Older blog entries for mikal (starting at number 1012)

Confessions of a middle aged orienteering marker

I was an orienteering marker for the kid's scout troop tonight -- I guess it could have been a trick, but I think they were genuine. The basic idea was I went and stood at where the mark on the map was, and then noted which kids found me. Nice little hill in MacArthur, with pleasant views. I think I've found a good place for a geocache as well.

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog canberra bushwalk tuggeranong
Related posts: Big Monks; Point Hut Cross to Pine Island; A walk around Mount Stranger; Another lunch time walk; Two trigs and a first attempt at finding Westlake; Taylor Trig

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Syndicated 2015-02-18 02:59:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Little Black Mountain

I went on a walk on Monday with the Canberra Bushwalking Club up Little Black Mountain. Its a nice area and I mostly enjoyed the walk. I say mostly because the walk leader was quite un-welcoming. There was the lecture about emergency beacons, and then the lecture about how he's never been bitten by a snake. It was quite an odd experience. I think I might avoid that leader in the future.

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog canberra bushwalk
Related posts: Big Monks; Cooleman and Arawang Trigs; Point Hut Cross to Pine Island; A walk around Mount Stranger; Another lunch time walk; Two trigs and a first attempt at finding Westlake

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Syndicated 2015-02-17 14:21:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Geocaching in the evening, the second

I went geocaching while the kids were at scouts. Overall, a very successful evening. The first hour was a phone call with Tristan Goode, and what I learnt is I should call Tristan more because every call (based on a data set of one walk) is 5km.

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog canberra tuggeranong geocaching
Related posts: Geocaching in the evening; Another lunch time walk; Lunchtime geocaching; Big Monks; Point Hut Cross to Pine Island; A walk around Mount Stranger

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Syndicated 2015-02-11 15:32:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Tuggeranong Stone Wall

Its not every day that your walk is to a 140 year old stone wall that you've been driving past for years without even knowing its there. That however was today's walk, inspired by a walk post by John Evans. I really enjoyed this walk, and it was a good length too. It would have been nice to return by a different route though, although such a thing was not obvious to me while doing the walk.

     

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150208-tugg_stone_wall photo canberra tuggeranong bushwalk
Related posts: Big Monks; Point Hut Cross to Pine Island; A walk around Mount Stranger; Another lunch time walk; Two trigs and a first attempt at finding Westlake; Taylor Trig

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Syndicated 2015-02-08 02:03:00 (Updated 2015-02-08 11:19:14) from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Point Hut Crossing to Pine Island

Andrew and I decided to walk from Point Hut Crossing (near our house) to Pine Island yesterday. Its a nice walk, about 4km and mostly flat with a track the whole way. We even found some geocaches along the way. I think this route would be a good one for cubs.

     

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150207-point_hut_pine_island photo canberra tuggeranong bushwalk
Related posts: Big Monks; A walk around Mount Stranger; Another lunch time walk; Two trigs and a first attempt at finding Westlake; Taylor Trig; Lunchtime geocaching

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Syndicated 2015-02-07 14:26:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Two trigs and a first attempt at finding Westlake

I have to do HR paperwork for work at the moment, so I was looking for a quiet place to progress such things. I ended up beside Lake Burley Griffin working away on my laptop, which was quite pleasant. While in the area, it seemed like a good idea to have a quick first attempt at finding Westlake, which is the ruins of an abandoned builders camp from when Canberra was being constructed. I found some evidence, but I think I need to go further west in a subsequent wander.

           

Interactive map for this route.

There was a planned walk to Davidson trig by the Facebook trig sweating group this evening, so I went along to that. Beforehand I was killing time in Yarralumla and bumped into the cub leader for my kids' troop. She's interested in trig walks suitable for cubs, so I am going to have to keep an eye out for some. Davidson was a nice on-track walk, probably suitable for cubs.

           

Interactive map for this route.

Davidson finished about an hour earlier than expected, so I dropped in to walk to Mike on the way home in an entirely unplanned manner. This walk would be perfect for cubs if it wasn't almost entirely bush bashing. This is probably the lowest elevation trig I've been to so far.

   

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150205-westlake_davidson_and_mike photo canberra tuggeranong bushwalk trig_point
Related posts: Big Monks; A walk around Mount Stranger; Taylor Trig; Urambi Trig; Walk up Tuggeranong Hill; A quick walk to Tuggeranong Trig

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Syndicated 2015-02-05 14:27:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Geocaching in the evening

I went geocaching while the kids were at scouts. Overall, a very successful evening.

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog canberra tuggeranong geocaching
Related posts: Another lunch time walk; Lunchtime geocaching; Big Monks; A walk around Mount Stranger; Taylor Trig; Urambi Trig

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Syndicated 2015-02-04 15:07:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Big Monks

I'm going to be honest here and say I got this one pretty wrong. Looking at Google Earth, Big Monks is about 1.7 km from the access road (which I got right), what I failed to notice is that it is super steep and that much of the walk is off the trail. So... A walk I thought would take 30 or 45 minutes took 2 hours. I didn't die though, so that's good.

Fantastic views at the top, and found a couple of geocaches. There is obviously a lot of walking potential in Rob Roy Nature Park.

             

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150202-big_monks photo canberra tuggeranong bushwalk trig_point
Related posts: A walk around Mount Stranger; Taylor Trig; Urambi Trig; Walk up Tuggeranong Hill; A quick walk to Tuggeranong Trig; Wanniassa Trig

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Syndicated 2015-02-01 21:25:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Cooleman and Arawang Trigs

Doug and I went out to walk Doug's dog at short notice yesterday evening, and managed to sneak in two trigs while we were at it. A nice walk, although it took longer than I expected it to, with our average speed only being about 3.5 kilometers an hour. I wonder how much of that was the two peaks to climb, versus the puppy in tow.

Along the way we found this super cool telegraph line, which appears to still have an active Telstra service on it. I wonder if we'll one day see fiber strung on these telegraph poles?

                       

Interactive map for this route.

Tags for this post: blog pictures 20150131-cooleman_and_arawang photo canberra western_creek bushwalk trig_point urban_trig
Related posts: Harcourt and Rogers Trigs; A quick walk to Tuggeranong Trig; A walk around Mount Stranger; Taylor Trig; Urambi Trig; Walk up Tuggeranong Hill

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Syndicated 2015-01-31 16:15:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

First jog, and a walk to Los Altos

Today was a busy day, not only did I foolishly go for a jog 5 minutes after sunrise...

Interactive map for this route. ...but then I went for a walk with James in the afternoon as well.

Interactive map for this route. Let's just say my fitbit is very impressed with me.

Tags for this post: blog walk california running
Related posts: Walking to work; Did I mention it's hot here?; Summing up Santa Monica; Noisy neighbours at Central Park in Mountain View; So, how am I getting to the US?; VTA station for the Santa Clara Convention Center

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Syndicated 2015-01-25 21:16:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)