Entries by sew

Last week saw us down in the Snowy Mountains. Staying at Angler's Reach and skiing at Mt Selwyn. We drove down on the Saturday, arriving in the early evening. On the Sunday we just relaxed in our cottage - going out only briefly for a wander down to Lake Eucumbene - the water level hasn't improved since last year - in fact it's probably a little bit lower (so it's ridiculously low). On the Monday we went up to Mt Selwyn in the morning. The weather was rough - low visibility, drizzle - yuck. We decided to go skiing in the afternoon - to avoid getting soaked and giving up by lunch time. So to kill some time we drove up to Cabramurra - the highest town in Australia. There's not a lot there - but they did have a general store/coffee shop so that kept us occupied for an hour or so. They had some great photos of Land Rovers from the 1950's working on the Snowy Hydroelectric project. In the afternoon we put the kids into ski school so Caroline and I had a nice afternoon skiing without them (oops - should I say that?). In fact we had such a nice time that we put them into a full day of ski school on the Tuesday - so we had 1.5 days in total of skiing sans petit enfants - nice! On the Wednesday we took it in turns to ski with Dave and look after Chels. On the Thursday we had a late start, toboganning a bit in the morning, Chels in ski school in the afternoon which meant Dave, Caroline and I could then ski together. Dave's skiing is coming along nicely - he certainly has absolutely no fear when it comes to launching himself down steep blue runs at high speed. In fact he needs to be a bit more cautious (like his old and weary parents). Apart from the not so good weather on the first day we then had absolutely glorious days - sunny, crystal clear and cold! In fact one morning while driving up to the ski fields the car registered an outside temperature of -7C... now that's nippy. As usual I managed to take some photos just click HERE and go to '2010'.

I've finally found a spare moment to post some photos HERE from a trip I made to New York in early June.

I was over there for a meeting in a place called Palisades New York - just across the Hudson river (and up a bit) from Manhattan. It's just over the state line from New Jersey (and it showed). The place where I stayed was a custom built executive 'retreat' - complete with accommodation, meeting rooms etc. It was on a property stuck out in the woods - sort of an executive concentration camp. I came away with the distinct impression that I'll never complain about going to Poughkeepsie again - by comparison Poughkeepsie is the height of culture and entertainment. The place I stayed was probably really fashionable in 1980's corporate America - but now it is showing its age. Good food though - tons of the stuff - ridiculous quantities of it in fact.

The weekend before I stayed down in Manhattan at the Hilton. 1335 Avenue of the Americas between West 53rd and West 54th. Only a few blocks down from Central Park. I hadn't stayed there before, usually staying close to Times Square. The hotel was fine and the location was excellent. Definitely the place to stay in future (assuming the Plaza isn't on the list!).

It was US Navy fleet week so I went over to visit USS Intrepid on the Saturday. I hadn't been over to see her for years - since well before Concorde arrived on a barge (which was around 2003 I think). First stop Concorde - not sure how many Concordes I've been on now - but it must be close to at least half of the fleet. Pity they've all been traveling at precisely Mach 0.0 when I've been on board. Arriving around 10am it wasn't too crowded, by the time I left around 12:30 the place was packed.

On the Sunday I got up ludicrously early due to jetlag and went for a long walk around Central Park. Every time I visit there I seem to see more of the park - it's a fantastic place I can see why New Yorkers love it. I then wandered over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in time for opening. Given it was Memorial Day weekend they didn't have a full staff on so some of the galleries were closed. Still plenty of stuff to see though - I was there for about 4 hours before I got all 'arted-out'. Next stop FAO Schwartz (I seem to do a similar circuit every time I visit Manhattan). They were filming for a movie or telly outside which made it tricky to get in. Once in it's still as small and fairly lame as ever - next time, mental note to go to Toys R'Us in Times Square instead - probably no better (from memory) but bigger.

Given I was running out of time (and it's free - one of the only corporate perks left) I visited the MoMA. To be honest apart from some Magrittes and a Chagall I found the rest of it a bit blah. That's about all I did - probably rather pathetic compared with what most folks can pack into a weekend in Manhattan - I blame the jetlag (and I've seen most of it before anyway). I hope you enjoy the photos (filed under "2010").

Last night we saw the 'Pink Floyd Experience' at the Enmore Theatre. They're from New Zealand. They were bloomin' excellent. They did about a 2 1/2 hour show - covering everything from the earliest Syd Barrett stuff up through to Division Bell. The lead guitarist was awesome. In fact the music couldn't really be faulted. The singers I had to accept were not the real Waters and Gilmour - but once I got over that it was really enjoyable. Well worth seeing. Oh, and where were we sitting? It illustrates my sad-gitness that I got us seats A21-A22: front row, right in the middle - awesome! The only downer was the regular wafting waves of smells emanating from the Enmore's ancient loos - every now and then you'd be greeted with a real strong wiff of urinal cake... eeech.

Being the school holidays I took last Thursday and Friday off and went camping with David (Grover only has two seats so Chels and Mum had to stay behind). We drove up to Newnes State Forest near Lithgow. Starting off from the Zigzag railway turn off my first mistake was to not 'zero-ise' (or take note of) the odometer. That meant the great '4WD Treks close to Sydney' book we were consulting for track guidance was next to useless. Once off road and into the forest there were tracks all over the place and we quickly got disorientated. Our fallback was the GPS but I'd forgotten to load the waypoints for this particular trek in it - so we basically just bumbled about for a bit.

Next stop was the Glow Worm tunnel in Wollemi National Park. It's a disused railway tunnel (closed in 1932) that contains thousands of Glow Worms (not sure why I feel compelled to type that in Upper Case). The tunnel is about 600 metres long and in the middle it's dark - pitch dark. Stand there for a minute or so and all of a sudden you start to see tons of Glow Worms covering the walls of the tunnel. It's an amazing site - all caused by the chemical reaction between oxygen and a gnat's bottom. Having had our fill of the wonders of nature it was time to find a campsite for the night. We chose a spot just outside of the NP (so back in Newnes SF). It was a lovely spot - no other campers, no facilities, no nothing. Just how we like it.

Dave did his best to start the campfire. On our last camping trip I'd used a bit of Shellite (White Spirit) to 'help things along a bit'. The resulting conflagration as Dave pressed the figurative ignition button has left him a bit wary. It was you might say (for Dave) a bit of an 'in your face' experience. This time though no accelerants were used so starting was a bit of a chore (it had rained a fair bit recently). Eventually however we got a nice fire going - by which stage he was so knackered he was ready to call it a night. We did do a bit of star gazing however - the Milky Way looks awesome away from the light pollution of Sydney. We saw plenty of satellites whiz overhead (it's wrong to wish on space hardware apparently) but I did see a real 'shooting star' as well.

Next morning we de-camped (is that a bit like de-frocked? - more double entendres that you can poke a Nazi Pontiff at). We eventually found 'The Lost City' - which was certainly worth seeing. It's a formation of eroded rocks that if you were a dehydrated rum-crazed ex-convict explorer with a vivid imagination in the early 1800's you might just think was an ancient city, made out of rock. We then wound out along Blackfellows Hand Trail until we reached the Aboriginal rock art (hand paintings) in the caves at Blackfellow's Hand Rock. An amazingly literal name if ever I've heard one - right up there with the Great Sandy Desert and The Snowy Mountains. Nice one.

Wandering around there for a bit we left Grover's engine running as it didn't seem like such a good place to break down. It had that 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' feel about it. No, not Edwardian school girls running around the place, more foreboding spookiness (maybe I just watch too much Scooby Doo - it's hard not to in our house). Next stop was the Wolgan Gap which provides an awesome view down into the Wolgan Valley. Carefully driving down the steep hill into the valley we were then greeted with around 25KM of corrugated track (more of which shortly) all the way to our destination - Newnes. Newnes is the site of an abandoned shale mining operation that was built by the Commonwealth Oil Corporation in the late 1800's. To be honest there's not a whole lot there - a bit of industrial 'old stuff' - slowly decomposing back into the ground. This might float your boat if you are really into old industrial guff but frankly coming from South Wales it's hardly awe inspiring - there were probably older bits of crap in my garden when I was a kid!

But did we have a good time? Absolutely. We've seen things in that short space of time that few people living only an hour or so away will ever see - thanks to a 34 year old heap of Birmabright, steel and rubber. The photos are HERE (under 2010 funnily enough).

Went to see the Pixies at the Hordern Pavillion the other night. A great show, they played the whole of "Doolittle" and a ton of other favourites. They're all looking older than they were in their heyday but I suppose we all are. Highlights? Well every song they played was pretty awesome - they sounded just like they do on their records. Even down to the "rock me Joe" on 'Monkey Gone To Heaven'. Listening to songs that you've played literally hundreds of times over the past twenty years with the band directly in front of you was a bit surreal - just like their music I suppose. Oh and you can see plenty of videos of the night if you go to youtube and plug in Pixies and Hordern.

We (me, Dave, Chels and Grampy) drove down to Albion Park today to see the Wings over the Illawarra show. Not an airshow mind you as that would involve too much CASA bureaucracy. Just a show, move along, nothing to see... Actually it wasn't much of an airshow (not an airshow) as it turned out anyway. Low cloud base with storm cells about - though it only drizzled briefly at the aerodrome. Highlights were getting Dave and Chels into a C-130J - Dave sitting in the captain's seat with Chels as his first officer (no aspirations to be a hostie for this girl - in fact she probably wanted the captain's seat).

We also got the opportunity to go inside the Consolidated PBY Catalina 'Black Cat'. An amazing machine. Connie flew which is always nice to see. An FA-18 from Williamtown came down to do a routine. Yet more photos of a beautifully camouflaged gray aeroplane with the sky almost precisely the same shade of gray. Gray on gray, marvellous. I must have literally hundreds of photos like that. Oh well, I've tweaked them a bit so at least the plane stands out - the photos are HERE (under 2010).

24 hours on (from George Michael) and we're in the Hunter Valley at the Bimbadgen Estate winery. It's a 'day on the green' concert with Tom Jones! Again we managed to score good seats - right in the centre, about 15 rows back - but still close enough to see the sweat pooling. We were definitely on the young side in terms of the audience's average age. At times it felt a bit like a big open air nursing home - full of mad old ladies being unladylike.

Last time we saw Tom was 10 years ago. He was 60 then so he's turning 70 this year (I'm sure my mastery of complex mathematics leaves you in a state of awe). I hope I'm that active when I'm 70. Though to be honest I hope I don't sweat that much. I'm also afraid now that Tom has stopped the Grecian 2000 program he's looking suspiciously like a heavily suntanned Koala. He belted out all the classics - Delilah, What's New Pussycat, Thunderball, Green Green Grass of Home. He also sang a fair bit of his new album. He rocked!

Went to see George Michael at the Sydney Football Stadium. I got CCW tickets for here birthday - rather expensive tickets. We were in row K - or 11 rows from the stage - not bad when you consider you're in a massive stadium. If you have to see someone in a stadium this is definitely the way to see them. We've been disappointed with bad seats for The Police and U2 (at Homebush) but no complaints for this show. I'm not really a GM fan but even I thought he was excellent. A credit to the airline. The man has an amazing voice though gone are his boyish looks from the Wham! days - he's now looking more like Ben Stiller's dad. And yes, I did feel like the only non-gay in the village. Lots of videos of the night on youtube (plug in George Michael and Sydney).

Today we drove out to Oberon. a small town (village really) about 2.5 hours west of Sydney. I've flown over the place many times and had been there once before with Dave after we'd been camping near Kanangra Walls. It's a nice place - the trees in particular are spectacular in autumn (so we missed that).

They had a vintage steam festival on at the local footy grounds. Beautiful weather - nice to get the hell out of Sydney which has been suffering (along with me) with horrid humidity for the past month or so. I think we missed the majority of the exhibits as the main parade had been held the day before. There was still a bit there however. It was good to see some traction engines steaming around and we even saw a Series I Land Rover. The kids had fun though it was a long trip there and back. That's the price you pay for living in a country with not much in it outside of the capital cities (that can be a good and bad thing). I took a few photos just click on 2010 and you'll see them HERE.

Last Saturday I took Dave to see Top Gear Live at the Acer Arena. Interesting concept - try and replicate a Top Gear episode live in a stadium. I have to say it was probably fantastic for the average 12 year old in the audience but to be honest I found it a bit boring. Clarkson and May were as amusing as ever (the Hamster wasn't there) but there's only so much you can do in a giant shed. At least I think it was Clarkson and May - our so called 'platinum' tickets afforded us a view of two blokes mucking about 800 metres away - they could have been anybody I suppose. I enjoy watching Top Gear for the way the car sequences are beautifully filmed. Also it's refreshing to see a bunch of middle aged men making fools of themselves - there should be more of that. Strip that away and you've basically just left with a bunch of hideously expensive cars that I'll never be able to afford. Maybe it's a lack of imagination or just realism but drooling over hyper expensive cars just doesn't interest me - hence probably why I didn't really enjoy the show that much. Would have to put it into the seriously uncool section of the 'cool wall'. Good way for them to make even more money though - so top marks for getting some out of me. Best bit? The Reliant Robin racing (see photo).

Yesterday was Australia Day. We spent the day up in the Blue Mountains. We started off at Werriberri Trail Rides in Megalong Valley. There were a number of firsts. Dave went on an 1.5 hour trail ride with his Mum. This was Dave's first horse ride where he rode by himself - no one was holding the horse - he was in control - pretty cool for a six year old. The horse's name was Billy (important info that). On their return Chelsea had a go on 'Hound' - it was her first horse ride (on a real horse mind you - no ponies for her). She enjoyed it but by that stage it was getting pretty hot so I think she was happy when she got off. We had a picnic lunch at Hargraves lookout which sits at the end of the Shipley Plateau - fantastic views of the Megalong and Kanimbla Valleys and all the way down Narrowneck and off toward the Wild Dog Mountains. We took some photos of course. Just click HERE (2010, first page).

Last week David and I took a trip down to the Snowy Mountains. On day one we drove out of Sydney stopping at various points until we reached Cooma for a late lunch. We skirted around the edge of an absolutely gigantic storm system - for us it meant some great photos but for others who were caught up in it it must have been nasty. Driving past Jindabyne we entered Kosciuszko National Park and headed for Guthega. We stopped above Guthega Dam and walked down on to the dam wall. It was quite hot up there. I led Dave on a quick walk for a kilometre or so and he was dragging his heels - that convinced me the best way to tackle climbing Mount Kosciuszko (the following day) was to go via the chairlifts at Thredbo (instead of walking up from Charlotte Pass). We stopped along the way to look at the Snowy River. The Snowy River runs from the base of Mt. Kosciuszko down through the ski village of Guthega (and the Guthega hydro-electric power station, part of the Snowy Hydro Scheme) and through Island Bend down into Lake Jindabyne, where it is joined by the Thredbo and Eucumbene Rivers. The southern outflow from the lake is the Snowy River.

That first evening we camped at Island Bend camping area. It was originally developed as a camp in the 1950's (or maybe late 1940's - I need to read up on this fascinating chunk of history) by the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric scheme. There wasn't much sign of all that hard toil apart from some foundations and an old trig point high above the Island Bend pondage. It was a beautiful spot - the only irritation being absolutely ginormous flies which kept buzzing around. Luckily they settled down once the sun had set.

Next morning we were up around 6am, had brekky, completely packed up the car - everything packed away perfectly as we were anticipating moving on and camping in a different location that second night. By 7.30am we hopped in the car and were ready to head off to Thredbo to get a chair lift up the hill. Where are my keys? Hmmm.... all ready to go, in the middle of nowhere (well - about 20KMs from the nearest working telephone) and no car keys. With Dave's help we spent the next hour and a half digging through the undergrowth (I suspected the keys had fallen out of my pocket during a visit to the loo - i.e. pit toilet). But no... no keys. We rifled through everything, stuff scattered all around the car - nothing. So we dumped everything back into the car, packed a backpack with essentials and were about to head off down the track to get back to a road to call for assistance. I could have fired off two separate PLB's but this was an inconvenience not an emergency. Then just as we were walking out of camp I looked on the roof of the car - there were the keys! That's what happens when you've got hundreds of 'moving parts' to think of and have a 6 year old yacking away while you try to concentrate (my fault entirely though). I'd just put them 'somewhere safe' - too bloody safe.

We caught the chairlift at Threbo to the top of the hill - $38.50 I think it was - a rip off but better than walking up and down that huge hill - it was about the same size as the one I had to hike up in NZ (to get to Mueller Hut). The walk up to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko was about 13KM return - a long way for a 6 year old. Not for a moment though did I doubt David could do it - he whinged a bit about the wind (it was howling at times) and his legs got tired but he kept on trucking - he's brilliant. At the top we had lunch (salami and cream cheese rolls - Dave stole the salami out of mine), called Caroline and took in the fantastic views. We were extremely lucky with the weather, neither hot nor cold - with some amazing cloudscapes (and no flies!).

The summit of Mount Kosciuszko is at 7,310 ft - a small mountain in the scheme of things but taller than Ben Nevis (4,409 ft) and Snowdon (3,560 ft) but much shorter than its neighbour 'across the ditch' Aoraki/Mount Cook at 12,316 ft.

On the way back down Dave found some snow to play in - the only place in Australia (the mainland at least) where you can touch snow in summer.

Leaving Thredbo we drove out of the NP - pausing in Jindabyne to fuel up. We headed north as far as Berridale and there instead of heading up to Cooma we peeled off toward Adaminaby - my aim was to intercept Boboyan Road which would take us all the way up to Mount Clear camp ground in Namadgi National Park. Yes - we've stayed there about 4 times now but it's a fantastic spot - we weren't disappointed - only 3 campers (us included) - extremely peaceful. We went for a stroll at sunset and found a dam to skim stones in.

Next morning we dropped into the Namadgi NP visitor's centre to pay our camp fee ($3) - best bargain you can ever hope to get. We then drove up to Corin Forest. We had 3 bobsled rides (Dave isn't eligible to 'drive' one himself until he's eight). That was fun. Some big dings in the metal track - probably from falling tree branches. Next stop was the Australian War Memorial - they've recently added an WWI audio visual display (film?) showing dogfighting bi-planes etc. it's a good show and Dave enjoyed it. In fact I think he's turned a corner - usually we go places and he's pretty passive but he was dragging me around to look at things with great enthusiasm. By that stage it was mid afternoon - time to get back on the highway and head for home. What a great few days we had - pity we couldn't take Grover the (Land) Rover (well we could have but he would have got us there in twice the time). Will definitely have to do that again - I'm sure Chelsea will want to summit Mt Kosi in a few years.

And of course I took photos... HERE they are (under 2010 funnily enough).

On the public holiday earlier in the week me and David went for a ride in Marramarra National Park. It's about 30 mins north of home. It probably has some of the easiest trails around (in terms of proximity to home) for young David (and old Dad). Dave has only had his new bike a few weeks (though it was officially a Christmas pressie). He's still coming to grips with the concept of gears - he now has six to choose from. We took the Coba Ridge trail out to the junction with Collingridge - then took the right hand track out to Collingridge Point. From the Point you have great views (when not in cloud) - you are actually right above Neverfail Bay. Last time I came out here I walked it - much quicker on the bike. There and back about 11.5 KMs. Not a bad little ride for Dave - he fell off twice - luckily just bruising his ego rather than anything more serious. It was raining which made things nice - certainly much cooler than it's been of late and also quite atmospheric (literally) to see the water and ridges looming out of the clouds down at Collingridge Point. HERE are some photos (2009 - second page).

Last Saturday we went to Luna Park. This was about the third time we'd been for free - it being paid for by work as a Christmas present - sort of in-lieu of tea/coffee/internet expenses and a pay rise. Mustn't complain however - it was certainly better than a poke in the eye with a wet halibut. The kids enjoyed themselves. Chels loved the merry-go-round and Dave's fave was the Wild Mouse. I tried to avoid two things: getting sunburnt and thinking about the mechanical integrity of the rides. Biggest shock of the day was $26 for parking - and we were only there about 3.5 hours - that's Sydney for you. I only took a few photos which you can see here (2009, second page).