Monday 3 December 2018

Bill Bailey at the Sydney Opera House




 Graham and I spent a few days in Sydney in late November to see Comedian  Bill Bailey at the Opera House.


We stayed close to Darling Harbour, so got to make good use of the new light rail, the building of which is causing major disruptions throughout the city.

Hopefully, when its finished it will be even better, as the part we traveled on was fairly well used. 


We has a walk around the new Barangaroo headland.
 

Below is a great pic of what it looks like from the air... No I didn't take this pic, but its very pretty isn't it!


We stayed in an apartment on the corner of Prymont road and Prymont Bridge road, so a bit noisy, and I don't think we'll stay there again as I will explain at the end of this post.

Below are the views from the roof top BBQ area, be great on NYE.



On the following day we visited the ANZAC memorial in Hyde Park. 
 

I haven't been there since I was a child, possibly on a school excursion.



I was going to say its just been refurbished, but its actually just been completed.


Anzac Memorial completed after 84 years, ready for armistice centenary

Original sketches of the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park in the 1930s reveal a rather different building to the one we know today.
Stand at Liverpool Street looking north into Hyde Park and the intention was that you would have seen four levels of cascading water. That was the original concept design of Bruce Dellitt, the memorial's architect. Then came the Depression and the finances dried up.

Now, more than 84 years later, that vision will be realised, apparently on budget and despite the fact that, on Friday when the Herald was given a private tour, the memorial was still a busy building site.
Completion will be in time for the centenary anniversary of the armistice of World War I on November 11 which will be held, not as usual at the Cenotaph in Martin Place, but at the completed memorial.
 By Tim Barlass

 Below: Maybe, still not finished... Or they have realised that they need a pool fence to meet local government regulations!




Above is a photo from the New Hall of Service which has soil from 1701 place names from every NSW  location that had an enlistee.
 

 And we then walked via Hyde park to the State Library, which was great.
If your interested in art, books, and local history go and have a look, its just had new galleries opened.




And, we would have gone to the Oyster Bar, but it was packed! On a Tuesday! Decadent Sydney..
 

Anyway, Bill Bailey was of course fantastic... Very funny.


 Okay, something else funny.
Well you may ask why I have a picture of an unmade bed in my blog.



Well, I woke up on the first morning to find myself so tangled in sheets that I was nearly strangled!

And we had not had any alcohol the night before, and there was no rampant love acts either...

When I asked Graham to take an end of a sheet, so we could remake the bed, this is what we discovered... they had obviously run out of king size sheets so had put 2 smaller sheets on the bed which didn't reach the end of the bed!!!

AND WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS OKAY!?

Yes, we complained.. ++++
And it was fixed, with many apologies, very quickly. 

The oven was dirty as well... not going back there.




Friday 9 November 2018

Edith's now a walking baby....

 "Don't walk behind me;

 I may not lead.

Don't walk in front of me;

I may not follow.

Just walk beside me and be my friend."

Quote- Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_camus_100779?src=t_walk
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_camus_100779?src=t_walk

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_camus_100779?src=t_walk

And she's off...

Here are some photos from last weekend's afternoon tea.


 Sean's been busy building a toddler gym


And there's been some rain so everything is greening up.
 


Scout likes the gym as well.
 




Saturday 15 September 2018

Queensland 2018 - Part Four - One way up and another way down.


Well Dear Readers.
See what all the Queensland sunshine and humidity does to my hair!
Really!.. I look like an old granny in the above picture.

But I'll never catch up to, or be as old as, the grumpy old man in the photo below! Ha!

I am reliably informed that grumpy is not an attitude,
its a lifestyle choice! 

(If you see the T-shirt with that slogan can you let me know so I can buy it for him for Christmas).


 Anyway, enough prattle,  today we went up the Skyrail near cairns.



This was a great trip across the top of the rain forest and  finishing at the village of Kuranda.




We then spent a couple of hours having lunch and wandering around the markets.

 I bought a comb...
Did you know I have negative hair so I need a positive comb!

(Hey, whats that snorting noise? It must be Mr Grumpy from the above pic).

Anyway Its a beautiful comb. Its carved out of cow horn in the shape of a curlew... 
(and it cost $70).



 So the return trip was down the mountain via the train.


 We went gold class, so it included snacks and beverages...





And its a another big day out tomorrow, as we are going out onto the Great Barrier Reef.


Friday 14 September 2018

Queensland 2018 – Part Three – Port Douglas and the Rock Stacks





 A short post on our visit to Port Douglas.
The water has cleared and now it is the traditional tropical crystal blue.


And this is the latest craze. Building rock stacks?
Really!

Why?
See newspaper article below - it seems to be just for amusement.... 



Rock formations between Cairns and Port Douglas delight motorists

ROCKS piled precariously high at a stretch of beach north of Cairns continue to delight motorists and are finding fame online.
Whitfield resident Maureen Parkin has lived in the area since 1968 but only spotted the mysterious formations, situated between Pebbly and Ellis beaches, on Sunday.
“We went to Port Douglas and we couldn’t understand why there were lots of cars there, so on the way back we stopped,” she said.
“I thought it was magical.”
Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures owner Angela Freeman said stacking the rocks had become popular in recent years.
“As soon as you get a high tide or storm they get knocked over, then people build them up again,” she said.
“You find them all over Australia ... people just do it for amusement.”
Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s Jane Wilson said the formations were proving to be a popular tourist attraction, with a growing number of Instagram users sharing photos via #exploreTNQ.
Ms Freeman urged motorists stopping in the area to exercise caution and not to remove rocks from the site.