Another year over, a new one just begun

Happy 2015 everyone. Yeah, I'm still hanging around. I didn't manage to revive my blogging mojo towards the end of 2014, but I'm committed to giving it a good kick up the bum this year.

I feel as if 2014 was an average year for me. Nothing awful happened, but nothing wonderful happened either. I can't think of a highlight. It was just...meh. I wonder if my lack of blogging has anything to do with it? The unexamined life is not worth living and all that? It's not as if I didn't do anything fun. There was glee.

A more likely explanation is my chronic fatigue (which also partly explains my lack of blogging). For the past three or four months I feel as if I did nothing but work and sleep. There were quite a few days where I came home from work and went straight to bed and some days on the weekends when I spent most of the day sleeping or on the couch in my pyjamas staring at the internet. I did do fun stuff, but I could have had more fun if I had some energy.

This year I plan to get some energy. I'm going to overhaul my diet by having a crack at the paleo diet. Stop rolling your eyes, you. I'm skeptical about the science paleo proponents use to back up their caveman eating (and Pete Evans is bloody annoying), but the diets prescribed by the medical specialists I've been seeing for years have done almost nothing to relieve my fatigue. I've read so many stories of people overcoming chronic, severe fatigue - people who felt like crap all the time like me, but felt amazing after going paleo - that I can't ignore it (or sneer at it) anymore. I want to feel amazing (although I'd settle for good). I've been tired for 20 years. I've had enough.

But I'm not going to start it until after Luke and I get back from our road trip next weekend (special diet + travel = too hard).  Wooh, road trip! We're going on a coastal and high country jaunt that will take us to the pointy end of Victoria and the highest mountain in Australia. 

Our proposed route (enlarge for bigger picture)

The route covers a bit more than 1,600 kms (about 22 hours of driving), which we will do in a week. The major stops on our itinerary start with Wilsons Promontory on day one. Luke hasn't been since he was a kid and I haven't been for more than five years, so I'm looking forward to it.  

Day two will take us to Ninety Mile Beach and Lakes Entrance, which is as far east as I've been in Victoria so everything thereafter will be new to me.  Next up will be Mallacoota at the pointy end of the state. I'd like to go over to nearby Gabo Island because it's mentioned on the ABC weather report quite often and I want to say, "We've been there!" every time. 

Next up we'll head to Jindabyne over the border in NSW and Mount Kosciuszko National Park (pronounced Kozzi-osco for you non-Aussies, although the proper pronunciation of the Polish name is Koz-chooz-ko). 

I've just read that you can walk to the top of the mountain and it's not even that physically demanding! "Anyone with a modest level of fitness can walk to the top," Wikipedia says. The walk is about 8km one way though.  

After that we'll head south to Omeo. I'm particularly looking forward to this part of the trip because I've read the high country scenery is breathtaking (that might be in part due to the windy roads and steep drops to the forest floor...). 

Our final major stop will be Mansfield before we coast home.  We leave this Sunday. I can't wait! 

Now I need to go an have a lie down.