Mount Stuart ride

Today I decided to cycle to the top of Mount Stuart, a hill in the locality which has the television and radio masts mounted at the top, and is therefore visible from most parts of Townsville.

The ride to get to Mount Stuart Road is about 15km and this is then followed by a 9km uphill ride to the top. From looking at a few cycling websites such as mapmyride.com I have found that it is made up predominantly of category 3 climbs with some category 2 road towards the top. I have done category 3 rides before, most recently the climb up to the top of Castle Hill, but it turns out that this was not enough preparation for what I found when I got there.

So for today, I have managed to ride about one third of the length of Mount Stuart Road which got me pretty high , but there is still a long way to go to get to the top. I took a picture from a decent spot on my way down - apologies for the quality as it was just snapped on my iPhone.

Tomorrow I intend to get up another hairpin or two before heading back - I may possibly walk to the top if I feel able, but that may still take another hour or so!

Brewing - it's a complicated business

Well it is if you are living in the tropics at any rate.

Since my last post about brewing I have received and extensively read Graham Wheeler's 'Brew Your Own British Real Ale', published by CAMRA (The CAMpaign for Real Ale) which details the technique and recipes requires to make a number of British Real Ale clones. Examples are Old Speckled Hen, Marston's Pedigree, Bass Draught and about 100 other ales and stouts.

The biggest thing I have learnt is temperature control. As I write this entry it is 28.4 degrees Celsius at 10:27am. Beer yeast works between 18 and 22 degrees and currently we only get that at night. Controlling the temperature is critical to prevent the yeast from going off which happens when it gets too hot (bad smells, tastes, and a tendency to induce thumping hang-overs) or from dropping into the beer if it gets too cold.

Following an introductory talk at the local brew shop at the weekend detailing how to make lagers (he called it English Ale but it was kegged with CO2 and was most definitely a lager) using Malt Extract rather than kits, I discovered that adding a temperature controller to a fridge is a relatively simple process and I can get a controller for $70 from the shop. I believe making an open ferment beer inside a fridge should be ok, so long as I open the fridge every day to release excess CO2 build up and to get a change of air inside the fridge to try and more accurately replicate the traditional open cask ferment used by the British brewers.

So the current item on the shopping list is a fridge - hopefully I'll find one for under $80 or so - fit the temperature controller and then I shall start the brewing! I also have a second demo to watch this weekend at the brew shop - very helpful people - which is giving an intro into all grain brewing which is what I intend to pursue once I have done one or two brews. So next weekend I may begin buying my first few bits of kit - boiler, fermenter, thermometer, hydrometer and possibly an extract, some malt and some hops in preparation for the first brew.

Feline Frenzy

Two days ago, after a decade of prevarication, permission denial, and debates about being in a different country, Emma and I finally became the proud owners of two playful seven month-old cats which were purchased from the local RSPCA shelter. Ever since we have been together both Emma and I have wanted to own cats but from initially being at uni and deciding the close proximity of students to cats, and the debts that go along with studying was a bad combination and that we should instead wait until we were working, it has taken until now for us to be living in rental accommodation that will allow us to own them.

Throughout our time in the south of England we were restricted to where we could rent, mainly through budget restraints, but also because when our leases were up for renewal there was never an advertisement with the hallowed words 'pets allowed' currently available. That finally ended when we moved in July to our new place in Townsville and Emma received notification that we could have up to two domestic cats in residence. Since we were heading off to the UK for a three week holiday we deemed it was rather cruel to take a cat (or cats) out of a kennel at the RSPCA, take them home and make them settled for a week, and then promptly return them to a kennel and disappear for 3 weeks; not an ideal start to any relationship.

So Saturday came and we were both up and at the shelter for opening time at 8:30am and headed straight for the cattery. We saw three cars which would have been suitable to re-home alone, and two pairs which had been dropped off together. So it essentially came down to whether we wanted to take two home straight away, or take just one and then get another later. We really wanted one on it's own, a lovely black and white cat which was about one year old, but decided we wanted to take two. The volunteer who was assisting us then said that I would be better for them (and by this I think she meant both the cats and the RSPCA) if we were to take one of the pairs as they could be assured that they would get on together and it would not mean breaking them up if someone else came and wanted to take one of a pair. So that brought us to one older pair, a five and three year old, and a second younger pair of seven month old cats. The elderly pair was a large black cat and a relatively large Siamese cross although it was completely grey and was Siamese in body shape but not colouring. The young pair was a small tortoiseshell and white cat and a larger, but still fairly small seal point Siamese looking cat with brilliant blue eyes. This Siamese didn't quite have the body shape of a true Siamese so was also crossed with something else.

Emma and I talked it over and two hours after getting to the shelter, finally decided that we would take the younger pair home named Rosie and Mr Bojangles (we have decided on Bo for short) as they were fairly playful but mainly because we thought the older pair would cope with separation better than the youngsters, although we hope they also manage to get re-homed together.

So our household is now a cat's home. It is covered in cat hair because they could do with a bath and a brush to get out their winter coat, and tiny claw holes on a large array of furniture which we always knew would happen, and thus we didn't get top of the range furniture when we went shopping a few months ago. They are still a little unsure and have found a number of hiding spots where they sleep during the day and they come out for food and manic playtimes two or three time a day - when we are about to get up (not too early so far) and just before bed time.

I shall put up some photos of them soon.