Gear manufacturers have realised that lots of women like the outdoors and they're different shapes from men. Here's what's out there, and where you can buy it.
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Recently Slim Jim the surfski and I went in our first kayaking race, which required overcoming some intense intimidation and an attack of bicepophobia (fear of enormous men with bulging biceps and super fast kayaks). Despite all this, I actually ended up doing quite well. Here's the story...
I recently bought myself a surf ski and have been out paddling at every opportunity, suffering from new toy lust which recently developed into new toy love and will hopefully soon grow into a lasting and fulfilling relationship. I acknowledge that naming possessions and talking about them like people is lame and take full responsibility for any lame-ness displayed in this article.
This is the December edition of the Women and Outdoor Adventure Blog Carnival. Enjoy reading about skiing, snowshoeing, staying safe in the sun and mosquitoes! Be sure to submit your article to next month's carnival, the 15th of January 2010.
Another month, another new sport! This time it's Rogaining - running about the bush (or in this case, paddocks) looking for orange and white flags for 24 hours.
These photographs have been provided by Emma Capp of the organisation Still Wild Still Threatened. They feature Tasmania's old growth forests, which Emma and her companions are attempting to protect from unsustainable logging practices.
A little photo montage to prove that romance is not dead, dying OR impossible at sea. Swoon...
This is the November edition of Women and Outdoor Adventure. This month you can read about Bigfoot, layering, travel, hot springs and more. Enjoy, share and don't forget to submit your article next month!
I've seen more of the rest of the word than I have of my own Antipodean backyard, and it took a wedding to get me to New Zealand for a look. Now I'm itching to get back and explore - here are my first impressions.
Here is October's edition of the Women and Outdoor Adventure Blog Carnival! This month hiking is by far the most popular activity, but there's also stories about travel, swimming, tandem bike riding, kite flying and orienteering. Enjoy!
Another year, another National Ride to Work Day. Here's my tribute to riding to work, because I couldn't make the Ride to Work Day breakfast because I had to leave early because I was...yes, that's right...riding to work. I call this tribute: Riding to Work is...
Lindsay and Sharon are keen outdoors-women who love to hike and sea kayak. I met them while involved in my "other" life (the one that occurs away from GO! Girls Outdoors and the great outdoors) and was thrilled to see that my careers had collided. So, I'd like you to meet Lindsay and Sharon - outdoor adventurers extraordinaire!
This is the September edition of the Women and Outdoor Adventure Blog Carnival. This month features mountaineers, traveling, climbing, cycling and more. Enjoy the articles and don't forget to submit to next month's carnival!
The first climb of the season - fraught with terror and self-deprecating internal monologues. Discovering why I like the sport so much after time away takes a little bit of effort. Does everyone experience this or is it just me?
Despite my claims of a non-competitive nature, I've recently discovered that there's a new aspect to my personality. The cause of this "new me" emerging is the sport of multisport racing, which is highly popular in Tasmania. Here's how the transformation occurs...
The August 14th edition of the Women and Outdoor Adventure blog carnival is here! Click through and read on...
The Girls' Day Out is Tasmania's Female Lifestyle Expo, and its advertisement claims to provide "everything a woman could want". My Sunday was slow so I decided to go along and find out whether "everything a woman could want" applied to me or not. After astounding my mum with the invitation to join me (this is not my sort of event), we went together. Here's what happened...
This is Erica and Josie climbing together. Erica works for Passages Northwest, an organisation I profiled when I was in Seattle, and she sent along this photo to share. Do you have any tips for climbing with kids? Go to the relevant forum topic and contribute to the discussion!
This is the July 17, 2009 edition of Women and Outdoor Adventure! This month we feature hiking, biking, geocaching, rest and relaxation and more.
In the Tour de France fever that is currently sweeping the world (even in Australia where the coverage is on in the middle of the night), I got to wondering why there are no women in the race, or at least why there isn't a corresponding race for women. I did some research and found out that there IS a race for women, then I wrote an article about it...
The Woman's Guide to Boating & Cooking is featured in a review on GO! Girls Outdoors. This is one of the recipes from the book - enjoy!
This article is in no way endorsed or paid for by Tourism Tasmania, although it probably should be! As a native Tasmanian, I tend to sing the state's praises a lot. This is an example of what you can do on a winter weekend, featuring unique adventures no more than 20 minutes drive out of Hobart.
Here is June's edition of the Women and Outdoor Adventure Blog Carnival. Next month's carnival will be on the 17th of July and submission details can be found in this entry. Enjoy!
A brief overview of the GO! Girls Outdoors financial story so far: this is for those who are interested and those who have been asking questions about the new additions to the website (the ads). And, of course, there's a nice picture of a tree that you can look at if you don't like finances.
Although sailing is fun, this article is not really about the traditional form of sailing. It's about a most excellent way of having a huge amount of fun, reusing, recycling, saving money and collecting some necessary baggage. Interested? Intrigued about this new sport? You know where to click...
A few lessons, learned the hard way, on how not to move thousands of kilometres.
The first edition of the Women and Outdoor Adventure Blog Carnival. Next edition is the 19th of June and it's easy to submit your entry - just follow the links at the bottom of the entry.
What better way to end off the trip than to do something completely different?! We decided it would be a good idea to spend a couple of days in Los Angeles before flying back to Australia, and it did indeed turn out to be something completely different...
As I mentioned in the last article, I developed something of a love affair for Boulder. Here is why! There is so much going on in Boulder and I had some fantastic meetings with some particularly fantastic people. Although the profiles are coming soon, here's a sneak preview.
Boulder, Colorado is a town I heard about long before I started research for GO! Girls Outdoors. After a shaky start I began a love affair with the town that lasted until...well...it's still going. I'd love to go back someday and here's why!
Despite being sad to leave Canada and exhausted from a hectic three weeks of travel, my return to the US was inspiring thanks to the day I spent in Seattle meeting various outdoor people and wandering the streets. The Seattle bus drivers are the friendliest and most helpful I've met so far, and even the famous Seattle drizzle couldn't dampen my spirits.
Almost everywhere you go in British Columbia has spectacular scenery and an extremely active outdoor community. This is a result of the astounding number of outdoor adventures there are to be had in the province. Although we had a flying visit without too much adventuring time, we met some avid adventurers along the way!
If you think Australians are crazy about sport, you haven't seen Calgary in the full throes of Flames Fever - barracking for their local hockey team. We were fortunate enough to get tickets to a game between the Calgary Flames and their arch-rivals, the Edmonton Oilers...
The Canmore Nordic Centre is the home and training ground for many olympic champions, as well as being the cross country skiing course for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Dave and I went a mingled with the champions for a day or so of cross country skiing.
Canadians are crazy about their hockey - if you think Australians are mad about sport,
wait until you see the Canadians on hockey night. We happened to be in Jasper on one of the biggest nights - Hockey Night in Jasper - a match between the NHL Legends and a local Allstars team. It was a particularly Canadian experience and definitely deserves its own blog entry!
A brief overview of our road trip from Edmonton to Calgary via the Canadian Rockies. Jasper, Lake Louise, Golden, Radium Hot Springs, Lussier Hot Springs, Invermere, Banff and Canmore!
Dave and I, not satisfied with just travelling to Sioux Lookout, wanted to stretch ourselves further and complete an expedition that we believe has never been done before. Spurred on by the Annual Sioux Lookout Multicultural Feast, we decided to make Vegemite Pinwheels, and to embark on a dangerous expedition by snowshoe to hunt the elusive jar of Vegemite. For the full details, read on...
I really don't think there's anything you can't do, outdoors or otherwise, in Sioux Lookout! This is a brief look at some of the activities that we took part in while we were there, staying with my uncle Jon and his family (stop number 2 on Dave's Great Morgan Tour of Canada).
'The North' is how people in Sioux Lookout refer to the vast region of water and wilderness that lies to the north of the town. There are people who live there, and Sioux Lookout kind of the 'gateway' town - this is where flights leave from and where the people have access to services and so on. I've tried to capture what 'The North' is like, using my limited knowledge of the region but also the information I picked up while in Sioux Lookout.
Sioux Lookout is a small town northwest of Thunder Bay, and the home of my uncle Jon and his family. Up in Sioux Lookout it is cold and close to a vast area of rea wilderness. As I found out, even just getting there can be an adventure and provide valuable life lessons. Read on...
Despite what some people say, it can be ok if you forget to wax...
Very early on , when I was in the process of spamming as many people as I could to look for support for GO! Girls Outdoors so I could get a good scholarship application together, I successfully spammed Dr Brent Cuthbertson. Brent is the Director of the Outdoor Recreation program at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario and he invited me to the university to do a talk for some of his students.
Mmmmmmmm....maple syrup! I have a Canadian Dad so we grew up with the good stuff on our pancakes and I learnt from an early age that imitation maple syrup is for people who don't know any better. We had a genuine Canadian experience, visiting a maple syrup farm, and now we're very keen to become maple syrup farmers ourselves...
We took advantage of a beautiful, sunny, spring day to visit Niagara Falls - one of the most amazing natural features that I've ever seen. However, because it's so amazing and because there's a road right up to it and because there are a million casinos, strip clubs, interactive adventures and souvenir shops, there also a million tourists. We followed some camouflaged fishermen to get away from it all.
You'll have to read the blog to find out what this is all about...
Oh Canada! That's supposed to be sung like the national anthem, by the way...oooooohhh Caaaanadaaaaaaaaaaaa! Home of the friendliest and most helpful people in the world. Home of hockey (ice), the maple leaf, curling and lacrosse. And also home to many, many members of the Morgan family...all of whom Dave is visiting on his Great Morgan Tour of Canada.
In San Francsico I met with a few people who are connected with organisations that run programs for girls and women. I've learnt a lot and found out the answers to some burning questions (and some not so burning ones, such as what happened to John Farnham's singing career). Here's a summary of what I've found out so far and a sneak preview of some profiles to come.
One of the unique features of San Francisco is the wonderful cable cars. I was amazed to find out that the cables are not in fact up in the air, but instead beneath the streets of the city! On one of our days in the city we got a public transport pass, which allowed us to explore much further with a lot less effort. The ticket included rides on the cable cars, which were by far my favourite.
I’m often quite embarrassed by my ignorance of all things historical, and I was more than a little embarrassed when Dave had to explain that Alcatraz wasn’t just a funny name for a dog enclosure but one of the most famous prisons in American history.
Bike riding the Golden Gate bridge is an outdoor adventure that you share with many of the people who visit San Francisco. Despite this, we decided that riding across the bridge would be a worthy adventure.
San Francisco...a city where sea lions have taken over the wharf, where you eat the bowl your soup comes in, where the public transport is hauled up the hills on cables, where you can find Jesus in the footpath, whole dried fish in the streets, bath salts in barrels and 6 postcards for $1 but stamps $1.25 each.
For those who don't know, GO! Girls Outdoors has been set up thanks to a scholarship provided by several organisations within the Queensland Government (view the 'Thanks' page here). This also involves a study/research/information gathering trip to the US and Canada, upon which my partner Dave and I are just about to embark!