Big Mary, her older sister and the Grand Canyon.

As some of you might know from reading the press, the Queen Mary 2 docked in Sydney Harbour on Tuesday morning and by the afternoon her older sister ship the Queen Elizabeth 2 had docked too.

The press went mad over the QM2 docking in Sydney harbour as it was the first time two queen Cunard ships had visited Sydney since WWII. Roger, Allen and I went down to the harbour to see the two ships in the evening.

It was as if the whole of Sydney had gone boat mad as the streets were packed with people and cars all heading down to the quay. This first photo is of the QE2 docked in the normal docking place for cruise liners. The Manly ferry in the foreground was packed with people who had booked on the ferry for a special trip around the two cruise liners. They had some fireworks lined up for the evening ,but we didn't get a chance to see them as it was just too busy.

This second photo is of the QM2. We couldn't get a really good view of it and I didn't have anywhere steady to place my camera for a good shot either.

The QM2 was truly a very large cruise liner. It's apparently the biggest and fastest cruise liner today. From this distance, despite my wide angle lens I still couldn't fit the entire ship into my shot. It looked more like a giant floating hotel or building rather than a ship. It was too big to dock in Circular Quay where the QE2 was, it's just as tall as the top car deck of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's a shame that it couldn't dock there as you would have got a better appreciation of it's size if you could see some of the Sydney skyline behind it.

After seeing both the ships we went down to the Arthouse bar for a couple of drinks. We come here quite often as it's a nice bar and quite popular for people after work to hang out.








On Wednesday Allen and I took the day off to take Joe's son Ben down to the Blue Mountains for a good walk. We decided to do the Grand Canyon walk. It's a short walk at only 5km and in the guide book only 3 1/2 hours long.

We all met up in the morning to pick up a hire car for the day. The walk was quite good as we started up walking down into the canyon where we followed a river. There were plenty of small lizards about and also some small crayfish like creatures in the river. They looked like mini bright red lobsters and more like a plastic toy.

The temperature down in the canyon was very different to the temperature above. So much so that we could see our own breath in the canyon! On the top of the canyon in the sun it must have been around 25 degrees.

Once we had reached the end of the canyon the path lead quite steeply up one side and then you walked along a ledge on one side of the canyon. If it weren’t for a rail that they had put up it would have been quite a precarious walk.

Near the end of the walk we still had to walk out of the canyon. The uphill steps appeared to go on forever. Just as you thought you were at the top over a ledge there were even more steps going upwards.

I saw a giant ant on the path as we walked along. It must have been about an inch long and the largest ant that I've every seen. We didn't hang around too long to see where the rest of the colony was.

Ben also spotted the remains of a snakeskin. We also didn't hang around to see if the snake was about either.

Here's a photo of one of the lizards that we saw. There were about three different varieties of lizard. This one had a particularly striking golden brown pattern along its back.

I guess we were (un)lucky not to see any snakes or spiders on our walk or along any other walks that I've done in the Blue Mountains. Allen says that he's seen a brown snake once around this area of the Blue Mountains. I think it's one of the most dangerous snakes around here. I did see plenty of cobwebs though and one of them quite big!

Snorkelling Tropfest.

We all went snorkelling at Shelly Beach last Saturday. The last time I went snorkelling was when I was out at the Barrier Reef. I was a little apprehensive to go out snorkelling in the sea this time as I would be well out of my depth and Shelly Beach doesn't have any lifeguards.

When we got to Manly there weren't any swimmers in the sea as there were more blue bottle jellyfish being washed onto the beach. Shelly Beach is just a kilometre across from Manly, but because it's sheltered from the sea there aren't any blue bottle jellyfish around there.

This is a view of the area where we went snorkelling, Shelly Beach being just to the right of the shot and Manly directly to the left. As it turned out swimming out to sea was quite easy with a snorkel on, as I didn't have to worry about breathing when swimming. Allen did mention afterwards that I did look a little funny while out in the sea but then again I was well out of my depth and quite reliant on the snorkel to breath!

I saw plenty of fish around, obviously not as many or quite as colourful as on the reef but there were still quite a few fish of varying sizes to see. Some smaller fish swimming in shoals were very close to the surface and would pass you before changing direction very quickly. I was quite pleased in the end that I had gone out snorkelling, as it was something else that I wouldn’t normally do.

After snorkelling we went to Manly for some good food and also some beers. Unfortunately we were mostly dressed in shorts and thongs so we weren't allowed into any of the bars in Manly. They appear to have a policy of smart casual dress for Saturday nights.

Not being able to get into any bars we caught the ferry back to the CBD and managed to get served in the Ship Inn which is more of a tourist bar being right on Circular Quay. Surprisingly we stayed up till about 3.30 in the bar drinking all night.

When we were at the bar there was an obvious wedding couple that were out on the town. They looked a little out of place in the bar as she was still in her wedding dress, but they did both have thongs on as well being very Australian.

There was one incident in the bar when a few bouncers had to force a man out of the place. He was quite obviously drunk and I saw one of the bouncers try to trip the guy over when outside of the bar. Then some woman then started on the bouncer and it felt like just any other bar in the UK on a Saturday night!

A bit later on three policemen turned up and started to take notes from the bouncers and the people that were kicked out. Allen obviously bound by his civic duty to serve went over to the police to give his statement to what had happened! They didn't come over and ask us anything but Allen really wanted to tell them what he saw happen. They eventually took his name and details and obviously took him very seriously. We haven't heard anything else about the incident since, maybe they had better things to do like deal with real crime.

On Sunday evening the Tropfest short film festival was on in the Domain Park in Sydney. The film festival is apparently one of the biggest in Australia if not the world. The Park is only about a fifteen minute walk from my apartment so I just had to go to see what was going on.

I met up with Ian and a few of his friends at the park. Everyone at the park was having a good time there each with their own picnic setup. It was really good to be able to sit in the middle of so many people watching films all night and snacking on food.

The weather wasn't fantastic as it was a little overcast but it was still quite warm and humid. As the sun started to set the fruit bats started to fly from the near by botanical gardens. It was quite cool to see the low flying bats overhead as it got darker. I'm sure the bats were wondering what was going on in their back yard, which would normally be so quiet.

Here you can see the edge of the Sydney skyline at night from the park. There are always so many outdoor events going on in Sydney almost every weekend. I guess the better climate really helps but I can't imagine so many things going on in Bristol as often.

The sixteen films that they showed were of varying quality. Some were obviously quite serious and had a deeper meaning while others were very funny. I think the outdoor atmosphere really didn't help the more serious films while the funnier films obviously went down very well.

One particular film was about the race riots last year. Two blokes met up on a beach one Australian and the other middle eastern. It turns out that they were meeting up for some rioting against each other. However they were obviously too early or at the wrong beach.

They started talking to each other initially cautiously and eventually were very friendly to each other. Their conversations were very funny, along the lines of so how many people does it take to constitute a riot, is two enough, or maybe a dozen. Where do you get your knuckle dusters from, what playstaion games do you play, etc. I guess the underlying message was that even though they were intent on causing each other harm they weren't that different and under different circumstances they could be friends.

You can do a search for Tropfest and take a look at the films online. Between the flags is the film that I described above. The Von and Being Boston were also very good.

Stung by a Jellyfish, check!

Warning: If you're of a nervous disposition and seeing loads of men in Speedos might send your blood pressure up then don't look at the pictures.

Allen had his big race this Sunday. He's been training for the 2km Coles Classic race at Manly beach, and this Sunday was his big day. I got to the beach at around 10:15 for the start of the race at 10:45. We briefly saw Allen who looked quite nervous while waiting around. The course did look much longer than we thought it would be.

Here you can see the racers in Allen's age group all lined up and ready to go. There must have been about 1500 racers in all divided up into about a dozen or so different groups. There were also 1km and 10km races on throughout the day. We could just see the 10km racers coming in as we got to the beach.

Allen is amongst the group in this photo. It was really good to see so many swimmers running into the sea as soon as the starter gun went off. The all looked like a bunch of turtles running into their sea with their identical swimming caps on.

I think Allen decided to stay in the back end of the group to avoid getting tangled up in other swimmers. His previous times for around 2km were around the 47 minute mark. The average time for last years swim was around 36 minutes, so he was expecting to be at the back of his group anyhow.

This is the view of Shelly Beach from around the mid point of the course. You can just see a line of splashing swimmers in the distance as they go all the way up to Shelly Beach and then back around to Manly Beach.

Just watching all the swimmers made Deirdre, Emily and I all tired! We saw a couple of them lose their way at some of the turns and almost swim into the rocks as well! I can't imagine anything more demoralising than realising that you've had to swim further than you needed to.

Emily spotted Allen coming out of the water when we waited for him at the finishing post. He looked quite tired when he exited the sea and there was a group of people around him that all overran him to the finishing line. You can just see him running to the finish in the light blue striped Speedos in the very bottom right of this photo.

There was a radio commentator making jokes and talking about the swimmers as they came in. Allen said that he thought he heard the commentator talk about the food that could be bought at the BBQ. Then the commentator upon seeing Allen said that Allen should get some free BBQ food, instead of having to pay for it! Cheeky git!

Allen managed the 2km in 41.50s which was much faster than he expected. He figures the adrenaline and also the fact that he had to swim through some jellyfish along the course made his time faster. These jellyfish weren't the prosiness kind though.

David Walliams was also taking part in the race, which we didn't realise till the following day. There was an article on him in the local Sydney Morning Herald. A shame really as it would have been good to get a photo of him and Allen after the race.

So what did Allen get for his months of training and swimming the 2km. A can of Redbull, a plumb and form for the next 2km race at the end of February!

We all went to hang around the beach for the rest of the day. I hired out a body board and went body boarding. Typically for me there were some reports of the occasional bluebottle jellyfish (Portuguese Man o'War) in the sea. I swam into the sea with my bodyboard and on my first wave I felt a sharp pain on my left arm. I looked at it and couldn't see anything. For the next few minutes I kept feeling this pain in my left arm but couldn't see anything on it. A while later I could see some more jellyfish in the water so decided to get out in case I was stung.

As it turns out I was already stung on my arm. A local lifeguard identified the marks on my left arm as having been caused by a bluebottle jellyfish. He said that there wasn't anything that could be done about it and the pain would only last for around half and hour or so. It wasn't than painful more like a bad stinging nettle rash. I still have a few marks on my arm today but hopefully they'll go away soon enough.

We were surprised at the number of topless sunbathers on the beach. Definitely more than usual, unfortunately no pictures to make up for the men in Speedos in this entry.

Docked in Circular Quay was a very big cruise liner that we could see on our way back on the ferry. It literally dwarfed the harbour cruise terminal and even some of the buildings behind it.

I never could see why anyone would want to take a cruise for a holiday. To me it would be my idea of holiday hell. Being stuck on a big boat with loads of other people and not being able to get away at all. Still each to their own...