Walcott

Adelaide, South Australia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued...

A Certain Romance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sit and Wonder

Kempsey, (Near Port Macquarie), NSW, Australia

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goldfish Bowl

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

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.

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

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.