So for my first adventure, I am heading off to the land of sunshine and kangaroos... yes, Aussie land. I am leaving on October 3rd for 25 hours of flying, via Beijing, to Sydney. I am only staying for 2 and a half months, then I'll be back home for Christmas around December 16th. I am not going with any plans or any expectations, just a backpack and a plane ticket home. I haven't yet decided what areas I want to see, all decisions will be made on a whim. I imagine the summer will have been a good warm up to the amount of partying I will be doing down there. I do plan to get my diving certificate and check out the reef at some point. Due to the poor fire season this summer, it turns out my trip will be a bit more of a budget trip than I had planned. One thing it won't be lacking in is excitement!

The fire season was a total bust this summer. I had a grand total of 2 fires in almost 5 months of work! My crew was also the only crew of 11 at cifac not to go out of region to fight fires. We had 7 crews go to Quebec, 3 crews go to the southeast of BC, the junior IA's went to Kamloops and the southeast, while cifac 12 (my crew) stayed in region the entire damn summer. I did however, make it to Puntzi, our forward attack base out in the middle of nowhere, 7 times, which has to be a record for cifac. I believe I broke my own record of 6 visits from the 2003 fire season. Due to the slowness of the summer, we had to resort to other means of entertainment, which included drinking, partying, consuming alcohol, playing sports, and drinking. Some good did come of the summer, my guitar skills and drawing skills improved dramatically due to the month and a half I spent at Puntzi. I managed to wear out the wheels of my rollerblades doing hundreds of miles on the runway out there, while only suffering 2 wipe outs all summer. The best part of the summer was getting to hang out with the 2 awsome guys on my crew, Matt and Mattaeus. Here are some shots of my stellar crew.

Me doing hover exits.

Mattaeus and I bored at Puntzi.

Hard at work as usual. We went swimming in the frigid waters of Quesnel Lake, then warmed our bums by the piles we were there to burn.

The only chopper ride I had all summer, on the way to fire number 2, the best fire of the season.