bang

for new year we headed off to cremorne point to watch the fireworks. luckily some of your friends had staked a spot from 10 in the morining coz the place was packed.

sydney hobart race

on boxing day we joined the madding crowd on the heads to watch the start of the sydney hobart race.



from wikipedia:

"The race was initially planned to be a cruise, but has grown over the decades, since the inaugural race in 1945, to become one of the pre-eminent offshore yacht races in the world and it now attracts maxi yachts from North America and Europe. The 2004 race marked the 60th running of the event. The current race record was set in 2005 by Wild Oats XI, which crossed the line in a time of 1 day, 18 hours, 40 minutes and 10 seconds."

lost in the woods

after xmas lunch we went for a postprandial jaunt in the forest just behind the house and got lost. we stumbled about for 2 hours before reappearing in some random suburb. we stopped a granny on the road for directions home.

xMas Lunch

here we are munching on xmas lunch. as you can see, it's cath and i, her folks, her brother and colleague from work.


and here is $50 that i won out of the pudding. i didn't tell everyone that i had actually slipped it in, and proceeded to watch everyone else shovel down the rest looking for more loot :P

boats

some friends of ours splashed out on a fiendishly powerful boat. here are some pics of us lazing about the hawkesbury river. since the river was near the sea, it was infested with slightly submerged jellyfish, all bigger than soccer balls, real incentive not so fall off your skis.


 

cycling in the blue mountains

On the weekend we went off cycling in the blue mountains. We decided to take advantage of the efficient public transport and head out by train. The route we took was 27km though some spectacular blue mountains forest. The height difference between the endpoints of the route is 700m vertical, so most of the trip was a gleeful hold-onto-your-hat downhill. We cycled the entire route and didn't see another soul. When we got back we heard that there was a missing hiker stumbling about in the region we had been passing. I learnt today they found his body, poor chap.


 

phew

on sunday i had a close encounter with the davy jones locker kind.

i was about a kilometre out to sea on my kiteboard, which come to think about it was rather silly in the first place, when i managed to snap one on my lines. don't ask me how, they are rated to 135kg each. anyway, there i was floundering in the swell, my kite a sodden mess and lines tangled round me. eventually a deep sea fishing boat happened past and hauled me sopping onto the deck. being dropped off back at the beach again was the most embarrassing part though!

a day in an 18 footer

since i live right across from the oldest sailing club in synney, i thought it would be a shame not to poke my head in an see what it's all about.

so in saturday i went down an offered my services as an able bodied crew. i was taken in by a crew of old sea dogs who had been sailing since the 70's. the class of boat we were sailing was the 18 foot skiff. this class of boat was designed to be sailed with only one restriction - it had to be 18 foot. what else you did to the boat was up to you. we were sailing immaculate polished and beautifully decked out skiffs based on the original 1910 design and can be seen here:

as you can see the sails are massive and obviously overpower the boat, as a result you have up to 9 crew to balance the boat. these boats have kept up with modern technology and the latest designs use fabrics straight out of the space program and come decked out with things like carbon fibre poles. here's what a modern 18 foot skiff looks like:


our days sailing wasn't without adventure. on the first day of spring we got caught out in the harbour in a southerly squall which reduced visibility to about 100m. lightning was discharging all around us.
just before the race we collided with another skiff at full speed. think of those jousting films, it was just like that, bowsprits splintering and ensuing mayhem. luckily we were on the starboard tack and had right of way - my fellow crew turned the air blue with their swearing.

all in all we finished off fourth.

small frustrations

even a first world country like oz has it's oddities that are in place to frustrate you. one is shopping trolleys - some bright spark decided to design shopping trolleys in oz with not two, but, four swivel wheels. the result is disobedient trolleys make shopping a drunk driving experience with shoppers reeling about the isles and generally getting in the way

on house prices

i was told that the rate of house price increases in south africa was slowing down. i purchased a house in sunninghill in september. when the transfer came through in november, i had a look at the agents web page to find that the units were now going for R120K more.
that's R40K a month!

manly scenic walk

just around the corner from us is the manly scenic walk. it's 10km along the waters edge from spit bridge to manly. most of the way is through an unspoilt coastal reserve. and when you get to the other side you can jump on the manly ferry all the way back to circular quay.


 

palm beach

head up from sydney along the gorgeous pacific highway and pretty soon you come to the even gorgeouser palm beach. we spent the whole day lazing on the beach. i kept a look out for nick slaughter...


 

day at the races

here are two pics from the day at the randwick races.

here's cath with a bunch of her mates from work:
one of them even has a moustache:
 

munch munch

here's a bug eating another bug that i found in the bathroom the other day.... 

real close

ever seen a dragonfly up close? here's one that happened past my lens. If you look real close you can even see the hairs on it's nose!

 

finally

so yesterday i finally did it, i collected all my pay slips, cashed in my enron shares, sold my left kidney on the black market and headed off to kitepower for a stash of zero-to-hero kiteboarding kit.

for those of you wondering why someone would pay over R20k for a 12m piece of material that drags you about the water unceremoniously dunking you from time to time, here's a list of the equipment that i got my grubby paws on:

first up, the kite - R12,200:



it's the latest cabrina bow shaped kite that packs a lot of grunt.

next i got the cabrinha custom board, skulls and all - R6,100:



next, a nappy with a steel hook, the dakine seat harness - R890



next, the protec brain cage - R666(!):


next, the dakine impact vest, for those pesky submerged rocks and innocent bystanders that get in the way - R1100:


next, the oh-so-sexy (on me anyway!) body hugging wetsuit - R1200:


a big shopping bag for my board. you can actually get travel bags for kite equipment that has 'golf bag' written across it so you can get your kit through airports for free :) - R330



and last but not least, the check-you-can't-check-me-back water glasses - R440:


and who said you can't buy street-cred...

p.s. after the big shop, we packed the loot into the car and went off for lunch having forgotten to close the back door, leaving it WIDE OPEN. luckily nothing was taken when i got back - that's 'stralia for you, and i really didn't want to sell my right kidney for more kit! :P

classic

beer bellies

i've been roped into an informal running club that meets every thursday for a bit of a dash around sydney and the surrounds. about ten of us sprint across the harbor bridge, jog around the opera house and limp back over the bridge, all in all taking about 40minutes. after that we head off to the kirribilli pub for some apre run pints. i think it's the only running club where participants actually gain weight!

ouch

so tomorrow i'm off to get all my kiteboarding gear. one of the things i'm going to get is lots of protection, in the form of helmets and impact vests. 'coz even though modern kites are abound with safety systems, things can still get out of hand. here is a 'kitemare' found on the kitepower website:

A kitesurfing instructor and professional kitesurfing competitor with very extensive experience had just completed giving a lesson. He rigged up an Airblast 11.8 m quickly connecting a new Airrush control bar for the first time. The winds were side offshore gusting to 30 kts. He did not carefully preflight his setup as he was in a hurry to get out on the water. He is on the order of 6'2" and weighs about 220 lbs. He launched upwind of a nearby truck and van. He was not wearing a helmet.

Apparently the actual overall length of the back lines was much shorter than the front lines resulting in the front lines almost being slack. In effect this large kite was rigged for maximum power and minimum controllability in strong gusting winds.

Immediately following launch he was violently dragged into the truck smashing in the grill and hood with his body. He was then dragged on to the hood with his leg getting caught by a plastic bug shield on the hood and badly hyper-extended his leg. He then plowed into the windshield, smashing it. He was then lofted up and over the vehicle to a height of 20 ft. and violently landed upside down hitting his head and shoulder on the ground. Two bystanders rushed up and grabbed him, which re-powered the kite.

ALL THREE people were then lofted on to some large boulders in the water. The two bystanders let the rider go at this point. The rider was dragged at speed out over the water and into a "no wake" manatee sign, bending/breaking the sign with his body. He was then dragged up on to a sandbar.

Stunned bystanders on the opposite shore thought that he was dead.

The rider eventually sat up and started to rewind his lines indicating that he did survive. He was dragged and lofted at high speed over an overall distance of about 100 yds. And over water about 50 yds.

Postcript: As a result of this serious accident banning kitesurfing at this singular launch area in this part of the State is under consideration by the governing authority. All the injuries suffered by the rider aren't known at this time but include a badly damaged knee and bone deep oyster cuts at many places on his body.