Not my finest work

Well ... I survived!

Not only that, but I feel really good despite the aching body. It's really nice to do something that takes you out of your normal life and challenges you a bit ... and for a good cause. It reminded me of travel - doing weird things at strange hours of the day and night - without being quite so selfish or expensive!

So we got up at 2.15 to get to the pool by 3.00 to support another friend, then I swam at 4.00 am and my partner swam from 4.30 to 5.30. The next swimmer had been forced to cancel at the last minute as her property was on bush fire alert so the three of us covered her hour ... and then the next swimmer just didn't turn up so we covered her hour. We swam from 4.00 until 7.00 am and then again later on Saturday. All up I swam 5 kms and I think that's a first for me!

I was swimming too much to get into any creative photography but this photo was taken at about 4.15 and my partner Michael is the fuzzy looking green hat on the left.
  

And then the sun came up - an orange disk glowing through the haze of smoke from the fires - and the hot air balloons came over, and the whole thing was quite surreal.