Slow

Kylie Minogue; Acer Arena, Sydney-Homebush.

What are the first few things you knew in your lifetime about Australia? Some people might answer; Didgeredo's, Kangeroos, The Great Barrier Reef, Koalas, The Sydney Opera House.

These would also be true for me, but I would also add 2 more on the list. Rolf Harris and Kylie Minogue. Having seen everything else I've written about here already; it was time to see the final one. So Lauren and I scuttled on over to the Olympic showgrounds on a Tuesday night to go see the showgirl herself. Kylie. Quite an odd show really, an arena full of people, not many of them moving very much, not many kids like I thought there might be, plenty of gays but an awesome light show and sound spectacle to see when you looked past the thousands sat in front; and we had "Gold" seats.

I couldn't possibly compare this gig to anything I'd normally go to, cos it's nothing like those. In it's own right it was awesome, though I could only do it once in a very blue moon. Like the Spice Girls in 1998, I'm glad I've seen another of the living worlds most famous stars perform.


Without snobbery toward the dated songs that made her famous, she performed I Should be so Lucky, Better the Devil You Know and Step Back in Time

The stage went off like some of the best bits of a Daft Punk gig , some of the glamour of a Kanye West show, and the acoustics of a U2 show. All in all, well impressive. Nice work Kylie. Except next time - try making the tickets a little cheaper, it's the most I've ever paid for a single act concert here or in the UK. Did someone say Economic Crisis!?

Ding Dong Merrily on High

The 12 Pubs of Christmas Episode III.

If you're a regular reader of this blog - I think there might still be one or two out there - mum? dad? You'll remember the format of the 12 pubs of Christmas pub crawl. A route of 12 pubs - all attendees generally wearing something Christmassy, and each drinking one drink at each pub before moving on about 40-50minutes later.

The first year we started in Paddington and made our way into and through the city.

The second year we hit up the Rocks and then looped back into the city.

This year, we ventured out to Balmain, and then after about 5 pubs, made our way into the city and toward the Metropolitan Hotel, the finish line of the 12 Pubs of Christmas.

Needless to say, I feel honoured and proud to have sunk 36 (+) beers over the past 3 Christmasses, although this was a little different not having one of the Chambers brothers in the party with us... some excuse about moving interstate to Victoria or something...

This year was also a first for me... as it later transpired to having had one of the most unhealthy days eating ever too... I think the final count was one KFC, one o'Portos, and two Subways... I don't recall if it was two foot longs or not but even still...

So again, the memories side of things - not good... I do remember having a lot of fun, a lot of laughs... and know I didn't get lost this year between pubs. I do remember not finishing at the magic 12... and sinking around another 3-4 beers, and the obligatory Jaegor Bomb or 3, and maybe a Jack n coke for good measure... it's not particularly surprising what happened out the taxi window on the journey back home through Sydneys Eastern Distributor. I blamed the drivers driving at the time... hilariously.

A huge congratulations and thankyou goes out to Kevin Hussey, for whom these crawls would not have been possible - as well as to the 100-200 patrons that have joined us over the last 3 years... I wonder if I'll be starting a spin-off series in London - next year - I do know, that 12 pints would scare me.

Right as Rain

BlueBottle and new Toys...

So I experienced 2 things new this week or two... first, was a lot more pleasent than the the second...

After a media storm kicked off the life of Canons new 5D Mark ii... I managed to get lucky and get one of the very small consignment that made it into Australia. So I have been living up the joy of having a full frame DigiSLR with a monster 21mega-pixel sensor, and full 1080 High Def video recording capabilities... nice.

Then yesterday, I went for a swim after work... and got stung. I dived face first into an oncoming wave - something I'd do quite usually... a sensation I'd not felt before hit me. It felt like coarse sea-weed swiping from my collarbone, up across my face to the ear on the other side of my face. Luckily my eyes were closed, as I'd just been zapped by a blue-bottle (jelly-fish). I had 1hour of what I can quite certainly describe as the worst pain I've ever endured at the hands of an animal on Earth.

The lifeguard put me in a hot shower and I had to suck up the pain until it eventually subsided. Nice. Just what I needed, another water-phobia!
(Edit: a couple months on, and I'm no happy once again back in the water - though I always think twice - and quite often put both hands out in front of me when diving now.)

(Picture from an exhibit at the Australian Natural History museum- click on it for a bit more info).

Crack the Shutters

Camping - Bouddi National Park

So a weekend of being away from Sydney was ahead of us... Not too far mind, right on the southern tip of the Central Coast, not too far from Gosford.

Destination Bouddi National Park. Matty, Si, Michelle, Loz and a few others all drove over before midday and set about hiking down hill to a secluded little beach called Maitland Bay (I think!). Here we had the entire beach to ourselves (almost), and bathed, explored and ate a picnic lunch. An older couple drove their boat in to shore before the man, comically stood atop his vessell cooking a BBQ in nothing but Speedos, had the wife in the water scrubbing the hull for barnicles and algae... it was like something from a Carry-on movie!

We packed up shortly after and hiked the long uphill back to the cars. From here we drove around to Bouddi National Park and once again hiked downhill to the campsite awaiting our arrival. Another abandoned beach with only one other group of people in site. Some awesome rolling waves coupled with beers (don't try this at home kids) saw us messing about for the afternoon drinking the Saturday afternoon away before dusk.

Wedgie & Alison arrived, and soon we were awaiting one of Mattys famous camp stews for dinner. After said meal, things got a little hazy and the high-jinx stretched into the night...

Banquet

Bloc Party - Hordern Pavillion

So here we are. Sorry - had to start with that... Bloc Party, one of my favourite bands of recent times, out in Oz, and I managed to get tickets this time, albeit to the second spillover show after the first sold out in less than 5minutes.

I took my camera along, as I have been to a few gigs of late, and planned to sneak it in, the body with no lens under my jacket, and a 100mm lens cunningly wrapped in a sock and placed in Laurens bag... the doormen waved me thru, and searched Laurens bag - a little panicked, I was almost laughing out loud when he aked her to removed the "socks" so he could check out what else was in the bag!

And so we went in, drank some beers and anticipated the band. The last time I saw these guys, was at Glastonbury, they absolutely went off... this time however, they just seemed plain jet-lagged, tired and over it. The pitfalls of being a mainstream act too, meant the idiot ratio was higher than I'd like at a gig too... though with negativity aside, they played Banquet and everything was fine in the world.

I split from Lauren to go and try to get some close-up shots of the band but struggled in the density of the crowd. I resigned myself to some average shots and then returned to the seated area with Lauren with about 4 songs of the gig to go... then, a bouncer spotted my camera. I had the torch of shame pointed at me, and was then escorted out the back exit of the Hordern Pavillion - not before I'd whipped the memory card from my camera... they were quite good about it really, and we just listened to the last couple of songs from the entrance of the Hordern thus beating the crowd home...

I won't bother seeing them again... sour grapes? me? never!

Kids

Movember & Paintballing

Another November, another dodgy Mo - this year I opted to grow some super dodgy handlebars off the end of mine. I was, once again extrememly happy to lose it.

As a final Mo foray, a group of us headed out to the killing fields... the paintballing killing fields that is for a day of firing Body Shop Bath balls at each other and getting quite dirty... and welted. The usual cheap option was soon surpassed as the organisers showed us the standard weaponry that we would get for our $40 - and everyone upgraded their weapons to shoot about 10 or more paintballs per second... if required... I managed to go most of the day before feeling the brunt of several of these rapid fire little doo-hickys as they sprayed the back side of my right leg... nice. I made up for it during the day with a couple of awesome little shots.

Poor Lauren copped one to the head in the first game despite her fool proof plan of staying at the base for the entire match. She bowed out a few games later and surrendered her ammo to me - which was nice :)

I'm on a Beach

Australian Rental Property #2 , Maroubra - New South Wales, Australia.

November 1, It was time to move to my second longish term home in Australia. One suburb away from my old home in Randwick, is Maroubra. Famed for it's slightly rough past, the "Bra Boys" have caused some fights in their time, and maybe, just maybe, kept the prime beach front property prices that bit lower than all the other Eastern beaches. Thanks boys.

So a Saturday spent moving stuff from one house to another, the Sunday spent getting things straight, and then the following week nights, having to zip back and forth to the old place to get things finalised for our bond... and then the following weekend - SWEET SWEET NOTHING. A relaxing weekend at the beach. A year of weekend holidays at the beach starts here.

I'll leave you with some random shots from the surrounding areas...

Blue

Bundstock 08 - Blues n Roots Festival

Looking back over our year and a half at Bundock Lane, one of the key highlights would have to have been our house warming party - Bundstock - a rock themed affair.

Knowing that to try and re-create a party that was successful mainly for its spontenaeity would be a failure, we had to work out how we could draw out a sequel and not tread to much on the toes of the last gig. So it was that the Bundstock Blue n Roots party came about. The option of going as Blues music, or even an interpretation of something Blue or root-like was there for all.

An Awesome Mr Bump, Bananaman and his girl; BananaGirl, Sonic the hedgehog and his 60's madame hosted the party. We all took a walk into town to buy some ice and show off the costumes in public, to which we recieved shouts, car toots and passers by asking for photo's.

The night went on a long time... much drink was drunk, including a very tasty blue home made punch, and then so it was, Bundock Lane was just about done.

The morning after was a little hazy, I do remember Azz cracking through most of a bottle of Jim Beam by himself, winding up pretty smashed, again, by about 1pm.

Thanks for the memories guys, and good luck in your future escapades.

It's a War

A bit of a break was required in the usual 'pack-it-all-in' weekend regime. For our tenure at Bundock Lane is nearly over and I must find a new home to live in. After Lauren and I hit up a bunch of properties, we were left hoping - a couple of places that really appealed to us had come up and we had lodged applications.

We headed out West, for I had a wedding shoot to do the following weekend and I needed to check out the venue for potential shots. During this visit, we got a call from a real estate agent advising us that we were firm favourites to get one of the places we'd applied for on Maroubra Beach. We were over the moon with the prospect of spending the Summer months, living at the beach.

The following day, it was time for some relaxation - the previous and upcoming weeks business was sign to let loose for a bit. I went for an exploration session around the South end of Maroubra beach and sucked up the fresh sea air before some crazy busy times ahead.

Oren Leaving/Supergrass

It seems like every few months, someone else from the Sydney circle heads off overseas. This time is the turn of Oren. So for a Friday night, we headed out for dinner and drinks in Coogee. After we all ate more than we should've I had a gig to make that I'd double booked - Supergrass, from the UK.

So off I went with my camera, hoping to capure some good shots of Gaz and Co. However where the last few gigs I'd been to, I'd been able to smuggle in my camera under a jacket, the warmth of the Spring months meant I had just my T shirt on, and as such, a bouncer required me to check in my camera for the performance. I was to say the least, bummed.

However, every action has a reaction, and this was no exception. For without the shackles of a weighty camera, I was free to drink several more drinks, and then go a little crazy and believe I was 10yrs younger, for half an hour at least.

Flashbacks to several years ago, they started playing one of my favourite all time songs - "Movin' " - and as the chorus chords and drums came crashing in, I found my feet bounding me off the floor - several inches at a time... then I noticed the usual British suspects that liven up the front 'pit' area in a usually well behaved Sydney crowd - they were going nuts. My feet followed and pretty soon I was in there too. Just like I was 18 again, the fun and adrenaline pumping... just one thing wrong, I'm not as fit as I used to be, so I had to retreat promptish to get my breath and allow the springs in my legs to recover!

And so I walked away from that gig, with a massive smile on my face - nostalgia running through my veins and ready to head back to Orens leaving party at the Coogee Bay Palace - with just a handful of pitiful shots taken with my phone - still, stoked.

The night wound its self to a halt as the Palace opened its front doors only to sweep out the party goers onto the beach promenade.

Sick

Adelaide, South Australia - Part 2.
Sundays Sun rose behind a layer of thick grey cloud - we tried our best to ignore it, and went to Rundle Mall and found cupcakes to eat with our coffees. The ground was still dry so we headed off towards the cities hospital and academic area to see what we could see. The rains spat down, and so it was that we decided to go run for Budget Rent a car, to pick up a little Toyota + GPS to help us out with the remainder of the long weekend.So off to a little place called Hahndorf - a town first colonised by the Germans way back when. It shows with the main drag in town keenly modelled around European origins. Lots of sweet-shops and faux-schnitzel hauses, lunctime passed and it was time to move on.

I typed in Glenelg to the computer interface of our in-car guidance system, and the rest was childs play. We breezed down to Adelaides sought after real estate area; by the coast of course, where a fancy modern marina is surrounded by modern ristorante. The beach here was quite different from those I'm used to in Sydney, a high speed Norterly wind made it pretty chilly too! By this point the skies had cleared and it was time to take some time out to relax. It was time to splurge a little after spending 2 nights in a pretty average backpackers. So we stayed in an Oaks service apartment at that same marine, overlooking part of it, and also the parks. The sun was not far from the horizon and so, I put on my hoody, slung camera over my shoulder and went about getting some shots down at the pier.

A cruisy evening where I can recommend you not going to "Wok-in-a-box" in Glenelg, and it provided us first with a meal, and second some bad stomachs and nasty after effects the following day.

Our final day, and it was time to get the value from the already cheap $32 per day Toyota Yaris. After I cooked breakfast, we headed south, across some lovely rolling hills to Goolwa. The town is pretty small, and was built around the need to ship stuff from the ocean up to Adelaide. Then of course came train links and other advances and it became a little sleepy. I revelled in some Fish n Chips for $5 - which is about $6 less than the cheapest fish n chips I ever found in Sydney and ate in front of a large paddle steamer sharing the same name as the town.

From here we drove up to Port Elliott thanks to a recommendation from one of our Adelaidian (?) friends in Sydney (thanks Anna). I went for a wander around the tiny coves and beaches there where I shared time with brightly coloured rocks and small hermit crabs, and of course my 40D.

Our last stop was to be Victor Harbour where we saw the horse drawn tram plying its trade before jumping back into the Yaris and heading blindly back to Adelaide with full trust in a GPS system that royally failed its way back. We wound up in some suburban street before scrambling in some alternate co-ordinates.

We hit up the Botanic Gardens for 20minutes and sucked up the last South Australian Sunset we might ever see before gunning it back to the airport. Again, with seconds to spare, we checked in to our flights which gave minimal time to refresh ourselves before jumping back on to an aeroplane back to Sydney, New South Wales.

Walcott

Adelaide, South Australia

It's starting to get a little bit commonplace for me these days... this Friday night rush to get away from Sydney in order to be some place far far away, for the sake of pleasure. This Friday was certainly no different. After Virgin Blue re-scheduled flights, it meant I had about an hour to get a bus ride home, pick up sticks and jump in a cab. Not too bad - but when the cab showed up 25minutes late - the pressure was well and truly on. We did make it to check in however, and then I munched through an overdue lunch (at 6.30pm), only to find out our flights were to be delayed until the time we had originally booked them for. Thanks Virgin Blue - and yes, that line of gratitude is laced in pure sarcasm. At least we didn't get routed to another airport with a bus connection to complete the journey like the passengers in the next lounge to us got. You certainly get what you pay for when it comes to air-fares.

Enough ranting, We touched down in Adelaide, South Australia late on Friday night, with the time difference a slightly odd 30mins behind Sydney, a long day was made a tiny bit longer. I ran over the road to a bottle shop and got myself a bottle of Coopers Pale... not a new experience here, but I figured much like the "Guiness tastes better in Dublin" theory, I should do this. And I can verify, it did taste "bloody good". AFL final weekend meant there were footy fans in the hostel, which in turn meant a pretty ropey nights sleep. Regardless, we slept in past the alarm and left ourselves approximately 3minutes to throw clothes on, run some water across our faces and get outside to meet our tour bus.

Minutes later I'd managed to grab some Farmers Union Iced Coffee (a South Australian delicacy!) and a banana to stop-gap me till lunch. Our tour then took us on a meandering tour first out of the city, and then onward through the Adelaide hills. I'm sitting in my seat staring out at a landscape that conjured up images of LOTR movies and of English looking countryside. The grass was lusher than I've ever seen in Australia, the wild flowers were; well the most and brightest I've seen here and then the odd beehive littering the landscape. It all became completely Aussie once more with a sign saying "Horse-poo - $2" however.

We jumped off for our first leg stretch at a toy factory; which is also coincidentally enough home of the worlds largest Rocking Horse and some Aussie wildlife. A little underwhelmed, we headed deeper into the Barossa, past full-to-the-brim lakes (who'd know Australia has a water shortage!?).

Next stop was a man-made phenomenon; at a damn. This damn is nick-named the whispering wall and was so names way back when it was built. Workers on one side were giving their boss a bashing, who was stood on the opposite side. The acoustic properties of the damn meant sound is carried without much loss to the other side, a regular conversation can be held - it's quite unreal. Needless to say the employees were given the boot.

After this, we headed to what I personally would rate one of the best known wine brands in the world today; Jacobs Creek. Over the creek we went, a boggy little stream and soon we were in the show room of the winery. All around us vineyards and one of the most modern buildings I've seen used for the purposes of floggin crushed & matured grapes. We sample some and moved on...

We hit up 3 more wineries where we bought a few bottles, tasted maaany types of wine as well as stopped for an Aussie BBQ along side some bull rushes and a stream. The weather was perfect, and I almost thought I was back in England, in the 80'd when we had such days as this. To re-enforce this - I was also suffering the worst hayfever since my UK days too... I discovered on the way home that Rape Seed is grown locally... that beautiful yellow stuff is my kryptonite, that is, if I were Superman ;)

Most of the tour bus snoozed their way back home to Adelaide after all the wine tasting, myself included. On arrival, the two of us took a long walk from our the place we were staying to the city centre. There was surprisingly little open for a Saturday night, so we headed back to a contemporary place nearby our hostel to have dinner.

To Be Continued...

A Certain Romance

A little luxury in my own back yard, Sydney, Australia

Work was over with for another week and another escape from the day to day monotany of work was due. This time, and quite unusually, the escape would come without getting away from the city physically. More so, just emgracing the city as a tourist destination rather than a place of work.

That evening I started out my drinks at a clients site, before heading out to a pub on Jones Bay Wharf with my work colleaugues. I split from there at 8 and went to meet friends, one fresh from a year in the UK, at the Ivy lounge on George St. There we sipped drinks in the VIP section for the evening before slipping home for the weekend ahead.

After some early house hunting in the morning, I took Lauren on a mystery drive which would wind up in the Rocks at Sydney. Once she thought I was hopelessly lost, in the city I spend 8-9 hours per day, I turned in to the valet parking driveway of the Shan Gri La 5* hotel and feigned to ask for directions. Of course I just handed over the keys and proceeded to check us in.

An afternoon of freakishly high temperatures so early in spring (30+) was a great way to sit 29 floors above sea level sipping Moet and watching everyone below scuttle around Circular Quay and the Opera House.

Evening time came and we dined Al Fresco with the Opera House over Laurens shoulders, and the Harbour Bridge over mine. A lovely setting for a feed - it was just too bad they let kids in there too :P After that we headed up to the Horizon bar - something I've been meaning to do for all of my two years in Sydney; and sipped on AWESOME cocktails (at a price!) overlooking the Sydney Westerly horizon.

The following morning, we ate Brekkie at the 'La before jumping on a packed out train to Milsons Point for the start of the Annual Sydney Running Festsival. We were hopelessly late for the event we'd signed up for but luckily we were able to slip into the 9km walk. So similar to last year, where I ran - this year I strolled along with my camera to take some nifty shots of the bridge from some rare vantage points (the usually busy roads!). The day was again lovely and warm and it made for an awesome stroll taking in all of Sydneys best loved cliched tourist spots; the Botanic gardens a highlight.

With the walk over, it was time for lunch, and a very late checkout at 4pm after yet more R&R. An awesomely relaxing weekender.

Sit and Wonder

Kempsey, (Near Port Macquarie), NSW, Australia

So it is with a huge thankyou to Oren for making this blog post possible... as my fledgling photographical business makes its way along on training wheels toward a world bereft of IT technical issues (I wonder if I'll read back on this statement in five years and think either "How naive of you Luke"or "Heck yeah, go O!").

Saturday morning was again started at an early hour, as myself and Lauren jumped in a cab driven by some deaf dude who struggled to work out why we wanted to go a different way to the airport - "we're picking a third person up!" I repeated again and again... I asked if he knew MacDonalds and to turn right there, to which he asked if we were stopping... he just couldn't grasp the concept that we would be picking someone else up. Regardless, we finally got ourselves to the terminus and awaited our Qantas Link flight to Port Macquarie with Coffees, bagels and fruit salads.

We boarded a little propeller driven plane, nothing like the last 10 planes I'd been on and a rather 'difficult' stewardess shepherded us to our emergency exit seats; read us our rights in case of emergency and we were off. A noisy take-off out of a drenched Sydney airport, and we were finally amongst the clouds for the sub 1 hour trip North. Just as we started the descent, the clouds finally eased off and we saw Blue sky for the first time in days. Orens father welcomed us to the tiny airport as we awaited baggage, to be towed from the back-end of the plane to the drive way along side the terminal... we sure weren't in any kind of major city now.

We stopped off at O's place and met the family and the extended kanine family before heading to his folks's shop to start photographing product and surrounding.

It was soon time for a break, and so the 3 of us went to lunch with parents. We sat along side a muddy river, fresh from a silt influx created by the very recent storms, and ate delicious food. Some more photography carried us through the afternoon before Oren took us on a grand tour of Kempsey, encompassing South West Rocks and Crescent Head - and a lighthouse; I can't remember where! An evening of good food and wine finished off Saturday nicely.

Sunday morning, I took it upon myself to do one of my regular once monthly early wake-up calls to go photograph the sunrise. I had never had so much company as my friends Neville; Myrtle and Rani the Dalmation, followed my footsteps all over the property as I tried to spot composition in the mornings rising light. A delicious home-cooked brekkie and it was time to finish business, the last of the shots snapped before we jumped in Gregs car for the long road back to Sydney... overall an experience I would never have seen without my obsession for releasing a camera shutter. If this is the beginning of things to come, I can't wait for my future with cameras.