golegrand

non ci credo. hard to believe, but in the news yesterday:  a "cold front" . after two cloudy days and a temperature drop from 30 to 22 °c, they're wondering on the third day bringing, indeed, lots of rain, what happened to the awaited hot summer. truly. yes, everything is relative, and that's how it is here, everyone gets upset by only one single insignificant cloudy or rainy day. on the other hand, they say that we need more rain… er… or rather the nature needs it, and ideally at night. which, i must confess, would meet my principle too. anyway. today, everybody is happy again: bright blue sky returned, it's getting hot and hotter. seriously. we're spoiled by the weather, the season and the beautiful nature. and with our new e-mtb, we can now switch outdoor activities between hiking and biking, discovering mountains and valleys with a different view. like up to almost 900 m at masulschlucht gorge in the val passiria . or a afternoon roundtrip of ...

today’s featured image: la mescla – where the verdon and artuby rivers meet. a detour off the martel track in the verdon gorges. so, this is what's been up since that awesome night with my friends the foo fighters in hamburg… june rocked hamburg. slash featuring myles kennedy & the conspirators were playing here too, and obviously we went to the show. great gig. july didn't brought us the summer as expected. hamburg was mostly stormy and felt cold. the fact remains that now, we're trained to run under pouring rain ;) we had an aussie migration consultant evaluating our chances for a permanent residency visa in australia, but the assessment results were not too optimistic – meaning a race against time (let's face it: we're too old), a lot of money and stress, and at the end no guarantee to be welcomed to stay – so, sadly, we've decide to abandon the project of spending the rest of our lives down under. instead, we switched to plan b, also...

today’s featured image: perth's cbd at swan river. now, the two last weeks in short… january 26th was australia day, and another beautiful cloudless day. watched the firework show with up to other 300,000 people in a hot summer night at the swan river foreshore. then, after 4 weeks of heat and dry weather, we got a low – 4 days of thunderstorms and some rain, mix of blue sky and scattered clouds, very humid and hot. next, uncommon intense thunderstorms hit perth 3 days in a row. on one night, we even had to have dinner indoor (omg!). still temperatures didn't dropped. back in the dry heat, haze across perth: two massive bushfire in wa's south and a wind change saw the city covered in a blanket of smoke. upper swan ride to guildford and back on two hot days, along swan river and through some wetlands that remind of the camargue. from guildford, cycling the swan valley , aka perth's valley of tastes, the home of the oldest vineyar...

today's featured image: cottesloe's latitude. this one today might be hard to get for those living somewhere above 43 degrees north latitude. myself, i could never have imagine that before experiencing it in the flesh.… see: it happens sometimes that the temperatures jump a bit around, changing from an average of 35 °c to 38° on several days in a row, where the temperature is already above 30° at 9:00 am (and force you to switch your morning run to a more-walking exercise…), rises to 36° at 3 pm, and suddenly drops to 24° two hours later, and at this point… it just feels cold. yes, cold! or call it cool, whatever, but believe me – 24 °c do feel frizzy under certain circumstances. anyway. this january weather just tops to explore perth and discover this great and diversified metropol. i enjoy walking here around and discovering the places. there are the cbd , its city skyline and street malls where futu...

today's featured image: gum and palm trees – fav trees everywhere! day # 13 in perth, the first day a bit cloudy as i opened the curtains this morning. only scattered little clouds. as i'm writing these lines, they're all gone. in fact, perth is a particularly sunny city enjoying a mediterranean climate and an average of 8.8 hours of sunshine per day – since we arrived on january 1st, temperatures have stayed in the 30th, we get endless bright blue sky, and it's like in paradise. monday jan 5th was super hot with 44,4° c on record, a layer of clouds passed over in the late afternoon, next day was back at lower 36°. thanks the " fremantle doctor ", the cooling sea breeze, it's never really too hot. well. ok. except on those days over 40°. we're staying here in subiaco , a western suburb of perth, known colloquially as subi. our apartment is located close to rokeby road, the main street of subi, and coming from ottensen it's not really compli...

colorado enjoys  300 days of sunny days per year . noteworthy difference between oceanic and semi-aride climate which makes it unbelievable for us north-german frogs that we saw no rain since dec 21st in hamburg! that's 39 days in a row. we have been snowed instead, yes, but considering one week-end of snowstorm, as well as some other snow in-between in more than five weeks, the deal is still not too bad for seeing the sun almost every day, and some of these days are lovely warm. temperature variations, however, are extreme – while last saturday was making me the gift of a deep blue sky with temps around 62 f/17 c (was bliss!), temperatures suddenly dropped on sunday late afternoon and we went back from dinner under the cold snow. it lasted all monday long, yesterday was back sunny. so. we enjoyed some hot summer time in colorado 2012 , and we went back with the aim to feel the winter. well… we got it! we started today in our fifth week in boulder and are about to close ...

i love the region of the verdon in the french south alpes of the provence — the mountains, the canyon, the healthy air, the deep colors of the green forests and the blue sky. scents of wild growing thyme, rosemary and many flowers. colored butterflies and bugs… mid-august we had a perfect getaway with long hours of hiking and exploring new places of the country side, we walked something around 57 km in total in one week, not counting my daily running hour. sore feet. day one: sportive 14 km on „sentier blanc martel“, a canyon trail along the verdon river down from „la maline“ to „couloir samson“. day two: somehow „relaxing“ 13 km of up and down from the village la palud sur verdon to the village of rougon and back. day three: alpine 12 km up to the astronomical observatory on mont chiran from around 1,200 m to 1,900 m and back — challenging for legs and lungs (rarefied air up there!) but worth the detour, gorgeous view over the alps. day four: idler car-day with 300...

warm welcome in broomfield, colorado, last sunday -- hot temperatures, dry air, perfect climate! the region of broomfiel/denver is located at 5,280 feet (1,609 m) above sea level, some might feel a kind of out of oxygen, i just feel great. around us: the rocky mountains and wide spaces. first trip in the mountains yesterday: we climbed the alpine ridge trail in the rocky mountain national park to get at the top, which is 11,796 ft (3,595 m), the highest reached in my life... and yes, there i felt definitively out of oxygen!

we touched down yesterday at 28 degrees c and today it's not going to be colder. hehe. just returned from a morning run along the beach. it's just fun to be here.