Quick update from the road in California. The Dingos have had an eventful 24 hours with an expedition to Yosemite National Park. We stayed in "tee-pee" style tents at Groveland just outside the park ... kind of what I imagine Graceland would have been like if Elvis had of had 6 teeth, played the banjo and wasn't such a ladies man.
We managed to test ourselves mentally, physically and possibly even spiritually as the team faced not only an 8 mile hike up the imposing "half dome" but finished the day with a discussion about what it means to be a dingo and what our expectations for the pretour are after a big night out the evening before. The team really came together after this discussion. This pretour is proving to provide the opportunities to play against elite level US teams and to become a really solid Dingo unit.
Light relief for the day was provided by the Tatham, Denyer, A. Dowle, Holmes group in the race to the top of Half Dome. Slowing to the back of the peleton to take a couple of photos, this group lost the main pack and one wrong turn and 6 miles of hiking later the four of us realised we were on the wrong ridge, on the wrong side of the valley, about 10 miles from the top of Half Dome where the other 20 dingos were ... the word D'oh sprang to mind. Still we got some great photos of the Dome - as Tatham said "you can't take a photo of the dome while you're standing on the dome" Both the official hike the Dome and the alternative hike-the-other-mountain-so-we-can-look-at-the-Dome were really impressive.
The magnificent view to Half Dome (at left) from the Tatham-Denyer-Dowle-Holmes Route.
Who would want to climb that thing anyway?
Tonight we head to LA to play the Santa Barbara Condors. We are playing in the imposing sounding Patterson Football Fields at Occidental College ... playing on astroturf which will be unusual for many of the Dingos, but it is another challenge to be overcome and another scalp that we want to take on our pretour.
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