This time I was determined to conquer my fear of heights and go for it, as nothing could be as bad as the fifty metre Diamond fire lookout tree I climbed in Western Australia, which I am yet to write about. The Blowhole is located on the south cliff of Warriewood beach and is a tunnel going all the way through the cliff which you can swim through. You get to it by walking through a reserve and ignoring the danger sign that warns of a dangerous cliff edge and advises to keep away etc. etc. There is a path that goes down to the cliff and then all the way round the cliff to the other side. To get down to the blowhole you have to climb down two ropes onto ledges further down the cliff which then enable you to scramble down to it.

There is then a little ledge about fifteen feet above the narrow inlet that you can jump off, into the water, making sure you time it correctly so you jump into a wave as it comes through. I think you have to be careful about height of the tide as well, but it was fine when we got there. The rope descent was no where near as bad as I thought it would be and in actual fact was dead easy.

Here you can see Mat preparing to jum off the ledge into the water with Nick and Kat in the background. The second picture shows the height of the cliff behind and also some people in the background climbing up the bottom rope:

Here you can see the swell from a big wave errrupting through the blowhole and the second picture shows a closeup of the bottom rope ascent (it gets a bit scarier on the top rope as it’s a bit longer and higher up):

I’m afraid to say I wimped out of the little jump and just got in off the side. I didn’t swim through the blowhole either as I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t get thrown against the rock whilst inside as the waves seemed very strong, even though Mat and Nick went through and said it was fine. This said, I was a bit surprised at how tame the jump was as we’d heard stories about it being very dangerous and having to know what you are dong as far as the tide is concerned.

It wasn’t until we climbed back up and around the cliff to the north side of the blowhole that I understood. We met a group of lads all clustering round a sheer drop and realised that this was the dangerous jump – fifteen metres, not fifteen feet, into the sea at the other side of the blowhole. We watched a couple of them jump off and then went on our way.

I think next time I will definitely do the small jump as it really wasn’t very high at all. I just wish Chris and Tom were still here as they would be mad enough to do the big one for sure (we only discovered the blowhole after they had both gone back to the UK).

On googling “Warriewood Blowhole” I found this Myspace video of some local lads doing the big jump, together with some amusing commentary:

Video taken from the myspace.com page of JG

This video from youtube shows some more big jumps and people doing the smaller one as well:

Video taken from the youtube.com page of iitchbae

The first thing I spotted was the recently constructed glass Pyramid. I immediately searched for the Presidential Palace and as I began to think how different everything looked from up here I suddenly got a fantastic view straight down the promenade from the palace, past the fountains and gardens to a much shrunk Bayterek, past more fountains and gardens right down to the offices of KazMunaiGas at the end. It was only then that the sadness of leaving Astana and my friends after such a wonderfull two weeks really hit me.

I started to search for other points of reference and easily picked out the very tall building dubbed “the Disney castle” by Chris’ mum (which I have to say is very apt as the first thing I said when I saw it was that it looked just like a castle). Knowing this was near to Chris and Irina’s flat I then looked for that and although I can’t be one hundred percent certain I’m sure I managed to pick it out from the surrounding buildings – anyone who has been to Astana recently or seen pictures will know how many distinctive and striking buildings there are.

As the building slowly disappeared from view I thought a final farewell to my friends and the city that had become my home for the last two weeks. As the reality that I was going home to England and that I wouldn’t see Chris and Irina for another five and a half months (they are hopefully coming back for Christmas) hit me I realised how much I had needed this holiday.

It’s not that my life at home is bad in any way, on the contrary, I have many good things happening at the moment, some fantastic friends and a family that I love. It’s just that because of this I am always very busy and have a habit of cramming as much as I can into every spare second. Spending two weeks with just Chris and Irina (and some time with their friends and Irina’s family) was just soooo relaxing. There was no need to be constantly running around like a headless chicken trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing or who I was seeing. We just did whatever we felt like… We saw some sights, had some fun days out and sampled many restaurants, but we also spent time just chilling out and staying up until five in the morning (sometimes drinking vodka, sometimes not) talking and catching up, sleeping until midday and then spending the afternoon chatting some more. We even managed to get through the whole of Scrubs Season Six!

It was great to relax so fully and leave behind all the responsibilities of work etc. I would love to be able to take a little bit of holiday with me into ‘normal’ life. By this I mean that it would be nice not to go straight back into the high gear I was in previously and instead to slow down a notch or two and learn to take a few breaths inbetween activities.

I have pondered a while on this but am still unsure of quite how I might achieve it. I am hoping that this blog may be an aid by which I can take some time out each day to pause and reflect a while on how I am feeling and in turn learn a bit more about myself.

People also say there is nothing like commiting thoughts to paper (or in this case cyber space) for affirming one’s ideas plans and hopes for the future. As if by turning mental thoughts into physical words they somehow get imprinted onto our subconscious, therefore more easily accessible by our psyche and in turn more likely to come to pass.

So, I am going to give it a go anyway and be positive that it’s going to be a useful, hopefully fruitful and maybe even relaxing activity, not like the usual project that I so typically start with such enthusiasm before letting it slip by the wayside a few weeks down the line.

Having reached Kaliningrad safely and successfully boarding my connecting flight to London Gatwick I am now in the air for the last time before I touch down on home soil. My second meal of the day has just arrived and if I had some vodka I would raise my glass and propose a toast. As all I have is a cup of tea this will have to do – “here’s to a fantastic holiday that exceeded all my expectations and to dear friends, may we have many more good times together in the future.”

Once we managed to get past security (which was a trial that deserves a post of its own) we found our allocated seats that were very comfy and gave a good view.
The night consisted of various warm up artists that performed a song each and were not modern pop but slightly more traditional, some being sung in the native Kazakh language (which is a bit like Welsh in Wales).
The artists then began to sing a few more songs each, presumably as they increased in popularity and status. Not having any knowledge of Russian or Kazakh pop charts I didn’t really know what I was listening to so just sat back and enjoyed the fact that it was live music.

At roughly 11 o’clock the music stopped and there was a long pause as we heard the carnival outside gradually getting closer (many participants of which were professionals apparently imported from Rio de Janeiro or somewhere similar).
Before the carnival entered there were some big drum rolls and music whilst the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, arrived.

To be continued…

Yesterday evening we went ice skating at the new ice rink in Astana which Chris and Irina had not been to before either. Accompanying us was Chris and Irina’s friend Losha, a very nice lad who is the son of one of Irina’s dad’s work colleagues.
We got there just before 9 o’clock and had an hour on the ice. It was fantastic as there were only two other people there. By 9.30 we had the whole rink to ourselves, much to mine and Chris’ joy as we are not quite as experienced as Irina and Losha, who by then were whizzing round like they had been born on the ice. It was so much fun not having to worry about looking ahead for a space in which to skate, only to get there and find someone else has got there first so you go smacking into them and end up having to endlessly apologise, or worse, help someone up off the ground that you splatted in your inexperience!

Once we had finished skating we went to the bar/restaurant for a drink and something to eat. I decided it was about time that I tried out vodka again after feeling fully recovered from my disaster when I first arrived over a week ago (I drank way past my limit and ended up being violently sick all the next day until evening). Well what do you expect when the last time I had a proper drink was about five years ago?

This time I requested that Chris keep an eye on the amount I was consuming and to order me to stop before I was likely to make myself sick. It worked… just. After the first double I was floating nicely and after the second double (which Losha was keen to pour almost straight away after the first) I felt pretty pissed to be honest. It was a nice pissed though and it felt good to be amongst friends.

[More to come soon but I have to go out]

It’s 4.30 in the morning here. We spent an enjoyable evening at a restaurant with Chris and Irina’s friend Oleg who has just come back from Moscow after finishing University there. We then came back to the flat and spent the next 4.5 hours playing monopoly (I just watched for the majority of it as I went bankrupt in the first hour or so) and after Oleg departed we watched an episode of Scrubs before realising the sun had begun to rise and it really was time we should be going to bed.

However, I decided I would just stay up a little while longer to post my first blog as it took me and Chris practically all day to set it up (I decided I wanted a customised template and it took us quite a few bodges before we got it to my liking).

So here it is… welcome to DryadMusings.com.

There will be more to follow but right now I really have to go to bed