Weekend in Sydney

Finally made it back to Sydney to catch up with the folks and all the friends I left behind when I moved to Melbourne. It was also a trip to check out my parents new apartment in Abbotsford. They downsized from a house in burbs late last year. This is the view looking back to the apartment complex from the waterfront.

From what I saw, it was good move. Great gardens and right by the water which made for some great walks.


I got out and walked as much as possible after eating an inordinate amount of food over the weekend. Nothing can quite beat the waterfront in Sydney however still happy living in Melbourne for the time being. Only time will tell if I stay.


Thanks to Paul and Maired and Mike and Meg for the food over the weekend. Will pay it back somehow one day.

The only downside of the weekend away. I was late leaving for the airport and had to park in the short term parking. When I went to leave, I got hit with a 110 dollar parking ticket - ouch!

Anzac Day at the Beach

It was a perfect autumn day around Melbourne for Anzac day. It was a great to go and visit Ben and Caroline who I spent a fair bit of time camping with last year up in Bright. They haven't managed to come up much this season due to having to work on weekends so I decided to head down the mornington peninsula where they live. We decided to go for a walk near Cape Shank and ended up on a beach for a picnic lunch.


It was kind of fitting on Anzac day being near a cove. We spent a bit of time exploring the rocks , pools and climbing the piece of land on the right of the picture above. This is view looking back towards our lunch spot.


Apparently on a good day, you can fly along this coastline from Flinders.

European Vacation 2007 - 5 weeks to go

Originally I wasn't even going to go. I have thought I would like to go at some time but never really made plans. However, a bunch of people were talking about going and doing a tour with Olli. I was involved by osmosis as I tend to spend a bit of time with Olli and Carol over Summer. There were 5 contenders at one time but when it came to finally putting the dosh on the table, the numbers got whittled down to two. Myself and Sam. However, as tends to happen, things work out and it could turn out to be for the best. The trip to Europe is definitely coming together. The hassle of getting our gliders over to Europe was solved by "Bugger it, let's just buy new gliders and get the company to ship it over there and sell them once we are ready to leave". Sounded good, so we are both picking up brand newies over there. These are my new colors. I have also changed brands but will have to see if that lasts.


The other hassle of flying is that sometimes you land out. This problem has also been solved. Sam has a friend over there that seems to be keen on having a free trip driving around the Alps so it looks like that problem is solved as well.

Anyway, we are planning on spending 5 weeks flying the Alps in Austria, Switzerland and France and then I am going to spend an extra week doing some of my own stuff. Only 5 weeks to go. Normally I don't get that excited about trips. One day I am working , the next I am on the plane reading the lonely planet around what to do when I get there. This time around, the excitement is building. Still not really planning much though. We will play it by ear.

Architect Drawings

Most people know I have finally bought a property after all these years of avoiding it like the plague. I always thought that buying a property is the ultimate tie down. I would suddenly stop buying my lunch, stop traveling, stop being able to pick up and go when I wanted. Yes, I have had a mortgage over shares for a long time but you can always sell those at a moments notice. I don't know what made me change my mind last year. I just felt like it was time. I read a book, did a course and finally bought a property in Camberwell. The plan is to knock down the rather decrepit house and build some town houses. A month or so ago I finally got the plans back from the architect. I was pleasantly surprised. They actually looked good which in turn made me fell good that the right decision was made. Here is the floor plans. There are two. Click on the picture to make it bigger.



And from the side. The front one is a double story while the back one is a single story.


The process from now on is long one. Apparently it takes the council a year to check the plans, publish the fact there is a building going up, wait for responses and generally sit on there arses. Meanwhile I am paying interest. I am sure it will turn out all right.

And I still buy my lunch everyday and planning on traveling to Europe this year. Guess it didn't tie me down after all.

Scarlett Johansson Drawing

I came across this accidentally on you tube when I was posting my video of my Brother. But I am glad I did. Occasionally you find something on the web that is truly quite cool. This is a video of a guy drawing Scarlett Johansson using Photoshop. I like seeing things that people put a lot of time into to get the details just right. It reminds me that life is bit like art. It is up to you what you paint and how well you choose to paint it.

Bright Easter

Ok, back again. Had a fantastic case of Gastro last week that wasted 5 days of my life. Did nothing, things were dark. Luckily Easter was the light at the end of the tunnel and after 4 days of missing work I went straight to Bright to finish the recovery. Surrounded by some of my closest friends, great weather, great food and some pretty good flying, things definitely perked up. With the weather like it was, sometimes it doesn't even matter if you fly or not, it is just great to be there.

On the Friday, it was a southerly day so we headed to the Pines. I have never flown there so it was good. We stood there on only a medium size hill with what looked like limited thermals. John and I decided to setup anyway.


Rob decided to leave the glider on the car. Truckloads of Paraglider pilots also turned up. John launched first and the our suspisions were confirmed. He went down like he had rocks in his harness. A few paragliders launched with the same result. Then a couple of paragliders started going up. I was off in no time and the lift was still there. Got to 4500ft where the airspace restrictions kick in and moved on down the ridge. The next 2 hours were some of the sweetest flying I can remember. Soft thermals. Sun low. Good glides. I landed just past Mrytleford.

The next couple of days, we had some great flights off Mystic and Buffalo. It is great flying with others sometimes. The flight off Buffalo, I attempted to make it to Mt Feathertop.


I was flying from point to point and almost every decision was paying off. Until that is I got to the foothills of Feathertop and it was only bubbling. I spent about 25mins fluffing around until I finally landed in a nice green paddock near Harrietville.


The last day, Mark and I had setup on Mystic when a paraglider had a full collapse just off launch. She should be fine but they called in Helicopter to get her down to Melbourne. It is the second rescue attempt I have been involved in saving a paraglider pilot in trouble. We packed up but the helicopter coming in was pretty cool.


It created a dust cloud that hit us like a 9/11 dust cloud. This is after it cleared a little and I was willing to pull my head from behind the tree myself and Mark were hiding behind.