Olympic distance race earlier this May in Bintan... way too long ago! I need to take some practical steps to get going...


Step One: Due to the rough roads here, I finally put aside my HED racing wheels and fitted on a set of training ones. Courtesy of Gene. Started working on my skinny fair legs again!


Step Two: Went down to Melbourne and invested in my first tri wetsuit by 2XU. Now cannot give excuse not to touch the cold waters.


Step Three: Went online to register whatever races I can find around. This is a good series to start off with...mostly sprint distance. Unfortunately I won't be around for the OD one. But good chance to try swimming with the wetsuit.


Gene talked me into this one! Will really be a interesting 145km ride along Great Ocean Road in March next year. Need to put in some mileage on this one... I chose to complete it under six hours though.


Of course the other reason I signed up was because they were giving free jersey for the first 3000 cyclist! Woohoo! I proud to be a Singaporean! The time is now to start training...

Its A Dog's World After All...

I discovered that all ang mohs here like their dogs. They are generally well behave and sometimes more well behave than some of their owners.


On the other hand you have brats like Coby, (pastor's dog) which I help to take care during this time when my pastor is away. This dog is greedy, barks non stop and wakes me up at 5am every morning to open the door for him to do his business! Did I mention that he also sleep on his back and snores loudly until I wake up?


And of course you got the lazy ones... its hard to imagine that my friends Pit Bull (one of those dogs thats well known for killing people) slept on my lap the whole afternoon!


Baby - The OBS Dog (1992 to 2007)
This post is dedicated to Baby who passed away last week back home. The dog that saw generations of OBS Instructors through all her years. She will always be known for swimming across the channel and following Instructors out for expeditions...can't even remember how many cans of my chicken luncheon I fed her when I was still there. Anyway... she is a great dog and friend that will always be part of the history of OBS.

Round TWO! Gramps again...

Here I am back at the Gramps again for the second week in a row. This time on a uni trip for a week observing nature. Here is one of my lecturers Phil leading my group. Really nice fatherly figure.


And off we go on our five day bush walk...


Sandstone formations like this one are pretty common around the area.


We walked pass one of the multi pitch climbing sites. Gians...


The chow ang mohs this time round wasn't that chow but seow at times... at least some stayed up after dinner for a couple of card games. I ended up teaching the seow ang mohs how to play tai tee and they love it!


View from the top of Mount Difficult but getting up there was not so difficult.


We just made the mountain a few centimeters higher!


We spent some time doing landscape drawings and record the nature around. Nice Cirrocumulus clouds.


We had some time before meeting the other groups on the last day. So Phil decided to drive us for some ice cream at a touristy place and check out the McKenzie Falls which is the biggest in the Grampians.

Round ONE! Grampians...Climb!

I am Back! After the guys at my place screwed up the internet connection, I didn't have any access for a couple of weeks. Now also still don't have! Using my pastor's wireless while he is away on mission trip for a month is the best I can get for now. So this is whats happening....


I took a drive down to the Grampians planning to do some climbing during my mid semester break. The drive wasn't too bad...made a couple of stops along the way and taking pictures of the country. The canola fields looks nice during this time of the year before they harvest them.


Taking the small roads also got jam over here! but of a different sort. Here farmers moving their sheeps from one farm to another...


...with the help of their sheep dogs of course. Check it out! The latest spring collection road safety apparels for dogs at work!


The town of Stawell, just before the Gramps. Stock up some food here for the next few days of climbing. The Grampians in the background and beetle juice on my screen.


Met my classmates Emma, Liam and Tim there after their field trip which I will be doing the following week.


First class comfort for the nights! This is one of the reasons why I got a station wagon. Was too lazy to pitch my tent during this trip anyway.


Unhealthy Aussie breakfast before our climb.


This is traditional natural climbing...needing to set your own protection along the way. No bolts on routes unless its a more difficult one like grade 20 plus onwards (Australian). Quite time consuming setting up natural anchors at the top and need a lot more gear also.


My turn to have a go at it! Didn't climb as much as we would like to as the weather came in on us...there goes my chance of multi-pitching again! So we went back to Bendigo after two days. sians...