Shot On Location

The Outsider

2010-06-16T21:19:00.006+04:30

Newquay, UK

So for third foray out to the far South-West of Englands

party capital; Newquay. Englands premiere surf spot, where there are actual waves, sometimes, tha

t belittle the pathetic wash we usually see anywhere near the English channel.

The occasion; Marks Stag weekend. The coincidence; World Cup 2010 opening weekend.

I took a train out from London and managed to find the guys on the south west edge of the M25 at Chertsey, from there it was a solid 4hour drive to Newquay in a hired Ford Galaxy. After much chatting and catch-ups, we arrived in a windy, overcast Newquay. Concerned not to go to hard on the first night, we failed, and drank a skinful of beers, ciders and random shots. The sun did come out for a while late afternoon, and we sat out on the decking at Sailors bar soaking up the rays, enough to turn one or two of the party pink in the face; Matt.

Somewhere in the early hours of Saturday, we crashed after the warm-up night expired. We lost Paul who had to make it back for a wedding. So we mulched on down to the beach, with very dusty heads and managed to conjure up the motivation for a match of beach cricket... after destroying the ball, we moved on to a game of football, and then 3 rounds of beach volleyball.

Realising our hangovers were gone, but that most of our shoulders were a raw shad

e of pink, we headed back for dinner and the beginning of the night aheads drinking. We dressed Mark in a full USA outfit, since England were playing the US in the opener and proceeded to march him around town to the onslaught of boo's from other England fans.

We managed to score some reserved leather sofas, right in front of some large projector screens - it was just a shame that Gerrards goal wasn't quite enough to see England t

hru with a victory, after that howler from Rob Green... anyways... the atmosphere a little muted but we powered on till the late-early hours of Sunday before falling down.

Sunday came, and with it a huge breakfast to discuss the carnage from the nights before. I then managed to spend nearly 7hours getting home, JUST in time to witness the Aussies fall apart in front of ze Germans 4-0. The world cup may not have begun perfectly, but the weekend couldn't have hit the mark any sweeter.

On The Train

2010-05-30T18:49:00.007+04:30

4 British Cities in 4 days,

May 2010 will be remembered not for much in the way of socialising or fun, more for travel... not quite the kind I like most, but a much cheaper kind... Business travel.

In a 3week period, a project I was assigned to with work, meant I had to be onsite, working late into the nights while there was a lack of people around. Fun, but obviously, overtime is always a nice thing to have.

So first stop, Cardiff, the capital of Wales. A first for me, and the third new capital city visited since my re-location from Australia. I'd never visited this place before, though I was pleasently surpised by what I saw. Lots of modern architecture mixed in with some traditonal stuff. The accent was great to hear en masse I must say. During my dinner break, I was able to go check out the Cardiff Millenium Centre; a kind of Sydney Opera House kinda complex that is home to several theatres bars and restaurants, all housed in a funky modern building... well worth a look down at Cardiff Bay - situated right by a selection of the usual British chain restaurants interspersed with a couple of token independents. On my way there, I was using my iPhone to map my journey, and managed to make the slightest of wrong turns that meant I walked about 2kms in the wrong part of town... a lovely old council estate. Just 20metres East, on the other side of the railways lines, a lovely modern road with a higher class of housing and tree lined streets laid in wait. After gobbling down a nice GBK Blue Cheese Burger, I was set to head back to work...

The next morning, I took a walk through the main town centre, saw a funky John Lewis and town Library before boarding my train to Bristol...

After getting booked to arrive in the wrong train station, my journey didn't get much better... my cab driver was dopey - I asked as I got in if he took credit cards... and then at journeys end he says he doesn't... so then drove me to an ATM, only to try and charge me for the extra journey! Regardless, the work was done, with a nice Italian meal sandwiched in the middle.

I travelled home and spent the next few nights regaining my sleep, a weekend passed, and it was time to set off again, this time on board a train for Leeds; a place I didn't really get much tim e to explore... other than Pizza Express for lunch and a seafood place for dinner; hey hum, the following day I jumped on board another train with a colleague across the Pennines. A lovely train ride in fairness... a brief glimpse of English history, with lots of Mills and classicaly styled towns set with a great hilly/mountainous backdrop.

I arrived in Manchester, the city was buzzing, so many people around, though probably because it was lunchtime. The work here went easier, and we were able to get a bit longer for dinner, this time opting for ribs and BBQ chicken. I popped back in the next day and then made my exit just after midday, back to London on a Virgin train, where sleep was not an option due to noisy neighbours... so I busted out my macbook and watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs... loving "work" like this!

Jumping Jack Flash

2010-05-23T14:18:00.004+04:30

Strobist Work Shop, London, UK

This year has been quite the lifestyle changeover. London is expensive. Anyone that says it isn't, is lying, or on very good money. Last year I was able to blow lots of disposable on Camera equipment, this year, I've settled for a couple of accessories and my biggest photography splurge was today; a Dave Hobby Strobist workshop.

David Hobby started a bit of an internet phenomenon with his blog www.strobist.com, it gives amateurs and beginners an amazingly informative place to start off-camera lighting (cos we all know that the flash on camera is rarely flattering on your subject).

So in I went at 9am, and was taken on a walk-thru of the masters workflow. Building shots up with 1,2, 3... 6, 7 lights with seemingly the greatest of ease. Eventually he dis some live demoes and I was picked out to be part of one of the shots... I think, my first even "professional" photograph (Unless I count my dads stuff of course).

A great day and well worth it in terms of what it gives to technical skills and handy tips whilst photographing subjects.

Belgium - Easter

2010-04-06T21:58:00.007+04:30

Belgium

With our ordeal well in the past; when we were trapped in a snowy Paris, Eurostar came true to their word and shouted us a free trip to Belgium. Better still, we timed it over the Easter long weekend.

So on Thursday morning, we headed out to Kings Cross (minus passport!), then I returned home to pick it up again!... with that minor hitch behind us, we finally boarded the Eurostar for the first time of our lives bound for Brussels. We'd managed to book this whole thing just 48hours in advance, and had the prospect of a nice hotel room packaged in to the price.

Finally, we sped out of London, through Kent, under the Channel, into France, and then on to Belgium/Brussels. I can't recommend Eurostar enough. You can check in and be on the train within 30minutes, and off at the other end in less than 5minutes... take that air-travel!

We grabbed a cab from the station and dumped our bags at our plush hotel room; not sure if I've stayed in a larger room than this before. We then headed off on a quick-wet walking tour of the grand place, mannekin pis and anything else in between and around, which is fairness to Brussels consists mainly of stuff that expands your waist-line and/or gets you drunk. So with a chocolatey waffle consumed we carried on our musings and eventually wound up grabbing some Thai food for dinner, as you do in Belgium.

Following morning, it was time for a massive trip down memory lane. We took a trip out to my late grand-fathers sisters place, she's one of the last members of the 'grand' generation in my family and it had been a great many years since I last saw her; maybe 18!? The house seemed not to have changed, though of course it had. They welcomed us with a delicious lunch, with wine accompaniment along with my mothers cousin in the mix for company. We chatted and reminisced of a couple of almost long-forgotten family holidays and surprised each other as to how much we remembered.

After, we returned back to Brussels and met up with Em & Jazz, who'd just arrived in town. A pub crawl began, and before we knew it, we were sitting next to a stuffed horse drinking fruit flavoured beer. Wicked fun, unless you managed to fracture your foot falling off a stuffed horse.

Following day, against my hangovers will, we managed to get outta bed, and jump on a train out to Bruges - the land of Chocolate and medi-evil architecture. A healthy lunch paved the way before we gave in to Belgian fries and chocolate... all in all a healthy day; well it was Easter Saturday!

Easter Sunday rolled in and we really hit a new level of relaxation on a city break. We shunned the desire to go see new things and instead, spent a morning in and out of coffee shops, watching the world and it's congregations trot by on what was afterall, a highly special day for many in the religious world. We headed back to London, and made it in less than 2.5hrs door to door... impressive. Brussels is good fun, just don't expect too much from the sights though.

sleep in, rnr coffees by the streets

Little Saint Nick

2010-01-01T16:30:00.009+04:30

Christmas & New Years

My blog has been running around 5yeasr now, and this is the first Christmas I have written about, that will have been spent in England. Another first, will be that my Australian lady, will be sharing it with and my family also.

The days leading up to Christmas were great, lots of traditonal Christmas activities, window shopping and all the usual smells and sounds my mind associates with the season; having had such a long break, I think really heightened my senses. Lauren was quickly introduced to Lakeside and Bluewater, as well as the crushing crowds that seem to go everywhere with you during December!

With Christmas done, New Years rolled around, and we were given a taste of Australia as we were re-united with out good friends Matty and Kiri who were holidaying also; also not to forget old house mate Jarrad, his girlfriend Emma and our other old Aussie friend Emily! Phew. We celebrated in lazy style, knowing that heading too far from home would result in a nasty long trip home. So with old buddy Flee and brother Tim, we drank the night away with live music booming out - we watched the fireworks while thousands stood in negative temperatures doing the same - outside.

Happy 2010.

Keep the Car Runnin

2009-12-13T09:10:00.012+04:30

La Reunion

So it would be after a second final meal, that we finally set off for the airport in Sydney. The last few weeks have been a massive, exciting adventure and now we’re at the departure lounge with the foreseeable future set to be totally different.

Sydney has renovated its departure lounge somewhat, and it was pretty amazing to walk around, compared to how dodgy the old layout used to be! The airline we travelled with Air-Austral, hurried us to the gate a fair while before the plane was due to depart... only for us to sit on the run way for well over an hour delaying us even further - a total of 8hours on our original booking document. The cramped 777-200er finally groaned off and was soon cruising nearly 6000miles from Sydney, to La Reunion.

A rare occurrence for me, I actually managed to get a decent sleep in on a flight, probably about 6hrs before touching down at a local time of around 4am. We cabbed it in to town and then after hassling the sleepy concierge, he gave in and let us check in to our room very early (compared to the 11am on our booking info!). This was perfect, we grabbed some coffee and croissants and then dozed, internetted and chilled before the rest of the world came back to life.

We spent day 1 mainly arranging details for the next 3-4days and trying our hardest to stay awake to beat the incoming jet-lag. The morning sun had given way to rain clouds a

nd our first day made us think that we were in for some pretty lousy weather...

On day 2, I awoke and pretty much headed out to the lure of Pauls cafe just over the road (I’d recommend avoiding the St Denis Best Western other than the fact it is located next to Pauls - awesome cafe). Once our gear was packed, I ran down the road to pick up our wagon for the next few days. Once we were out on the road, the spirit andexcitement of the trip started multiplying by the second. We soon got away from the normal capital city and out to some more interesting places... well at least there was whitesand! St Gilles Les Bains was very euro holiday resort, but the roads on the way there made up for it. The freeway which affords some totally amazing views of the coast and of the inland geographical wonders.Once we’d jumped out and eaten some lunch at a random beach spot we found, we pointed the car inland; toward the town Cilaos. Here we would be based to do some walking around the Cirques; some amazingly crafted (by nature) rocks/mountains. The drive there was pretty cool, with about 4000 hairpin turns and even a few tunnels that looked much like they were dug by hand, just a few weeks ago!

On arrival we spent some time getting used to the town, and working out what we’d do over the next few days...The jetlag still hadn’t worn from us and we managed to get up at about 5am without even trying. Breakfast and drinks done, we headed off out of town and into the valleys. What followed was nearly 5hours of awesome walking. The usual physical stuff, with lots of waterfalls and seriously amazing views thrown in for good measure... end of the day, we were smashed and fell asleep as soon as the sun did.

Up again at silly o clock, we embarked on a long drive out of the centre of the island, back around some coast past a place called Le Tampon and up towards Reunions major tourist draw card... Le Piton de Fournaise; one of the worlds most active volcanos (last went off in April 2007).

As we drove up, the landscape changed from tropical island, through a man made forrest, to lush New Zealand style lush grassy valleys, finally giving way to red igneous rock as far as the eye could see. The Volcano was smouldering away, and we were lucky to be there this early as, not long after, the clouds would roll in a spoil the views.

We took a walk around the outter rim of the volcano, since the inner rim had been closed due to the eruption 2years earlier. It was still impressive, and even things like the rock we were walking on, were obviously quite different to any other country trail. Once we were unable to see much more, we turned back on ourselves and headed for our cruddy little white hire car. Back down around the windy roads, the brakes were squealing like a piggy on market day. The heat soon returned once the altitude was gone too... back up past 30degrees, we found our way to some light refreshments before thinking about where we would stay for our final night.

Tired, we found a room in St Gilles Les Ba

ins for the night without too much hassle... it turned out that this could be one of the nicest highlights of the trip so far. Two pools, AC, bars, beach within 20metres and lots of lovely sunshine. Our tired feet got some much needed relaxation with many a chilled out beach walks.
To Do:
Pauls Cafe - St Denis
Cilaos and its walks
The Volcano (leave early before the clouds creep in)

Avoid:
Best Western St Denis (Overpriced and not particularly clean or modern inside).

Love is in the air

2009-12-08T04:01:00.021+04:30

The Wedding of Todd & Anna, Coffs Harbour

With a few crazy days left to complete a list of stuff as long as my arm, Monday through Wednesday were quite hectic, but in a good way. I gave myself a full day to finish off

the Kashmir holiday video and plenty of time to pack etc. By the time Thursday had finished, I’d been able to catch up with Sydney friends and even spend some quality time in the pool.
On Friday morning, Lauren and I travelled up to Coffs Harbour. We’d left much earlier than we should’ve though and wound up crashing out in the rented house near Sap

phire Beach... by the time the other guys arrived, we were pretty much back on track and I’d had a chance to get some beers in. We then headed out via a minibus expertly driven by the Groom (keen to not drink the night before his big day) to one of the local tap houses... yet more reunions with old friends, and meeting of the couples parents too. With a few beers inside us all, we were removed at just the right mo

ment I think... next day was the big one.

It all started round at Ems place (her family home always in Coffs - and what a great place it is!) where her father cooked 20-30 hungry wedding guests a BBQ brekk

ie. With that done, everyone split and begun their routines that had been planned to lead them up to the afternoon ceremony. Before 3 o clock rolled around, me and some of the guys managed to get in a few ocean swims and even a game of beach volleyball. The girls were all busy getting themselves ready when we joined them to throw on our threads and slap on some Brut!
A shuttle bus got us to the Price family home that had been amazin

gly decked out for the occasion, of course my cameras shutter went nuts from the get-go throughout the day. I watched on as the groomsmen got their act together (Todd with Aaron, Wedge & Lowen) and th

en as all the guests started to arrive. There was a great buzz once everyone was waiting for Anna to arrive around the rose petalled garden corner.

Once she did, there were gasps gallore as she walked elegantly around the corner

with her parents. I took a quick glance over at Todd and could see he was exploding inside with emotion, it was seriously awesome to see!
The registrar took the lead and brought up Anna and Todds sisters to read poems to the congregation. Tears were flowing amongst many of the friends and family present.

The moment came, and the pair were kissing having just exchanged rings. The sun was tucked half between the clouds and the hazy blue Coffs sky as the ceremony br

oke for Champagne. The signature ink and bubbles flowed straight after one

another.

Once the photo’s and formalities were done, the guests were shuttled down to the reception venue of the Beach Stone cafe. Leaving a window for me to so a small photo-shoot with the guys... muchos fun.

At the recepti

on, Salmon and Lamb were served after some of the most awesome little aperitifs were gobbled up by everyone before the limelight went to the fathers and best man. After the laughter was done, the dance-floor opened up for Todd and Anna to take a dance... kisses, more tears, and then drunken dance-offs finished off the evening.

Best Wishes to Todd and Anna, the future

holds so much for you guys. Thanks again for letting us be a part of your day.

* * *

The morning after the day before had everyone up at Todds place again for a breakfast, and then the goodbyes began. Many people had flown in from various parts of the cou

ntry and the world, and some had to start leaving as early as midday. This was a

lso an emotional part of the weekend for me too, having to say goodbye to some amazing mates that I've come to know over the last several years living in Sydney.

A few of us took another ocean swim, which would turn out to be my last of these for the foreseeable future. An easy Sunday followed where I also got to show off my Kashmir snow video (2years in the waiting!). A delicious BBQ grill finished things off nicely before an early start of high emotion saying goodbye to my friends.

A few hours after arriving home, I discovered from our agents that the flights we were expecting to be on the following day had been bumped much later in the day - it opened up a large portion of our remaining days for some slightly more relaxing things like topping up sun-tans and playing with the dogs.

This bonus day was a blessing in disguise, we were totally ready to go, so all we could do, was swim and bask in the sun, for the final time this year or next. Later that day, we moved heavy baggage into the back of Laurens dads car and it was time for another of those emotionally charged points in life... till check-in, and then the walk around the security clearance point of no return.

You've been awfully good to me Australia, I can't wait to be back.

Far From Grace

2009-12-02T16:29:00.008+04:30

Bucks Weekend, Melbourne, Vic

After a 5 day countdown that now seems synonymous with finishing at any job, I had massively increased excitement levels due some awesome upcoming travel plans starting virtually the minute I finished work on Friday 27th November.

After stopping by my office to hand in my mobile phone, I met with Lauren who treate

d me to a beautiful Thai meal in

Haymarket. The two of us toasted to our finished jobs and what laid ahead of us in the coming months. I have to pay special mention to Chat Thai... busy as anything but worth the perseverance with reservations or a long wait.

6am Saturday morning I was heading

off for the first of 6 flights over the next month. I arrived in Melbourne at about 8.45 and was soon cabbing to the city centre to be re-united with, well, basically all the boys I’ve really come to know and call my friends in my time so far in Australia. It was Todds bucks

weekend and thus everyone had their party hats on ready for the carnage and fun about to unravel. Todd was of course, in the dark about it all. After pacting (whateve

r happens on bucks, stays on bucks) I will of course be recounting a very wholesome experience and will not mention what people did in toilets, who got physically removed from night clubs, nor who couldn’t handle any more booze on the follow up day.

We travelled out of Melbourne together and got cabs out to a Clay Pigeon shooting centre... here we were instructed on how to shoot shot guns at moving fluro orange targets before we were picked into teams school-boy style. 4 teams split and then moved around a course of 8 clay launchers. Our team, the Teenage mutant ninja turtles (dedicat

ed to the team captains love of a VB tinny), quite frankly, kicked arse and won the group stage no problemo :P Everyone had a go under pressure from a full crowd to shoot 2 clays launched at the same time - TMNT managed them all bar one ;)

After this... memory becomes hazy... but something of a random women who loved to remove clothing each time the buck made a s

hot... I’m not sure, actually, I think I’m just hallucinating in my thoughts there... there was no random women. No Cherries.

The gun club then became our first pub of the day, and with cheap beer, no one would complain. Todd was dressed as a homeless and challenged to sell some Big Issues at the follow on pub.

Jonesy, Kingsley, Jarrad and myself got to Transport before the rest, and duly carried on drinking activities... at this point, ‘just beer’ became Snakebites, Jagers, Scotch and needless to say I was pretty well on my way by the time everyone else showed up... they must’ve missed the memo, but most went home to get changed and look pretty. Soft :P

Transport became Lounge bar for some at something like 9 or 10pm, Wedge, Cam and myself moved on about

10 and wound up meeting everyone at the Croft Institute - I science lab themed bar down one of the Melbourne’s back streets... some crazy moves busted before retiring to Whopper meals with all the other drunkards at 3, 4 or 5am...

and sleep...

Next morning we headed to the South Bank on the river for Breakky. Some very dusty heads on most shoulders but big breakfasts seemed to do the trick in getting back on track. Into the casino, Lowen managed to win a bunch of cash while the rest of us struggled to remain standing upright... next up - 10 pin bowling!

I don’t recall a day where I was in a bowling alley, kids parties around me and I’m with 15 guys (by this point- spare a thought for fallen comrades) and smashing back jagers and beers... and I’m sure Todd won’t recall a day where he got bowled down the alley by his buddies.

I wish I could tell more, it seems so, err, responsible... hey hum.

I hopped on the return flight back to Sydney with some of the guys and contemplated what my head would feel like in the morning... on my first glorious day of unemployment!

The Kids are Sick Again

2009-11-16T10:01:00.009+04:30

Maximo Park, The Metro, Sydney

On what was quite a memorable day even before it began, I got to see one of my recent favourite bads for a second time in Sydney. Friday 13th, unlucky for some, but not Lauren who finally got to tell her HR department what she thought of an awful

manager that she’d had the misfortune of working with for the past year, on her final days exit interview.

As Lauren recalled the questions and a

nswers over a 6pm drink, we relaxed before heading out for a Seafood Paella and jug of Sangria. I hadn’t had crab since the last time I visited VietNam so it was great to get dirty at dinner shelling a crustacean.

As we finished up dinner, we scuttled across George Street and into the Metro, I think I’ve been 10-15times now, to Sydneys most used tour venue for British bands (so it would seem!). With beers in hand, we welcomed on stage the Sunderland guitar/keyboard band.

A little over theatrical the frontman may have been, he kinda has to be to make up for some really flat stage presence from other members of the band. Regardless,

they can play live, and they have written a bucket load of songs that I have loved over the past 5 years of so.

We cab-charged home and let a certain ex-employer worry about the $90 cab fair.

The rest of the weekend was spent out in the Shire getting our acts ready for the impending weekends of mayhem before we finally jet off for a holiday en route to the UK.

We took a bushwalk to prepare us for upcoming trekking in December, and made our way down to the river near Laurens parents home. Hundreds of yellow wild flowers were out. The day was around 28degrees so it didn't take long for the sweat to start pouring... well worth it though.

An evening watching 2012 at the movies... set the pace for the remainder of the weekend... cheap n cheerful :)

Baby You can Drive my Car

2009-10-12T09:57:00.008+04:30

Bathurst 1000, NSW

A car race. The car race; as far as most of Australia's V8 SuperCar following are concerned. 1000kms raced on a Sunday for a place in the history books... Ford Vs Holden (GM/Vauxhall/Opal).

We headed up on the Friday after work for the weekend, and after about 4 hours of driving, we arrived in Bathurst and shacked up for the night with some family friends. The following morning, we headed to the track, and got acclimatised to the corporate box with free beer/food that would be our home for the weekend.

We were fortunate enough again, to have a contact of someone in the pitlane, so I got to have a nose up close to one of the Bathurst racers. A ver

y well oiled machine. The excitement amongst the fans was obvious the entire time, with all the guys around attempting to out-stat one another with Bathurst race history. Everyone's first question to you: "Ford or Holden", to which I would reply "Honda".

Some exciting stuff, including some fires in the pit lane and some spectacular crashes, the weather was so-so, so the beers and photography took a front seat. We ended the final day of qualifying, very drunk indeed and hit the hay looking forward to the big race-day. A Holden had made it to the front row of the pit with about 4 Fords breathing down its neck.

Race day came, and some of the most exciting stuff was the air show where some military jets paraded along the finish straight at eye-level; quite a rush! As the track flooded with sponsors and officials, I figured "there are so many people down there, they wouldn't notice an extra one", so I tried my luck. I managed to slip past a dopey security guard and I was on the starting grid with the drivers, pit crews and everyone else it would seem. I behaved myself, got some pictures and legged it. The race started, and with around 5hours of lapping to go, I was getting quite into it. Lots of thrills and spills littered the laps and eventually, it would be the same Holden that got Pole, that would take the Bathurst 1000 crown. A fun weekend, especially for all rev-heads...

2009-09-13T05:16:00.008+04:30

Robbie Fowler comes to Sydney,

Okay, so he's ageing and is never gonna be anywhere near his Anfield best - but it was kinda cool to have a big name coming to play in an A League game for a change. Fowler signed a deal to play with North Queensland Fury, a brand new team who only started out life this season. Until tonight, they hadn't managed to secure a victory... EVER.

The first half played out with Fowler shooting towards the Cove, he didn't manage to do much, except get muscled off a ball or two. Meanwhile, at the other end of the field, Sydney won a Penalty which John Aloisi took all too gingerly allowing the keeper to comfortably save it.

The Townsville outfit mananged to get a goal but it was ruled out... and so the first half ended 0-0.

The teams came out, and I have to say, Sydney didn't once look like scoring in the entire half. Considering they're second in the league, it was pretty shocking. But the Nth Queensland broke loose and the ball got to Fowler, from just outside the 18yrd box, he masterfully lobbed the Sydney keeper; Bolton. All 43 of the travelling fans went nuts, and I could hear plenty of people in the Sydney stands applauding the goal also... I don't, in fairness think they see too many like that.

That was how it finished. We witnessed Fowlers great winning goal, which marked a new teams first ever victory.

Fowler 1 - Sydney 0

Alpha Beta Gaga

2009-08-31T10:41:00.005+04:30

New Zealand, Queenstown Part 2...

With the light rains that accompanied the Shotover jet, came the start of a storm system that would not leave Queenstown during the week we were there. As a result, high winds basically screwed up chances of riding the Wednesday, as much as some of us tried to get out there.

Tuesday night however, was Simons birthday and a very large session was had by all. After some dinner at home, we headed out to Dux de Lux and joined in the trivia night; of which chances of winning were slim sue to many of the questions being very much of a Kiwi nature. Lots of pool, beers and high jinks led everyone to a late night.

On a Wednesday where many were hungover, I did however get a few runs in before we called it a day and went for another legendary FergBurger - my wish/prediction of nailing 4 of these in a week was very much on target.

With Thursay, some of the snow that had fallen over night was finally rideable, and something other than fish-market slush could be felt under board. A few of us went to Coronet Peak once again, and I'd have to rate this as the best day so far. Conditions were still quite windy, but the lifts were mostly open, and there were plenty of fresh lines to be had. To this day I don't recall ever being the guy that got to cut the first tracks in the powder down below the main lift... but I managed it today; and it rocked!

With some awesome riding in the last few days, Lauren and I also managed to get in a nice meal together at a restaurant I'd re-visit in a heartbeat; The Botswana Butchery. Lamb shoulders from the next village, sublime cocktails.

With one of the resorts closed due to high wind on our final day, we figured it was natures way of telling us to do something different... I'd heard from various people about the prospect of doing a Lord of the Rings horseback tour... but due to the last minute nature of this, we had to settle for a regular horse tour. However, it was pretty damn cool! After meeting our steeds for the afternoon, we trotted out of a picturesque farm and on through the rolling hills of Queenstown. Lots of wildlife including deer (which I would later eat in a juicy FergBerger). My horse decided to push my un-ease by going for a wash in a pond; with me of course thinking I would go over his nose and in the drink... thank goodness, that didn't happen, it wasn't exactly warm weather.

With a final nights drinking with everybody, it was soon time for our departure from Queenstown, back to Christchurch and then homeward to Sydney. Great holiday.

Oh!

2009-08-24T10:40:00.010+04:30

Queenstown, Otago,
New Zealand

So after no significant amounts of Annual Leave since July 2008, a year had been a long time to wait for my next overseas jaunt. Surprisingly it was only with a week or two to go that I really started getting excited, and feeling those feelings that I was feeling when I first started writing to this blog.

I left work on Friday night feeling more pumped than a hyperactive 6 year old. I'd already done my packing the night previous so all was left was to go grab some dinner with Benny who had just celebrated his birthday; a few of us met up at Thai Riffic in the Spot, wined, dined and then stuffed our faces with Cold Rock ice cream. Then it was just a single sleep, and we were headed for Sydney Kingsford international terminal. I love going to the International terminal; especially when the end result is somewhere I've never discovered.

We were soon through all the usual security stuff and jumping on board our Air New Zealand flight direct to Queenstown.

A few short hours later, we were flying over snow capped mountains and dipping down over a beautiful lake, glistening in the midday sun. We jumped out, and I have to say, I don't think I've ever been so impressed by a country, from the airport! It was cool, I could see the snow on the mountains and I was in holiday mode. It was just a shame the Europcar counter was so under-powered, we had to wait an hour to get the car sorted out, but alas we were soon on the way and getting ourselves settled in to the house we'd rented out for the week, overlooking lake Wakatipu.

That night, we met up with the majority of the other guys on the trip - around 20 all up, at Pog Mahones pub.

The following day it was time to get back on my snowboard, also for the first time in a year; the venue, Coronet Peak. The sun was shining, everyone had sunscreen on through fear of instant melanoma it was so strong. Surprisingly the snow was better than I anticipated, but obviously a fair way from awesome. It was however a very good day for everyone to regain the legs, and learn some new skills where appropriate. Day 2 followed right on from Day 1, except this time we headed up to the Remarkeables. This place seemed to have a much better feel than Coronet to me; it was higher and as such the snow quality was a little better too. By this point a few of us were really starting to hammer it down the pisted runs - awesome fun in the sun!

Tuesday came, and so did the rain clouds - the precipitation totally smashed what little snow quality there was and I immediately boycotted any riding in such wet conditions; I did it once before and had no fun! Lauren and I instead headed out to Arrowtown to mellow out and enjoy the best of the day, as dry as we could.

Later on we picked up Shae and Oren, and in a fit of spontanaeity, we jumped on the Shotover Jet Boat ride. 750BHP engines pump several hundred litres of water PER SECOND. This thing seriously shifts. It can also make it thru water around 15cms deep as it basically skims the surface. The skilled drivers take you so close to the rocky walls of the ravines, that if you put your hand out, you could touch them. After that exhileration, they dump you into 360 spins causing waves to smash up the sides of the boat... only negative was the rain that felt more like hail against the face at top speed!

Beautiful Calm Driving

2009-08-17T11:05:00.008+04:30

30th Golf Celebrations - Randwick Coast Golf Course

COME ON, you only turn 30 once in your life right!?

So, instead of the (nice) quiet celebrations of last weekend, it was time to notch things up a little. By playing GOLF!?!

Okay, so it doesn't sound that crazy, but I figured, I'm getting older, so why not do something that fits that vein a little better... and then tweak it by loading the golf carts up with beer!

So I had the pleasure of Todd, Benny, Azz, Rog, Claire, Al, Wedge, Greg, Alan, Glen, Daniel, Conor, Spoons and of course, Lauren to head around the most part of 18holes (we started at 1, and were only on hole 5 by 3pm...). With some stunning shots hit by all, and, well, Rog managed to make one go backwards - it was amazing that we made it to the 13th/14th hole. As the sun dipped down, our gang short cut to the final hole to at least play back to the clubhouse... I could barely see my (10th) ball as it fell into the hole to make that satisfying putt sound.

We headed back to my place where Lauren had decked the place out with a childhood photo of me and some huge ass 30 balloons... the music played, the beer continued to flow, and we even had a huge profiterol cake... I was definitely 30 now; and just the old man hangover left to deal with.

Thanks everyone for making it such a memorable day for me. You are the bomb, and I love y'all.
30 year old Fon.

Fire

2009-08-10T14:56:00.014+04:30

Another Friday night finish, this time knowing I have 3 days off. I leave 29.

I go home, feed, and return to the city with Lauren and meet Benny for a small Blues gig at the Oxford Art Factory. The highlight a Japanese Busker who played the blues; with broken Englishand slide guitar. Several beers and some interesting Aussie blues artists later , it was time to keep it sensible... It was going to be a tough, but enjoyable weekend.

I took it easy through Saturday, went to the driving range with Oren to get in some practice for an upcoming round of golf. An afternoon of tea and chatter followed before heading home for some dinner and then a Katherine Heigl movie at EastGardens movie theatre.

Sunday morning, I awoke, got dressed in light weight running gear and then hopped on a bus at 7.35am. Before I knew it, I was stood on College Street next to Hyde Park in amongst several thousand other people, dressed similarly to me. I plugged in my ipod and listened to random tunes whilst I waited for the inevitable shuffle. at about 9.15ish, we started to shuffle forwards. I ran across the electronic start line, and my tag clocked 0.01 on the computer, and I started running up William Street, the first turn of a 14km route from Sydney to Bondi Beach.

Bloc Party, Doves and Kasabian were helping me along the way... I was totally zoned in this time, and determined to make the entire 14km non-stop, including the 2km incline 'heartbreak hill'.

I made it, and past the 10km mark feeling pretty good. As I passed the 12km mark with Bondi Beach insight, I stepped up my rate, still having to skip past some of the other 84,999 people. On to Campbells Parade, I was sprinting, or something like sprinting, the slightest knock woulda sent me flying, but I held on, and managed to lock in a time of 73mins 44secs. I missed out on 10,000th place by a few hundred spots... old age definitely kicking in!

I returned back home to get showered and eat something before Lauren and I headed back out of Maroubra, and wound up in Clovelly rather than the packed out Bondi. I think I sank about 7 celebratory beers, and left, well, pretty well sozzled. I woke up at about 4am having already taken in 8hrs sleep and realised my legs were feeling about as responsive car on bricks.

A few hours of broken bad dream sleep later I awoke sober and happy. It was my birthday, an apparrant "big one". Lauren and I had the day off from work, so decided to recover from the comfort of home.

After some Breakfast, I was spoiled rotten with gifts. Some awesomely stylish cuff-links and a lensbaby for my camera (a type of the lens that allows for some trippy effects).

At this point, I was casting my mind ahead to the following weekend, and as such decided to go for another practice hit at the driving range, this time with Todd & Lauren. We blasted nearly 200 balls off the platform before retiring stress free on a

After I'd played about with my new toys, we headed out to North Sydney and got lunch at one of my favourite Thai restaurants (Stir Crazy) in Kiribilli, near Luna Park. We filled our bellies with some awesome meaty tastes and then let the food settle, before driving along the North Shore to Toronga Zoo to go visit the newest addition; my namesake (ish); Luk - an 8week old elephant.

When we initially arrived, he was asleep - though not like the snow leopards (I have yet to see a snow leopard even when zoo's report to have one, as they are always asleep). He was asleep standing up, using his trunk as a fifth leg; talented little blighter!

After checking out all the rest of the zoo had to offer, including an entertaining mating ritual courtesy of the giraffes we headed home and cooked a fresh Salmon dinner... awesome.

I return to work, 30.

Kingdom of Rust

2009-07-31T10:56:00.003+04:30

Doves - The Metro, Sydney

If the Flaming Lips were an explosion for the eyes, the Doves were to do the same for my ears and soul. For about a decade I've been listening to their 4 albums, and have had many an emotional moment to them, driven very fast or just day dreamed of being somewhere else. In short, I love their music.

I was just a little excited to be going to see them. Lauren and I locked in our now regular spot at the Metro, optimal for sound and vision... it was time to stand back and let the band do the business.

The addition of the new album really added some greatness to a set. The band can even afford to leave out some awesome older tracks like Catch the Sun which in fairness, they are probably sick to death of playing. Jetstream and Kingdom of Rust were amongst my new faves, but Black n White town and Pounding just did it for me.

11 out of 10.

It Overtakes Me/The Stars are so Big

2009-07-29T08:20:00.009+04:30

The Flaming Lips; The Hordern Pavillion.

A gig back at my love/hate venue... love it cos it's a decent size and there's usually a pretty decent atmostphere, hate it cos I can never get close to the stage to get the shots I want, and the security are usually pretty hot on SLR cameras.

That said, I smuggled in my 40d with my 50mm lens in my other pocket without any problems again. Once buried in the crowd I put my half drunk beer in my pocket, replacing my 50mm lens and set up, ready for the gig I'd anticipated a very long time indeed.

This band, as you may have heard put on one hell of a stage show; stunts, props, actors, lights, balloons etc etc they try it all out and just have a whole heap of fun with the crowd. The lead singer split from a giant TV wall that at the time was projecting an intimate part of the female anatomy as if being born, the rest of the band followed and before we knew it, there were 50 giant coloured balloons bouncing around, along with the front man inside a zorb, rolling about over the crowd!

Streamer and confetti cannons blasted, as kids dressed as frogs and kittens danced away at the side of the stage all the way thru the gig. They only made way breifly for a large inflatable Slug and sunshine!

The light show went on and it was undoubtedly the best small (ie. not Daft Punk at Homebush or U2 at Wembley '96) touring show I've seen in Australia, maybe even the world... fantastic and highly recommended, even if you're not so familiar with their music.

Food, Glorious Food

2009-07-28T06:59:00.012+04:30

Lithgow, Blue Mountains Degustatio - Weekender

After an interesting week, that started with getting some dodgy virus, right around all this Swine Flu hoo ha, I got signed off work for 3days, only took 2 and was back, shakily on the Wednesday. By Friday evening, I still felt like I'd done 10days straight so was totally stoked to be packing the car at 5pm with enough chicken to feed 15people, and enough clothes to get me thru a weekend of rest and relaxation.

I picked Lauren up and set off down Paramatta Road toward the Blue Mountains.

A mere 3 hours later, and we were pulling up at Toad Hall once again, as 2 Kangeroos bounded in front of the head lights. We carted our gear from the car to front room, and then busily prepared what would be the first meal of the weekend for everyone there; a FonMacca Massala!

Toddles managed to pull out from his bag, a delicious, rich Pecan pie, home made of course.

What then followed was 44hours of fine dining, great drinks, maaaany laughs and some nice chill time...

I woke up early for some reason on the Saturday, so decide to sneak out of Toad Hall, with my camera and go for a little wander. I found myself leaving the outskirts of the property, finding that the frosty ground led me further and further down the road. I barbed fence caught my eye, before I was hopping over it in search of a cool morning panorama.

As I made my way thru the fields, a couple of Roo's skipped in front of me - ahh yes, I was definitely in an Australian Winter Wonderland!

My feet started to get wet, so I turned back, I probably only covered 1km but it felt like I'd been gone longer. As I walked back into Rog's place, a few of the guys were basking in the early morning Sun out front, from there, we ate fresh bread, muesli and then played some backyard cricket. Nice.

I gave Oren a hand making some Rice Paper Rolls which would be our mobile lunch, before the gang collectively wagoned up and drove out to the Pulpits Rock BushTrail. about 6-7km of medium grade terrain with some killer views.

So we marched, down steps, across streams, looking over sheer drops, along cliff faces and under some craggy cave like rock formations - before stopping for our lunch. A swig of Jack fueled the return journey. 12 or so sets of tired legs headed back to Lithgow for some dinner and drinks.

A chicken dinner followed by Choco Lava cake and ice cream with strawbs topped off a perfect day.

I coulda slept longer, but around 9 hours was enough to recover before being awoken by the smell of some delicious blueberry pancakes courtesy of Rog n Claire... from there, it was time to clean up, and head home back to Sydney.

Tabloid Lovers

2009-07-08T05:37:00.000+04:30

Good Food and Wine Show & Laurens Birthday

Ever since attending this event two years ago, I'd been looking forward to the follow up! So it was that the Good food and wine event returned to Sydneys Darling Harbour... just in time for Laurens 25th Birthday!

A whole bunch of us met up on a wonderfully sunny day, paid our $20 and then entered into the exhibition hall with all intent of sampling some fine food and wine.

For the first hour or so, my taste buds were in overdrive, able to enjoy every free morsel of food, and every sip of drink - soft and hard...

Much later however, the wine became the main focus, or should I say, getting as much free wine and beer as was possible became the focus. Once again like the last time I attended, the Bavarian beer cafe stand was an awesome spot to hang, with free beer and pretzels for as long as you could stick around being cheeky enough. All served up by the dude with the world record for carrying the most full beer Steins across a pub; I think it was like 16 or something amazing.

At some later point of the afternoon, after we had caught a glance of the travelling Gordon Ramsey, the wine and beer took its toll on our legs. The party slowed and pretty soon we felt the urge for a proper piece of food (rather than barely a mouthful) was the way forward. We headed out to the Blackbird cafe for some cocktails, beers and poor service. Oops... I don't normally diss on here, but it was memorably bad/slow.

Laurens birthday rolled around and it was time to chillax... I made her breakfast and gave her a small gift that I made out of a blank calendar and 12 photographs.

At lunch time, I prepared a picnic, luckily since the sun was out, we were able to go out locally in Maroubra and sit up on the headland whilst we ate and watched the waves crash below us against Mahons pool, idyllic setting really. When the food was done I gave Lauren another surprise, a piece of shiny metal, to hang around her neck. I think she likes it, and I'm sure she loves me :)

Mercury

2009-06-09T11:57:00.007+04:30

Long Weekend; Sydney

With Sydney looking for ideas to promote the city during the WORST month of the year (June - weather-wise), they enlisted the help of Brian Eno. They came up with the idea of the Festival of Lights. Eno's contribution was his projected light-art that would be beamed across the harbour on to the sails of the Opera House as well as some other surrounding buildings like the Museum of Contempory Art.

I had a dodgy compact cam shot of the Opera House, but wanted a better keep sake, so drove into the city at 10.30 on a Friday night and set about capturing something a little more magical. I wound up having about 30mins of shooting time as the lights went out at midnight, but by this point, I had captured a few decent images. My favourite of which is here!

The following day, my old mate Aaron was up from Melbourne for the weekend, and along with the usual suspects, we headed to the Royal National Park to have a stab at some Mountain Biking. I of course also took my camera and managed to get some strobed shots of the guys smashing it thru a puddle. The weather was unusually hot for my self-proclaimed worst weather month in Sydney, and the conditions were perfect for a quick swim in the ocean in Maroubra before later heading over to Todds place for a dinner and drinks evening.

The following day was Matty's birthday celebrations, we headed into Kings Cross to the Czech beer cafe where about 20 of us dined on lots of meat. And Beer. Awesome :)

This left the bonus day of the weekend to recover from the weekends fun, that evening, I went to 6 a side soccer and banged 2 goals in - and it felt good!
- Easy day with soccer at the end - 2 goals

Future Reflections

2009-05-18T08:26:00.009+04:30

With an old friend in town to stay with us for a while, Lauren, Charlotte and I embraced the late Autumnal sunshine that would be the last warm-ish weekend before Winter.

Saturday saw us competing in my weekly beach volleyball competition, where we took on all -comers and won! before heading back to the pub for a few quiet beers. Later that evening, we headed into the city to celebrate Kiri's brithday at the Spanish Tapas restuarant, Encasa. Very tasty, and lots of Sangrias consumed by all, things got a little hazy from there, but not so much so that I couldn't remember then heading on to the karaoke bar with everyone. I belted out Under The Bridge by the Chilli Peppers, and everyone else did some awesome renditions of goodness knows what!

I very hazy & sleepy day followed! We did however manage to get ourselves back into the city to check out some artists exhibiting on the sidewalks at Luna Park. Again, blue-sky and 23 degrees was the perfect way to be doing this. We didn't attempt any rides, as, lets face it - who would with a hangover head on their shoulders?!

We took the opportunity to walk back to the city over the Harbour Bridge and then stopped for a couple of beers along with some lovely pizza at The Australian (pub). Nice weekend indeed.

Photobooth

2009-05-07T04:32:00.005+04:30

A roundup of random stuff...

Thursday - I went n checked out the new Wolverine movie. Now either I'm getting older, and less appreciateive of these kind of movies, or this was very average indeed... ah well - fun nonetheless.

Around about this time, 18months ago, me and Lauren went on our first date, as such we marked the occasion with a meal out on Friday night.

On Saturday, I played in my usual beach volleball comp before heading to the pub with Benny for a few beers before storm clouds rolled in and then smashed down on the Eastern Suburbs for a few hours. There was so much water, cars got washed away down some streets!

On Tuesday night, I attended a short photography seminar and was awarded a $50 prize for a shot I submitted of Lauren, I was pretty stoked, and so was she I think - and was there to be bashful in front of the on-looking crowd!

In August, we'll be heading to New Zealand for a snow trip, so on Wednesday the guys that will be sharing a house together all met in Newtown for a Curry, beers and chitter chatter.

Oxford Comma

2009-04-14T07:36:00.012+04:30

Barrington Tops, Central New South Wales.

This year, Australians (and 'temporary' residents such as I) in New South Wales have been duped. We have lost two public holidays due to them falling on a Saturday, and the government deciding that it would be in the best interest of commerce that businesses open on those extra days. So with no Anzac day off... we couldn't wait to get outta Sydney and take advantage of a rare long weekend in 2009.

Good Friday saw us drive from Sydney North about 4 and a half hours to a National Park called Barrington Tops. The Tops represent the Northern Most region of the Great Dividing Range that rolls from Victoria (North of Melbourne) up past Canberra & Sydney. The Scenery is basically like the Blue Mountains on Steroids. Far more rolling hills and many more valleys to stare down - at least it felt like that anyway.

Rog & Claire had gone on a day ahead of us to beat traffic, and had set up camp at the Devils Hole Campsite. Which was about as far as a Honda Civic would go off road without falling off its axels. From arrival, it was simply a case of keeping warm and fed around an awesome camp fire... where the men on camp would have to go out on fire-wood scavenging missions - not so easy at high damp altitudes.

Cloud cover would often fall in faster than I could toast a marshmallow. You would look up and be staring thru gum trees, and get an image something like the Blair Witch Project. The first night, was cold... even with several glasses of Red Wine and Rogers infamous campfire Stew inside of us.

The following day it was time to see a little more of the place so we hiked the Polblue Swamp trail and checked out some huge Toadstools... or mushrooms - I'm never sure how to tell the difference. Regardless, it was very nice to get back to nature after spending the preceeding months at the city and the beach.

Another night of huddling by the fire, Uno and drinks concluded out camp trip... by this point, nearly everyone present had caught a cold and was ready for an early traffic beating exit. After getting the place packed up on the Sunday morning; Lauren and I took the car back down the mountains stoping to take some shots here n there and appreciate the running water. Running water like I've only ever seen in other continents on this Earth. Nice.

The remainder of Sunday back home, could not have been more relaxing. Sydney seemed empty, all aside from 32 Lindt bunnies Lauren had brought home from work. With a lack of chocolate not an issue... I lounged and tinkered with my photographs until the evening came... and then - oh the sleep of all sleeps after two cold ones at the Devils Hole. I kinda see why the campsite had an intimidating name... though maybe "The Devils Fridge" woulda been more apt.

One Day Like This

2009-03-29T05:34:00.015+04:30

V festival 09 - Australia, Centennial Parklands, Sydney.

I didn't make my feelings secret of how bad the last one of these was when I went 2 years ago... the lineup - so mixed up it made the UK top 40 sound like a Pink Floyd album in comparison, beer queues the worst I've ever seen and, well, that's enough.

This year... no margin for error, the lineup looked good, and I smuggled my own bottle of Vodka in to negate queueing up for beers full stop. Excellent move - cos guess what - those queues were still there... we're talking nearly an hour to get a drink - way to keep the festival vibe up V.

Anyhoo, the festival... it couldn't have been a more perfect day. The sky had zero white fluffy stuff in it, the temparature while hot, wasn't a scorcher, and friends were able to sit on lush green centenial park grass watching Duffy open the proceedings up, despite her grumblings of being first on for the first time in oh - a year or two. She was fun and sounded great. Next up was Elbow, I've been a fan of theirs since Asleep in the Back and finally got to see them live, not lively, but I didn't expect that, and again, a great way to enter the festival atmosphere as my vodka started to cement a foundation for the evening to come.

I did have to line up for some chips and a drink, which took all of 2mins, then I was back to the stage to meet up with Lauren and Oren again before heading off across the festival site to see Razorlight for the 2nd time in a couple of months - result! It was a very business like performance this time around, no frills - just fast hits with no small talk or smiles. By this point I was bellowing out every word of every song embarrassingly for the people around me I'm sure...

Time now for some dinner whilst queing up for food... again, not a great time - about 30minutes for some chips, but the Kaisers were playing about 50metres away so not the worst way to wait for food. They had the crowd, and indeed some of the queue rocking. I ate the last of my potato snacks humming "oh my god I can't believe it, I've never been this far away from home". The vodka was nearly done. Last top up was gonna need to last.

Next up, another trip across the venue to see Snow Patrol, The lead singer in very high spirits, so high, he kept forgetting lyrics to his songs, a little odd I must say, but everyone lapped them up and the stage show was great too...

Now for the grand finale... The Killers... Luckily we were all quite tipsy by this point, I'm pretty sure these boys were fairly average in reality, but banging out the hits from their first couple of albums was enough to get them through, even if the newer stuff was about as well recieved as a 3am wake-up call following on from a very spicy curry. I can't believe I've been going to V festivals since 1997 already, how time flies...

Russell Brand

2009-03-26T10:03:00.004+04:30

Russell Brand, The Forum

Well, I have no photo's, no real measure to describe the gig and nothing else to base this blog post on other than to record a moment of my life in some kind of form.

So, Russell Brand... supported by Merrick & Rosso (Australian DJ's - kinda like Ant n Dec) - he was toooo funny. He had the crowd in stitches most of the time, and it was great to hear the old Essex accent in it's broadest form - even if it's starting to show hints of Hollywood!

"They wanted to put me on the sexual nuisance list for that!
I don't wanna be on that list...
...not for that anyway"

Paparazzi

2009-02-23T10:27:00.001+04:30

Studio Lighting Day long workshop, Artarmon, Sydney

So as you may or may not know, I have been emersing myself in the world of photography over the past year or so, one thing that still felt very foreign however, was the use of off camera flash, and lighting people.

I decided to take a course with the same company I've done courses with in the past - a studio lighting course. I travelled over to Artarmon early in the morning and learned step by step how to light a low key shot and a high key shot with 3-5 studio lights, light metres and radio triggers.

The whole day was tiring, but massively beneficial to my learning and understanding in photography. I quickly shelled out for an extra brolly and a small softbox attachment for my flash... and started experimenting quickly.

Bring Change

2009-02-21T07:39:00.008+04:30

ShapeShifter & Kora at the SoCo Mobile Cargo Club, Sydney.

The format of gigs seem to be one of those things that don't get tampered with too often. A concert hall, a bar or two, a merchandise stand, a stage, a band, a big crown, a lack of sufficient air conditioning; they're pretty standard. So the SoCo Mobile venue pretty much sold itself to me before I even knew who was playing. Actually, this is a lie, since the aforementioned is generally true; I struggled to work out what the heck this mobile venue would be like.

Benny and I decided to give this a whirl. We met before for a few beers discussing our thoughts of what we envisaged the gig to be.

We approached the venue, which basically looked like 4 shipping containers side by side, with some noise eminating from the steel. The doorman was like a circus freak... no offense - he wasn't ugly as a slate layers nail bag, but he had the crazy shades, massive Outkast style afro styled out with flares and a psycadellic skin tight t-shirt. Mad. We get in after have a laugh with said door staff and are greeted by a girl with 8cm long eye-lashes who gives us some blig to wear. The gig was sponsored by Southern Comfort, so it was all branded accordingly. In we go - to see an inverted sea of twinkle lights - on the ceiling. Couches and a comfort zone to one side, a bar straight ahead, and a stage not much more than 10cms in height from the ground. The band playing could be touched, if you really wanted to. I think it was women singing about "Gash" if memory serves. Nice.

Benny and I made our way through many of the manlier sounding SoCo mix drinks right before Shapeshifter would make it out on stage. By this point, the coke, red bull, ginger beer and SoCo had kicked in properly - not to mention the foundational beers... all this adding up to a totally healthy night, as we rocked out to ShapeShifter - great crowd, great band (who even came out and partied afterwards). Great idea. See it, if it comes to a town near you.

Rock n Roll Lies

2009-01-30T10:14:00.009+04:30

Razorlight, The Metro, Sydney

Damn! These guys, finally in Australia! I just couldn't resist snaggin' a couple of tickets.

I've been a bit of a Razorlight fan since early 2004, I saw em playing in the New bands tent at a festival in Ireland, before seeing them at Brixton & Glastonbury... each time, they went nuts. I went nuts. Everyone went nuts.

After my recent ish bloc Party experience, I thought that they may have toned down their energetic act a little, but I was in for a refreshing surprise.

After again sneaking in my camera, under my jacket, we secured an awesome spot just behind the mixing desk, which at the Metro is great, since the sound quite frequently blows out when you're down on the floor or up high on the staggered seating. After analyising the playlist, I was convinced it was gonna be a good show, just enough new stuff mixed in with all the classics.

Johnny Borrell came out, fully dressed as usual, before bursting into song. 2 songs in, he was getting to be his usual sweaty self... shirt buttons undone and his personal take on drama was there for all to see. Theses guys certainly haven't lost anything with age.

As they played: "Fall, Fall, Fall" - a slow ballad - I made my move. I left Lauren up behind the mix-desk and shuffled my way through the flat footed crowd. I managed to walk, right to the front security fence. Just as I got there, the band burst into "Rock n Rolls Lies" I took this as my queue to get snapping. I blasted out a hundred and twenty frames over the course of that song before hiding my camera under my armpit, having a quick mosh for old times sake, and then making a swift exit back to the comfort and safety of my pre-reservered space. A throuroughly, as always, enjoyable Razorlight gig.

INVADERS MUST DIE!

2009-01-25T16:25:00.001+04:30

The Prodigy @ The Hordern Pavillion, Sydney

Haha, wow. How am I supposed to give any kind of a review/blog to this gig!? In brief summary, it rocked the whole house. I have never seen an indoor gig go off so much. From the front to the back, the left to the right - it was like EVERY set of feet was jumping to every punk beat the boys from Essex could bang out.

Spitfire, Firestarter, Their Law, Breathe, Voodoo People... all the hits, and some how, I had the energy levels and adrenaline required to " 'ave it large" as I might have said about 12 years when I first saw these guys live. Awesome Awesome Awesome. Except - I think this may be the first gig where I went the entire gig without getting a clear sight of the dudes onstage.

Tennis and chilling in Melbs

2009-01-25T08:30:00.021+04:30

The Australian Open, Melbourne 2009

So the morning of the main attraction rolled around. A few months back I'd seen an ad for the Melbourne Open on Ticketek and the rest of this trip spanned from there. I'd never been to see live professional tennis before so I was really looking forward to it. To make it even better, the beenie requiring temperatures at Phillip Island were totally obliterated and the mercury shot into the mid thirties. I would take a hat next time, but for the most part I was pretty comfortable most of the day; sweating aside :P

On a sadder, side note, this heat we experienced was the beginning of a very fatal heat wave that would grip Victoria for the next month or so, and take thousands of home and hundreds of lives. My respects to the emergency services and sympathy's to all involved are well and truly out there.

Lauren and I took a tram ride to the centre of Melbourne before walking along the Yarra to the Rod Laver Arena. We eventually found our gate and once again I was 'forced' into smuggling camera equipment in - due mainly to incompetent door men (my stuff was legit I tell yuz!). I've been out of the sporting loop for a little too long and soon realised that I only knew a handful of pro names - where did Sampras, Kournikova and McEnroe go!? (I jest). We checked out a bunch of games mainly starring home grown talent since the atmosphere was at it's best. I can seriously recommend this as a day out - $30 to watch some awesome quality tennis in the searing heat at a top class sporting facility. It was ace - just remember to stay well hydrated.

The atmosphere was truly awesome, the Aussie home fans getting right behind their home-grown talent, and between the courts, the buzz was that of pure fun. A great mix of people; ages gender and class were there en masse.

When we'd taken as much of the heat as we could, it was time to head off home. Sweaty as the day had made us, a shower was definitely called for before heading out for the evening meal. A tasty piece of meat with the setting sun shining intensely at us was definitely an idyllic way to see today out.

Afterwards, my old Sydney housemate Aaron came along and met us at the Crown Casino where only Louise (Aarons Girlfriend) would come out up - $100 on the WHEEL! Still, everyone was a winner with $10 cocktails... very nice.

For our final day in Melbourne, it was time to take in some of the sights of the shops, side street cafes and a final trip to St Kilda Beach (now it would be quieter). After a coffee & Eggs Benedict brekkie, I managed to do what I do best whilst shopping, and scalp out a bargain or two before we moved on. We checked out some of the infamous street grafitti before wandering through thee Melbourne GPO (General Post Office- which now houses designer shops and not much post office). I purchased a pair of Camper shoes, in the sales naturally - and was recommended to hit a roof top bar by the guy behind the counter. We duly searched the place out and was totally stoked that we did, for we got to see some amazing views of the city whilst sipping back on a coke under the comfort of a sun-shade.

From here, we decided to head back out to St Kilda beach. It was now Tuesday, and the crazy rush of the weekend had now passed. We were able to sit and dine on a La Roche lunch (something I did those years ago when I first visited the joint). Though in fairness, the in house beer was pretty dodgy - the chicken was great though!

We took a bit more of a stroll about the place, sat with a juice on the beach and appreciated the afternoon sunshine as the last day of holiday I would be taking until August... at least then I would be in positive annual leave, for the first time since January 08.

As is now tradition, we would need to hot-foot it to the airport to get on our plane. This trip was no exception, a tram back to the city, and a cab caught at peak rush hour (no easy task whilst carrying all the luggage) and we managed to get to the departure lounge with a few minutes to spare. No thanks to the gnarky Virgin Blue Hostess who checked us in.

Melbourne is awesome. This was to be the longest holiday I'd take for over a year, so it was a little sad to be headed back so soon... though it was helped a little knowing I had a couple of decent gigs in the pipeline.

Penguins

2009-01-23T06:50:00.013+04:30

Melbourne, Victoria

Just under 3 years ago, I visited Melbourne as part of my route around Australia backpacking. Back then, I experienced the Commonwealth Games, Wilsons Prom and the Great Ocean Road. So it has been since then, that I figured I'd love to go back and experience some more and last October, I booked some dirt cheap flights to the tune of $60 each way from Sydney to Melbourne.

So last Friday night, Lauren and I arrived at Tullarmarine airport and embarked on our next adventure. Bright n early Saturday, we awoke and headed in via a tram to the centre of the city. We'd both only been once before and so it was cool to re-aquaint ourselves with the surroundings before heading to the car rental place to pick up our rental (toy) car. I bracket toy - as this is all I can really call a Kia Rio (What the?) - it feels like the whole thing is made of plastic. Regardless it drives okay, at least when I'm not stamping my clutch foot down sharply on the brakes at 70kmph :P

Phillip Island is located South East of the city, and is home to the annual Australian MotoGP - which I only really knew from playing way too much MotoGP2 on my old Xbox. We headed to the track for a look before checking out some of the rugged headlands. The temperature was remarkebly cooler than Sydney today, although the Sun would later come out and warm things up - but we'd left 30 degrees behind to get to about 19 degrees...

The evening rolled around after an afternoon dedicated to sealife and ornithology, and it was time to do our Ultimate Penguin tour. Phillip Island is famed for it's wild penguins that return from the Ocean each night. The "Little Penguins" are the smallest of the 11 worldy Penguin breeds and have a funky blue back. We hiked down on to one of the beaches and were placed on our matts to watch as the phenomenon occurred. Sure enough to form, the window of opportunity that allows the penguins a safe trip onto land came by; by night the owls will get 'em, and by day the regular birds of prey will happily feast on Penguin Burgers and Fries.

After 10-15 had wondered past us, we too took a waddle back to the car park, along the way seeing even more of the little critters heading up to 1.5kms in land... that would be painfully annoying with legs that short I'd imagine.

Sunday dawned and after returning the Kia, we set about seeing some shops, checking out the riverside and the casino before jumping on a tram to meet up with my old (well, kinda new-old)housemate Aaron. We took a look at the St Kilda markets before sucking back on cokes at the beach in the warm afternoon sun. Things were certainly warming up.

Azz, showed us back to his place before we slipped off for a walk home via Albert Park - the venue of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. Around the lake, along the track and across the golf course we arrived back in our hotel before heading out for dinner at the infamous Lygon Street. We ate Italian and drank white wine until the staff wanted us out and the half way point of our weekend was done.

Slow

2008-12-15T09:01:00.007+04:30

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

2008-12-14T12:42:00.006+04:30

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

2008-12-11T05:33:00.005+04:30

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

2008-12-08T09:53:00.000+04:30

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

2008-11-29T05:09:00.004+04:30

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

2008-11-28T05:23:00.005+04:30

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

2008-11-09T12:47:00.010+04:30

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

2008-10-27T05:43:00.008+04:30

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

2008-10-13T08:05:00.007+04:30

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

2008-10-06T08:04:00.006+04:30

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

2008-10-01T05:11:00.003+04:30

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

2008-09-30T03:54:00.018+04:30

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

2008-09-23T04:22:00.012+04:30

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

2008-09-08T11:28:00.010+04:30

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.

Goldfish Bowl

2008-08-31T11:31:00.011+04:30

Deep Sea Fishin', NSW, Australia

Originally penned for some time waaay back in July - well that seems like a long time ago now anyways; the long awaited deep sea fishing trip finally rolled around. A car full of 5 guys departed Randwick not long after 6am, and after an all too grisly toilet stop for one of the fishermen, it was time to scoot on over to Cronulla where our grand voyage would depart.

We boarded our vessel and were shown the ropes; or the rods, reels, hooks, lines and sinkers - not to mention some bait. After a bacon roll and a cuppa; we were cruising out across glassy bay seas. As we left the bay, the ocean started to roll the boat around a little before we dropped anchor and set about casting out our lines. It wasn't too long before the first fish were being yoinked in. Red Rock Cod & Sweeps seemed to be pretty popular this morning. From diving experience, I got the feeling we were shooting fish in a barrel at first light.

Soon however, the fishes stopped biting, I'm guessing they'd had their feed for Brekkie and were off doing whatever else it is that fish do when they're not getting hoisted up out of their natural world to potentially end up in a large plastic bucket, only hours later, to be stripped of their scales, stuck to some lemon skin, peppered and then thrown in a 180degree oven and served up as a feast.

The highlights for my lucky morning was pulling out a 6 spiked Leather Jacket Fish which turned out to be the biggest catch of the day, and then I pulled out an ugly yellow eel - which as fun as it was, then broke the line with its struggling as I tried to get a picture. I have a feeling he wouldn't have last long in the depths with a large metal weight now bolted firmly through his lip.

We moved to a few alternate spots and a few more small catches were pulled... some of the boys managed to pull a couple of fish out with the hook landed directly thru our squirmy friends eyeballs... all in, with the beers flowing, and the sun shining down with some strength for the first time this Summer - it was a great day, capped off with the feast of fish later on that night.

That's Entertainment

2008-08-20T10:14:00.013+04:30

Paul Weller, The Enmore Theatre, NSW, Australia

Just a normal Tuesday I thought.

I head to work, get on with my day. I work on my projects, I do my maintenance.

Then Kev emails me the most recent Paul Weller setlist, in preparation for the gig I've been looking forward to seeing for months, it suddenly dawns on me, it's tonight.

Now I've been pretty bad with updating the blog recently (a line I'm sure gets written in just about every blog at some stage), but for now, I wanted to write and give a bang up to date report from the life of Luke... as this was something just a bit special.

The setlist contains a long list of songs documenting playlists since I first heard "Sunflower" back in the mid nineties on a teenaged Lukes, "Now, that's what I call music" album. Since then I've listened to a fair bit of Wellers earlier works from "The Jam" and a little "Style Council" stuff too.

Paul also fronted one of my earlier gig experiences back in Southend, Essex in '97... and then littered my social calendar through the last 11 years, seeing him a t various festivals and other live shows. He hadn't toured Australia for about 20years, so this was a gig to truly get excited about.

I'd also been trying to get special permission to take my camera to the pit to get some really up close and personal shots of the act, but no bosy at the Enmore, or at Wellers management wanted to reply to my emails... so I brought it upon myself to smuggle in my camera. After getting it in at the Fratellis by the skin of my teeth with a little lense, I was gonna have to work harder this time. I strapped a lensless camera under my jacket, and carried in a 15cm long 100mm lense in my pocket so there were no huge lumps to be spotted by the doormen... Success, and as soon as the lights went down I whacked it all together and set about blasting through 2GBs of memory card space... I wish I'd brought a 4GB!

Enough of camera stuff now, you can see the images I got for yourself here. The set. Oh my. First off it really helped that the soundman was somewhere near the top of his game. Second, there was actually some kind of lightshow, and instead of watching the usual Sydney - dimley lit affair (few gigs excluded), But it all came down to the talent on stage, Weller and Craddock simply amazed me with their new takes on old classics, they managed to get to the opening line of one of Wellers most popular songs before anyone realised what it was... there was some serious fore-thought into this set of songs.

As I juggled my time between taking pictures, clapping & singing along and sipping beer, I realised I was watching what would now be remembered as one of my top 5 gigs of all time... just.

Nobody Lost, Nobody found.

2008-08-11T09:50:00.015+04:30

Birthday weekend, Sydney, NSW

So another of these annual dates rolls around again, and this one, seems just a little bit of a non-event... late 20's (no hiding from it!), but a year off the big one. That said, I had a great weekend celebrating it.

I arrived home from work on Friday evening to find a large manilla envelope stuffed in the mailbox. I opened it up and found 2 sealed copies of "What Digital Camera" magazine. I instantly new what this meant, and I hurriedly pulled the plastic wrapping and began flicking through. As I reached page 74, there it was, my first photograph in a magazine! Okay, so the contents of the manilla envelope are all I got in return for this, but it's a nice achievement never the less :)

So to the big day, which for obvious reasons is always a day of reflection, but with the fact that today heralded my 3rd Sydney City 2 Surf race - it was even more sentiment to the anniversary. After running it last year, this year I decided to crawl it; via the pubs en route.

I headed in to the city with the boys, as all those thousands of people that I was part of last year, line up and psyche up for Australias biggest 'fun' run. 14kms ain't really ever fun. This time however, we stood by and watched the masses pound the tarmac up through to Kings Cross. Once the people we knew had made fleeting appearances, we headed into the pub and started on our first beers of the day, before 10am :)

The plan was to pub-crawl the route. But with hardly any pubs open at this time of day, it was looking a little tricky. So we headed to the Sheaf in Double Bay, had more beers, played some group pool and then jumped in cabs to the Bondi Beach Road Hotel... the rest played out a little like the past 2years before it. I took a few calls from around the world today, to which I was overjoyed that people had remembered me all the way around the other side of the globe. Thankyou.

A week followed where I would finish dinner excitedly, looking forward to my leftover ice-cream birthday cake.

Pink on White Walls

2008-08-04T09:48:00.009+04:30

Perisher, NSW, Australia
With a few days till the weekend, myself and Lauren decide to hit the mountains for the weekend. After booking accomodation on Tuesday, I had a couple of days to get excited about the best Australian snow season since I've been here.

I managed to make an early dash from work, and by around 4.30pm, we were headed out of Sydney, and by 10pm we'd reached the country town of Cooma, NSW. Up early, and - we made the hours drive to the Perisher valley behind many other snow-sportsman and woman with similar plans to ours. The last time I came here, there was no snow visible until the actual slopes, and all that was man-made. This time, there was heaps of the stuff from miles before the first lift came into sight. Today however, would not be about the search for powder stashes and hot lines, but about someone elses first turns on snow. So together, I did my best to teach Lauren to ride snowboard. Sadly, some kind of virus took its toll on me and we had to call it off fairly early - though we'd enjoyed a few fun runs on the Perisher front valley, we had decided it was a little too busy for comfort.

A night back in Cooma, and I think the extra rest sorted me out, and maybe a little help from the snow Gods, who'd been kind throughout Saturday afternoon and left some nice fresh surfaces to play on, on Sunday. This time, we hit up Smiggins and Laurens boarding came a long way. She was putting in turns both ways, along with some ancient falling leaf, and some 'ever funny, stacks'. While Loz took time outs, I would jump on the T-Bar and head to the summit for some speed. I was also fortunate enough to spot a short hike to a nice 5-6ft drop off cornice. I was content hitting this up several times for the day and cutting my way back through some fresh before hitting the groomers at great speed back to the car parks.

By my reckoning, it was about 2 o clock, when Lauren made her most significant breakthru yet... she stayed upright off a ski-lift!

After 3, we called it a weekend and packed the car for the loooooong ride back to Sydney. I do however, love this part of New South Wales, possibly the most of any part I've visted so far, and took many timeouts to jump from the car to take some photographs as the sun painted a watercolour sky behind weathered gum trees. Lovely. The 5hr drive home as usual, sucked.

Guided By A Voice

2008-07-20T16:45:00.011+04:30

Sydney, NSW

It seems life is throwing some chapter ends at me all of a sudden, this particular weekend saw the end of a Randwick era with Rog, Matty, Wedge and Al all moving on to new homes. To celebrate, they held a party at their place. Some of their long standing neighbours, who've made a habit of complaining at the briefest amount of noise were in for a surprise with the arrival of the guests to the 'Loud' party.

Loudly dressed and with volume up loud too, the party lasted until about 11.20pm when the neighbours found the fuse box for the appartment; and the lights went out for the final time at this appartment.

This past week at work has been a little different. Sydney had been hosting World Youth Day - a Catholic celebration where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims fly in from all around the world to learn more, participate is mass mass and then, depending where they are stood, maybe catch site of the pope. In Sydney, this was HUGE news. Worldwide, I found it funny that my mate Clive in England had heard that Pamela Anderson was guest in the Australian Big Brother House, but not that the pope had come here to address; as it would turn out - 400,000 pilgrims... all within 10minutes walk of my home address.

We were expecting chaos, but it never came. The buses were largely unaffected despite the extra volume of people travelling, the road closures were minimal, and to be honest, most drivers were scared off, and it made every day in Sydney feel like a Sunday. There was so little traffic. The city streets would regularly have large groups of pilgrims marching along with their national flags, singing away and generally having the fun any 14-18year old kids would have. Nice work Sydney.

I visited a mates house to take some pictures of the crowds at Randwick Race Course, and then as Saturday nights celebrations kicked off, I got my butt outta the city and off to the 'Shire'.

In anticipation of the new Batman movie, we re-visited Batman Begins. I spent Sunday getting the guided tour of Cronulla and its surrounding areas before we hit up the movie theatre back in EastGardens to see the new movie. I don't normally mention movies I go to see on here, but man, that movie rocks. See it.

The following weekend, after most of the Youths had dispersed from Sydney, we took to more refined past times, this time with a trip to the theatre to see the Phantom of the Opera! It's been a while since I saw a show like this; the production was excellent!

Missing

2008-06-20T15:49:00.001+04:30

Some posts missing here... Updates on what happened late June/early July to be expected early 2009.

Girlfriend in a coma

2008-06-03T09:11:00.006+04:30

Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

I'd been in Sydney for what felt like way too long, it was time for a road trip. Lauren and I packed up enough stuff to keep us going for 48hours, and headed out West toward the Blue Mountains.

We were heading for Katoomba, but found ourselves detouring just before midday Saturday to Wentworth. The sun was shining and the prospects of heading straight off on a bushwalk were too tempting. So off we went, for a few hours; taking in views of the Megalong valley (I'm sure that was named by an 8year old in the 80's) and winding up at the falls themselves - not before we randomly bumped into Rog and a friend along the beaten track.

Somehow Lauren and I managed to lose each other, I think as I was taking a picture. I figured she'd gone ahead, so I raced back fast as I could. Meanwhile, she hadn't. I got back to the car and still hadn't found her, so headed back down the trail, where before not too long, I was reunited with a slightly un-happier girlfriend.

Undeterred however, we pushed onward and drove to Katoomba. We checked in at the Flying Fox backpackers... which I would recommend for it price, location and funky rooms!

We headed down to the 3 sisters just as the sun was dropping; they turned some pretty awesome colours, though as the light faded we ventured down into the first sister... the stair climb is worth having a look - though not as far down as to the valley floor! Dinnertime was calling and so we headed into town for Pizzas and wine.

I set my alarm for Sunday morning 6.20am in the hope I may get some great sunrise shots... to my dismay though; there was nothing but fog. Looking back I should've made the most and taken some eery shots, but to be honest, the warm bed was far more appealing!

The rest of Sunday was dedicated to the tourist tracks, we took a ride down the worlds steepest railway down to the valley floor. Once there we jumped out of the fenced walk ways and went for a bit of an explore. With a fair few KMs covered, the track was still gloomy, and a fair chance of rain, we headed back up the railway for onward trip home.

Keep on your dress

2008-05-19T17:07:00.008+04:30

Not much of anything in particular, Sydney

A pretty cruisy weekend came by where a Friday night was spent slaving over a hot stove. I'd wanted to try and re-create my mums Pork Schnitzel or quite some time, so after a trip to David Jones Food court and homewares section, I returned with some Pork and a tenderising mallet. I bashed seven bells out of that meat before frying it up nice and juicy with toasted breadcrumbs and all the other secret ingredients. The taste test was satisfying, it was pretty close to how mums tastes... though not quite there, I was gonn either need more pratice, or local ingredients!

The following Sunny morning, I got myself outta bed before the crack of dawn and headed down to Coogee with my camera. A few snaps as th sun hit the golden rocks before headed back home to have a look at what I managed to capture. A bunch of us met up as friends for a fine cooked breakfast and coffee before heading to Sydney city centre to go check out my third World Press Photo exhibition since being here. Similar high quality photo journalism to previous years it was.

After a cruisy afternoon, Lauren and I stayed up late before heading to a local pub to step back 9hours to the UK GMT for the FA Cup final. It was kinda wierd having a room full of neautrals, watching it more for the sake of it than knowing much about the teams... all except one drunk Cardiff fan who thought he was actually at the match.

Calm Like You

2008-05-11T17:14:00.015+04:30

Degustation Weekend, Lithgow, NSW, Australia

As Benny, Lauren and I drove out of the city, the temperature dropped a little more than we'd been accustomed to of recent times. The olbigatory road-trip stops were made to re-fuel and re-stock on nibbles for the 2hour journey out further than West of Sydney. This weekends purpose; to become degusted.

Around 15 of us in total had registered on Rog's weekend menu; the commitment to prepare a meal (course) for all in attendence over the period of around 48hours... that was always gonna be a lot of food!

So as we pulled up at Toad Hall in Lithgow once more, the night sky had become berieved of all cloud and the milky way was all that could be seen, those stars always amaze me whenever I get far away enough from a city to actually see more than about 5 at any one time! We headed in to the warm and festive scented cinnamon aromas, which happened to be Alisons mains that would kick off the weekend.

Myself, Lauren and with more than a little help from Matty, put much love into the Friday nights dessert - chocolate Brownies - one batch for the nut lovers and one for those that had allergies. The nut lovers one went down a storm with all that natural walnutty goodness packed inside every gooey slice! Past fits of giggles, people soon started passing out as Friday rolled into Saturday.

Saturday, the menu powered on with an awesome brekkie from Matty, mid morning Scones by Louise and Aaron, a hot n spicy lunch by Benny, and Ems legendary cupcakes making a cameo in the arrangement too.

The day between eating, consisted mainly of badminton, volleyball, reading, soun baking to an extent (our 22 degrees paling in significance to the whopping 27 that was blazing in England at the equivalent time of day) lounging around and, well I think you get the gist. As the sun dipped, the light was fantastic and I made the most of the warm hues that you only really ever seem to see around this time of year; at least in the Southern Hemisphere!).

Afternoon tea was from the Irish element in the house, with Louise making some damn fine scones with Irish coffee which left the path clear for Rog's Kangeroo Stew; 6hours in the making to explode upon everybodies pallettes. Todd rounded off the evening eith his Spumoni. Group rounds of Taboo kept us busy into Sunday.
Kiri swept everyone away with her berry topped pancakes before Oren capped off the culinary capers with some home made muesli bars and biscuits... a throroughly delicious weekend. Now what happened to that gym membership???

Mr Writer

2008-05-07T16:28:00.005+04:30

"It only takes one match, to burn a thousand trees"

From watching these guys 3 back to back years at V festivals back in Essex, I've been through different phases of emotion toward the Welsh trio. The first few albums are now marked as pure nostalgia trips for my early twenties; of times when driving was something I'd do to kill time whilst I waited for the months to tick by toward a snowboard trip or Summer camping trip shared with 70,000 others.

Then fame brought a couple of duff albums; I remember standing in front of one of those Chelmsford trees wondering if burning that tree might be a little more enjoyable than listening to the guys perform there latest material in front of a virtually lifeless crowd. Then I swore I'd never watch them again, but then in recent years, since my exhile to the rest of the world, two new albums that flipped my opinions back favourably, especially since they lost that drummer.

So here they were in my new hometown, playing at my regular gig haunt the Metro. The sound they carried (while pretty sharp) is that of a "best of" tour, one that makes individual songs seem amazing but altogether, a little disjointed as there evolving sound gets the big 'shuffle' applied to it.

It was fun, and it was great to see some faces I've now seen almost enough times to class them as friends, despite never saying hello. Thanks Kelly, 'Doorman' was my surprise favourite.

Call the Shots

2008-04-28T17:38:00.009+04:30

The rainiest April in over 70 years here in Sydney had started to get to a few people, and wasn't really a great introduction for Sarah who'd come all the way from my hometown in Essex to discover just how wet and cold Australia; the "Red land", could be.

As much as everyone locally moans about these adverse elements, I sometimes have to remind myself that even though 16-20degrees does feel quite cold these days, I'm still far away from the days of scraping frost off car windows and skidding across frozen puddles as a child.

Certain events in Australia now seem synonymous with anniversaries and as much as Anzac Day is in place to remember those that faught brave and hard for their country, it also tells me I’ve been in Sydney for an extra year. So my 3rd Anzac Day public Holiday was spent in similar fashion to the last 2, drinking beers and playing two-up in Coogee; after-all, why break the habit? This year I scaled to the dizzy heights of $70 up from an initial $10 stake, which I promptly reduced to about $30 just as they called time on the traditional annual gambling event.

We finished up there and a bunch of us headed back to Bundock for some early evening refreshments and Guitar Hero shenanigans. The Metro was then the venue for a long awaited gig; Karnivool. Sarah came along too for an intro to Aussie rock… and in the bargain got an intro to 4 Aussie guys and an Englishman quite drunk on a random wander across the city of Sydney taking in such sites as the entrance to Star City, and a dingy Korean karaoke bar… till 3am.

Of course I was being sensible in doing this, as I knew that I had a ticket to the following days Lawn Party at Randwick Race Course. Here, our tickets would allow all you could eat and drink all afternoon whilst watching men on horseback running round in circles. Needless to say I was a little quiet going into the event with the guys and girls I was with, all dressed up for the grand occasion.

I managed to turn $10 into $100 on my first flutter… and then managed to lose the profit there $10 a time throughout the afternoon… this blog post should be a lesson to all aspiring gamblers, and no – even picking the ‘apparent’ dead-certs does not pay dividends. Bah.

A special shout out for the weather on a day that ended a couple of weeks of constant rainy conditions, reports even say some people needed sunscreen! And how’s this, we bumped into a guy that we met in our hotel whilst staying in Kashmir by accident… now it really is a small world!

Shutterspeed

2008-04-23T17:16:00.009+04:30

The Lost Weekends, NSW

There comes a time when I struggle a little to pack stuff into my weekends, and a couple kinda past me by just recently where when I think briefly; that this happened. However as much as I didn't go to India, ride quad bikes or even just wander round the great city I live right next to, I had great weekends of a different variety.

A week rolled around that would see me make my first money directly through photography... I had already expected for some weeks that I would be shooting a wedding, but unexpectedly, I caught a corporate event during the week. Great practice and experience for an aspiring photographer. The event went pretty well and I learned a whole bunch that should stand me well for the future.

Saturday I headed over to Camden to meet Vikki and Trev for their big day and proceeded to shoot some 939 photographs for them... I had some serious fun, and some unexpected photographers hand cramp too!

The following weekend I managed to get a last minute call-up to a one day workshop at the same institution that I learned about my SLR workings... This time, the purpose was for Digital Post production, which helped me learn a fast workflow for dealing with my RAW images and of course... ethical photoshopping as I like to call it. in other words, the bits of photography you could do in a darkroom with several tanks of chemicals, enlargers and all sorts of amounts of patience. I got to shoot a professional model too for the first time, which was nice.

Hold My Hand

2008-04-08T17:22:00.007+04:30

Sydney & The Royal National Park, NSW

Everyone dear to me in Sydney, met up at the Opera Bar (so named as it's right beneath the Opera House) on Friday night to celebrate (or mourn!) Cams departure to Melbourne. Drinks were clinked and laughs exchanged before people started to head off in their own directions.

An easy Saturday preceded my old travel pals arrival back in Sydney. We picked Nick and Lucy up from Sydney Kingsford airport, grabbed pizza and crashed out on a night where the clocks went back an hour. To take advantage of this, we headed out early the next morning South to the Royal National Park. I'd already been there before, but had yet to get out to the coast, apparantly some of the nicest parts in the park.

The four of us wandered along the chilled sands of Garie Beach and took in part of a surf comp before exploring a rock pool where thunderous waves pounded below us, rising high above the guys stood on the edges fishing. After we grabbed some snacks then headed onward to Wallamalah beach, something quite different to the one we had just seen. A peaceful lagoon backing on to what reminded me a little of the beach from 'The Beach' movie. In for what would probably be one of the final swims of the seasonal year, it was Summer extended for just another weekend. Blissful.

A cruisy drive home led to a cruisy couple of hours of doing not too much before I invited the gang over for a BBQ seeing off the weekend in perfect, if not slightly hectic style.

We Get Around

2008-03-31T07:20:00.009+04:30

Easter Show, NSW

Another weekend rolled around and with this one a friend from work had his last day. A group of us headed over to the new bowling alley on Darling Harbour and did our best to end the lives of ten pins. However, without any dinner my Friday was over all too quickly for my liking and had to pike early.

Saturday was spent in some chilled fashion and for the evening time, Lauren and I headed out to Camden to check out a restaurant I would soon be shooting some photo's in. We checked out the town before dinner and had a quick drink in one of the pubs. Enzo's served me up an awesome Scotch Fillet and some great sorbet dessert too!

With Sunday, I finally got to get a weekend stop at an awesome book store in the city called KinoKinuya, Japanese and packed with just about everything you could ask for from a printed media store. I picked up a couple of titles and then after some O'Portos for lunch, we headed out to the Easter Show at HomeBush.

The show has been a Sydney tradition for quite some time... it's a kind of harvest festival celebration where farmers get to show off their prized livestock (before putting them on a Sunday dinner plate I presume?), fresh produce and all manner of handicrafts etc. There's also places to see baby animals run free around a mock barn, live music, food halls, kids halls and a fairground.

We checked out most of that stuff, and ended the evening around the brightly lit thrill rides. We hit up the RollerCoaster and felt shaken but not too stirred, then smashed the hell out of all and sundry on the bumper cars and then finally went big (ish) and went on some crazy upside-downy, twisty turny ride... which was fun for about 60seconds, before we realised lunch was on its way back with a vengeance.

Sitting down on the tarmac back to back, we decided that perhaps those rides should be best enjoyed on an empty stomach in future...

Ray of Light

2008-03-25T09:19:00.022+04:30

Shoal Bay at Easter, NSW, Australia

At just after 6am on a very Good Friday, 5 figures left the Lane in cars. They had packed tents, sleeping accessories and plenty of food, drinks and object d'amusement.

After some early morning coffee’s they were fired up and blasting along the highway North of Sydney. The intrepid travellers made good time beating a lot of Easter weekend traffic, and arrived in Shoal Bay, Port Stephens; home to several family resort bays and a campsite, that they would call a home away from home for the next few days.

I decided to give the guys a good lesson in tent erecting, and knowing how easy it is to put up a tent, to show off I put mine up from the inside out! There wasn’t much faith in me, but I made it work :P With inflatable mattresses pumped, sheets and pillows in, it was time to fire up the BBQ and kick back for the long weekend. After lunch we took a trip around the area to Nelsons Bay where the boys bought fishing gear; they swore they would catch bigger fish than each other…

We got back to the campsite and then headed off to a recommended fishing spot, of course, I was happy hooking in the pictures rather than fishes. As Aaron and Jarrad practiced their skills, I was off snapping the landscape as much as I could. The sky was overcast and I figured the shots would look pretty crappy, but I still managed a few nice ones… at least according to the back of my camera.

Meanwhile A & J were ramping up their big to catch *something, and so had moved from a rocky point to ankle deep beach water. Aaron flanked out left, while Jazz decided the tactic would be best formed fishing in the open wash. A few beers on, a shout! I turned my head to see Jazz yoinking in a marine animal of some description. As it rose from the water, it became apparent it was a Ray. Jazz plonked him down on the wet washed sand and referred to his “Fishing for Dummies” book, as to whether it was legal to catch them or not… I never did find out the outcome, but we eventually got the hook from it’ mouth and threw him back in. Despite another couple of fish trips, that little fella was as much as the Chambers managed to bring in that weekend. Into the night and another BBQ with beers finished us off nicely.

Saturday welcomed us in with some rain, which set a tone for a very slow day. The sun eventually came out and we made it down to the beach for a swim. The night led us out to the local sports bar place, where we threw some cash in to the “WWTBAM” machine, and won nothing.

Inevitably, the JagerMeister came out when we got back to the camp site, and so it really wasn’t a surprise that the drinking games came out – I blame Em and Lauren to be honest, they just wanted to see the guys in pain. I also got to experience ‘Chew’ a delicacy Aaron had brought back with him from India. It was just plain WRONG. But hella funny all the same.

Easter Sunday rolled in Egg-stravagent style. After we played a game of throw the giant oversized easter-egg until someone (Em) drops it, we headed off to the sand Dunes to rip it up on Quad Bikes! The surprise package was little Macca who cained the living daylights out of her bike to beat all and sundry in a race around our freshly invented sandy circuit!

On the way back from the Quad biking, the bumpy 4x4 tour bus took us by Tin City; a small town made of, well you guessed already. I figured I should mention it in here, even though it wasn’t really that interesting…

The 5 of us spent the afternoon recovering from the mornings excitement in different ways, myself and Lozza heading over to Finkle Bay for a wander about. The Sun set on a thoroughly enjoyable Easter Sunday right before we headed out for a delish fish and chips meal.

Monday morning came the time for us to take out place in a queue of traffic stretching from Port Stephens to Sydney… and so it was, our Easter weekend, over for another year. I wonder if after last years Southern highlands adventures, and this years Northern adventures, if I’ll be West or East next Easter?

*Anything

My Star

2008-03-17T09:22:00.010+04:30

Jetlag Rehab, Sydney

The fact I didn't catch a single wink of sleep on my night flight home led me to fully believe, I might be a little excited about getting to my final destination. The reason may well have been waiting for me at the airport with open arms.

Lauren and I drove back from the airport, stopped for a coffee, where only now I felt like falling asleep, at 10am with bright sunlight smashing through my eyelids. We got home where it took all of about 20minutes to find my way into dreamland. Though with a couple of hours sleep I was good to get back outside into the patchy sunlight to begin my path back into 11+hrs Sydney time. Watsons Bay provided an idealic haven of peace and plentiful fishy food.

That day seems hazier than any to recall, I do know there was but one bad taste left in the mouth... the thought of my first days work after 33 consecutive days of doing anything but

When I think about it hard, those 2days also seem very hazy and tricky to recap, though I made it through without falling asleep atop a workstation, server or rack. I chose to go soccer training on the Thursday night; since this would wear me out and make sure I'd fall asleep at the right time for sure, and so it was that my genius idea of only returning back for 2 days paid dividend as soon as Friday 5pm came around and I would return back to not working... comforting thoughts like "had more days off this calendar year than worked, and we're 3 months in already" really made this good to experience!

I returned back to the 5day week once more with a few highlights along the way, Jazz my housemate had his birthday so with partners in tow, we headed out for steaks and ribs down in Coogee; accompanied with some Wine and good chatter. Friday night seemed almost like I'd never been anywhere, with Aaron back too, a crowd of us went out to Newtown to watch some new comedians perform on stage at the Factory.

Another easy weekend would end rehab and cement lifestyle back in Sydney. Rog had a welcome home BBQ round at his place, where we got the chance to show everyone our holiday snaps and recount funny tales of the trip... and then afterwards a sneaky trip into the Cross where Teapots would take the short term minds of some of the patrons attending World Bar... we won't say who though Wedge ;)

Hong Kong Fury

2008-03-06T19:53:00.018+04:30

Hong Kong

In terms of the time it once took me to book holidays, a relatively short amount of time had passed since I was last in Eastern Asia, however it felt like a lifetime ago that Nick and I were roaming Thai streets, Laos' waterways & Vietnamese tunnels. A few floods of excitement tipped with nostalgia poured through me as I thought about the prospects of visiting Hong Kong for the first time. I guess I've come a long way since those back pack days as I decided that the night I spent in HK should be somewhat luxuriuous and hassle free.

So as my Virgin Atlantic flight (special note here... their service has dropped in recent times!), landed and I grabbed hold of my faithful Osprey backpack and a rather floppy snowboard bag (I left my Fish in the UK). I made my way out towards where I expected my pick up to be... though I guess I shouldn't have tarred HK with the same 'cheap' brush as Thailand. I would be taking a bus and not a personal ride to my hotel, although it was a luxury coach with nice large clean windows that I could lear out of on my way into this tall city.

I felt much like what I see of most Asian tour groups when I'm travelling, tightly led with what appears to be very little freedom - told to sit 'here' and not wander, even in a quiet airport, a little like an inquisitive child. My hotel name was called and I made my way to those large glass windows.

Into the Miramar hotel of Kowloon and I dumped my bags, splashed my face with water and put some different shoes on before heading out into the mild night. Armed with my camera, this trip quickly presented itself more as a locational photoshoot than one I would remember for having awesome fun sociable times, I was alone in a half decent hotel afterall, not a shared communal backpackers joint!

I headed out to a typically crowded Asian highstreet shopping precinct and spent the first 10-15minutes getting my head around my map of the place. I popped in a small photographical/electrical shop and got a quote on a lens I liked... then realised the same road was home to about 15 virtually identical stores where the prices would be either similar or somewhat more expensive; I guess to some I look like someone that might be taken for a ride on price?! Hong Kong was starting to drop off to sleep, as suited youngsters left restuarants and cheesy bars, it was only around 8pm but as I looked into the bleached night sky I could see beams of green light... I then made out that these lasers were being fired from the tops of the skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island. Sadly once I got to within a good shooting angle, I'd missed the opportunity for this trip as I'd not see another nightfall here, other than from a departure lounge.

I wandered past the famously inaccurate clock tower and then set about getting the best night shots of the skyline as I could possibly achieve, with no tripod it wasn't that easy. I got a little creative before I noticed the temperature was starting to drop, though it was still infinitely better than what I'd become accustomed to in Kashmir and London! Also, a special mention to the 4ft jobsworth woman who gave me an ear bashing for putting one leg over a 1ft high plastic chain barrier; (to get a better angle on my photo) guarding the lantern show from Godzilla (it's okay Love, you've got a panda with a pistol here to frighten him off).

Much like many cities, street sellers and artists ply their trades to any tourists brave enough to be charactured or photographed in front of the pillars of concrete, glass and funky neon. But after checking out a couple of hot spots according to my little Berlitz city guide like the "Avenue of Stars", I suddenly decided I'd had enough, so headed back to my huge bed and fell to a slumber.

A cosmopolitan European breakfast welcomed me in to my second day in my Kowloon hotel, and after some confusion at the reception, they threw the cost in for nothing, which was jolly nice. I took another walk down to the waterfront and this time jumped on a ferry over to Hong Kong, a system very much like Sydneys ferry system.

I once again spent a few minutes getting some orientation before finding the base of the cable car up to Victoria Peak, where tourists are treated to the "Lumberman" view of Hong Kong. Except it was shut for maintenance. Of all the amazing chances on Earth, there was a taxi driver nearby ready to tell me this and sell me a return trip up to not only the Lumberman view of Hong Kong but a couple of other views too. I really had no idea what a lumberman was to do in the city but figured it must be worth a look.

I jumped out of the car at the given points took some token photos before jumping back in to get a sales spiel about a full on tour which would show me the lumberman market and the lumberman beach, it looked good but the dude wanted some ridiculous price so I thanked him and hopped out back down in the city.

I'd ticked off the few things that took my fancy (or at least the ones I could achieve in my 28hr stint here) and so figured I should use my last few hours to soak up a little sunshine, get some shopping and postcards done. I bought a few things, though in a way, it was good my pockets were nearly empty after a long trip like this, I could easily have gotten extravagent here.

I squeezed in a quick and pretty average Maccas (when will I learn my lesson in Asia?) before getting back for my airport pickup and, suddenly feeling the excitement of getting back home to Sydney I was revving to get going. My longest ever "holiday" was just about over. Sitting there changing lenses, I suddenly realised who the lumberman was... local dialect for "number 1".

Friday Street

2008-03-02T19:52:00.008+04:30

Essex, UK

After a heavy day on the tourist trail, it was time to take things easier. I figured Friday to be my last chance to actually relax on this entire trip, I spent most in Corringham with some quick fleeting trips out to pick up my freshly serviced snow board. I headed over to Clives place in Woodham Ferrers in the evening where he, Emma and I left their newest family member sleeping at home, while we hit the pubs of Maldon. A pub with an open fire, and that typical hundred year old musty smell was the perfect venue to chat into the evening.

I spent my Saturday with Sian and Megan. We headed out to "Saafent" (Southend) as the locals know it so fondly. We wandered the prom with Megan skating along besides us. Up through the precinct and to Pizza Express for lunch before hitting 'Adventure Island' for nine holes of Aztec mini golf. The wind was so cold... it seemed colder than that on the snowy peaks of Kashmir, yet probably had most to do with the fact I was only wearing a thin jacket and t-shirt.

We hurried back in time for another great dinner with the family, mums soon to be world famous Austrian style Schnitzel... I could seriously eat a few plates full of that stuff I swear.

With barely 5minutes to let dinner settle, I was back out again to Basildons Festival park one last time, for a few drinks and a boogie to some bad party music... or good party music - I think that one of those is any oxy-moron, I'm just unsure which though.

I said goodbye to everyone, knowing I would see a few of them in the not too distant future on another continent, though at that moment - thoughts of Thailand were a very long way from the forefront of my mind. I awoke about 7hours later to get the last of my packing completed before my belated Christmas dinner would take place once again, with Mum, Dad, Grandma, Sian, Tim & Megan. All too soon it was time for that nasty emotional part again.

Tim and dad accompanied me to the airport in similar fashion to the last time I flew back to Sydney, though this time we did get a chance to stop for coffees and more chatting.

I'll miss you all

Meet me in the Bathroom

2008-02-29T19:51:00.012+04:30

Bath, United Kingdom of Britain and the English Isles.

3 Years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping in a manual drive car for a 3 hour drive across England… I didn’t do it much in fairness but it wouldn’t have phased me. Roll the clocks forward, and the fear of some clutch foot was definitely there!

An hour in and I’ve re-located myself plus Nissan to central London in rush hour traffic, my right quads have made themselves known so I tuck into a few Percy Pigs, which soon become nearly a whole packet of Percy Pigs. Too addictive. I eventually find my way around Tooting and get to Flees place. After a toilet break, we set off… along with a Kinder Surprise… it was becoming a day of true health, Pigs and chocolate thus far, and we’re not at 10am yet.

Off of the M25 and onto the M4, we spot a place to refuel and grab lunch. A Bacon Double Cheese from Burger King and we’re off again, just as quick as I realise I forgot to put fuel in the car (I could tell I was outta driving practice). Petrol fumes get us to the next service station.

We rock up to Bath about 2hours behind original schedule, both of us quite excited by the prospect of seeing something new of England. After all, nearly every Australian I’ve met has been to this place! What I read, immediately gained confirmation; every building was made of Bath Stone with no terracotta to be seen, anywhere.

We parked up and set about getting about the place. Since we had the daylight, we figured it would be cool to have a little explore of the city. The Crescent and the Circus the centre piece masonry homes were London-esque under a bright grey sky.

A semi decent coffee later, and we gained admittance to the ancient Roman baths. Electronic audio sets in hand we wandered the ruins and learned. Bill Bryson had visited the place and I quickly found his narration far more interesting than the standard one.

Closing time drew in and the remaining few tourists were turfed out of the final pools of historical water. Then it was time to experience Baths modern baths.

Into the Thermae Baths and a solitary outing for my Aussie board shorts on this trip. Five floors of luxurious bathing facilities; consisting of foot tubs, steam rooms, a pool with spa and an awesome upper level. The roof consists of another pool, outdoors, but heated to a lovely temperature. Under the black night sky (again, great to be away from the orange night sky of London) I scampered in for warmth and only a minute or so in, lifting my head to take in the view…

The tips of Bathstone buildings could be seen illuminated along side the city’s cathedral and at the foot of the surrounding hills. Definitely one of the best facilities of it’s kind that I’ve visited in England…

After drying off, taking a few night shots around the city centre, a Pizza Express fuelled the car ride home… along with my first ever Espresso coffee; hopefully my last.

Several hours later, it was something like 2am. I’d been awake for 20hours straight and it was only now time to say goodbye to my old mate, Flee. I hugged her goodbye and then made another home-bound journey through the Dartford Tunnel and past Lakeside down the A13.

Move on now

2008-02-26T07:13:00.001+04:30

Essex & London, UK

Just another Monday morning rolled around, and for this one I took a car ride into central London with Tim. I checked out his office/showroom and started taking pictures with my newest toy. I've never had a camera that makes that satisfying shutter release sound up till now and I have to admit, it sounded and felt great.

Onward I headed off to Oxford St, scampering in and out of the cold Febuary weather. A few T shirts here, a CD or two there... I was enjoying my London shopping expience. I continued to experiment with shutter speeds and apertures as I made my was pas Horseguards Parade and then past Nelsons Column. I eventually made it to the South Bank where I met Flee for lunch at the Slug n Lettuce.

I explored a little more after my bangers n mash; found a photographical exhibition and chatted to UK mates on local call charges rather than overseas.

The Sun dropped and the cold got more uncomfortable than I was comfortable with, so I headed for some final clothes shopping in an impossibly hot high street chain store before grabbing some nice Thai dinner and heading off home via the tube and overland C2C services.

***

Mum had timed her birthday well for my visit home, or maybe that should be the other way around. Either way, Sian had taken the day off of work and together, the 3 of us went for a cafe lunch in Leigh, a town located a little North East of home. Grove offered some tasty sandwiches before we browsed the little shops in the local precinct for mothers day cards and gifts. I delved off once again to take some pictures on this particularly cold and blustery day by the Thames Estuary.

That evening, it was Fonfara tradition to have a birthday meal followed by cake and gifts. In the background, some music eminating from dad's hi-fi as we pulled open some party crackers. Curry's all round, Megan aside who's little mouth hasn't quite adapted to the spices of India just yet.

Happy Birthday mum X

On Track

2008-02-25T19:50:00.016+04:30

England - ...to the ReUniFon

I've already overtaken those leaving business class, and I'm almost skipping as I charge down Heathrows almost endless passages toward baggage reclaim. I see a vending machine selling yellow "Orange" Fanta. The nip in the air (even indoors) is typically English and I hear good music emanating from a radio station somewhere on route. Bag 1 is awaiting me, bag 2 arrives not too soon after. My brother Tim is there to collect me; unfresh from a day at the grind and traffic.

Hugs.HeathrowCarPark.M25ClockWise.A127.A13.Corringham.Home.Hugs

On the car ride home, my brother Tim asked me to give dad a call to let him know to start cooking dinner… he was planning to prepare a curry. I usually hate to cause a fuss and don't like to be an issue when someone else is cooking, but after 20 days of at least 2 curries per day, the first thing I didn't want, was rice with heavily seasoned/spiced meat & sauce. I'd been pining for some fish n chips for some time and so when the alternative was suggested, I could relax easy on the way back home.

After dropping Megan off to school, I was back on GMT. I headed over to Grays to meet up with the remaining workmates I used to earn a buck with nearly 6 years ago. Theobald Arms the venue, a pretty old pub that still smells of the smells that stuck to the carpet previous to the no smoking bans. Beer mats across the walls, and no VB, Carlton or Tooheys; one of the guys asked me if it was weird to be back; to which, I could only reply that it was not. For all the time that I had passed on the opposite side of the globe can't displace that feeling of localness, of home, even if that spark of nostalgia is the smell of 15 year old stale lager and cigarette smoke.

As the guys took it in turn arriving , it was like it was 2003 once more, if only for an hour or two.

After the pub, I visited another old mate Stuart at his place in Purfleet before heading home for some dinner and then going out for my first drink session. In it's 4th or 5th incarnation since it was built, the Sky Bar was a good bit of fun over in Festival Leisure Park… the night became morning and pretty soon I was staring down the barrel of a double barrel gun… with the prospect of being hungover for my re-union party the following day.

My brother Tim picked me up in the morning and together we took a train into Liverpool St, London. After a quick tube ride, we walked up cobbled streets from Embankment toward Covent Garden. After a terrible coffee, a moment of amazement overcame me, London is such an amazing city, still in many respects, the best I've seen in the world.

We located the Longacre in Covent Garden, and at around 1pm, I saw my last daylight of this Saturday. My cousin Mark and his wee son Joe were already waiting with beers and cokes respectively as an unexpected surprise. Jimbo and Flee arrived next; two people I've only ever met on the other sides of the world. By something like 5 o clock, our side of the pub was rocking and I was doing anything but sitting, making pleasent conversation.

My best mate Clive since around 5years old, mates from my job in Thurrock and newer friends made through travel intermingled with my brother and later my sister; the most extraodinary combination of people in one room at any one time for me personally. I kinda wish I hadn't already put a skinful of beer down me, so I could take in the moment a little more; but I am and was most appreciative for everyone making it along. The miracle of Facebook, for keeping me in such strong contact with people around the globe.

My gift to the evening was to bring out little drink habit direct from Sydney; the masterful mixture of a shot of Jagermeister dropped inside a tumbler of Red Bull... smashed back in seconds to reveal an awesome taste plus after effect... I think they went down pretty well ;)

As whatever time it was came around, Sian and Tim did the honourary sibling thing and dragged me away to catch the last train home... I'd forgotten about that pesky thing, though I'm sure it did me a favour in the long run. I recall chatting to some random Aussie from somewhere in NSW on the train ride home, almost like meeting a mate from home whilst being away... except I was home... and now very confused.

Vindaloo

2008-02-21T09:27:00.000+04:30

New Delhi

Nick met us once again for some grub in the evening and after we took a stroll before wishing each other all the best before the next international meeting between the two of us might take place. In around 4 years, the two of us have visited a plethora of destinations from beach towns and festivals, to third world villages and sites of mass genocide, quite something considering we were brought together by a mutual love of sliding down snowy hills on planks of wood! I slept out the remainder of some anti-biotics and hoped for better feelings the following sunrise.

During the night, Aaron (of ‘my regular life’ fame) arrived in Delhi to join us… except I just about sleeping and off 24hours later, back to my homeland of Corringham – in a place called England.

Despite feeling ill, for that day, it was my desire to see as much of Delhi as possible. So myself and Aaron started by turning off the main roads and drinking Chai with locals. We got some poor fella to cycle us to the Red Fort, after tipping heavily and still not paying much more than a dollar, we checked out the fort; an internationally listed historical building. We later realised we did well in showing up early, as by the time we headed away, the place was starting to heave, just as the temperature started to gain momentum.

Without stopping for brekkie, I wanted something safe to eat, and Azz, well he was just hungry; so we fell past an armed guard beneath the Golden Arches for a bit of a Western, India style. With no beef for consumption in this part of the world, the Maccas menu looked pretty bare - with it's flagship burger being the chicken McMaharaja Mac. After some fries and a veggie burger, we were good to go.

Around lunch time we stumbled past Henna artists and succumbed (easily) to them doing some work on our skin. As the ink dried, we met up with the other guys for some lunch in a quirky little restaurant just near Connaught Place; the shopping Hub of Delhi.

We strolled about with no aims in particular as we discovered a shop selling Sitars. Our visit paid huge dividend in providing us one of the most memorable highlights of the trip; a live demo from an old sitar pro. He tuned, the plucked slowly for a while, before letting rip with the Indian equivalent of a Dire Straights solo section! A Western fix of a well known ice cream vendor put a smile on 5 boys faces as a mild afternoon sun started to dip.

I split with the guys for some last minute shopping and returned to them later with a full bag of stuff… and having escaped more business offers than I care to remember at any time of my life. One kid was offering to give my ears a clean with cotton buds, showing me his compliments book of past customers; I was quite happy to pass up on that one.

My final evening was spent with the guys eating a good (if slightly expensive!) meal at an Indian restaurant; though I guess in this particular case it was just "a restaurant".

The following morning I hugged the guys farewell; and began my trip from a skanky hostel in Delhi to a homely place in Essex. I was dropped at the “airport under repair” amongst a bit of controversy which I won’t detail here, and was soon in a dis-organised lineup for check in… before joining another slow moving lineup toward a customs check… before waiting for several unforeseen delays to the flight home.

Like stepping from black to white, hot to cold or a ruckus to silence, I was finally sat on a plane destined for the place I took my first steps. At this point it couldn’t come soon enough.

Say It Right

2008-02-19T13:38:00.009+04:30

Srinagar, Northern India

I had packed my bags and left the wintry wonderland, completely high on life and looking forward to taking anything else on. Though as we descended back down to the standard level of living around these parts, my mood plummeted like a fat kid taking a fall, and it didn’t bounce back as I would’ve liked.

I was cramped in the front seat of the vehicle with a random Indian man, who had the gear shifter operated from between his loins the entire 100 minute trip. I had no sympathy for him, and I was caring only to be heading home – even though I still had several days of other visits to go. “ A house boat in Srinegar” was as much as I knew about the next 2 nights and days, and as we pulled up next to Dal Lake I was still in a pretty foul mood.

We were walked down to the boats by Mr Butt… which didn’t even make me snigger to hear, and shown into the front room of our home of 48hours and in 60seconds, I was higher than the kites that circled the lake insistently throughout the daylight hours.

It was like stepping back in time to colonial days gone by in India, a legacy left by the British if you like, a pot belly fire heating the room, couches and a large hard wood dining table partitioned by locally carved and designed wood work. Our personal butler would attend to us at the push of a buzzer and assist us with drinks, food and anything else he had power to muster.

I later found out that many of the groups moods had dropped much the same as mine had but we laughed it off and enjoyed real beer, and high quality cooked food for what seemed like a very long time.

The following morning, we set our alarms to wake us at 5.30am. Fifteen minutes later, we jumped on a smaller boat and were transported though darkness across Dal Lake. We had blankets and hot water bottles provided, that not a single man there was too masculine to decline the use of. Morning prayer accompanied the voyage, which some said sounded like “Little Drummer Boy”, though I reckon Bowie would’ve been hard pressed to see similarity. We observed Kashmiri’s trading at dawn as we sipped tea and ate fresh baked naan bread before heading back across the now highly reflective still waters of the lake. Enchanting, almost.

After some strongly craved internet time, Nick left for Delhi and the Taj Mahal, myself and Chris headed into the main city of Srinegar and the rest of the guys went for a trip around some gardens and a rug factory.

Quite an interesting wander; we saw mosques inside and out, tradesmen applying their livelihoods, without the almost standard sales pressure you’d get almost anywhere else in Asia and, lots and lots of kids playing cricket. I’m not exaggerating here, but they were everywhere, normal places like sports fields and schools, as well as down side streets, car parks and bus depots. They love it.

Despite only eating a bar of milky-bar, myself and Chris somehow picked up a case known in Latin as “Squitum-Vonbellhious”, or as we now refer to it; Delhi Belly. Chris was first to the thrown the following morning with me following in his stinky tracks soon after; only to ripen the smells further.

On a day where I was sick, I wasn’t really in the mood for any more Kashmir, or for that matter; India. The airport run was a serious drag, and after the bumpy (remember the state of my guts) ride, it was time for the highest volume of security checks ever performed at an airport. Now I understand that there is a war on in these parts, but six security checks, whereby you get ‘patted’ down and bags checked is a little OTT. The worst part is the efficiency of the checks; even with a mobile phone, some keys, a fairly solid camera and various other pocket junk, I was never even asked to turn out my pockets. Anyhoo, a quick departure lounge nap, a 1hour flight and a taxi ride in a little rascal of a vehicle and we were back in the Indian equivalent of civilization, less Chris who left for Brisbane.

Sunlight hits the snow

2008-02-18T13:41:00.007+04:30

Gulmarg - a finale.

On our second Tuesday in Gulmarg, we found out that the forecast for the remainder of our stay would be ‘clear’. So for the first 10 days, we’d had unrelenting powder, and now we were to have my other favourite extreme of snowboarding conditions – Sunny cruisy days of having to wear very little in the way of insulation, along with awesome al fresco lunches at the foot of the mountain. The hunt for the untouched powder would also keep us more than entertained.

Our guide took us off the beaten track down some powdery gullies, and onward through the tree line to a village inaccessible by motor vehicle (at least, the wheeled variety) called Derang. On the way here, we entered a wide snow filled valley of snow pillows. It was relatively tough going on the legs as the track was so flat, but the views were some of the most amazing I’ve seen whilst strapped into my board. Here, local children greeted us shyly, and giggled and pointed at these strange looking white men wearing bulky synthetic clothing with huge over sized mirrored goggles. Some of the kids would come and stand on the back of our snowboards whilst we slid thru the village. Looking at what these kids had, we must look like space men gliding through on our shiny snowboards. I was a little aggrieved at having to rush through as quickly as we did, as it was a humbling experience to talk with these kids, and I didn’t get much of a chance to photograph things there as I would have liked.

Eventually we would arrive back at the main town of Tangmarg. After crossing a large flat bed river, the pathway elevated above the suburban sprawl and afforded us awesome snow capped views of thousands of Kashmiri’s homes. More kids would talk to us and practice their English, some would just ask to carry our board or ski’s whilst walking – for a ‘tip’ of course!

***

Fatigue was truly setting in with the group, and everyone took turns in sitting mornings and afternoons out with burned out muscle groups. Those of us left out, were happy finding stashes of north facing snow that hadn’t become sun baked. I was after the money shot with my camera, and it took several attempts, and a couple of occasions getting covered in snow… but I was happy with the final results:

With a couple of days riding left, I decided to hang back in bed for a morning to give me one last strong afternoon and a final day with the “don’t give a @#$%” attitude toward getting an injury. Myself and Nick headed up for a final couple of runs, though in honesty, we had now seen Gulmargs best offerings and now we were just chasing a dragon which we wouldn’t find. We trudged back from the cat-track to the hotel to discover the other lads had also headed back in early. They were midway through building up a couple of snow park features right out the front of our hotel. I gladly obliged in assisting and after a few hours of grueling work, we were ready to leave the features to set overnight for a final day not in the midst of tall trees, not standing 4000metres above sea level, but barely leaving our hotel.

Friday was bright and sunny, some of the older guys staying there opted to take the day off completely and sit in the sun and relax watching the younger guys do their best to hurt themselves. I like to point out that we saw our guide take a knock to his knee cap earlier in the week and saw the standard of the local hospital… and therefore it was that we would try extra hard not to land awkwardly, concuss or even break ourselves.

The kicker offered many pops of fun, Hux and Jubs the keenest to hit it hardest; my kicker best sadly a few years past, it would seem now. Luckily I was there to take so decent shots instead and of course look pretty for all the fine young looking, err, hold on – snow monkeys.

Midday past, and the sun started to dip. The temperatures dropped off quite rapidly and before we knew it, Gulmarg was dumping again. Big chunky flakes of snow fell around us. The brown tinged snow paths becoming virginal white again, the tracks in the snow we had trudged out, being filled again. Gulmarg tries her best to forget it’s guests as quickly as possible, and before we’d even left, near all evidence we’d ever been there had been erased from the sands of time.

Darkside/Lightside

2008-02-17T10:50:00.009+04:30

Week 2 - Gulmarg

The whole group took a lay day at around the half way mark of the trip to let our muscles recover from the intensive time they had endured and we went to try out one of the only Western food joints in town. Apparently, there would be an internet connection there too! To our dismay though, the current power outage meant no pizza, and no computer connection for the internet. The dodgiest Chicken burger ever managed not to upset our stomachs and we wandered back to our hotel past the ice rink… which had about 30 men clearing 1 metre of snow from its surface. They would bring a large sheet of tarpaulin down to ice rink level, fill her up and sling it over their shoulders. This would then be emptied off in a heap 20metres away. I wasn’t envious of them.

It was Sunday, when, the second phase of the Gondola finally opened its doors to us. As we rose up to its final altitude of 3950metres above sea level, there were only several lines below us and we had the pick of fresh to gun through on our way to personal snow sport hedonism.

As it was our guide’s day off, we had to be careful, so with some caution we headed back down virtually under the gondola – the only “patrolled” area in all of Gulmarg.

This was what we had come to Kashmir for.

An 8 month wait finally at end, as we bombed the Kashmiri slopes and sprayed more white powder into the sky than any Columbian drug baron could ever dream of. I lead the pack momentarily, and spotted a small hill that had perfect snowfall on it, untouched, glistening like a diamond encrusted wedding gown. As fast as I could, I carved one huge turn, looking back to see a huge rooster tail of snow thrown skywards and into the sun; a temporary eyeful of daytime twinkle stars. I dropped back into the valley to see Chris drop a 6ft boulder, land and ride away… we were both in some kind of wonderland; Kashmiri wonderland.

I now have a new “happy place” that I shall return to many times in months and maybe years to come; this was one of the greatest feeling moments of my life.

***

As people around the world faced the ‘dread’, my Monday morning was filled with anything else but… well, aside from the physically demanding task of summiting Gulmargs highest peak. From the top gondola station, our gang strapped boards and ski’s to their packs, put heads down and strutted up hill toward what had been the highest point visible for the past week or so. Winds were sweeping across rapidly, and to look into the wind would cause an amount of pain I’d rather not think too much about. I trudged in others footsteps, and got higher and higher. Roger and I reached the dizzy heights of the summit together, high fived and set about photographing our surroundings as quick as possible. The only problem here was the temperature; around minus 20 degrees, had all but killed my camera battery, so a few shots before thinking about putting a snowboard back under my soles and getting away from these inhospitable temperatures.

As I awaited the rest of the group to attach their boards, my feet were yelling for help. They were the coldest I can ever remember them being. I wasn’t sure how they might react to having to steer me down a steep powdery mountain face. My bindings too, had frozen; I had a struggle trying to get them to lock into place. After they did, I took my turn in the first stage of descent, and to my annoyance, my left foot fell out of lock and I took a tumble. I whimpered down before I could get them fixed up.

Happily, the group including myself, made one of the best runs of the trip so far. Powder turn after wide, fast powdery turn… this is why I was here, this is why I went to Milton Keynes indoor slope all those years ago, this is snowboarding and the rush it gives me.

At The Foot of The Mountain

2008-02-12T10:29:00.003+04:30

Gulmarg, Kashmir - Week 1

Gulmarg is Indias premiere snow sports resort. It has a 2 phase gondola section that gives a vertical rise of 3950metres. There are one or two drag lifts, but these are off limits to snowboarders… and they only service relatively flat areas anyhow. Once at the top of the Gondola, you can either ride one area of ‘patrolled’ terrain, or, if you’re experienced enough, you can go into some serious back country. It is for this reason you must have an avalanche shovel, a probe and a transceiver on you at all times.

The top phase of the Gondola is very subjectively open, and so on days when it is closed, there are many runs you can slash up under the tree line. The quirk here is though, you need a car to drive you back to the top.

Day one of our massively anticipated riding finally dawned. After breakfast, which was my first non-curry meal of the trip we congregated outside the hotel awaiting our guides arrival. The snow had stopped falling, and the sky was blue – it was almost too perfect to be starting this adventure in such beautiful fashion. Local dogs came to see what was happening, snow monkeys carried on with their business in the trees nearby and purple tinged crows flew over head as we tested avalanche beacon equipment. I’d sunk into the deep snow several times just heading over to where we would clip in, and as I knelt down to fasten my new board to my feet for the first time, I finally felt ‘on holiday’ – with all the long, lengthy, tiring traveling behind me.

I watched as a couple of others dropped off the snowy ledge and with the excitement now too much to bear, I too dropped in. My new Burton Fish surprising me with how easy it was to maneuver. A first look at the first phase of the gondola was something else to behold – bearing in mind, we still couldn’t see where it would finally end up – some 4000metres above sea level, for cloud cover still surrounded the upper peaks. The lift ticket system has been something that I think makes or breaks a good resort in Europe, America and Oceania – and I would quickly get annoyed if I had to dig out a pass each time I rode a lift; rather than an electronic pass system… Gulmarg has it’s own charm however. An Indian man sits in the corner near the pickup zone and sells each ride to you individually. In return you receive a voucher for your ride; the sponsors slogan mis-spelt “Stronger than the Stogest”. I decided this could get old quickly but didn’t realize how few times I would need to do this throughout the trip. To compare Gulmarg to anywhere else I’d ever been would be totally unfair however. This trip is the perfect fusion of my two favourite pastimes; traveling to remote locations, and sliding down snowy hills on carbon fibre core planks of wood.

At mid station, the relatively clear sky allowed our first looks of the mountain Affarwat, that just has to be seen to appreciate it’s full wonder. The peak still shrouded in cloud, and a queue solidly formed to get to the final phase of the lift, we rode the lower section several times. Fresh powder made the trips first few runs very enjoyable indeed, and each new run heralded a “better than the last run” feeling.

After a couple of these runs, we finally managed to jump on the gondola to the top station. The winds were blowing hard and the safety officer at the top informed us this would be the last run of the day; so to enjoy ourselves. And that we did. Although the light was as flat as a pancake, it was still easy to find untracked fields of fresh, and hit them at speed too. Before long, we had descended nearly back to mid-station, when I think I broke my personal record for fastest snowboard land speed along a cat-track.

As the snow fell, none of us realized that it would not be until the following Sunday that the top of the mountain would be accessible again.

The hotel continued to host us in charming Kashmiri style, the food was tasty, and dinners became romantic for the fact candles were oft used as the power failed several times per evening.

The storm which had shut down the upper gondola phase, raged on for several more days. I have never seen so much snow fall in such a short space of time, and so it was that every morning for most of the week, there would be plenty of fresh, and a constant snowfall. Since we were forced to stay low, we made the most of our guide Fayez, who showed us some awesome lines through the trees and along some steep challenging terrain that eventually delivered you at Tangmarg; a town based at the foot of the hill up to Gulmarg.

I attended an avalanche safety meeting on Tuesday evening which went some way to educating me of the dangers of back country snowboarding, and also gave a prediction of when the upper mountain would once again open – Friday lunch time at best, and this would be after several controlled detonations of explosives to shift some suspect avalanche hot spots.

The snowfall thinned toward the end of the week, and we lapped up the last of the untracked areas of fresh powder as the weekend landed. But still, by Saturday, we had only made one descent from the top station, way back on day 1… we were getting hungry and restless for all that fresh neige to be made available to us.

I'm Not Working

2008-02-05T10:15:00.001+04:30

To India!

And just like that, I’m there… cruising the skies at several hundred miles per hour. I’ve had my last client, I’ve had my last experience of the rat-run and I’ve had my teary goodbyes. All that’s left now is 5 more additional hours to the 2 I’ve already killed till I reach Singapore. I’m being treated to a ride along in a new Airbus A380 along with the ability to plug in my USB memory stick and start word processing, rather than watch some brainless movies (of which I did also!) from the comfort of seat 52C.

***

My short experience of Singapore, incidentally comes exactly 2years after the day I flew out of Chiangi airport to Perth (not to mention 1 year since I made a trip to New Zealand for a visa run). I can see a thoroughly soaked runway through some windows, and an absurd amount of Fuscia bursting from every orifice they seemed to be able to grow a plant from through another. The taxi’s that wait to pick people up from the front look like crash test vehicles in a very plane and dull blue… I’m not regretful I won’t get to look around here further today.
***
Now back to more conventional means of mobile computing, I’m on my second flight from Singapore to Delhi, just shy of 5hours flight time, I’m now being blessed with a short, fat slightly disgusting Indian man sat next to me, who at around every 3 minutes, snorts the excess mucus from the back of his throat and then coughs without holding his mouth. He seems hell bent on getting everything he can from the in-flight menu too, I think I’ve counted 5 requests for peanuts… and they don’t even taste that good!

***

I’m a little sad to be sitting in the middle of the airliner as I miss the descent into Delhi – my foray onto Indian soil, but I get my dose of culture soon enough as I make it out through passport control and into baggage… My snowboard bag is waiting there for me, albeit with several wet boot prints on the top, so just my clothes to come now… What seemed like an hour with the hunger that was starting to build in my belly passed me by and I was finally on my way out to the hoards of taxi pimps awaiting my pickup.

Luckily one of those guys had a clipboard with my name on it, and I was able to kick back and let someone else take care of the rest of the evening.

I made friends with a few other guys here to snowboard, and we all laughed at the crazy Indian highway code “Beep to be seen” code of conduct. From the moment I got out of the plane, the air smelt like something had been burning that shouldn’t have been, like when you see a tire on fire on some derelict land; the atmospheric sky both foggy, smoggy and unclear.

I was soon at the airport hotel and was re-united with my old travel companion Nick, who’d flown in today also; from New Zealand. That’s another country we’ve traveled to together. It’s about 10pm local time when I think about sleep, though my body thinks it’s 3am and so I drift off into slumber as quick as I had anticipated. Sydney catches up with me at 2.30am local time when my body thinks it should be getting up for work, gotta love jet-lag!

***

So now everyone had made it to Delhi, and a day that had lasted 29 hours instead of 24 was behind me, we could all sit down to breakfast to compare travel stories and expectations of what lay ahead of us in Kashmir. The spicy curry breakfast was about as Indian a welcome as you could get.

Back through the crazy Delhi traffic, where vehicles seem to be able to travel whichever way they feel, along any roads and around roundabouts – most junctions and by-ways seem to serve more as an obstacle to most drivers than something that forms order and safety on the roads. We arrived at the airport where we checked in, and even had to go and ID our luggage out on the tarmac before it was loaded onto the airliner. It was also here that we would discover something of a recurring theme in India; the power cut. The domestic terminal plunged into darkness a couple of times, though the public don’t really panic… it’s just normality here.

We landed in Srinegar, Kashmir amidst a much cleaner air than we had so far been used to in India. As we walked across the tarmac to the terminal building, armed soldiers were periodically posted to check all was in order. The conflict between India and Pakistan that has continued since the earlier stages of the last century, still casting doubts over the future of Kashmir.

Out in the near-zero temperatures with our bags, we walked out of the airport along a muddy lane lined with barb-wire fences, I felt more like a Prisoner Of War than a tourist; the locals equally interested in us and our long board bags as we were them, and there traditional winter attire.

Once our gear was loaded onto the car roofs, our drivers sped off along the rubble streets and then onto tarmac. Many shanty style houses were there, though strangely, much like the new terminal building being erected, extremely modern blue reflective glass buildings popped up; that wouldn’t look out of place in Dubai or any major modern city.

Some brief flashes of snow covered peaks, and the weather was cooling rapidly – as we arrived at what seemed to be the last town before the bendy roads that would lead us to our home for the next fortnight. Local men mulled around our cars for no particular reason, it was quite unlike any other snow resort I’d ever approached before.

As we started up the final roads to Gulmarg, the snow was falling hard and the roads became more treacherous. Our driver seemed a little too naïve for my liking, and didn’t seem to realize that a vehicle has more traction the more gear notches you go. As a result we got stuck, many, many times. The other half of our group would arrive at the hotel a whole hour earlier than we did and for all my efforts, I just couldn’t educate the driver. He finally saw some sense and got the snow chains out, except in true Kashmiri style, there was only one – which meant the back end of our car was constantly fighting ahead of the other side of the car.

Regardless we were happy to finally get to the snow covered hotel in Gulmarg, still with snow landing heavily around us.

Something to talk about

2008-01-27T10:14:00.002+04:30

Australia Day
Saturday 26th January,

About time for another party, Australia Day 2008 seemed a perfect opportunity to have our friends back over to the Lane. This day also coincides with a radio stations Hottest 100 countdown, a music poll conducted to find out the listeners favourite tracks of the past year. From 10am to 6pm, 100 songs are played before the winning song is revealed. Our twist on this was to have a shot marked against each number from 100 down to 1. Depending on which song was playing when you arrived at the party, you would need to down the corresponding shot. Some shots were alcoholic, and some were non, and some were not particularly nice!

The 3 of us housemates plus WAGs, dressed in Aussie colours for the day too.

After a few hours from 10am commencement, the party was in full swing and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Unfortunately, I have to end this blog a little early, due to the lack of memory for the most-part of the event. I do however remember; flour bombing the lounge room floor at something like 1am in order to provide more slide for the hardcore of us still up and dancing… the rest can live on in the memory’s of those present… Happy Australia Day!

This Day Should Last Forever

2008-01-23T06:22:00.004+04:30

Hunter Valley

My Christmas gift to Lauren, was a trip to the Hunter Valley; New South Wales’ most famous vineyard area. This was the first time I got to experience the place without being on the back of a pre-planned tour bus.

Our first day, we set out to go wine-tasting from our estate cottage. There had been some heavy showers in the previous few days, though the ground seemed pretty firm on leaving across some beaten footpaths. We both simply wore thongs/flip-flops/sandals (depending where you come from!) and were having a blast stealing the odd grape from the vines for an unofficial taste session. Jumping across puddles was fun too… but then came bigger puddles, and puddles that wanted to keep our footwear. We both ended up walking bare-foot through the sloppy clay/soil to avoid losing our shoes and when we finally reached the end of the trail, we had to use more puddles to wash the crud from between our toes and legs.

Several hours later, we were sampling Thai food at Tempus Two over a bottle of Muscato, giggling away after a morning’s worth of wine consumption. The weather on the whole behaved itself, but we still got wet as we walked the long peaceful walk back past more vines to our temporary home for the final evening in the valley.

During the week, my almost regular visit to ‘The Metro’ rolled around. This time, to see English electronic/experimental rock outfit; UNKLE. For the first time, the band brought out some kind of stage dressage with them, and it made a huge change to see a decent lighting rig here, especially to accompany a band of this genre. It turned out to be my favourite gig I’d seen there, and my favourite gig for quite some time, that left my ears ringing for a day or two afterwards.

Shut Up and Drive

2008-01-14T05:31:00.004+04:30

Lithgow

I walked out of work on Friday night feeling like a free man, a freer-er man anyway. For only 3 weeks from now, I would be walking away from work safe in the knowledge that I shall not return for a whole month.

That weekend, was used as a last chance to truly relax before flying around this huge imperfect sphere we call home. Saturday afternoon, I drove out West, past the Blue Mountains to Lithgow, with Lauren, Benny & Cam, to join up with our friends staying at Rog’s holiday getaway home. Upon arrival, drinks were placed in hands and the scents of many wonderful aromas drifted past our nostrils building the anticipation of the food we were about to feast on.

The evening whiled away with many a laugh as the guys re-counted their epic day cycling the 6ft track – and on many occasion, Josh would show us his war wounds that he suffered on one “jump that turned out not to be a jump”.

Some fairly lengthy Jenga, which went on way longer than anyone would predict considering the amount of alcohol backing up every prod to the wooden bricks, pretty much dropped the curtain on the evening.

The following morning the temperatures rose to around 30degrees and the relaxation continued with some of the guys knocking out a huge fried breakfast that the 14 of us could help find ourselves again whilst eating, and watching the TV coverage of 2 other friends; completing their adventure across the Tasmin sea in a kayak.

Before I knew it, I was back on a Sydney bus with less than 15 working days to pass by…

Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?

2008-01-08T03:05:00.000+04:30

Tarago, Southern TableLands, New South Wales

I noticed today, after a barrage of emails between 6 friends, that it is only 25days, until I once again board an airplane and travel to a distant land away from Active Directory, Blackberrys and Sydney Transport.

Today however, is a day quite different from all other working days in the past year and several spare months in that, I left the concrete jungle. After a client of mine expanded to another office in a place called Woodlawn, I was to set up their new network at this site. Cooler still was the “void” I got a tour of, a hole in the ground that’s currently taking much of Sydneys waste… and will one day produce enough methane to generate electricity! Okay, that’s probably one of the least cool things I’ve written but hey… better than lining up for a gate pass at Mascot train station.

Now it’s not often that I mix business with blogging, but it is since leaving work just after 6pm this evening that I was given a refreshing blast from the past. With my camera at hand, the sun shining into the dusk and a set of wheels giving me complete freedom; I was given a huge dose of the travel bug.

I stopped at several random spots that looked interesting enough to take pictures at. Whilst approaching a log in a field, I disturbed a hare that went bounding off into the dry bushy grass. I spotted some Gala’s (pink birds) in Tarago before taking my Holden 35kms into Goulburn, the nearest major town. I was finally, after a day without, back in an area with some mobile phone reception.

I headed back to The Loaded Dog in Tarago, a pub with some 100yr+ old history where I was to sleep for the night. At $35, I felt somewhere between two moods; a) why am I booked up in such a cheap room tonight? And b) wow, it’s just like back-packing again!

So here I am, still 25 days till I depart for India; that’s 18 days at work, with a visa still to obtain, a snowboard still to receive in the post, approximately 10-11 more gym sessions to squeeze in and a whole bunch of other stuff I really can’t wait for… 2008 is off to a flyer!

You can see these pictures and more from my little road trip at http://www.fonfara.blogspot.com/.

By The Monument

2008-01-02T05:08:00.000+04:30

New Years Eve 2007/8

Still trying to fight off the germs in my body, I was going to do something I've not done since the Millenium NYE (due to a poorly timed bout of the flu), and stay sober as 2008 rolled in.

Lauren had gotten back from her trip to England early and so after meeting up with her after work, we got some dinner and then headed over towards Cremorne on the North Shore to join Aaron, Emily, Kate, Ryan & Katrina.

Getting a park proved time consuming and we were forced to watch the 9pm fireworks from the front seats of the car. After a long walk, we finally found the guys by the waters edge. With more food & drinks, we had the party cranking with the iPod chucking out some beats.

Much like last year, we totally missed the countdown, and before we knew it - the harbour bridge was a mass of exploding light and colour. The explosions also carried on up and down the harbour and we could see around 4 sets of syncronised fireworks. A really awesome display this year with plenty to look at including some 3-d fireworks (fireworks that exploded into a cube).

Even with me driving, we still had to endure a killer trip home as the traffic back across the bridge and through the city was generally grid-locked. An early morning McDonalds kicked my 2008 off in healthy style...

Happy New Year to you all - I wish you all the best... and hope to catch up with you all at least one time this year!

Stay Another Day

2007-12-29T04:12:00.000+04:30

Christmas 2007

Twas two nights before Christmas, and an all weekend binge session was still in progress.

My housemates old Melbourne house mate was visiting for 24hours on his way back home from China so even after a big session with my colleagues on Friday, an even bigger session at Daft Punk on Saturday... it was time to dig deep and show Vardsy how we do it in Sydney.

An extremely random day saw us sinking beers at home in the yard, in the Palace, the CBH, and repeat visits to some of those. We thought we were winding down toward the end of the night as the Palace gardually cleared out. We all headed off home before the drunken randomness that you can only really associate with Christmas kicked off.

Back at the Lane, the music came on, the Christmas lights twinkling in the front room and back yard as we bopped away to recent iHits.

Party tricks including Jarrads "Lizard", Vardsy's "Worm" and my own "Human Jump Rope" made their way on to the make shift dance floor... Everyone was a little excited and as Aaron tried for his best slide across the floor, he stumbled and fell forward with nothing but a wine glass to break his fall.

Seconds later he had his hand under the tap washing the claret down the sink. My final recollection of this Sunday night/Monday morning was that at about 3am, Aaron & Jarrad made their way to the emergency room just around the corner from where we live to get his hand sorted out...

Then, 4 hours later, I was awake again, for the night before Christmas - or as it was this year... the last day of work before Christmas - bummer. Luckily I managed to escape reasonably early and was back home snoozing and doing anything but embracing festive cheer.

Christmas had come early for me this year - "Eve" had been Fridays work party, "Day" had been the amazing Daft Punk, and "Boxing day" had been spent in typical fashion with friends at the pub/house/beach/bar/house/emergency room.

My real Christmas however, consisted of plenty of food consumption, with my house mates... we even made a short video to celebrate the Aussie Christmas - excuse us, we may appear a little tipsy:

Boxing day I awoke and my partying had well and truly taken its toll. My hangover manifested itself as some kind of killer head cold which I then spent the remainder of the year trying to beat down. This really made those inbetween days at work enjoyable... I hope yours were more enjoyable than mine!

Back to work Thursday & Friday, I was hanging out for the weekend due to feeling unusually crook... Aarons old housemate came to stay at Bundock and so the weekend had us showing off our city as tour guides. Saturday we hit Wooloomooloo and the Botanical Gardens and Sunday we all jumped in Todds car for a quick trip to Palm Beach (set of Home & Away).

I hope your Christmas was fun, festive and maybe a little more relaxing than mine ;)

Daftendirekt

2007-12-24T10:22:00.000+04:30

DAFT PUnK, Homebush

Throughout November & December, it has seemed very much like someone pushed the throttle to 'Full', and life has been hurtling by quicker than I can take everything in.

My original plans for Christmas were scuppered when I realised I had run out of time to send things internationally, a huge oversight on my part for which I am really sorry, for not getting a greeting card out to many of my good friends. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone who reads this, a very merry Christmas and an awesome new year when I hope to catch up with all of you!

With time flying so quickly, one of my most hotly anticipated events of the year came on Saturday. Daft Punk made it to Sydney at last. Considering I bought "Homework" in 1996 and their other studio albums since then, it's quite strange that I've never seen them live before. I think this is mostly due to their rare and sporadic touring patterns though.

Although the weather wasn't particularly great, the day got to several key points where emotions ran so unbelievably high... sometimes it was the music, sometimes the additives in the Jager. But concerts and days like this don't come about any where near as often as I'd like.

After the awesome Presets (final) warmup act, it was time for Daftness. They lit up the stage for 90minutes with every shade of neon light you can imagine possible as light patterns slid like silk across the huge LED pyramid on stage. It was mesmerising... at least the moments where I stood still long enough to be mesmerised.

*Now a few days have passed (this is a late edit), I can state that this was the most fun I've ever had a stadium gig. 5 days have passed and I have longed to be back at Homebush in front of the Frenchmen. If they EVER tour again; I will be there; wherever, whenever.

I made a video diary of the day that you can see below, turn up your sound and enjoy!

The Trick to Life

2007-12-16T16:00:00.000+04:30

12 Pubs of Christmas 2007

Wow, to start my first Christmassy post with a huge cliché, time sure does fly. A year on from last years 12 pubs of Christmas pub crawl, the now annual event descended upon Sydney faster than I could fathom.

A few weeks prior, a few of the organizing committee went for a practice run of prospective pubs to be used on this years circuit. This was to avoid potential hazards such as opening hours, dress codes, heavy handed doormen and pubs that simply wouldn’t let a vast quantity of people in in one huge drunken surge.

Members of last years rabble showed up this year, with friends that had had to listen to the good time stories of T12POC2006, certain they wouldn’t miss out this year. If I’m honest… which invariably I am, they got what they were after.

The beers flowed faster than Rudolphs consumption of carrots on Christmas eve. The laughs emanated like Chris Chringle on Nitrous Oxide and short term memories dropped away in much the same way that a festive balloon might, having been attached to the ceiling by static electricity.

The rabble Started at the Rocks, working around towards Darling Harbour, then cutting across Market Street and then violently doubling back on themselves back to the spiritual end-point of T12POC – the Metropolitan Hotel above Maccas… convenience in physical form.

Stories will be recounted in years to come undoubtedly – “who kissed who?”, “who fell victim to the porcelain Gods?”, “who took a wrong turn and wound up drinking coffee instead of being at pub 9?”…

In it’s second year, the day is becoming legendary… see you there next December?

Opportunity

2007-12-13T09:50:00.000+04:30

Soccer & Photography wrap up

The last 8-10 weeks have seen me kept invariably busy throughout the week. Monday nights were home to a 6-a-side mixed soccer tournament… Our form roller-coastered along though we finally scraped into the finals day playlist. Our final 2 games won with 1-0 victories.
Our semi final was against one of the teams we’d just beaten the day before – and so we were somewhat confident we might be able to pull of another upset… the luck was with us a while, with the ref failing to spot a ball over the line from them. It soon faded however, and before we knew it, were 3-0 down with 5mins to go.

An awesome team effort clawed us back a well deserved consolation goal and meant we could leave the field with heads held high after never failing to score in 3 meetings with a team that topped the league group.

The following evening was another finale – this time from my photography course that I’d been partaking in. The aim was to learn full manual control of my Minolta digital camera (and all other digital SLRs).

The final night was presentation night – where everyone in the class had to make a presentation of around 15 pictures that they’d taken since the course began. The tutor picked me at random to go first… you can see the full picture selection on my other blog: http://www.fonfara.blogspot.com/.

The water shot got some ooh’s and ahh’s, and I got quite a few questions right after asking which techniques I’d used to capture my images. I great feeling of accomplishment enveloped me and I can safely assume I reached my goal set at the beginning of the course.

Mo Money, Mo Problems

2007-11-30T10:03:00.000+04:30

Mo-Vember...

I've had a few random emails asking why they seen on various other websites with a dirty moustache... Movember is the answer.

For the month of November, the charity event encourages men to grow their moustaches from a clean shaven face to whatever they can sculpt in 30days. The result means that men around the city look decidedly dodgy by the end of the month, but a whole bunch of cash gets raised to promote awareness of some serious male diseases such as prostate and testicular cancer.

I must admit to not trying too hard to raising a heap of cash, but thanks to Aaron and Anna, I raised over $100 for charity... MASSIVE thanks to you both, you rock my world!

On the 30th of Movember, a group of us went to celebrate Rog's birthday, a little belated, by seeing the Paper Scissors & Kid Confucious at the Metro. I got to flaunt my fully grown mo more than anyone wanted. I also learned that the best way to show it in photo's was to put a huge pout below it... or maybe not!

The following morning, it was time for beach volleyball. I figured just for some fun, I'd go for a Hitler mo, just for an hour or two whilst playing. I attracted some interesting comments, as well as giving birth to a new tag-line of "Silly Hitler". (I encourage you to click on the beachy picture to the right for the full Hitler effect) I wasn't impressed when the group decided to head to the pub afterwards, meaning the Hitler mo had to stay on and in tact most of the day... I was just a little relieved to lose it on the first day of advent.

Is This It?

2007-11-26T15:36:00.000+04:30

Movember

For any regular readers I may have left, the month of November in Australia, is renamed Movember. The challenge is for guys to grow as mean a mo (moustache) as he can from the 1st of the month till the last - bonus points.

So this is what I have been doing effectively avoiding part of face with my razor for 1month... although at the time of writing I still have several days to endure. Odd looks out on the street are something I've gotten used to (having a moustache; you kids at the back!), the fact that I service 3 different clients a day also means I have everyone keen to see how the growth is coming along on each visit... and it is kinda difficult to stay motivated about it... even when I get some really great compliments; "Dirty lookin South American, Yosemite Sam, Gomez Adams, The Pool Cleaner" to name a few... though "Sexy Pirate" would be my personal favourite :P (The inset picture is pretty much at the half way stage of the month)

So in a month where I set out to concentrate upon the upcoming task of travelling once again (3months and counting as of the start of November), I quite hopelessly failed to keep things low-key. Aaron turned the golden (and I'd have to say best to be) age of 28, and it seemed many others shared birthdays around this time too... it's like an early extension of the Christmas party season.

I managed to visit a bunch of new eateries and drinkeries, not to mention go on a tour of Sydneys Rocks - with a ghost theme. Yet I've not managed to frequent a single gig this month...

My beach volleyball career stretched a little further with my first full competetive games resulting in straight back to back victories - even with a hangover, much better than my soccer performances which continue to be goal-less.

I've made some pretty important directional decisions too this month, with a couple of new projects I'm planning to bust out in the new year.

I'll probably end up adding to this post as the week rolls on as I remember to re-collect other things which don't leap to the forefront of my mind right now