Why I Asked For A Unicycle For My 30th Birthday
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Because I'm worth it.
Read MoreAnna Hartley is an Australian writer.
She has lived in Paris and Beijing since 2011.
Her work has been published in The Washington Post, France 24, Forbes Travel Guide, The Houston Chronicle, The New Zealand Herald, The Vancouver Sun, the Beijinger, and Babbel Magazine.
"Wheels of Fortune" - riding around Greece on a wooden bike
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Published in PrimoLife Magazine June 2017
In September 2016, I rode a wooden bike for 3 days through Athens and the Greek Islands. Jump in the saddle with me and explore this magnificent landscape in this most unusual way.
Read MoreThe Ultimate Paris Marathon Spectator Guide
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Watching the Paris Marathon isn't easy, even for a local. I was rushed, unprepared and even had to take a cab at one point. *shame*
Yet loads of people come to Paris from out of town to watch, so with this in mind, I've designed the perfect user-friendly Ultimate Paris Marathon Spectator Route.
Read MoreAnna's Adventures: Rock climbing in the Portuguese wilderness
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Published in PRIMOLife Magazine November 2015
I’m in a tough position and I can’t see a way out. My chalky fingertips are pressed hard into the rock. The knot at my waist grates against the wall, and my legs are zinging with tension. I look like a ninja mid fly-kick, splattered against the front of an unyielding cliff. It seems that every muscle in my body is flexed, straining to keep me perched in this unlikely position, and I’m burning energy fast. My right leg begins to ‘Elvis’, shake uncontrollably under the pressure and I know I have to make a move soon. I really, really don’t want to fall.
Rock climbing in the wilderness is well, exactly as tough as it looks.
Read More(un petit) Tour de France: Riding From Paris to le Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte
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One of the hazards of being a bike guide is that lots of your friends will also be bike guides, and will invite you to go on crazy rides to strange places with very little planning.
It's awful.
Last month, we went to the Vaux le Vicomte estate, 41km from Paris as the crow flies.
Read MoreFrom Zero to Hero: Learning To Row In An Elite Squad
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Published in PRIMOLife Magazine May 2015
I focus on keeping my oar level, and look toward the backs of the six rowers in front of me who make up the Guildford Grammar School 2nd VIII. It’s 6:30am and we have already been on the water for an hour.
Read MorePunch Drunk Love: A Woman's (Beginner) Guide To Boxing
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This is the extended version of a short article called 'Face Value' which appears in the April 2014 issue of Primo Life magazine. While I am still new to the sweet science, these are some of the tips I've put together from my own experience, and from chatting to other women. It is far from a definitive guide, and as such I’d welcome any additional comments or tips you might have. This entry is focused towards female boxers, but many of the principles are universal to beginners.
Read MoreSurf's Up: In Which I Wipe Out, Drink Salt Water And Fall In Love With Surfing
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Published in PRIMOLife Magazine April 2015
I clear salt water out of my nose for the thousandth time, spit out a mouthful of sand and look around. My fellow beginners are in varying stages of surf: some unsteadily getting on their feet, some lying flat on their bellies, cruising in the whitewash, some wading back out into the line of breakers.
Read MoreFlying High: Flinging Myself Into The World Of Flying Trapeze
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With their lithe dancers’ bodies, death defying tricks and effortless grace, flying trapeze artists have always awed me, and I’m thrilled to be able to give this magical sport a try thanks to Access Circus and the Twilight Flyers team...
Read MoreThe Sweet Science: Learning To Box, And To Take It On The Chin
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Getting punched in the face is a weird feeling. Punching someone in the face is also a weird feeling, particularly when you aren’t angry or in danger. These were just two of the many things I learned when I began to box. In an era when One Punch deaths dominate news headlines and we drink ginger tea to boost our mental performance, boxing is generally seen as old fashioned, barbaric and downright smelly. This is a great shame, because as a comprehensive cardio and strength training workout, combined with discipline, strategy, and combat, it is one of the most rewarding and thrilling sports I’ve ever done.
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Derby World
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Changing derby leagues isn’t always as simple as dropping a Facebook message to your new team, rocking up with your skates and slotting into your accustomed position on the track. An expatriated player herself, Cat Cholera interviews two globe-trotting former Perth Roller Derby players, Dame Edna Haemorrhage and Lorrae Evans, exploring the ins and outs of changing countries, languages and cultures to play roller derby around the world.
Read MoreRock n' Roller Babes
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It’s the sport where tough as nuts chicks race around on skates, banging into each other on a circuit that would leave many guys quaking in their steel toed boots. Cat Cholera, aka Perth girl Anna Hartley explains what makes a derby girl tick
Read MoreTransform-Hers: Roller Derby, Cyborgs and The Future of Female
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Modern-day Perth, or Melbourne, or Townsville may be a long way from Blade Runner’s futuristic Los Angeles, but they do have one thing in common with that grim metropolis: replicant-like cyborg women are roaming the streets amongst the unsuspecting townsfolk, changing their parts, redecorating their chassis’ and gathering in ritualised meetings. Driving their bodies and minds further and further in pursuit not of survival, but of glory.
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This second pregnancy is nothing like my first. I am calm, cocooning. I do my exercises, occasionally even yoga. I have an ample supply of comfortable maternity clothes and a giant (and I mean giant) horseshoe pillow that encloses and immobilises me in a firm hold at night. Sshhh. It whispers. I got you.
I am on top of my medical appointments. I take my vitamins and monitor my blood pressure. I have been registered at the maternity hospital since around the third month of my pregnancy. My husband and I spent about 15 minutes discussing a baby name, decided, smiling, and haven’t wavered since.
I am, in short, having almost the opposite experience as my first pregnancy.