Sunday, 12 May, 2013
Red Hill Walk
Planned to do so much today!
I had wanted to get everything done and dusted by three o’clock so that I could go for a long bike ride down to and around the lake before it got dark at around five thirty. However, after getting up late, making breakfast, doing my washing and ironing, going out for food shopping, going into work to drop off my shirts, the clock beat me and I only had time for a quick walk up and over Red Hill and back.
Suban’s
Earlier in the week, Suban, who stayed at my place for a few weeks before Christmas after he had returned from an overseas trip, approached me at work and asked me if I wanted to join him and some of his friends for dinner at his place. He had promised me a party invite once he’d settled into his shared house, but I suppose dinner is the next best thing! So after making a stew for tomorrow night’s dinner and a quick shower, I was off, with a couple of bottles of red in hand, across Woden valley to his place in Lyons. Joining us for dinner were Andrew and Verity from work and their respective partners, Hazel and John.
Now, there’s a standing joke between Suban and myself, that the only thing Suban can cook (going off the majority of the meals he cooked at my place!) is chicken, so you can imagine my surprise when I arrived to find him slaving over a fish stir fry! After a bit of a flap about cooking the rice, we couldn’t find the bowl for the rice cooker, we all sat down round the dining table to an excellent meal washed down by a glass or two of the Little Bridge 2008 Shiraz I picked up the other week on my very brief tour of the Canberra vineyards.
Another busy weekend, finished off with some great ‘craic’ around the dinner table.
Red Hill Walk on MapMyRide
Canberra Hospital with my apartment complex in the foreground.
The Telsta Tower on top of Black Mountain from the top of Red Hill.
A view of Civic from the top of Red Hill
Canberra sunset over the Brindabella’s
Suban cooking dinner
Everybody watching Suban cooking.
Myself, Verity, John, Hazel, Andrew & Suban
Saturday, 11 May, 2013
As I’ve been here in Canberra for well over a year now, I’m starting to attend shows, events etc. that I’ve been to before. Today was one of them and after the experience Gail and I had last year, I was expecting good things. The Canberra International Music Festival is a week-long event held in various venues around Canberra. Concerts range from classical and jazz, to music from around the world and to showcase the festival, a special afternoon concert was held today in the Norgrove Eco Park on the Kingston Foreshore.
During the week I’ve been telling everybody at work how good the event was last year and my powers of persuasion convinced a few of them to turn up (although, I didn’t meet any of them there!). James & Grannie to come along for the ride and Barry (who was there last year) pitched up later in the evening.
So after driving down in my car (The plan was to leave it there overnight and pick it up in the morning so that we could all have a beer or two!) and finding a suitable spot in the sun on the right hand of the stage, we settled down to watch the last few songs of Annie & the Armadillos set. The lead singer, Annie, had an amazing voice and I would love to go to one of their concerts to hear their full set. They were followed by Synergy Percussion, a pretentious group of four musicians who performed some weird stuff on drums, xylophones etc. Not my ‘cup of tea’ and not many others either by the reaction of the majority of the audience! Next up was a lady violinist, Ann McMichael, who played a couple of pieces on stage while the Japanese drums of TaikOz were set up for the finale.
TaikOz is an Australian version of the Taiko Japanese drumming ensemble complete with massive drums and the first part of their set consisted of traditional Japanese music which sounded great. However, it was their second, part where they jazzed things up, that impressed me and most of the crowd.
We had planned to walk down to Brodburger at the Glassworks to have a something to eat and then hit Kingston village for a few more beers, but we decided to return to the Southern Cross Club to watch the rugby on the big screen and grab something to eat there.
enjoying the day
View from the back of the crowd.
Flute player from TaikOz
Drummer from TaikOz
Female drummer from TaikOz on stage.
The sun settles on the crowd watching the performances
Sunday, 5 May, 2013
I’m not really a Rugby Union fan, but after another bike ride round the lake with Glenn, James and Grainne, I had a few hours to kill this afternoon, so I decided to go and watch the Brumbies v the Crusaders game. Drove the car down to the bus station in Woden and jumped on the free bus shuttle bus that took me all the way to the Eastern gates of the Bruce Stadium where the Brumbies (Rugby Union) and the Raiders (Rugby League) play their home games. Paid $24 at the ticket office for a bronze seat ticket which has it turned out, got me a pretty decent seat in what they called the Northern Terrace high above one of the corners of the pitch.
Missed the start of the match, as I was at the bar grabbing a pie and a pint (it’s a schooner actually, but a pint sounds better!) and when I got into up into the stands I was surprised to discover that the crowd of 16k had hardly made any noise at kick off. In fact they hardly made any noise all throughout the match! It’s a different crowd to that what goes to watch the Raiders play and I was very disappointed to see that they didn’t get behind their team, especially when they fell behind in the score in the second half. Most of the people who were there, seemed to think it was some sort of social event with groups of teenagers parading around the ground eyeing up the talent, young kids treating the seating as a giant climbing frame and mums noisily catching up on the gossip from around Canberra with their friends.
As you might have guessed, it was not a good experience for me and even though I stayed to the end to watch quite an exciting conclusion to the game, with the Brumbies just failing to overturn a 30 – 23 defeat, I was glad to be back on the bus and on my home within five minutes of the final whistle being blown. I’ve got some tickets for the Brumbies v the British Loins tour match in mid-June and I’m hoping that the fare on offer that day will be better, otherwise it might be my last Rugby Union game ever!
James, Grainne, Glenn and myself at our usual photo spot.
Scrum down!
The Brumbies defending their line.
Goal posts, floodlights and the Telstra Tower
The Brumbies have an attacking line-out
Saturday, 4 May, 2013
It’s been a while since I’ve been off road on my bike. For those of you who don’t remember, on the 7th April, 2013 I fell heavily from my mountain bike up on Bruce Ridge whilst trying to negotiate a log lying across the pathway I was riding. Anyway, as it was another beautiful day when I woke up late this morning (A bit of a heavy night last with James, Grainne, Nick, Angela and Patrick at Belluci’s), I decided to get back on the bike (so to speak!) and take a ride up and over my Nemesis, Red Hill.
The plan was simple, do the original ride to see if I could do it without the pain. Only this time I wanted to reverse the direction so that the worst bits would be at the start. So it was on the bike and up the hill as far as possible on the road till I got to the Red Hill Nature Park where I got onto the fire trail which leads up to the actual top of the hill. Just as was starting up the fire trail I caught sight of a mob of Kangaroos. Jesus, I thought that my lungs were going to burst by the time I got up there and it took me several minutes to catch my breath. Whilst my heart rate was coming down I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the view and this give me the idea to document my journey with some pictures along the way (see below). Now, once you’re at the top of a hill the only way is down and I was soon speeding down the side of the hill along the trails till got to the road that leads past the Canberra Grammar School into Manuka. From there it was a short hop pass the Manuka Oval, through Telopea Park to the shores of Lake Burley Griffin at the Kingston Foreshore. Here I rode the 8 or so km’s along the southern edge of the lake past the Parliamentary Triangle to the beginning of the cycle path up to Woden CBD at the Royal Canberra Golf Club. I ride this path regularly after work for a bit of a workout, so I knew I was on the home stretch and after just under two hours and 25km, I arrived back at the apartment ready for a shower and something to eat.
BTW, MapMyRide is an excellent app for mobile devices that tracks your exercise runs be it walking, jogging or riding a bike. Check it out, it’s great fun.
My Nemesis Route on MapMyRide.
Kangeroos at the start of the ride
Woden CBD from the top of Red Hill
Panaroma of Fyshwich from the top of Red Hill.
Manuka centre
Futuristic lights at Manuka Oval
Lake Burley Griffin at Kington Foreshore
Parliament House
Leaving the lake at Govenment House
Bridge over the lake at Royal Canberra Golf Club.
Woden CBD from the cycle path.
My shadow in the evening sun
Saturday, 27 April, 2013
“you’re coming up to Sydney for the weekend, great! we were going to get some tickets to a Buddy Holly tribute evening at the club, do you fancy coming along?” …. How could I refuse!
So this evening I found myself in a large auditorium, at the Bankstown Social Club, mostly filled with what seemed to people who looked like they were around at the time Buddy Holly was alive (I.e. over 60′s) waiting to be entertained by the “Buddy’s Back” tribute band. Turned out to a decent night with Scot Robin (Buddy) performing most of Buddy Holly and the Crickets (they certainly knew how to name bands in those days!) greatest hits including ‘That’ll be the Day’ and ‘Peggy Sue’.
Barbara and Lawrence thought that the show was a little short, but I think they played close to 30 of his songs during the two part show. However, as you know, most of the songs from that era were relevantly short, so they could have had a point there.
Anyway, as Barbara is working in the morning, after the show had finish and the concert room had cleared, we booked a cab home, had a few beers back at the house and retired to bed at an reasonable hour.
‘Buddy’ doing his stuff
The band on stage
Lawrence inside Bankstown Social Club
Saturday, 27 April, 2013
The weather forecasters have been telling us all week that there was massive high pressure system sat right over Australia, which meant that we were in for some good weather for the next few days. Mmmmm, what to do when the weathers nice and you’ve got a few days off work… I know, go to Sydney!
Yesterday I had a great lie in, cooked breakfast and was on my way up the Hume Highway by ten thirty. Both Barbara and Lawrence had a couple of days off work planned (although Lawrence had been signed off work anyway, due to sore knees), so we planned to visit a couple of places around Sydney that they hadn’t been too for a while (and in my case never). Had a nice quiet night in with a few beers after dinner (I must stop saying ‘dinner’, its tea!) and was up early this morning to take Lucky and Roxy (pictured below) out for a long walk around the suburb where Barbara and Lawrence live.
As promised it was a beautiful sunny day and by the time we had driven across and parked up at Cronulla Beach the temperature was up in the mid 20’s (That’s 80F in old money). Cronulla is a large coastal area to the south of Sydney, sometimes called ‘The Shires’. The town itself has a couple of beaches, the smaller, more built up, ‘Wander beach’ is practically in the centre of town, with the much larger, less built up, ‘North Beach’ leading out of town. After a short walk with Barbara along ‘The Wall’ on the North Beach and coffee at the beach café, we drove along the peninsula to the small beach suburb of Kurnell. Kurnell, at first glance is a perfect place to live, quiet traffic free streets, large blocks of land for building your dream home on, nice beach overlooking Sydney CBD in the distance, etc. However, looks can be deceiving, to get there we had to drive several miles along a narrow road lined with industrial units, a sewage works and a massive Petro Chemical storage complex. To cap it all, just off the coast sat two huge tankers moored alongside a pier offloading their contents into a pipeline leading to the refinery.
Still, we enjoyed a spot of lunch at the village shop/café overlooking the beach and then drove back to get ready for our evening out at the Bankstown Social Club …
Lucky & Roxy
I wonder where we are?
North Cronulla Beach
Lawrence at the beach
Barbara looking out from Kurnell Beach
Me doing the some thing.
Kurnell Beach
Central Sydney as seen from Kurnell Beach
The village shop at Kurnell
The main drag at Kurnell
Thursday, 25 April, 2013
Dawn Service
Today is ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day which is the 98th Anniversary of the landing of troops from Australia and New Zealand on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in World War I on April 25, 1915.
It’s a public Holiday in Australia, which normally means a nice relaxing day for me. However, this morning at 3.30am my alarm when off and I got up, got dressed and went and joined thousands of other people down on the parade ground outside the War Memorial for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service. After the simple and extremely moving service held in complete darkness at 5.30am, I rang my mum and dad to let them know where I’d been, as they visited the Memorial several times when they were in Canberra. During this conversation, mum reminded me that my Granddad and some other distant relatives were involved in the Gallipoli campaign during their service in the British Army.
At the end of the ceremony, the public were invited to enter the War Memorial to visit the Commemorative Area where the Roll of Honour is located. Here I placed a poppy next to the name ‘Dunlop’ (My mother’s maiden name) in one of panel of names listing those Australians who died during WWI.
Lest we forget
An old ANZAC tradition is a breakfast after the Dawn Service. However, when I returned from the War Memorial on the free bus provided by Action Buses I discovered that the Hellenic Club weren’t laying one on for any of the vets! So I returned home and cooked up my own at 7.30 the morning.
Bike ride
As I was back so early and I was fully awake, I decided to go for bike ride. As James was working today (He’s still working UK hours for some reason!) I asked Grainne if she fancied joining me for her first ride around the lake. So after kitting her out in all the correct gear and loading up the bikes onto the car we headed off to the Southern Cross Yacht Club on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, where we rode around the Central and Western basins at a fairly leisurely
pace.
Two Up
One other Anzac tradition is the playing of ‘Two up‘. and I’d read somewhere that the Hellenic were hosting a ‘two up’ game this afternoon. Barry had expressed an interest in joining me to witness this and at two this afternoon I entered the club to see what was going on. OMG, I’ve never seen anything like it! In the main room, where they setup the ‘ring’ surrounded by tables, were maybe four or five hundred people baying/gambling at/with each other whilst the ‘Spinner’ was in the middle of the ring throwing three coins in the air. I couldn’t get my head around the rules, except to say that there seemed to be two games being played at the same time. The first one was between the Spinner (who had to throw Heads every times) and anyone who wanted to bet against him/her and the second seemed to be between any two people in the crowd who wanted to bet against each other on two/three of the coins being heads or tails. Bets seemed to be anything from $5 to $200 a time and it looked to me that it was an easy way to lose a lot of money very quickly!
Anyway, the only money I threw away today was on the couple of beers I had with Barry!
ANZAC Day Programme
Pictures projected onto the War Memorial itself.
The service starts at 5.30am
Dawn starts to break.
Dawn breaks over the War Memorial
The Gallipoli Window inside the Commemorative Area
My poppy next to the name ‘Dunlop’ on the Roll of Honour.
People paying their respects inside the Roll of Honour.
Changing the guard inside the Commemorative Area
Looking out over the War memorial down ANZAC Parade.
The Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier in the Hall of Memory
The latest conflicts are also on display.
Honour guard in the Commemorative Area
The crowds have gone!
The stone of remembrance outside the War Memorial
Grainne and me out on her first ride.
2 Up ring at the Hellenic
The Spinner about to toss the coins
Plenty of money changing hands.
