What a Beautiful City.

I've been having problems sleeping since coming back from my travels, what with jet lag and lots of things on my mind recently.

I only managed a few hours sleep last night so was a bit dozy at work today and in danger of seriously nodding off this afternoon. I didn't want to go straight back to my apartment after work today so decided to go for a stroll around the Opera House. I hadn't been there since my first day in Sydney so thought it deserved another visit.

It was a beautiful building to see again and more so when the sun was just setting in the crisp winter air. I just had to take this photo with my camera phone of the Harbour Bridge while the sun was setting. It was a real shame that I didn't have my proper camera with me as the quality of the camera phone pictures leaves a lot to be desired.

Summer Holiday in England Pt 2.

My final couple of days in the UK were spent at my sister's place.

The two little terrors you can see on the right are my two nieces, Elise and Aimee. Don't be fooled by their cute smiles, they are little devils underneath and know how to use their cuteness to get whatever they want from poor unsuspecting uncles.

I was roped into helping set up their school fete. I sometimes wonder what has happened to my Friday evenings as setting up a school fete wasn't quite what I had planned.

There was cheap beer at the fete, no doubt to help some of the parents get though the occasion!

Here's a picture of my sister Helen and brother in-law Aran trying to peddle their wares to some unsuspecting children.

I was surprised at how much profit they did make in selling raffle tickets to children at 50p a go with a very generous 50% chance of winning. They could have made even more money if they lowered the odds of winning, but I suspect that wasn't the point of the stall really. :-)


On my flight into Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon I managed to get some great shots of the city as we flew in. I'd never really noticed the great scenery on previous trips to Hong Kong, probably because I don't normally visit in the summer anymore and it's normally dark when landing because of this.

The weather there was quite unbearable though. Even though the heat was only 32 degrees, the humidity made it feel like we were living in an oven. I'm amazed that anyone would choose to live there really. As soon as you step outside you immediately get the feeling of heat and humidity and want to get back indoors for another shower!

I was quite happy to see my folks again, and my dad is generally doing fine now without anymore complications.

After only 24 hours in Hong Kong I'm back here in Sydders and updating this web blog. I had a really good time away from here and it was one of those holidays that I really didn't want to end which is always a good sign.

Oh well, back to planning snowboarding trips this winter here, and also more holidays in this land down under, oh and doing some work for Sydney Water too. :-)

Summer Holiday in England Pt 1.

After a 'good' flight back to the UK I had one week of work which wasn't too bad. It was really good to see everyone back at the office and I'm sure that they were all happy to see me too, I think! :-)

My car wasn't as happy in the garage though. It started fine but when I drove it down the drive and back it was making a loud clunking noise from the rear. I suspect it was the rear disc brakes not working properly but it was difficult to tell. A good trip down to the Honda monkeys is in order when I get back next year.

Finally got to start my holiday on Friday afternoon after a half day at work. I went straight up to Manchester to see my mate Dave and his family. All was well with him and after meeting up with Andrea on Saturday we all went to the Manchester War Museum! Where else would you rather be on a Saturday afternoon? The building for the museum is fantastic and this is one unusual shot of one side of it. I heartily recommend a trip there to anyone who has some free time in Manchester.
On Sunday we went to Preston to see two other of my friends Steve and Jeff. Jeff actually lives there while Steve was just visiting during the same weekend from London. We had a good couple of beers in Preston centre and then crashed out in Jeff's excessive mansion!

On Sunday afternoon we all went to see Flight 93 the film about the doomed flight on 9/11. It was a very good film if quite intense as well. I couldn't recommend it as a good film to go and see for a good time, but can recommend it as a film that should be seen.

From Sunday to Thursday I finally had some time to relax properly with some time in the Lake District. I had a really good time there and took some great photos of the place. If you ever want to get away from city/suburban life then get out there as it's quite easy to get away from anyone and anything there.
Even though it rained on most days while we were there we still had a good time relaxing.

The last three pictures here are ones that I took from the area. The first two are on the only day where it was quite sunny for the first half of the day, while the rainbow in the third picture shows how changeable the weather was as it was sunny one minute and then poured down for the next few hours!

There were a couple of Tornado fighter/bombers flying around and though the hills of the Lakes when we were on one walk too. They made an amazing sound passing past us at almost eye level! Unfortunately I wasn't quite quick enough with the camera to take a shot of them flying by.

We're going on a summer holiday, to England!

I have two weeks away from Sydney now, one week to work back in Wallingford and one week of holiday. I'm quite excited about coming back and especially looking forward to catching up with some friends back there. The better British weather will also make a nice change as it's been quite cool in Sydders and raining lots, more is expected next week.

Well I'm all packed now and ready to set off to the airport and just thought to catch up on the web blog before going. You can see my rather full ruck sack on the right with a kangaroo that I've managed to catch and stuff into my bag. You can just about make out it's black eye. I swear that it's over half full with presents for other people rather than my clothes. It has made me realise that I will have lots of stuff to bring back in another seven months time or so.

I'm not looking forward to my 22 hour flight and then two hour drive in the hire car back to Bristol. If I can survive that and the first few days of driving to work with all the jet lag then I'll be ok. Hmm, maybe I should take my snowboard to work every day so I could die happy knowing that it was near me. :-)

Robocop and ping pong in a cold sports bar.

Poor Allen has a stress fracture in his foot, caused by too much walking while on holiday around Uluru. What really didn't help was the flying doctor whom he saw in Uluru said it was probably just gout and he should be able to walk on the foot fine. So after many miles of walking he felt much worse and his food really swelled up. After having various xrays and other scans on his foot in the Sydney hospital he was diagnosed with a stress fracture. The extra walking that he did around Uluru was probably the worse thing he could have done for his poor foot!

Unfortunately that means he has to wear this ski boot like cast on his foot when walking around. He does sound a bit like Robocop walking around the place! You can hear him coming from around the corner at work. :-)

A couple of weekends ago we went out for some great seafood in Balmain, near to where Deirdre and Allen live. The restaurant was only a small one but the seafood platter that we had was fantastic. It was a little expensive for Balmain at $40 a head but that's only around £18 each and for the amount and variety of seafood that we had it was great value.

Last night we went to a sports bar around the corner from where I live here in Sydney. It was one of those really small doorways off the main street that goes straight downstairs to a good sized sports bar underground.

It was a proper sports bar too, as well as a few pool tables, pinball machines and big screen TV's there was also a table tennis table too! It would have been fun to try playing the game after a few beers, but unfortunately it was karaoke night last night so we didn't get a chance.

Allen and I had to play a couple of games of pinball after I had earlier challenged him to some games, we both played quite often during our times at Uni. so both fancied our chances against each other. Fortunately I was the luckier one this evening and won both games.

Despite the heavy rain outside and cooler weather the bar still had their air conditioning on. So much so that Deirdre felt very cold, she had to put on Joe's coat as well as her own layers underneath. Here she is moving some beers as we tried to relocate to a table that wasn't in direct line of an air conditioning vent.

I have a top tip for everyone out there, don't go for a gym work out when you have a hang over. It may sound obvious but I tried it this morning and it's not the best feeling in the world to have done a two hour workout, feel drained of energy, aching muscles AND have a stonking headache. To be honest while I was working out I generally felt fine and quite enjoyed it, but when I stopped between machines and caught my breath I really felt terrible.

I went shopping around china town this afternoon. I had wandered around the place before when I first got here, but only around the main streets. Today I went more off the beaten track and explored some of the inner side streets. I was very impressed with what I found. I didn't think there were many supermarkets there but I found plenty of them today, and lots of smaller cafe style restaurants where you can get really good food at a cheap price. Mmm, can you say roast duck and rice!