The Outsider

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.

Mercury

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

Penguins

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.

Right as Rain

BlueBottle and new Toys...

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

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

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

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

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

I'm on a Beach

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

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

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

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

Oren Leaving/Supergrass

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guided By A Voice

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!

Hold My Hand

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.

Ray of Light

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

Stay Another Day

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 ;)

Lord, Don't Slow Me Down

It's Friday afternoon, I'm walking down George Street, Sydney, and each of my footsteps is hitting the hot pavement in time to the music in my ears. I have one client to go to and then it's time for the weekend. Summer is well and truly back and the last 10days have given me so many random grins as I've stepped out of offices onto business district back streets, busy shopping hubs and historical wharves, breathed in a lung full of warm air and felt like I was on the most potent drug available to mankind.

Tonight it was time for an impromptu pub crawl starting at The Arthouse Hotel, me and 3 others conversing the finer points of professional loyalty. Me and 2 others then hit the other side of the city at the Argyle where we practiced age old techniques of distraction and then as strong drinks took control of our mindset, willpower and purse strings - another of the crew fell by the wayside as a taxi ride to the Cross and a visit to the Dragonfly took the last two heroes onward into the early hours. My weekend had been born in similar fashion to many had around this time last year. Silly season is upon us.

Another Saturday beach volleyballing at Maroubra Beach, and then an afternoon checking out the markets in Paddington seemed to be a good enough way to recover from the night before. A few of the guys and myself hit an arthouse style Russian movie as a way to avoid pubs, bars and clubs... it did the trick.

I was gunning for 3 sports on Sunday, I went for some more laps at the Olympic pool with benny first thing, before hitting par on 2 holes of 9 at the North Bondi golf Course... at this point I should've been making tracks for Soccer practice at Centennial Park, but I'd hit my limit already... an afternoon on the Balcony cutting photographs from magazines as a mini project for my new photography course capped off an awesome weekend where we lost an hour to daylight savings.