Life amongst the Pines U.K and Australia
Love living in Poolemouth and amongst the native pines of the soft sandy soil, just as in Australia where I lived for 2 years 1998-2000. I came across this Map recently I made and thought to link it to upcoming work. What youre looking at is an area on the edge of Cooma, NSW. Here I learnt to properly ride a Mountain Bike on sandy, rocky trails with plenty of elevation. Previously I’d ridden across Israel in 1996 but living on the Monaro plain between Canberra and the Snowy Mountains took my skills up to a good standard, it was also the time at which I gained the Oz first aid certificate and started assisting on rides that visiting clients to the area paid for, for a friend who owned a guiding business there. Absolutely superb terrain, with pure singletrack of the highest quality,the area hosted fat tyre festivals and whilst being truly out in the bush, became a haven for Mountain Bikers. You may remember the U.S ‘Bike’ magazine with editor Mike Ferrentino? he visited and did a feature on Cooma. Riding in the Oz heat amongst pine and eucalypt trees was heavenly, and in essence not that different from getting lost on singletrack over in Rempstone forest on the Purbeck hills. Probably the first map I had made with any intent, despite having been an O.S cartophile for my whole life. Here were 4 areas contained within the boundaries of one town, which just seemed to make perfect sense having maps of for visiting M.T.B.ers. I persuaded the shops and visitor centre to take copies and hand out for visitors so making some good links whilst living in the country town. Reason for the post today is that in the New Year I will be taking map making to another level having been asked to re-map the Purbeck schools, which were last done by Orienteering colleagues in 2005. Once again this work will have come via connections made online, proving that freelancing work does evolve as fast as you are prepared to develop your networks. By the end of the spring we should have got a whole primary school cluster done and ready for Orienteering activities on a special map, should be good. Thats it for today thanks for reading.