Brentano-Murphy's Adventures

Ok, so I finally had to face my fears and attempt bowling – many of my friends favourite past time. I was invited on Sunday at the Orienteering infront of my mom, and had no reason to say no. So, Tuesday 9 August 2011, at 12pm, Brad, Salome, Ant, Jessie, Cian, Greg, Tim, Steph, Jess Hemer and I met at Monte for our first official get together. I was about 4 th to start and managed to get 4 balls down, however my next few tries ended up with nothing and so I was last by the 4 th turn. All the boys were fighting for Dakota’s first 5 turns, which ended up in various points. Tim took a few strikes and looked to be in fine form. The last 3 turns we all decided to have the rails up to assist some of us in getting more points (ok, mostly me, who was still battling in the 10’s while most others were cruising through the 40’s and up). I ended up last, with Steph beating Tim by 1 point (99 to 98). Ok, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, so I will try again, but I don’t yet unders

So where do I begin…. Thursday, 5 May 2011. It was a normal Thursday on my way home from work. As I was passing the traffic I saw a car wanting to turn into the oncoming traffic lane. I stopped to allow him to go, but he didn’t go, so I assumed he was letting me go. As I started to go, I saw the car going as well – clearly he had not seen me. I had 2 options 1: Break hard and hope I don’t go straight into the car 2: swerve. I opted to swerve, but saw the corner of the car in front of me, there was not enough room with both of us moving. I scraped along the corner of the car before I realized that I was air born. I remember seeing pieces fly below me as I feared that my bike was rolling and would be   ruined (just as I see in bike racing when the bike goes flying). I hit the ground and rolled, but wasn’t sure if I should close my eyes, or just watch and wait, but either way I was powerless. Eventually I stopped on the side of the road and could see stars everywhere. “just wait until th

The big day was here, and I had been rolling around in the sleeping bag, imagining that it was raining and cold outside. A beep on my phone woke me into reality – “Hey u, are u awake”, it was Jason, waiting outside for me. I got changed and went outside to be greeted by his warm smiling face, which reminded me of the previous night. I guess our affection could not be hidden from there on, but no one made comments or asked questions. My focus had shifted slightly and I stared out into the water wondering if what I had done the previous night was right. After a quick breakfast, the tent was taken down and everything packed away, and we were on our way to the start. Jenny dropt us off just by the start before proceeding down the road towards the finish to hand Dylan our bags, and beginning her journey with Jason on the way home. I cannot deny the sparkle in Jason’s eyes as we said goodbye, I had no idea that we wouldn’t even have time for a good bye hug, and I guess this was a reminder

I was awake pretty early, and tried not to disturb the others my getting changed camping style (in the sleeping bag). I tried to figure out what kind of weather was outside, but it wasn’t long until Jenny unzipped the door to the tent and let bright sunshine come streaming into the tent. A little while later Jason was cooking the breakfast before a few of us headed into the dam for a quick cool down.  Jess and I were in charge of keeping everyone’s stuff, and I ensured Jenny had everything she needed for her swim, and for afterwards. We waited with Jenny and Jason for a while at the start, and this was the point where I started to get really nervous – I guess just seeing all those people made me realize how big this event actually was, and I started to feel a little out of my league. A short while later Jess and I had driven up to near the finish (near in this case meaning a nice walk, and an easy place to get out of), and went in search of a blue tent by a ridge, to drop off a wetsui

So the weekend I had been training for was finally here, my nerves were on end but I was looking forward to completing a new challenge. Friday, 11 February was a pretty early start. Jess and I were catching a ride with Jenny and one of the boys from her school (Jason). Jenny left us to deal with the packing, and as per usual, with no instruction, I was clueless and standing there watching the other 2 at work, while at odd times throwing my 2 cents in. I looked at the full trailer, and the full boot, and realized there was still more stuff – later this stuff went into the back with Jess and I, where eventually I had no space left on the floor for even my toe. I also started to wonder why we needed all this stuff for just the 3 of us, but didn’t think much of it to ask, as I had not been in that situation before. Well, by 9 we were loaded up and on the road for what will be a very long and quiet journey. We did stop at a petrol station along the way for some food, where I introduced Jen

New Years 2010/ 2011... What an experience! Christine, Belinda and myself decided to go to Jet at the Dome by Northgate to celebrate the New Year, and it just so happened that they were having a 'beach party' outside - slightly different to my last New Year spent in a plane back from England. I got to Christine's house at just after 5, and we went to fetch Belz from her work. I was ready to party and kept the entertainment going both there and back.Once we got back to Christine's house, I downloaded Belz pics from her birthday and started getting ready while Christine had her hair straightened by Belz (never trust me with a hair straightener if you still want hair!) After posing for pics, we popped open a bottle of champagne and toasted to an early New Year, before setting off for the club at roughly 8pm. Jet was interesting, but it got to a point where it was like 'Spot the white / black', Indians were everywhere. Drinks were also difficult to come by,