DAVE GLOBULL

early retirement :(

2006-10-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

So my wrist tendons decided to go a bit silly and I have had to stop climbing. Not really the ideal situation in an 'international climbing destination'. I will just hang out here for another week or so and rest and then probably head back to the sunshine and cheap beer of California.

In this miserable state of biomechanical malfunction I decided to go for a walk up the Chief- the large rock that can be either climbed via the genuine cliffs or the genuine hiking trail up the back. I wasn't actually that keen on catching the view but Andy the Pom said that the chipmunks were pretty tame and feedable up there and getting photos would be easy.

Terribly arduous I don't know why i bothered- I certainly wouldn't have made it without the chains! Certainly I didn't go for this view. Interestingly people are far more likely to pee in public here. Infact I happened to notice four times in 2 months when back in Tassie it would take 4 years to see some one take a leak. Perhaps its a sign of Liberation? Strangely it only seemed to be men........

Looking down on Climbers on the popular Angels Crest route.My Favourite little squirrel. I am considering importing them to TasmaniaHoly Chipmunks!!!! I really think tourists should stop feeding these little guys. Thankfully I went to the second summit and didn't get too close. I am looking for some lucky climber to take me on the long drive south to California- hoping to leave in the next few days

Love

dave G

final days of squamish

2006-10-15T05:20:00.000-07:00

well , I found a few more thing of prettiness here at squamish, apart from the bakery which is in all truth-double truth a good bakery. Although having said that it does discriminate against customers who can't eat dairy product.The lovely Stawamus River... well part thereof actually.

Some crazy rockclimber on the grand wall, I can't remember the name of the route despite it being apparently very very good.

One of the regrets I have from my 2000 trip to the USA was that I went to Yosemite and didn't do a single boulder problem. I wasn't going to let that happen at another international climbing deestination so started working a well known problem called the indodginator it goes at about 5.12b (~25). I managed to tick it after just a few tries!

This is one of my favourite climbs at Squamish! where else do you find a perfect handcrack on a perfect slab, perfectly5.7 (~15) and perfectly 25m high!?? I actually got a bit edgy on it as didn't have many bits of gear the right size. This is Teresa following me, she is coincidentally the climbing babe that gave me a ride from Smith Rock in Oregon to Seattle (where she lives). A long way, a lovely drive and a blessing for sure.

staytuned earthlings

love dave

but the climbing ROCKS!!!!

2006-09-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Sure it ain't that pretty but if you want some crack then this place is hummin'. You want it you got it, there are lots of little crags and a few rockin big wallie things. I stayed mostly on the little ones because I am not good enough, or more specifically too scared to go higher than one pitch.

This is Tacos on a standard model Squamish crack. Tacos is very cool- she is from japan and goes on year long climbing holidays, this will be her second year long trip in North america. After each trip she goes home to Japan and stops climbing so she can work really hard for a year or so to earn money for the next trip!! She has also been dumpster diving at Trader Joes ( a very very cool supermarket chain) which is about as close to heaven as I imagine is possible here on earth.

This is me trying to look hardcore on some cool but not particularly memorable thing at the same crag. I forgot to take the helmet off.

This picture is of some dude soloing a 5:10 which I had just climbed and very very nearly fell off. He fell off, but only after I pushed him. nice pic, eh?

fun and adventures
dave

Operation Bear!

2006-09-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Its a berrry berry good day when dressed in bear costume you can sneak deep into the heart of bear country and eat berries from right under their noses. All berries eaten no prisoners taken
Tacos bear goes for the huckleberries!!
Globullbear goes deep (bears eye view)

love
dave G

berries?

2006-09-13T05:12:00.000-07:00

I ate a lot at Squamish. Mostly cornchips,oats, pancakes and blackberries -who would have thought you could get diabetes from eating too many black berries.

I found this note at my campsite one day from some climbers who borrowed my climbing gear . and this is the treat with it- campstove blackberrycake!! alright!! they can borrow my gear anytime.
As you might have suspected it was blackberry season. Simply bizarre that they weren't all eaten by locals, dirtbag climbers and bears..........thats right there are no bears!!

Another positive of squamish- Etchasketch!!!!

And funky trees!!!

More funky trees!

They are absolutely everywhere except for the forestry coupes. It made me feel at home.

more berries next blog including "operation bear"

love dave

frame it right

2006-09-12T01:12:00.000-07:00

Allright well this is the better side of Squamish, yes its not really that bad in fact it is quite interesting. Especially when Andy the Pom says he is going to make apple pie with his Jaffle iron, which if I recall correctly he questionably but honestly aquired from a well known Australian climber at Mt Arapiles in western Victoria a couple of years back.

Squamish is especially interesting when Andy lets you have some apple pie........yum.

At Squamish I met people from all over the world, except for the following countries:
Namibia
Malaysia
Mongolia
Fiji
Chile
Guatemala
Iceland (though close- Norway)
Ireland (though close- the UK)
Portugal
Greece
Israel
Iraq
Molvania
Zimbabwe
Brunei
Maldives
Bhutan
El salvador
Croatia
Venezuela
Singapore
Myanmar
Well you get the idea...................................................................

So if you frame it just right....... you can even mislead people to believe its quite a pretty place.

I even made special covers for my sunglasses that left only a small frame of view , so that I could more easily frame out the mediocre bits- I wanted to focus on on the positive aspects of this stunning environment. Subsequently I fell over a lot so I stopped using them.

I do like Deer, especially when there is a little one as well. No Damn Bears though! Whats the point of going to Canada if you ain't gonna see bears. A moose in downtown would have sufficed but I was too lazy and counter obsessed to go up to Whistler where it is apparently commonplace.

Remember I was in Squamish for a month so I figure I can rant on about it for eternity. And afterall ranting is just what Blogs were invented for.

Love Dave G

Bean Negative

2006-09-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hi all.
well some of you may feel I am being a bit negative. That perhaps Squamish is not so bad as Dave is making out. I thought a lot about this while I was there, many times while I was on some piece of granite but mostly after I had been woken up at 6:30 am by either the nearby Highway, a passing train or perhaps its low pervasive horn. Or maybe the helicopter that flies over the campsite doing laps of the highway to stop people speeding. In fact there were moments when It didn't seem that bad, when little flickers of beauty and inspiration became underwhelmingly evident to me.

For example: This re-beautification project, started by the local townsfolk to create a more attractive streetscape, more easy on the eye. And you know I like birds, so I may be a bit bias.

The local people, fiercely independent, approach everything with passion and vigour.

However it is unequivocally the ugliest place I have ever climbed rocks- although Frehauf in winter is pretty damn close. Beer is expensive here too, well everything is.

Bye for now

Love Dave

squamish the journey continues

2006-09-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

Squamish a quaint town of classic 60's and 70's architechture. Artfully landscaped on the edge of Howe Sound.You are never far from the water and in fact it is very much part of the Squamish Romance. Beautiful waterfalls crash over the valley walls.
People come from all around just to soak up the ambience.
Of the working port, a unique cultural landscape.

love dave

more bspeautiful Canada

2006-08-30T14:21:00.001-07:00

Canada is amazing you can certainly see why so many Australians like to go . If you look closely you can barely make out one of the beautiful little crags that I climbed on.

Every hillside is blanketed in a rich forest of luxuriant pine.

Pure aesthetic poetry every time you lift your eyes to read.

sqhoto essay

2006-08-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Squamish is nestled sweetly in the base of a U- shaped -ice carved valley, Many before me have described it as beautiful. As you can see from the following photographs- it certainly is an amazing place. The local economy consists of numerous small cottage industries and artisan based entreprise
The view from one of the 4 campsites I utilised (in an effort to split the exhorbitant campfees). I guess you should normally expect to pay extra for a classy view.
the town is surrounded by the Surrounding mountains.
Everywhere you look there is another amazing peak aproned with forestry coupes. This peak is called Mt Garibaldi, which if I recall correctly is named after a processed meat company in Western Australia that went bust after a death or two and a salmonella inspired recall.
In fact the views are inescapable
El vista es el grande. Pero, me no muy habla espanol. Really it is the smaller more subtle parts of the landscape that move me most.
I had a month of amazing sunsets, that literally had me in tears.

more coming soon ie in the next 24hrs.

love dave

random spewtiful squamish

2006-08-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

squamish screwed me up
poo I can't put pictures on
bfn
dave

rain brain drain

2006-08-17T01:54:00.000-07:00

The day after I arrived in Squamish (Squish),British Columbia, Canada, It started raining.

It rained quite a lot and amazingly everything got wet.
No-one climbed for the first 3 day I was there.

Random shoes, they are everywhere across powerlines across the world where u can find bored teenagers who have just got off the bus.

bed time 4 me
dave

compooters suk

2006-08-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

For some annoying reason I couldn't upload pics for that last post.

Here is a guy in Vancouver He said he was looking for a pony, I suspected he was lying so I reported him to the appropriate authorities.

this is me at the stealth bivy the night I arrived in Squamish. A fortuitiously designed picnic shelter complete with stairs to hide under. The passing trucks woke me up early despite the earplugs. It was the first of 30 consecutive nights of bad sleep.
more zoon
dave

Whoops! I went to Canada

2006-08-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

The drive north was thoroughly enjoyable, Partly because everything is stimulating when I am outside my own country but mostly because the company was the fine combination of friendly and fascinating. Portland is a small city on the way to Seattle and we had to drop Stacey off at the airport so she could fly back to San Fransisco. Thanks to Teresa's local knowledge we went to what I guess was the best Mexican restaurant in Portland and ate Burritos which apparently are only eaten in Mexico after being invented in the USA for americans and then exported back to Mexico.

I liked Portland for two other reasons.
1) The Industrial Port areas are being converted to public space and living areas (probably exclusive apartments).
2) There are small horses chained to the foot path (I had a sweet photo but it was lost in the fire).

I could probably have added a third> shoe shopping with the girls (more cool photos ,all incinerated).

We said goodbye to Stacey and cruised the last few hours, to Seattle. Teresa gave me a 5 minute tour which lasted 20minutes and talked to the Bus people on the phone for me because I can't understand people on the phone here and vice versa. Actually she facilitated my travel angelically especially since I was crippled by brightlights colour and movement as found in any big city and especially so after 2 weeks of rock-hopping and sunbaking. The buses were all screwed up for me and Teresa let me stay at her place for the night.

The following day she further facilitated by taking me to the best doughnut shop in the nation. Hmmm yum more yummy local knowledge. I collected some holy buns for the bus ride to Squamish.

Teresa kindly dropped me at the Bus station and I ate 3 large doughnuts before the bus even left the station.

Crossing the border was terrifying, A very militant young border guard demanded to know everything about me,asking me questions I couldn't answer or could only give vague answers too. I think she would have shot me if I had an ice axe! She didn't smile once nor offer even a veneer of welcome, a strip search seemed imminent, which to some of you may seem attractive. quite frankly I am terrified at the best of times and a uniform and gun simply push me further in that direction.

Vancouver, Vancshmoover, Some people say its pretty, I thought it was pretty dull.
The best thing about Vancouver was the large "China Town" bit where I went to a Crazy asian bakery which ended up being pretty gross, I ate a small "chicken pie" which remarkably contained fragments of chicken and large quantities of sugar. I also bought something that was called a enigmaticaly a chinese doughnut. I couldn't finish it I assume because it didn't have a hole and gave half of it to a homeless guy outside the bus station a few seconds before I nearly missed the bus to Squamish. I had 90 minutes earlier missed a bus to Squamish also.

I have all the pictures from Squamish on so get ready for a couple of photo essays.

___________________________________________________________________________________
in Real Time I am back in California which makes this bloody bloog precisely a month behind time. I'll be writing about my travels frommy parents home in Gravelly Beach, Tasmania!!!
bfn
love dave

silliness

2006-08-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

My final Days at Smith Rock were awesome. I did a couple of climbs that were hard for me with a local guy Matt. including perhaps the longest climb at Smith Rock, the Zebra 2 Zion Link up which also happens to be the best looking line there...... well that was easy enough for this sack of potatoes. It was my Grand finale and it was awesome and perfectly timed to be coming down in the dark which is a measure of our expertise and the quality of adventure. The following day I just ate and sunbaked and contemplated my future. Its important not to ruin a good day by attempting to repeat it the next.

The Last Chipmunk

My Departure from Smith Rock was cool. very cool
I had had a note on the message board for a few days asking anybody, somebody, anything for a lift to squamish or any distance in the direction thereof.
Bizarrely no-one wanted to travel that way with a climber from "down-under". However at the same time that I had decided maybe spending another week at Smith Rock and trying for a lift the following weekend was not actually a disaster. A couple of climbing babes responded to a note I left on their windscreen (they had Washington number plates) Teresa and Stacey said maybe they could give me a ride to Seattle. Sweeet!. We arranged a time to leave the following day.
The next day I got up early in anticipation of departure , although it didn't matter as they finished their morning climbing early and came to pick me up when I had just started packing everything into my battered macpac. So as many of you have probably had to some time in the last decade, they had to wait an hour while I jigsawed miscellanea into my pac, put recycling and rubbish into respective bins, filled my water bottle and juggled the rest to their little car. I like to be late some times- its exciting. For added perfection I even managed to sell the guidebook I had stupidly bought, in the last few second before I jumped in the car.

OK gotta go
lve daVE

hitching 2

2006-08-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hello world, Hey if anybody wants a postcard then send me your address, I don't know where anyone lives unless I am driving a blue subaru

The Lower Gorge where the amazing crack climbing place is that most people ignore. weird

Another trip to Redmond a topless old guy picks me up. He says he has been hiking around the mountain, nothing abnormal. He takes a weird route to bypass Terrebone which seems fair but I subsequently wonder if it was deliberate. Along The way he points to a group of horses in a paddock (field here I guess) and says " what do you notice about those horses?". Not noticing anything immediately except with blonde manes and tails I observe they seem begrudgingly pretty. Then at the same time I realise for my self- as it does become readily apparent. He says they are clydesdales, and proceeds to tell me they are the largest horses (no Kidding!) +other specifications i can't remember. Although I don't generally like horses I do quite like clydesdales. The slightly odd thing about the ride was not so much five very large horses but rather a kilometer down the road we passed a paddock with a group minature horses- Shetland ponies. Not quite the full horsey spectrum as we didn't see any normal horses.

Actually that wasn't really a very amazing story but it amused me at the time.
A lot of unordinary things amuse me any time but more so when I exit ordinary life and visit North America.

squamish very soon

love dave

then hitching 1

2006-08-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

Eva cranking on Teddy bears picnic

I hitched a lot at Smith- into terrebone 3 or so miles or into Redmond about 15miles. The former for food the latter for food and internet.
As u would expect people that pick up hitchhikers are either
A) lovely generous people
B) Lovely Lonely People
C) weird probably lonely people
D) weird possibly dangerous people
E) weird fascinating people

My Statistical analysis has revealed that most rides were in The A. category. B and C were also common but significantly less so. D and E the least common.

One of the A. class people was a mother and presumably her son.
When she pulled up in her recent model Jeep (which makes her the only person in a SUV to stop) the first thing she said to me was "you are not a murderer, are you?"

Stunned. the most friendly reply I could come up with was something like "well no, not yet anyway"
Woops! that one jumped out, way faster than my lips could close. She gave me a lift anyway and didn't seem worried.

Mt Jefferson, a volcano!

well a month later I am getting sick of Smith Rock.

and the various aircraft that wake me up each day.
lovez dave

twit-ching

2006-08-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

Birds Rock

One of coolest things about Smith Rock is that the air hums with all sorts of birds which of course confirms my frequent suggestion that birdwatching and climbing go hand in hand. A beauty of climbing perhaps (as opposed to walking) is that every 50 metres you by neccesity stop and for at least half an hour sit and observe your surroundings. For those that might not know, i mean feed out the rope for your climbing partner who is now climbing above. So sitting on a cliff you get a good view of the world and furthermore because you are still birds will more likely "run into you" as they go about their little feathered lives.

At Smith the air is thick with birdies- mostly some type of martin that play fighter pilot all day and sound like it also, occasionally you can find some with babies nesting in a hole on a climb. I liked to plug these up with newspaper so they couldn't escape, sometimes I put the babies in a little bag so i could have them with pasta later.

The very best of all these birds is the Turkey Vulture because anything thats called a turkey vulture just has to be funny. With a bald head they look a bit funny too. The real bald eagles I say and a far better national symbol for the USA

Not having my binoculars or even a book for identification is very uncomfortable for me but these things don't fit in the pack when there is climbing involved. I can pick a Redtailed Hawk and I saw the resident Golden Eagles a few times so its not too bad. One day when I have finally got sick of climbing I will go on birding safariis around the world

more random arrangements of stuff.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In real-time I have decided I don't like Canada very much.

love dave

global dustination

2006-07-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

I wanted to go to Smith Rock because I was too weak and way to scared to go to Yosemite. It was a most enjoyable two weeks at an awesome albeit a touch weird crag. I also needed to learn to sport climb- partly cos it is fun and partly because it nearly killed me a few years back. It started perfectly when two climbing babes, Rebeckah and Maia, picked me up in a red volvo and gave me a lift to the crag from the aforementioned little highway town. They introduced me to Smith Rock and I managed to arrange climbing with each of them on subsequent days.

Rebeckah cranking 5:12!

There is an awful lot of rock at Smith Rock and an awful lot of it is awful The actual climbing is restricted to perhaps 30-40% of the rock, the balance being way to crumbly for sane type adventures. One of the funniest things about Smith Rock is that an even closer distance from the car is a near perfect crack climbing crag that hardly anyone goes to. I only found out about it after I had been there a few days and the only people I met that i could convince to climb there were climbing guides from the local guiding companies.

Asterisk Pass, the sunset spotting spot.

Life at Smith Rock turned out to be way too comfortable, for good honesty that is. I think I maybe wore something additional to a t-shirt twice in two weeks. The two brief rain periods included entertaining electrical storms and the few days of+30degree(near 100degF) heat were novelty for this little Tasmanian boy. Warm and dry, my preferred conditions.

Camping was good too the animals are well behaved with no mosquitos and I kept my food in plastic bags just outside my tent and not once in two weeks did some little critter try to share my food. no mice, rats, marmots, chipmunks, ravens or goddam squirrelz.

Can you believe the toilet block even has free showers leaving me smelling of roses everyday. Further more camping is free if you don't have a car, shhhhhhhh!don't tell the rangers that......... Smith Rock rocks! The hitchiking was really good too with a lift reliably with in 10minutes or about 1km of walking..........more about that later.

love dave

the most popular chosspile

2006-07-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

here it comes.. Smith Rock!!!

mind bending mexmarket

2006-07-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

hi people.

perhaps my favourite part of Santa Barbara was the Mexican supermarket where cheap avocados,cheap mangos and muchas miscellaneous latino edibles that you could either not find in Tasmania or would only find in some wanky grocery store in Tasmania and a wankily inflated price. Having said that I didn't try most of such things given the disturbing proliference of highly refined sugars in most of them. My pancreas cramped just reading the labels.

I went there a few times to buy things to eat and simply for entertainment. Speaking Spanish in public is illegal in Tasmania so the novelty is strong for me. Especially in California where >40% of the population is from Mexico or futher south.

Sara and Dave Go shopping!
i find this pic a little mindbending especially when you realise that lump at the top is my chin.........
It is one of my favourites from the trip and a little blue key symbol on my camera prevented incineration in the technofire that removed 3weeks of my life.

So Some time in midjune i found myself on a train rumbling north. Partly through California partly through darkness and partly into the partly beautiful state of Oregon.

I saw a volcano...... and a lot of Pine trees.....

and ended up in a town called Bend which is disturbingly full of outdoorsy types. For reasons I can't remember I ended up sleeping in the riverside park there, shaded from streetlights by fir trees and azaleas.

The next day after painfully dragging all my stuff in circles (squares more accurately) around Bend looking for places to try on shoes and get a facial, I had to hike all my stuff a few miles out of town before i could wave my hitch-hiking sign at the SUV train on my way to Smith Rock. There is approximately 10cm between the highway and the footpath in Bend and people like some space to pull out .so my ankles get sorer. Of course the SUV's never.....ever pick you up but the arborists with little spectacles in a small and beaten toyota sedan always do. I had to move a watermelon to get my pack onto the back seat...

Terrebone, the last little highway town just a few miles from Smith Rock.

Love Dave

Barbaric Santa

2006-07-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

I thought maybe Santa Barbara was his wife......
It is not a big city but thats probably why it is still pleasant. Of course If I hadn't destroyed my image collection I could show you beautiful tree lined streets and pleasant architecture, howevere you have more than likely seen such things in the albums or slideshows of most overseas trips so it doesn't matter that much.

In the few days.... actually it could have been closer to a week by the time i got organised then realised the train was booked out a few days in advance, that I stayed again in Santa Barbara (Thanx Sara!!) I pottered around Dave style and distracted Sara from her Whelk research.

One morning I went to a sports bar that was packed out with Brazilians. I watched the last few minutes of a soccer match in which Brazil beat Australia 3-0 then took pictures and video of the subsequent riotous party, whilst pretending I wasn't Australian. Although that is hard to do convincingly here......it would seem.

On the weekend Sara and I went for a walk in the Santa Ynez Valley. This was pretty but the best bit was swimming in the river afterwards. Actually even better was that before we started the walk I had found , quite randomly a bag of ice sitting in the carpark happily doing what you might expect of ice in Californian sun. Now Ice is not particularly valuable in the scrounging scheme of things except that obn our way to the valley we had bought some fine beer at Trader Joe's (best supermarket on planet). So serendipitously we put beers and ice together in anticipation of a few hours hot hiking.

The water was divine the beer pretty damn good too.

Still not sure how I managed to save this picture from the fire but it is safe to say it is one of the "Duds". In fact all the picture between here and squamish are Duds.
Love Dave

50pounds?

2006-07-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

So if you want to know what happened between now and then, between LA and Squamish, Canada, then it starts something like this and I expect it will take about 3 postings now that I more fully appreciate what summarised means...... though I am still not sure I can spell it.

I left LA in the direction of Santa Barbara, which is kind of North and West. I dumped my bag early at the train station so I could wander around downtown b4 departure. There turns out to be a 50 pound limit for baggage on AMTRAK and I had 62 pounds, neither figur meaning much to this dufous tasmanian. So Holding up the que I took out a bunch of the heavier things near the top of my pack getting my bagweight down to 45pounds. She wouldn't let me put 5pounds back in. So I wandered off into downtown LA which turned out rather dull except that I was carrying a dirty cotton sack of shoes climbing gear and underpants. Perhaps most interesting was the totally random dude that paused 5metres from me, laughed and said "Man, you look like your're from Australia!"... Floored, the most imaginative response I could spew was "yeah, I am actually". So I stopped and talked to him, promptly forgot his name despite my amusement, never really found out how he could tell and refused to buy some cheap calculators and trinkets he had in a cardboard box. If I had my time again I think I would have bought a calculator despite my absolute absence of need for Chinese plastic. He needed the buck more than me....... conscious and ethical speed is not one of my finer points.

The train ride to Santa Barbara was brief.

it was good to be out of LA.

more soon from the Squish
Love dave

fizz

2006-07-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Heythere citizens
now that verbose hollywood saga is over you can expect shorter more picturesque entries. For example below is a picture of one of the hostels I stayed at, it did smell a bit funny

bfn
dave

its a sign

2006-07-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

Here it is the next installment in the increasingly dull Hollywood incident.

With all the uphill of this saga now over I cruised the narrow crest of Mt Cahuenga and popped out onto the bitumen access road to an impressive telecommunications monstrosity . Impressive because normally the hill directly behind a national icon wouldn't seem the ideal location for such eye-poop. Reflecting a foresight well beyond my comprehension I assumed. Bad for the postcards I would have thought but I s'pose thats what photoshop is for.

At this point I encountered a little sign, battered and fading, grafittied but not entirely illegible in my path. I read to about the trespassing bit when a bee or perhaps a hornet (I never worked it out) crashed into my scalp and entangled itself in the increasingly small area of thick hair residing there. I could brush it out but it wasn't happy and uninvited it slammed back into my ear and stung the heck out of my ear before my rising panic flicked it off. Obviously a bad move, a swarm of these little guys came out to smell the pheremones of their now dying buddy. Two more unidentified and angry insects crashed into me and I was running- I just needed to get away a few metres I thought. No problem except the hill drops away quickly to my Hollywood sign and these little critters were more keen on vengeance than a "few metres". 20m later I am scrambling, stumbling sliding down a gravelly non-path pursued hotly by a swarm of bees, I picked up a rope eons old presumably tied up for "sightseers" like me and slid/fell even further, burning my hand in the process. The swarm stopped about the end of the rope some 60 kneebusting metres and an eternity from the first sting. There in the shadow of the reversed "H" , scratched, sore dehydrated and more than a touch tired I could stop, I felt my throbbing ear and scratched off a stinger and a few attached "bee entrails". Little buggers...hardly desirable but that was not the order of the day.

Admiring my achieved target it was quite clear the whole debacle was probably just observed via security camera at some contracted company office in LA. As it turns out every letter in "Hollywood" has a camera. There under the "H" I read the trespassers prosecuted sign, did my best to act like a confused tourist for the camera and convinced my self no-one minded my presence and the security was simply to stop people from climbing any of the letters. I had done enough googling to know the history of locals changing the letters to say different things- "Hollyweed" amongst others. And enough also to know some actor had even climbed up and jumped to their suicidal death. I wondered which letter they chose. However in a denial kind of way I decided that if I didn't touch any of the structures then I couldn't get in trouble. I skirted the loose and gravelly hillside, pulling out shrubbery to stay upright and filling my socks up with grass seeds simultaneously. My socks now looked like a porcupine and felt not unlike I imagine a porcupine would either. The grass seeds from hell.

I took a few pictures from behind the sign then contemplated my departure. Down the hill I could see a descending ridge and the remnants of a disoften used path. Down seemed good and I figured in suburbia I would just go down and from here it looked like that would take me back to a conceptually very attractive Sunset Boulevard. I was sold and slid and slipped down past the last "O" and the "D" and scampered onto the narrow trail. It turned out to be quite clear and the pseudo-energy of gravity quickly took me down. I paused briefly for more traditional photographs of the now boring sign then continued wanting only the end. As I stumbled and wondered if I would have to dive through someone's backyard I could make out a suspiciously marked SUV driving up my target street. "Hmmm I'll just ignore that".........It now looked like the scrub took me to undeveloped blocks at streets end. "damn...that SUV is there". They re-parked when I casually selected another point to intersect the bitumen, and sure enough, when I tried to wander past with out noticing, the contracted security guard called me over.
"G'day" I said deliberately and he launched into a little lecture suggesting I could be arrested, laughably suggesting I was a fire risk and demanding I tell him how I got there. I am a polite boy of course so I showed him my Yahoo map, told him there were some nice wildflowers up there and apologised profusely. "jeez mate, i didn't realise I could be arrested". A lie, I guess after my google research but it seemed to work- not that he was particulary militant or aggressive about it- more irritated he had to stop watching TV, perhaps interrupt his dinner or that I was just another of thousands of silly tourists using their international status as an excuse for ignorance and to keep them out of trouble and/or prison. He decided not to hand me over to the appropriate authorities and I wished him good-day- he drove off and I started once again on my journey.

Another eternity of zig-zagging streets past well-to-do Hollywood houses took the last of my energy. Curiously there were no footpaths so I wandered down the road constantly processing which side of the road I should walk down. Mind-bending work at the end of this day on multiple blind corners. Finally I found a grocery store bought some overpriced water and orange juice and sat on a mosaic bench beside a quickly dating fountain. A halfhour of de-seeding my socks I imagine was quite foreign to the locals who did seem to give me more looks than the norm. Thankfully, gratefully, delightfully, just around the corner I found a bus route. I just missed a bus but waited only 15min for the next one which took me to Sunset Boulevard. In the last light of day through the bright lights of Hollywood two more bus rides took me to Santa Monica. Christian's couch was the most comfortable couch ever that evening.

wow, all gone

2006-07-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

hey thats pretty uncool, I have deleted, some what stooopidly 2weeks worth of Smith Rock digital images, ouch. It is little consolation that the ones I have left are all the duds that I would have deleted deliberately.

You will get at least a glimpse of Smith Rock just wait.

anyway here is an LA ipod picture from christians camera. Meanwhile for interest. Check out www.idont.com

2006-07-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

yo whassuuuuup?
if you haven't read the first installment of my little hollywood epic (the rest of my trip has been very comfortable) then you had better scroll down and find it-it should be the next one down.

So it doesn't sound like fun or even pretty, but sometimes once you start on a mission you don't mind pounding the nonexistent pavement flanked by a heat hazed slurry of SUV's and Mack trucks. Well at least for the first few minutes anyway....... what must have been hours later (don't believe everything you read)I deduced (deluded?) from my yahoo map printout that I could leave the freeway ascend a revegetating quarry and be in the suburban streets that would lead to an unmarked trail I read about on a Hollywood hiking website. Great, seeking fresher air and less moving metal, I weaved past dumped rubbish, and weeded piles of gravel, squeezed carefully between prickly unfamiliar plants. Walking up a street carved in to the steep Hollywood hills I found someone gardening and rose above my apparent masculine status and politely asked for directions, after the initial suspicion they were politely unhelpful having no idea where the Mt Cahuenga hiking trail was (fair enough it later turned out to be a tad obscure). She did inform me that her street was a dead end so hurting I thumped back down to the freeway. This could have been worse because where her road overpassed, another road led back up another hill and as it happened led me on to the yahoo printout for the first time.

Continuing up streets which could have been either public or private I felt a touch silly- miles from anywhere just to see something metal, with little real experiencial value. I could have been reading some local newspaper (which can be pretty cool here)in a cafe, eating a burrito, or just people watching anywhere in one of the coolest cities on the planet. "Oh yes Dave, go to the hollywood sign-that would make you cool-how many people do you know who have done that?"......dickhead.

"Hola amigo!" said one of a group of mexcians working, maintaining the roadside vegetation. Caught offguard I managed "hola" before exiting earshot, embarrased at my monolingual heritage and my deflating energy I didn't stop. On reaching the hill top I could see Mt Cahuenga, a scrub covered, steep but smoothly shaped hill rising maybe 200m above the last maze of tree and house lined streets I had to navigate. A red-tailed hawk rose from some undeveloped scrub- great birds anytime but especially as you have heard them in every desert scened movie since John Wayne. first jumped on a horse. Falsely energised by my apparent progression I continued resting in the shade of a eucalypt tree. No-one has taps in their front yard here and of course I was way to shy to knock and ask for a drink even though the dehydration headaches were starting some knocking of their own. I did however have a nice view now, down over the hollywood hills and thence the city, downtown LA to the east a bit, Beverly hills to the west. Popping out of the west end of Hollywood was what must have been the largest "ipod" sign in the world. There is no escaping ipod in LA thats for sure.

I found the trail up the Mountain by hiking intuition and certainly not by sign posts (none) and thankfully left the "burbs". Steep and winding the trail was not marked , not maintained and I was surprised anyone used it at all but it semmed so dry here that it was hard to imagine anything "growing over" quickly in these part. There were some good wild flowers out and of course most plants are unfamiliar here -its not Tasmania anymore. In fact I find that unfamiliarity un-nerving, there are a couple of plants in the US that if you touch them can make you quite sick. I pause more for something that could possibly be poison oak than I would for a Tiger snake. Icon concepts aside Mt Cahuenga was the more traditionally recreational part of my day. At the summit amongst more wildflowers I could see plenty of city but more interestingly down into "The Valley" where the hard core LA is, where its even hotter. where "Grand Theft Auto" is probably based, where apparently it is even more unsafe but perhaps where a large part of LA humanity resides.

Sorry no Photos until you get the slide show back in Tasmania

I can just see the top of the "H"

final episode soon
and the blog hopefully will near real time in the next week or two, cos let me tell you , this is old news.
love dave

2006-07-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

On the way back into LA from Joshua tree Christian and I went to "In 'n out burger" which to the layperson might look like another American fast food joint.... well I guess it is. But the cool thing about this one is that is that it is apparently now run as a kind of Co-op after the owning family all died in a plane accident and bequeathed the company to the employees. Employees now get far better pay and conditions and I believe some support to further their education even. Subsequently the food tasted quite acceptable though I did cheat and asked for "no cheese please".

The day after we returned to LA some jerk cut the locks on Christians two Mtn bikes and gave themselves an early Christmas present. This sucks for Christian obviously especially as the insurance really only covers one after he pays the excess. But for me also as I was kinda anticipating riding one of them around Santa Monica for a couple of days before I went back to Santa Barbara. You would think that a locked resident only carpark would offer some protection but no. There are more than a few desperate people in this country. Nonetheless this incident may well have precipitated a series of bus safaris including my little Hollywood epic.

I am not normally into sight seeing let alone ticking off national icons when traveling (if you could call what I am doing traveling). But it did strike me as more than a little cool to maybe pose for a self portrait in the O of the Hollywood sign. A little googling and yahoo mapping gave me enough information to work out where it was and from the ragging collection of bus route maps I had collected on my safaris I thought I could get pretty close for a couple of bucks.

The bus system is a little fragmented in LA and if you want to go any distance it takes a couple of rides, a little bravery and a sense of direction in a pretty flat city. Two rides got me to Hollywood proper easily enough there on famous strips like Sunset Boulevard any astute traveler could reel off famous land marks like, like.................... Well thats where things went a little pear shaped. For some reason I couldn't pick up the bus route that would take me into the hills and thence the Sign. I had the maps and the streets matched, the blue line means there is a bus route here right? hmmm... the suspicious lack of bus stops was perhaps a little ominous but I figured I just needed to go a little further, so I kept walking past decreasingly classy establishments in the direction of the big sign. The pavement became more cracked the shops dodgier and the cars older less shiny. Somewhere between walking through roadworks and my emergence on the edge of a truck laden freeway I contemplate wether or not this was really worth it but I kept going even when the freeway straightened to reveal a few miles ozoned bitumen. No food, no water and the beating sun of 90 degrees made it quite clear that this was a good idea and I plodded on. I should have just turned around and found a coke.

stay tuned love dave.

2006-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

hey guys scroll down past the
santa monica post to see J-tree

proof

2006-06-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

I did actually climb something at joshua tree.
I evaporated shortly afterwards.
luf
dave

santa monica+

2006-06-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

Christian lives in Santa monica which is closer to the beach than LA proper, he has a pretty lush flat, though he calls it a condominium the reasons why I didn't think to ask (Christian?). The day after arrival we loaded up his Black Lexus (his car not his chopper for those that aren't sure) and left for Joshua Tree. Although Christian more or less knew the way we punched in the location into the GPS, for my entertainment if nothing else- "turn left Qwarrter mile".

LA traffic surprisingly enough, is Mad. In the urban sludge of metal and petroleum perfectly orchestrated to slow progress, I appreciated Christians precision acceleration and deftly maneuvres and imagined my casual unassertive self in a 1991 subaru either going nowhere or squished between a Hummer and a Mack truck. The drive to J-tree oozes Southern Cali, dry brown, endless urban sprawl asnd the occasional jewel of a flowering Yucca plant. This is in addition to a wind farm impressive in every dimension except its ability to kill birds, that is assuming you like birds .
more in a tick>>>>>

fking chipmunks

2006-06-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Hi chaps here is more blog bog
all these pictures are taken by Christian as at this stage in my trip I don't actually have a digital camera, although I do now in real time.

A joshua tree, only morons and mormons don't like them.

25c Cola only Morons and mormons like it, except maybe if you like the concept of buying dirt cheap refined sugar from one of the dodgiest chains around.

christian's spaceship

Joshua tree is hot this time of year, somewhere in the mid-nineties which is somewhere in the mid thirties I believe in celsius. Its hardly a surprise as it is the desert.

It was always a marginal trip and perhaps a bit silly to those more experienced or maybe less naive, we figured however that this aforemention combination and climbing before and after the hottest part of the day would be somewhere near bareable. We managed to squeeze in 6 routes in 3 days which seemd pretty fair to me.

me falling in love with Yucca plants

Joshua tree highlights include:
Coyotes wandering by
the mum and dad and several little fluffy chicks running through camp bush to bush.
The 25c can of Cola from Wall-mart.
and of course those funky joshua trees that are everywhere but endlessly admirable in shape and form.

low lights:
climbing badly and feeling very very weak,
ravens and chipmunks sabotaging our water supply.

stay tuned for the genuine hollywood epic in the nxt posting.

love dave

catchup ketchup, a summary before now of my California safari

2006-06-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Hi Chaps,
everything is just a summary, normally my memory is short and inversely related to the significance of the moment. Nonetheless some things come to mind from the last couple of weeks. If you just want to see the pictures scroll till you see them, then do something worthwhile with your time.

highly compressed first two days.
Beckys wedding was well crafted and enjoyable. The following day Sara and I drove back through San Fransisco and to the Coast at Pacifica where I had my first ocean swim of the trip- surprisingly cold but delightful nonetheless. We were going to take the coast down to Santa Barbara but the road was apparently closed further south and time was running short, we took the path of least resistance.

me in the new clothes I bought 90minutes before the wedding

One of the first things you notice about the San Fransisco area and apparently much of California is the abundance of eucalyptus trees. In addition there doesn't seem to be any counter movement to plant Californian natives. Need a tree to fill a gap, line a road, stabilize a hillside- plant a eucalypt. It seems funny to me that we have done something similar in Oz with Pinus radiata which in my understanding is endangered here (Can anyone clarify) Of course everybody hates Pinus radiata in OZ now and we don't really plant them anymore.

The highlights of the drive to Santa Barbara include but not exclusively:
-catchup time with Sara
_me trying to order a "long Black coffee" at starbucks and the counter dude not being able to understand me.
- the Mexican supermarket where we got 6 mangoes for 2dollars and some on site constructed green tomato salsa and corn chips.
-my first drive in the USA (Sara is very brave).

taking pictures of churches seems mandatoryfor anyone travelling overseas...

Santa Barbara proper
Sara managed to take some time off from her Postgrad studies on Whelk (cute marine snail) population dynamics and biogeography, so we hung out in Santa Barbara eating yummy things and visiting a couple of local crags. I haven't really been climbing for a couple of months due to a recurring shoulder injury (yeah, I know silly time to take a climbing holiday) and Sara hasn't done much climbing since she was in Australia 3 years ago. Nonetheless we found a couple of little sandstone crags with some bumbly friendly routes to keep us entertained. The Mountains behind Santa Barbara are beautiful especially when you are high enough to pop out above the fog that can be pervasive this time of year. I saw my first rattle snake there too- I wished I was on a horse that would rear up and dump me, ten gallon hat and all.

I have this t-shirt that my bro gave me when he got back from South America, it is in fact my favourite t-shirt although one of the few t-shirts I own these days. My Inca Cola shirt has collected comments from 3 people since I touched down in the states, the first in the backpacker hostel on my first night in San Fransisco when a random dude said he was from Peru and it was his national drink. The second comment came from a Uni colleague of Sara's who said it was godawful stuff, the same day randomly some one in a cafe we went to, said it was delightful. I lamented not being in Peru so I could try for myself but Sara suggested it was probably available in the mexican supermarket down the street...........so of course there we went. Dangerously I had to buy 2 litres, more dangerous was the absence of genuine foodstuffs in the ingredients...... Don't ask me what flavour it was but it would be far worse than dishonest to call it either cola or pleasant, sure I am not into soft drinks in general but Coke is more than drinkable by comparison. Hardwired to seek my moneys worth I consumed about 500 ml before my pancreas spasmed and I left the urine coloured soft drink in the street hoping the local homeless (they are everywhere) in cali might find some comfort in the discovery. Mind you that's probably a decision to feel shit about given it has no nutritional value and the "local Homeless" probably have diabetes problems to start with.

Lift off from SB
Christian came to pick me up in his helicopter, the short flight down to Los Angeles was pretty cool, surfers, dolphins, the occasional natural oil slick, a turkey, and a bit of the "June gloom" (fog), even flew over one of the crags Christian and I climbed at in my 2000 trip here- Point Dume. Lets face it anytime you get off the ground in a helicopter is a pretty cool flight...

a magic flying machine.

aah tiresome...
Joshua Tree, and my little hollywood epic in my next post.

2006-06-14T10:34:00.002-07:00

hello people far and wide.

This is my first posting on the Dave Globull blog, excuse the pretense. Kindly, a spatial vacuum has transported this hot speck to sunsoaked, uncloaked California. Given my pathological noncommunication you might have thought I have been here for a year or two when in actual fact the factual act was orchestrated only a few weeks ago and implemented June 01. An incomprehendable stunt I dived between the whirling blades of work, study,delusional committments, poverty, anti-time,forgetfulness, a lost passport and fate to pop out into a land of craziness.

California Rocks! Cars become fascinating, Fastfood becomes desirable, poor people become visible and everyday is living on a movie set. There is good climbing too.

The day after arrival I attended the delightful wedding of my lovely friend Becky (and Danny) in San Fransico, and hung out with my other lovely friends Sara and Christian in Santa Barbara and LA respectively, details in subsequent postings.

Here is a picture taken by Christian as a taste of things too come. I am yet to be united with my digital camera as ebay is not all it is cracked up to be. A little package has been chasing me.
bfn
love dave