My First Time

Everyone has their first time. The air around you seem to heat up, arouse all your conciousness. You start to feel the heat, inside of you. You feel as if there is fire. Your legs can't help trembling. At some stage, you feel dizzy in your head, as if you are going to faint. Not long, you start breathing heavily, and more heavily. eventually you have to stop, after the pause, you know you have to go on, you just can't stop like that. It's amazing, when you 'reach the top'. You feel so relaxed, everything within sight seeming beautiful. You just can't help saying, "Yes!". Wind blowing calmly on your back which is already full of sweat, that instantly took a lot of heat away, cools you right down. And yesterday was my first time, I didn't expect it'll be as long as four hours straight. quite amazing after I have done it. my friend justin has done 8 hours in a row, quite a feat, but then again, he's done it three times, so i guess practise does help.

yes, indeed, hiking is kinda different experience to all of us except kosol. it was mine, jen and eva's first time hiking in blue mountain yesterday, a not-rostered thursday for me. waking up fairly early, make my way to strathfield isn't too hard, esp with the milliem train, being in sydney for many years, but it's only my second time board the m train. the noise of the surrounding has been muffled by the well sealed cabniet. quiet, inside, i can't help admired the engineering feat. SMOOTH RIDE, i thought, as if gliding on glass. Superb suspension, much better than earlier model. I was wondering if one day all transport can reach such standard. quieter than airplane and smooth as car.

Here is Jen and her white echo. Justin brought Eva along the way. We four embarked the journey from strathfield. Few hours later, we started to descend down the Golden Stairs. From the graph, you can see, we descend great deal in the first twenty minutes. Also indicate the steepness of the stairs. Then after followed by an fairly long fairl flat surface, then we climb again in order to reach the ruined castle. THAT's ONE WAY. Oh, yes, my Casio Protec is responsible record those time vs altitude, a very neat watch for mountain climber, pity i don't hike often. Yes, as for the graph, i do have something to add. There are two versions, version one original. have a look at it, you don't feel it's steep, you thought, well this look flat, not difficult. Now, so i did something, to remove the WRONG perception, simply regarded the lowest point as 0m, a relative height graph is drawn. (all posted on the end). so compare the two graphs, you instantly realise, how different they look, yet, they portrait exactly same hike. You can feel the steepness by now.

B A C K to the story now. so after the first 30 minutes steep downhill walk, most of us feel our upper leg is tiring. And the sympton of muscle tiring is, trembling, shaking i.e. Kosol is fine with going downhill, but with slippery surface that is full of sand and leaves, you just have to be careful with descending down. Yes, half an hour later, Eva is not feeling well, stating her leg is shaking, not a good sign. We encouraged her to keep on going. But Justin chose to go fast, far in the front and leave Eva behind. He is probably reading this right now, but i do need to add, when you are weak, and not good at something, the last you wanted is being left alone in the tale of the group. By walking so much faster than the rest of us, doesn't help Eva feel any better. In fact, Eva had few niggle about it, but chose not to elaborate it, maybe she doesn't want to say anything about justin. But walking with her slowly on the tail, I do sense her unhappiness, a state that justin has not possible aware. But as the day goes on, Eva being slow being accepted, she's expect to walk on the last, she becomes happier later, after we reach the top. But justin, look here is a point i am going to make, IMAGINE if it's not Eva? if it's Bex who's walking the slowest, if you walk in the front miles ahead of bex, right from the beginning. You think she'll give you a nice face? I don't think so. I am not saying you did something terribly wrong. And yes, you maybe right, walking with other guys, you can just race up, eventually all boys would catch up, they are fine by themselves. but for eva, someone never hiked before, and has problem climbing up and down. Racing ahead doens't help make her feel better. Something you can do with all boys, might not be best appreciated by girls. Even though i am not too happy with the smallest torch given last time we race under moonlight to see the glow worms. but i am ok with it, because I had what's-his-name-again on my back. So i am not the tail of the group, haha haha. how evil. Yeah, on the tail of the group and alone is a bad feeling. Then again, Eva has accustomed to it, hence the rest of the day, all four of us are happy. HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY. So let's not talk about this topic again, so long as we know its implication.

Jen is a girl with super slim body figures. I told justin, she wouldn't last an hour, days ago prior the hiking day. But she proved me wrong, she performed great, walking with the group from start to finish. seems that her few jogs a week is paid off. Muscle has memories. The bone density reached its peak for women at 18, 21 for men. If you ever develop a strong body before that, your body tend to memories its status. You can go FATTER later, but after some training, your body can go back to memory. So two people, one previous athlete, one ordinary men with not much physical activity. Even though they can be all 40 years old with big tommy. after some training, the previous athelets can outperfrom the other by heaps, because his body remembered its peak. In short, if you body had reached high peak, your potential going back is higher than those never reached high peaks. so i would assume justin did fair bit sports while he's young. Squash or soccer i can't remember, but the youth sports has paid off, as he can now easily run 10k in 55min without any training. so jen is quite impressed with his hiking endurance. we reached the top of the ruined casle in how long (check the graph).

The name itself is highly misleading. Ruined Castle. So misleading, few european tourist, came from the top and told us, "no castle, no castle." kosol chuckled and try to explain, but it took us a while, as they don't really speak englihs. There is no castle, just rocks which local refer as ruined castle. yes, rocks, huge rocks, we cimb and we climb we reached the top and finally get the view we wanted, AMAZING, YES! 360 degree uncluttered view of blue mountain. everything seem below us. watching those vast woods, make me wish to fly. Spacious.

Walking back is not to hard till we hit the golden stairs again. revesre decending, we need to climb up that hill. Still we reckon, going up hill is at least as bad as going down. kosol beg to differ.

While the four is watching on top of the ruined castle. a helicopter is hovering around the path, they just walked. "Could it be?" justin thought the flyer is trying to perform a rescue task. someone is trapped somewhere. His memory flash back. on the way to ruined castle, a old man walked passed us, half naked, apparently hot. he looked unwell, and ask for water. Justin gave him a bottle, he only drank a little from it, his hand is in disharmouny with the action. Then he returned the bottle, 'God bless you.' Water, seemingly cheap stuff in Sydney is really preciouis in dry place without water source. in four hours time, there are no where you can get water. Kosol went on a long hike before, after so many hours, the carreid few Litres went down the thoat, one can't help beign thirsty. you sweat so much more when you hike vs you walk in air conditioned shopping mall. 3L for 4 hours is just enough. so in the end, kosol described to us that he had begin to fanacise those pool of water in the middle of dry land... crave for water is undeinable. Luckily we all brougth enough water, so no one faint. Yes, it's the old man we walked pass, need to be taken care by the helicopter. He has no bottle, must be lost, must start as sa short hike then get lost. DO NOT HIKE ALONE. I REPEAT, DO NOT HIKE ALONE. Four is a good number i think. THings work out really fine yesterday.

not sure if any of their legs are sore by now. i am actually quite ok. not feeling anything, maybe it only hits you the second day after. Ah, being writing the whole monring, got to look for something to do in my last free day of the week.


Original Altitude vs Time


Modified Relative Altitude vs Time

I think, Michelle now must want to kill me big time. After all, she's the one who got me those 3 free tickets to the show (Star City, a drumming show, where every audience has been given a drum). I didn't make it last night, due to obvious reason, blue mountain is far away, can't make it in time to see the show. now when i see michelle at work, she's not gonna be happy. Esp, i am the one who asked for ticket in the first place. naughty, naughty.

so we arrive strathfield 8ish. Then we picked a restaurant to dine. only make me realise, for bang for bucks value, Kingsford is best. as rest of the places charge $8+ easy for everything, include water. The restaurant is pretty roomy, there is one waitress there has green's eyes. This is disturbing, as i can't help staring at her. I have to control myself not to stare. but it's hard, so many memories, just by look at her eyes.