On Friday Amy and I flew down to Melbourne as I was invited to judge at the AIMIA awards again this year. The presentation was in Melbourne so it was a good excuse to make a weekend of it!
Here’s a picture of me on the red carpet, attribution goes to AIMIA for this photo as I forgot to take my camera. The lady with me is Kristin who was on the AIMIA board and was nice enough to give me a lift from the hotel to the event.
AIMIA Awards 2010 with Kristin from AIMIA
Friday night was awards night and whilst Amy stayed in and watched movies (it is expensive and I got a free ticket) I went off to the awards. I luckly met up with some people I knew and it was a good time. Stephen Conroy (the reason the side bar has a stop internet censorship) was in attendance and gave a little speech about the national broadband network but did not make mention of his censorship plans, which hopefully means they are on the way out.
We stayed at a hotel called “The Cullen” which is part of some Art Hotels which were was really awesome. It was in a district called Prahan which was just off Chapel Street (which has lots of trendy fun shots for Amy to visit and me to wait outside).
Here is Amy in the lift with an Andy Cullen Picture
On Saturday morning we went out down Chapel Street, went to some shops, Amy bought a new pair of jeans whilst I had a cappucino. It was a really hot day and we had to stay in the shade as much as possible.
Here’s a building on Chapel Street that looked cool
We were tired from our adventure so we went back to the hotel and watched “Funny People” as it was $16.95 to hire out and Amy had watched it the night before but we watched it again together to get some sort of value out of it. Whilst we were watching the movie we noticed it started raining. It turned out it was a bit more than rain -
As the storm came I was thinking Melbourne gets some pretty awful weather! I’d never quite seen a day go from nice and sunny to what looked like some sort of minor hurricane and the hardest downpour I think I’ve ever seen! We carried on watching the movie and then I popped out for a cappucino. I walked down the street and noticed half the shops were closed and thought it was strange for shops to close so early on a Saturday. On closer inspection, half the stores on Chapel Street were totally drenched and without power, so it was not necessarily a normal storm for Melbourne but pretty crazy!
That night Amy and I went out in the rain to a restaurant called “FOG” which was a French influenced place just behind our hotel in Prahan. It was really nice and we were glad we didn’t have to go far as the streets were pretty messed up from the storm, I actually kicked a junkies needle that washed up on the street by accident a bit earlier so I was very glad I was wearing shoes and not flip flops when that happened! The service in Melbourne is about 150% better than Sydney which is really nice. We went back to the hotel as the club we were going to afterwards was either not open yet because we were there too early or closed because of water damage. We hired another $16 movie and made sure we concentrated and watched it to the very end, although I’m pretty sure Amy fell asleep as per usual.
Amy and I at FOG in Prahan
The next morning the day wasn’t looking too bad so we hired a little Smart Car from the hotel. This was really fun as it really stands out. They are funny little cars to drive, the red line is way too low and the steering wheel is a lot like the one I have for the PC, complete with flappy paddles for changing up and down.
The Smart Cart and Mornington Penisula
They are semi-automatic so it seemed to change down but not up, but it told you when to change up. I was either doing something wrong or they had skimped on paying for the switch the connected the computer that told you to change gear with the gear box to do it for you.
We drove down to the Mornington Penisula and the sun started to come out which was really nice. It was a nice part of Victoria complete with beach houses that you find on the English coastline!
Mornington Penisula Beach Sheds
We then returned to Prahan dropped off the car at the hotel, checked out our baggage and got the taxi to the airport, which is where we are now. I’ve got some spare time on my hands because the flight is delayed due to a massive storm sitting over Victoria!!! Hopefully we’ll get home at some time or another.
On the way back home we bumped into Simone and Stu who were returning from Brisvegas, which wasn’t a devastation zone like Melbourne -
Amy, Stu and Simone at YSSY Carpark
Peace!
Last weekend, Amy, Marcy, Chris and I went down to Melbourne for the Australian open. We also did some touring of Melbourne and the surrounding area, which includes Daylesford and The Great Ocean Road. Our first stop was Melbourne, where we watched Baghdatis play against Hewitt, however the match didn’t last very long, Baghdatis gave up due to an injury. We also watched a womens game staight afterwards which was fun!
Baghdatis vs. Hewitt
There’s lots of things to do at the tennis, one of them is to get your photo taken with a giant tennis ball -
Amy with a giant tennis ball
The next stop on our trip to Melbourne was a place called Daylesford which is a small town North West of Melbourne, it was really nice and had Spa’s for the girls (and Chris). We stayed in an awesome house for the night and watched some more tennis -
Chris and Marcy in Daylesford watching Tennis
That evening we went to a restaurant called Mercato which was really good, it felt like we were in someones front living room but the food was awesome!
The next day we set off on our Great Ocean Road adventure, which would cover a lot of miles of driving through the country side, where we even saw a twister style wind tunnel caused by dust. Chris drove us to the Apostles which were a bit out of the way but it was fantastic to finally see them, here’s Amy and I with some of them -
Amy and me at the 12 Apostles
Initially I was a bit disappointed with the Great Ocean Road, at least from Apollo Bay to the Apostles because there’s not very much in the way of Ocean. However the drive from Apollo Bay back towards Melbourne is much more of a Great Ocean Road, we even saw some Koalas in the trees (the first time I’ve seen one in the wild I think).
Great Ocean Road Drive
That brings us to the end of our Melbourne adventure, it was great fun!
This Christmas we went up to Brisvegas to see Amy’s family and nephews and nieces. Ali, Zara and Cooper have all grown up quickly.
Ali, Zara and Cooper
We stayed at Sam and Elliot’s house for the first night to be woken up by Cooper early in the morning telling us there was loads of presents under the tree!
On Sam and Elliot’s street there’s a house not too similar from the house in the Griswolds (Chevy Chase movie) which we all walked up the street to see. It looks really fantastic -
Amazing Christmas lights on Sam and El’s street
Christmas day was spent at Taryn and Wade’s house where we had some delicious sea food for dinner and opened presents. We even had a swim in the pool and managed to get sunburn after only being out there for about ten minutes!
Wink was also happy to see us all there but was absolutely exhausted at the end of the day -
Winky absolutely exhausted on Christmas Day
The next day we all drove down to the Gold Coast and spent a night there at Burleigh Heads which was very nice. We had lunch at an RSL and spent the evening watching movies -
After lunch at the RSL
The next morning we woke and went to the airport to fly back to Sydney. We arrived in Sydney, went home, un-packed our bags, re-packed them again and then hit the road to drive up to Copocabana. Not the one in Rio but the one an hour North of Sydney, near Gosford. The place was developed by a real estate agency in the 50ies who named the place after Copocabana in Rio so all the street names are named like Del Monte Place, which is where we stayed – although it was no where near as bad as that sounds! We had some excellent views from the balcony of the ocean, mostly of which are filled with massive ships waiting to dock at Newcastle.
The weather wasn’t that great but it didn’t really matter for us as it was fun just being able to stay around the house, read books, play poker and get the occasional break to go for a surf down at the beach.
Amy, Nancy and Marcus on Copocabana Beach
One of the main reasons for the trip was to celebrate Lorraine’s 40th Birthday party which we did in style by Yuji cooking us some delicious Japanese style food, it was very good!
Yuji in the Kitchen
The views from the balcony were amazing, especially at sunset -
Sunset at Copacabana
We also celebrated Nancy’s birthday with a trip off to Chat Noir in Terigal which was a French restaurant and I think possible the first place where I tasted snails!
Nancy Happy Happy Birthday Song! Vive la France!
For New Years Marcy cooked brisket the same as she did at Easter and it was delicious! We then watched the fireworks from Sydney on the television and went to bed. Hugo was exhausted -
Emails checked, time for a relax.
An excellent Christmas and New Year period, although I managed to get shingles hence the delay in writing the post, however back on the mend now hurray!!!!!!
This weekend we went on a trip to the Hunter Valley, organised by Nancy and attended by Amy, Gail, Iain, Nigel, Marcus and Myself. Amy and I left on Friday night and had a very pleasant drive up to the glorious and massive house that Nancy had got us -
House with Amy, Nancy and Marcus on the Patio
Not shown in this shot was the pool, a very inviting clean nice pool that with the weather only in spring but around the high 20ies and tipping into the 30 degrees C it looks very welcoming. The reality of the pool was that the water was freezing, Marcus, Nigel and I managed to get in, I even put my head under for a few seconds but definitely not warm enough to be enjoyable!
The first full day we spent doing the obligatory wine tour, first off we hit up Tempus Two, probably the largest winery in the Hunter but with a fantastic selection of wines. There is now a little shop next to it which does a fantastic selection of cheeses, ice creams, olive oils and you name it! Here’s the ice cream section -
Ice Creams in the Freezer
Here is a shot of the group outside the Tempus Two winery post wine tasting -
Tempus Two Group
We then visited another winery called Audrey Wilkinson where I gave Amy a hug and then the people doing the wine tasting stopped and held up a sign saying no hugging/kissing allowed. It was a bit weird and I told Amy we shouldn’t buy any wine from there as pay back, it was all a big joke for everyone but I personally felt singled out and embarrassed – not the best way to try and sell wine (I didn’t buy any and will never drink Audrey Wilkinson ever).
We went back to the house where we played a lot of pool (there was a massive pool table in the kitchen area) and a bit of poker, the non-poker players cleared all the poker players up -
Poker on the Deck
We then had a lovely BBQ lamb dinner and Gail’s treacle pudding specialty that she also made in the Blue Mountains a few months back.
Here’s a picture of Amy with her new top and the fantastic backdrop to our Hunter Valley retreat -
Amy on the Deck with her new top
Altogether a fantastic weekend that did not last long enough!!
This is the 500th post on g2007! The blog is 2151 days old today which means there’s a post on average once every 4.3 days! Doesn’t seem like I do that many!
This weekend we had a Mexican/Poker party at our house. We invited as many as we can fit into our flat (which is about nine people).
Simone, Stu, Marcus, Marcy, Me, Steph and Lozza
Lorraine gave me a fantastic recipe for chili which I had to make the day before but turned out great. We also bought some scene setters turning the living room into a full on Mexican party house. I even went as far as learning a couple of Mexican tracks on the guitar!
Marcy, Lozza, Nancy and Steph on the Mexican Poker Table
After mexican food we played two tables of poker on a quick elevation system for the blinds which meant we were finished within a reasonable time, Simone ($90) took the jackpot, I got second place ($30) and Marcy got third ($10) which was great fun. The coronas, sols and tequila margaritas were flowing all night it was brilliant!
The next day we were lucky enough to get invited out by Stephanie to go sailing with Lars and his wife and their friends. The weather was fantastic and was nothing like winter, although when we jumped into the water it certainly didn’t feel like summer, it was so cold that I could feel my skin actually burning from the coldness! We even did a bit of sailing with the sails up managing to get up to about 5 kts at one stage and we did some “tacing” and “jiving”, I was hanging in by the skin of my teeth in regards to the sailing terms being used.
Lozza, Steph, Lars and me on Push Pin
Push Pin was the speed boat that tagged behind the back of the hybrid catamaran and is named after the little pins on Google Maps! It was a geeks dream being on the boat with one of the guys that invented Google Maps and the project managers of Google Wave! It was a fantastic day and I think we all felt totally spoilt spending the day on such a luxurious boat with very nice people, so much so that I didn’t want the day to end as we headed back to the marina to park the boats.
Amy and me on Serenity
A fantastic weekend and a fine way to mark the 500th post on the blog, a lot more interesting that the very first entry nearly six years ago!
We got a phone call from Qantas asking us if we wanted to upgrade our flight to business class for the first leg of our flight using our Qantas points. It turned out to be the biggest mistake in air travel I could have made. Not because it is not worth it, it is. Sitting upstairs on a 747 with only 19 other people at the front of the plane no where near the engines and in a seat that has more leg room than you need and the ability to make the seat turn into a bed is simply amazing. But then comes the sudden realization that this is a one off luxury for us and that after this flight we would have to return to economy class. Not knowing what is like to be a heroin junkie I think being a business class junkie is probably a very similar infliction that I now have to deal with. I spent the majority of our time in Singapore trying to figure out how we were going to upgrade our flight to London to business and trying to figure our how much extra cash I would be happy to part with for that business travel luxury. When we got back to Changi airport I approached the customer service desk and asked “how much???” the guy punched in our current flight details and then did a little laugh and said “it is going to be expensive” we did a little laugh back he then went over to his assistants desk and they typed some more and then he said “oh gosh” and then said it is going to cost 6…2….4… And I thought “Yes! We can afford it” then he said …9… each. Which comes to about $18 a minute for an eleven hour flight. So back to the drawing board with those upgrade ideas.
Business vs. Economy
Singapore was fun and a nice way to break up the flight. We stayed at a hotel called the New Majestic which was a boutique hotel near the chinese district of Singapore. All the rooms are designed by local artists and we got a room which reminded me of Austin Powers -
New Majestic Room 310
We spent the majority of time shopping in Singapore. Going to some of the shops which Australia doesn’t have like Zara and Marks and Spencer.
After a very good flight from Singapore, mostly due to the fact we purchased some of those head pillows in the departure lounge of Singapore which allowed us to sleep for a full 8 hours we arrived in London at 5am, one of the first flights to arrive at Heathrow but very quickly followed by lots more. We got a hire car thanks to my Mum paying for one for us and headed to Novotel where we got a day rate to allow us to have a rest and a shower for El and Al’s wedding which we were attending later that day in the village of Bentley, Surrey. It was a fantastic large wedding in a converted oat house / barn. We met up with Mike and Rach and baby Mia at the wedding which was great fun.
El and Al’s Wedding
We couldn’t stay all night because the jetlag was getting too much so we drove back to Warwickshire in a haze of tiredness for a 5 am start the next day to go to the Royal International Air Tatto at RAF Fairford. We left early in the morning and arrived in typical British summer style to pouring rain. It didn’t seem to bother anyone apart from Amy who said “it wasn’t normal” for everyone to be walking around on almost sideways driving rain without really caring or noticing it. We saw some fantastic air displays of some fighter jets as well as a load of static aircraft which included the B2 bomber. We left the air show early and had our first Sunday pub lunch yummy.
RAF Fairford Air Tattoo
The next day we went with my parents for lunch at Lapstone and visited the village where Bridget Jones was filmed and then had a look at the lavendar fields at Snowshill which were very nice. In the evening we went and visited Ki, Weronika and William in Stratford and Gin cane around also. We reminicised about the good old days and said hello to the new baby. We are pretty sure Ki woke the baby for it to see us although apparently his eyes were already open when he went in to get it.
Weronika, Ki, William, Amy and Gin in Stratford-upon-Avon
We watched and interesting program that my Dad recorded on TV about how Britain works from a logistical perspective, one of the more interesting parts of the program was there is a guy at the national power grid that sits and watches Eastenders and waits for the ending credits at which time he has to turn on additional hydro power generators in Scotland and also borrow additional power from Nuclear energy rich France to power all of the kettles that get turned on almost simultaneously at the end of the soap episode, a phenomenon that only happens in the UK.
We drove to Bristol to hit the banksy exhibition at the Bristol City Museum. There was a two and a half hour queue to get in which was very civilised and went quickly. It was worth the wait as it was a fantastic exhibition. You needed to have a sharp eye as a lot of the banksy stuff was merged into the permanent displays. I was hoping at the end we would be able to gt a nice Banksy print but I do not think that was Banksy style as one of his artworks was called “exit through the gift shop”.
Amy at Banksy Exhibition
After our visit to Bristol to see the exhibition we drove back via Cheltenham to catch up with T-Bone (Chris), Issy, Dylan and Natasha at their house. They used to live in Sydney so it was good to see them all getting on so well back in England. They’d even started a vegetable patch in the garden -
Chris and Issy in Cheltenham
The next day it was my birthday and we celebrated with my parents and Earl by visiting Crabmill at Preston Bagot which is still one of my favourite restaurants in Warwickshire. -
Birthday at Crabmill
The next few days my parents, Amy and I went on a trip to the South of France via the Eurostar and TGV, which was a fun experience at I’d never been on the Eurostar. It is very quick and a bit surreal getting on a train in London and getting off of it in Paris. Our first stop was to visit Madame Huet in Provence about an hour north of Toulon which is where we got the train to. We hired a Citreon C4 which was a nice little car and fun to drive on the “wrong” side of the road. One of the towns near Madame Huet’s house is a tourist town called Le Castellet, we had lunch up there and did some shopping around the shops and enjoyed the view and fantastic weather -
Le Castellet
I used to spend summers at Madame Huet’s house and it was very nice, having not visited for around 12-13 years it was nice to see not much had changed. We had dinner with Madame Huet and their friends who made some fantastic food -
Madame Huet’s House with 1000 Layers Cake
After two days in Provence we went down to Nice which is on the French Rivera and stayed for two nights at the hotel where Mark and Karine had their wedding, we even had dinner at Le Castel the restaurant right on the beach which was very nice. We visited the old town of Nice and took a road trip around to see Villefranche, Monte-Carlo and Monaco. We didn’t get to see Mark and Karine because they live in Brussels but some good news is Karine is having another baby to join Monsieur Felix!
In Monaco we took a wrong turn and I was looking for a gap where I could do a u-turn back to the main road we just turned off. I found the gap but unfortunetly it turned out to be infront of a police station, so as soon as I was at point two of my three point turn a police man came out and told me I wasn’t allowed to do it. It turns out Monaco has the largest police force in the world per-capita and per-area (512 officers for a 2km squared area) so the chances of getting caught were against me. I also drove a part of the Monaco GP track which was fun although my speed was probably around 40km/h rather than 240km/h.
Villefranche
We headed back and made a quick stop off in London where we visited Matt for pizza which was good fun -
Matt and Pizza at Berkeley Square
We did a quick shop around London and even managed to get a London Pride Pint in at a pub somewhere in Mayfair -
Pint and Selfridges
We also visited a restaurant called Ping Pong which is a small Dim Sum chain only in London, you can’t order bad food from the menu and the fruit flavoured teas are a speciality and its all a very resonable price. Here’s Amy and I in Ping Pong in Soho -
Amy and me in Ping Pong Dim Sum
Altogether we had a fantastic but exhausting holiday taking in so many locations in such a short period of time. We could have done with some more time and it all seemed over very quickly. The flight back was not too bad, it was much quicker than our last return flight with China Eastern, we left my parents house at 16h30 on Friday and were back in Manly at 7h15 on Sunday.
27 days without a blog entry, surely I’ve set a new record? We are down to one camera at the moment and that is a DSLR which doesn’t travel well, so anything we do normally doesn’t involve taking a camera. We recently went to Stu’s 30th Birthday at Table for 20 in the city which was excellent and a very different dining experience. We also went to Simone’s 31st Birthday dinner at a little restaurant in North Sydney which was also very nice.
This weekend was a big one and it involved cameras so here’s a proper blog entry to celebrate! Although most of the photos are from Nancy and Marcus’ camera.
Amy, Nancy, Marcus and I went up to the Gold Coast for a long weekend to relax, enjoy the more temperate climate of Queensland, do some surfing, eat out at nice restaurants and generally have a really good time. We covered most of that whilst we were away.
Amy’s parents kindly let us stay in their beach unit at Burleigh Heads for the long weekend. Queensland and Northern NSW were just coming out of some of the worst weather they’ve ever had (although the good news is the dams are full) and the surf was still pretty full on when we arrived. The first night we went to a Thai restaurant in Palm Beach that we knew was good from previous visits. Marcus and I went over to BWS (Beers, Wine and Spirits) to get a bottle of Rose. We weren’t sure which one to get but the guy there recommended we get one of the more expensive ones, which came to about six dollars each. I don’t think it was a very good one in the end.
As you can see from the picture below the beaches have all but gone following the storms -
Gold Coast Beaches Destroyed
On the first full day we went to a restaurant in Burleigh Heads and met up with Amy’s sisters for lunch. It was a good chance to see how the babies had grown up and see that Zara is walking now -
Lunch at Burleigh Heads
We then went for a little drive up to see the super bank and all the other surf spots along the coast there. They were all pretty brown and horrible from the storms but there were a couple of people out. We also drove up Boundary Street which has Queensland on one side and New South Wales on the other which Wade told us about last time we visited. In the summer they are in different timezones which must be confusing.
Amy, Marcus and Nancy at Burleigh Heads
That night we went to Broadbeach for dinner, which was very nice. The next day we met up with Uncle Jack (Marcus’ Uncle) for lunch at Connors, which is a nice cafe in Burleigh, Amy ordered a burger and it came out without the actual burger inside of it which was pretty funny.
Later in the afternoon we decided we would visit the Hinterland, so we drove the hire car inland, unfortunetly I didn’t see the signs saying “road closed due to landslide” so we didn’t get very far but we did have a nice hot drink at a tea house on the way back – it is funny how cold it is in the Hinterland compared to by the sea!
One of the highlights of the Gold Coast is the crazy golf coast (putt putt) that is just down the road from the unit. It has three different style of games, water, jungle and one I can’t remember the name of but looked liked a bad dream. It was good fun and we did the scoring properly as so it became competitive. Marcus did a fantastic shot where he said “this is how you do it” without looking, hit the ball, it bounced off two obstacles and went straight into the hole! I think he was fairly sure he was going to win, so when the winner of the first game was revealed… well, I’ll let the facial expression explain for itself -
Amy Wins Putt Putt
We then had another round and Amy won that one as well! Just behind the Putt Putt course was Hooters. I’ve always wanted to go to a Hooters, just to see what was going on. It turns out it’s a family restaurant, but we checked it out anyway. It is a strange concept because on the one hand there’s these girls wearing these outfits and on the other there’s children celebrating their birthdays. The waitresses are all wearing outfits that look like they are from the 80ies and the food is very American. It was good fun and wasn’t too bad, I got the impression that Nancy and Amy were not as keen on it as Marcus and I were -
Hooters Girls!
For out last day before going back to Sydney we went to Byron Bay. It is only one hours drive South of the Gold Coast so it is definitely worth the trip. Byron is a really nice town which we have been to many times. The surf was a bit better at Byron and Marcus went out at Shipwrecks to get a few waves which looked good -
Byron Bay Shipwrecks
Then our holiday had to come to and end and we headed back to the airport to fly back to Sydney. A fantastic break I wish we were still there. In between going out we watched the entire original Office season 1, I forgot how good it is!
There has been some pretty good Easter trips, 2006, 2007, 2008 to name a few. This year was no different! We made a trip up to a place called Pacific Palms, which is a little bit North of Seal Rocks. You can actually see Pacific Palms from Seal Rocks and vice versa. I’d previous been to Pacific Palms before for Marcus’ Australia Stag so I knew we would be in for a great weekend.
As is always the way with surfing, there was no waves for Marcus’ weekend but this weekend, with me being the only person who is dedicated to the cause, there were waves a plenty. In fact I’d have to say that the corner by the rocks in the picture below was one of my favourite surf spots as it was mostly lefts and protected enough to let you get out and then work your way into the bigger waves as and when you feel comfortable simply by paddling away from the rocks. It was kind of like a reverse Wategos at Byron. Obviously this isn’t how it always is but Easter weekend just had the right combination of pressure, swell and direction!
Morning Burn at Boomerang Beach
Chris took a few photos of me out there but didn’t get any of me actually surfing any waves which is cool because I take ages, but here is one of some guy getting green room time -
Tube Time at Boomerang Beach
The place we stayed at was also fantastic. It is called TAMBAC and as you can see from the first picture has some fantastic views of the beach. The setup was one main house which had a bedroom and then two little smaller houses which had bedrooms and bathrooms. Here’s Amy and Lorraine on the first night -
Amy and Lorraine in the kitchen at TAMBAC
The kitchen area was used very well this Easter with some fantastic meals and drinks being prepared. Lorraine, Amy and I were the first to arrive with Lucy, Marcy and Chris arriving a bit later. Lorraine cooked a mexican based dish which was fantastic and which we ended up eating again for lunch the next day, it also started a food cooking arms race which was to last the entire holiday.
On the first full day Chris and I went surfing at Elizabeth Beach where when we paddled out a couple of dolphins swam past which sounds like a fantastic experience but it actually makes me a bit nervous, try to imagine how a dolphin would feel if you walked past it whilst it was out of water. So with that surf done we went back to the house and chillaxed on the decking with the weather which was forecast to rain -
Books, Scrabble, Braids and Sun
Lucy made some delicious hot cross buns from scratch (flour and other ingredients etc..) which were delicious -
Hot Cross Buns with Lucy and Marcy
That night we celebrated Passover which is a is a Jewish holy day and festival commemorating the Hebrews escape from enslavement in Egypt. It was good fun and as the youngest person at the evening, I had to sing a song in Hebrew which was challenging but good fun. We drank King David – Concorde wine which probably the only wine I know of that doesn’t give me reflux and also had chocolate covered matzo which is delicious! Marcy cooked Brisket in some delicious sauce for passover which was very tasty.
Passover Reading
The next day I went for a morning surf at Elizabeth Beach again, this time with more people out and less dolphins and clearer water. I got a real nice wave which meant surfing was done and dusted for that day. I got back and we all went off on for a trip to Shelly Beach, which is a protected beach just to the right of Elizabeth Beach and much like the Shelly Beach that there is here in Manly, although this one had a rather large crowd of naked tubby old people on it which kind of ruined its tranquility.
Nudie Beach
That night Amy and I cooked BBQ with sausages, rissoles and salad. It was also the start of some serious poker games. The key with poker is to not allow any of the other players to be able to read your face -
Extreme Poker Face
The next morning the poker continued out on the deck with Lorraine showing a clear lead in the game. I went surfing three times that day out front, once in the morning, once again at lunch and once again at dusk. I went out on Boomerang Beach this time and it was brilliant fun. The waves were all breaking left and as an extra fun bonus there was a backwash giving every ride a Newport Wedge feel to it as whenever I was riding a wave there would be another smaller wave coming towards me at some point which when our paths crossed always ended badly. That night we played beer pong which is a good way to drink lots of beer, you basically have to throw the ping pong ball into one of your opponents cups, which is filled with a small quantity of beer. I imagine you could fill the cups with harder spirits but we are all too responsible for that -
Chris and the fine art of Beer Pong
That night we celebrated Chris finishing his MBA course with a roast dinner cooked up by Lorraine and chocolate cake with Easter eggs on it. It was delicious as per usual!
Lamb Pre Cooking
We finished the evening with sparklers and party hats on the deck. The next morning we went out on the deck to find this bad boy sitting on it -
Python on the Deck
The whole snake event turned into a media circus with me taking photos of it, the neighbors next door climbing over the fence to take photos of it with their mobile phones and the neighbors on the other side looking at it through the safety of binoculars. We finished the day with another BBQ after a delicious pumpkin soup that Lucy prepared for lunch. We played poker and watched Superbad on the huge TV the house had and then sadly the next morning had to make our trip back to Sydney.
Moon Rising (yes moon) over Boomerang Beach
Until next time!
For my birthday last year (2008) Amy got me a red letter day to fly in a helicopter over Sydney. I said I’d wait until the summer to do so I’d get a real nice day to get some great photos. Well that day came and it was a scorching 37 degs out west so I headed to Sydney Airport for the 20 minute joy flight.
Me with Bell 206L-3 LongRanger at Kingsford Smith Aerodrome
The 206L is a seven seater aircraft but there was six of us on the joy flight so everyone got a window seat. Two other people who went up flew in a helicopter that had no doors which would have been cool but you cannot take your camera on those flights in case you drop it. You have to wear a lifejacket for the flight, I thought a parachute would have been more convenient.
Having never been in a helicopter before it was a fantastic sensation taking off, helicopters don’t require a run up like planes so suddenly going from being on the ground to being up in the air is fantastic, plus the forward speed can be much slower in a plane so you get the sense of just floating in mid-air I really enjoyed it.
Australia vs. South Africa – 3rd Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground
After taking off from the airport and flying over a couple of parked 747s we flew over the SCG where a game was going on. The strange thing about flying in the helicopter was it reminded me of Flight Simular 2004 for the PC but with really good graphics.
Downtown Sydney
This is Fort Denison which sits in the middle of the harbour, it looks cool from the helicopter a bit like a Google Maps shot.
Fort Denison
We then header over to the Northern Beaches, stopping over Manly where I could see our flat. You can see how low lying the penisular of Manly is, I bet one day I do a blog post about how the Corso floods! The beach furthest to the right is Collins Flat, one of the finest beaches in the Harbour.
Manly with the Manly Ferry
The helicopter swang around and I got a great shot of Fairlight and our flat (three buildings to the left of the furthest right hand white building by the beach.
Fairlight and our Flat
It was a fantastic experience thanks to Amy, if you like these pictures then you can see all 313 photos at Flickr.
This weekend we went down to Boderee National Park for Rach and Mike’s wedding. We left Friday night and drove down in some gale force winds that were really driving into the car. My concern was the wedding would be as windy as the stag the week before but it wasn’t. We arrived at the house we were sharing with Esther, Gaétane, Mel, Chris, Cooster and Snappers which was right on the beach in Vincentia, it was very nice.
I got down to Green Patch where the wedding was being held a couple of hours too early and parked in the wrong car park so it wasn’t for a while until I found anyone (I went earlier as I was filming the wedding – Amy came down later and so got to have a lay in). The weather was overcast but this was perfect as it didn’t make it too bright for the ceremony.
Rach and Mike Getting Married at Green Patch
The beach wedding was fantastic and there wasn’t anyone else on the beach at the time (it was an 8h30 service). Josh did a fantastic job in conducting the ceremony and there were some great readings from Erin and Matt -
Matt doing a reading with Rach, Josh and Mike
After the reading champagne and orange juice was bought out with some Croissants, Pain au Chocolat, Almond Croissants and another pastry based pastry. There was quite a lot of them and not enough of us so I had to eat four which was fine as we had not had breakfast yet!
Amy and Me at Green Patch Wedding
After the great ceremony we went back to the house to chillax and ended up having a sleepy before waking up, getting something to eat and then heading to the homestead which was also in national park, 13km down a dirt track which would have been great for a rally car although the Vitara was fine.
The homestead was by the Sussex Inlet and had a colonial feel to it as we wondered around the gardens drinking tea and playing croquet and lawn bowls.
Lawn Games at the Homestead
A jazz band was also playing and Beatlassi did some Beatles songs whilst we sang along which was good fun. Rach and Mike then turned up on a boat and we drank champagne to celebrate there arrival – very good fun.
As the sun set we moved into the tent where dinner was served – a delicious combination of fish, meat and salads. We then had little cup cakes for desert and the beers and champagne were still flowing when the DJ and drummer Rach and Mike had hired started the party.
Dinner and getting ready for the speeches
Rach’s Dad did a speech and so did Mike’s brother Darrell which was very funny indeed, Darrell later told me that night he was “writing cheques he couldn’t cash” which is my new favourite one liner.
Disco Fever!
It was a fantastic night and a great wedding which was very relaxing and chilled out which I think was just what Rach and Mike wanted which was great.
The next morning we woke up and had to be out at 10am which was a challenge. Lorraine and Matt cooked breakfast in the house opposite us where we went over to and then we went down to Cave Beach which was looking really nice. I tested out Amy’s waterproof camera in the surf and didn’t loose it but didn’t really get any good pictures but I’m working on it.
Cave Beach and Amy
A great weekend! Off to the Gold Coast tomorrow. Good luck to Nance and Marcus who are getting married tomorrow about 16,000km away!
