Sunday 22 April 2007

Tasmania - April 07

Here is our trip to Tassie in April '07.

I was going to kick it off with a map so you could follow our travels, however, it failed to pass muster with the censors.

Sandy left the packing up to me & once I had placed all the essentials in the suitcase there was precious lttle room left for anything else.











It should be noted that although it took Clarence St Cyclery an hour to disassemble & pack the Trek 5200 in the bikecase it only took Sandy about an hour and a half to put it back together, great effort babe!!!


Our first port of call was Freycinet and we walked up to grab a view of beautiful Winglass Bay. I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to again show the world how well a bright yellow shirt suits my, almost, olive complexion. Since Sandy was still busy putting my Trek 5200 back together I joined Lara Croft for the walk & found myself trailling her up the mountain..

We then hit the road heading towards Cradle Mountain. We were soon confronted with evidence that sheep are a little higher up the food chain in Tasweiga than on the mainland.







Cradle Mt was beautiful, we think. We couldn't actually see the Mt, however, Lonely Planet describes it as "Tasmania's highest monolithic block of sheer igneous granite" which really stirred our imagination. The real highlight though was Sandy's authentic khaki soft Akubra style hat. In fact, the real real highlight was convincing Sandy that all true blue dinky die aussies wear them, getting the photographic proof was merely icing on an already very delectable cake!


The next day, feeling a little sheepish about my faux Akubra sting I decided to make a right boob of myself, literally. Have a look at those things! I think anyone with a rural upbringing could have extracted milk from them that frosty day at the foot of the great mountain. Next time I combine a t-shirt which is two sizes too small for me with a premium brand daypack I will definitely make sure that it has NO chest straps.



Realising that I had to do something, anything, to take the attention away from my man cleavage I wrestled Sandy's authentic, you beaut, soft, khaki, faux Akubra away from her and I think it transformed my look. To what I had transformed my "look" to I am unaware but at least now there were multiple points of focus for bemused passers by. It still failed to cushion the blow against the jibes, innuendo & the odd "moooo". I had gone from Tom Cruise lookalike to Simon Cowell tragic with just two imprecise purchases at Paddy Pallin.


In a desperate bid to put Cradle Mt behind me, about 580km's behind me in fact, I rode my trusty Trek 5200 all the way to Hobart via Strahan. At first I had my soft, trusty, faux Akubra plus my well appointed, premium brand daypack, however I had forgotten one small detail - the TREK 5200. Once I remembered the bike I actually just rode to Stahan, but I had decided that 5 and a half hours sitting on a 3mm carbon fibre seat was punishment enough for my fashion transgressions.


We joined the Harris family in Hobart for a wonderful weekend and thanks again to John & Clare for their fantastic hospitality!! The Harris's were soon doing what they do best and here is an action shot of them tearing across the mighty Derwent river at 25 knots/hr plus (you'll have to take my word for that).

















Spending time in Hobart was charming, thanks in no small way to the property developers of the 70's focusing their attention on Sydney's eastern suburbs and leaving Hobart well alone. There are so many lovely houses & not a single (well maybe just a few) haenous unit blocks which resemble upturned cargo ships. The pubs were ye olde, the beer was cold, the markets were as freaky as ever and all the men wore beards, real man beards unlike my prissily manicured version.


And then there was that Mountain. Mt Wellington had been laughing, taunting, sneering & snarling at us as it looked down upon us from an altitude of 1271m. It had cast a pall over our every move and we were soon resolved to conquer her. Relishing the chance to slip back into lycra I was soon fusing shiny black lycra with a flourescent orange rain jacket which I have since adopted as my signature cycling "look".




















Mount Wellington, allegedly Tasmania's highest & steepest, turned out to be a real pussycat as we raced up those 22km's in a speedy 12km's/hr. John was said to have put both his bike & outfit together without the aid of his wife, however, I dismissed out of hand the veracity of this spurios claim. Just look how he adds a dash of ocean blue to his sleeves to pick up a deep torquoise in his helmet, pure genious!

Sandy was waiting at the top with fresh pastries which is pretty much the most tops thing ever!! Pastries, I hear you chortle, that I can ill afford to be savouring given the noticable paunch I'm displaying through that skin tight, yet aesthetically pleasing fluro orange number I am sporting. Well where do you think my block fluro orange rainjacket disappeared to?? That's right, I'd stuffed it down the front of my new jacket. Phew, glad I figured that out 'cause I was just on my way to the bathroom to throw up the cheesecake I had for dessert tonight. I might go have another slice right now, back in a moment.

Descending at 70km's/hr plus on 1cm wide racing tyres was clearly the most sensible way of returning to sea level, or at least it was the most fun & Sandy only had 3 near crashes a she attempted to keep up with us, whilst avoiding oncoming busses, negotiating hairpin turns on death cliffs & taking photos of our mad dash from behind the wheel. Awesome stuff!!


That brings to an end our Tassie adventure. Apologies again that we could not provide the map but I'm sure you can use your imaginations..

Tuesday 3 April 2007

Mount Buller - Victoria

Stand out moments of the Mt Buller weekend

The stop over in Canberra. Where are all the people? The feast we had at Ottoman - yummo. The waiter we kept laughing at. I spied Peter Costello in the private dining room. Very satisfying to see actual politician in Canberra. The breakfast we had the next morning at the Silo bakery was unbelievable.



The Alzburg resort aka "the dump" - how could that place possibly be the best accomodation they had.
The ski resort at Mt Buller where Alex and I struggled to find edible food. And the awesome walk we did to the top of Mt Buller.
















Seeing the peanut cross the finish line well ahead of the rest of the pack.




John crossing the finish line


Tuesday 27 March 2007

Could this be the cutest baby ever??

My nephew Jacob...nuff said.

The other two aint too bad either...

Wednesday 24 January 2007

The Fluffballs..

Prepare yourself for the cutest fluffballs!

We got Bonnie in July 2006 and brought the tiniest fluffball home to the Rex. The first night we had her we had a few friends over for a game of settlers... Bonnie's contribution was to try to poop in the empty game box.

Bonnie was the cutest fluffball known to man. It was impossible to walk down Macleay Street without being stopped every 2 meters by random people petting Bonnie.



Bonnie's party trick


A word of advice - never go to a pet shop with your mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law unless you plan to come out with another puppy! Bella came home with me in January 2007 - only a minor suprise for Andrew when he came home. After about five anxious minutes, Bonnie and Bella were playing like BFF's and haven't stopped since. Apart from Bella's habit of using the carpet as her toilet, it has been awesome having two puppies and I highly recommend it!

Bella and her toys






Bella getting up close and personal with her second favourite body part (favourite body part - feet, particularly andrew's feet after a 5 hour bike ride, she also likes cheese)



Doggies are sooooo cute when they are asleep!



Saturday 18 November 2006

Probably the best best man speech in the world...

John Harris:

It is a challenge to give an insight into the character of a man who enjoys a facial as much as a game of Rugby, but I will give it my best.

In 1988 in one of my first maths classes at Sydney Boys High School I turned around and introduced myself to the kid behind me. He was a tall bloke – one of the biggest in our year. However whatever shreds of DNA Kathy & Neil could muster between them that would promote growth beyond the age of twelve obviously went to Brett – Andrew parked at a height of 5’8”.

Soon Andrew’s better qualities of enthusiasm, loyalty, generosity and an ability to see the best in everything became apparent to me and these qualities remain intact today.

Our maths teacher had soon anointed Andrew as the future School Captain, Dux and a certainty for the 1st XV. Whilst Andrew did not fulfill these prophecies he did go on to compete in many sports and variously charm and frustrate teachers – often depending on whether he choose to attend their classes.

A couple of anecdotes about Andrew’s sporting endeavours will perhaps give an insight into Andrew’s level of passion and enthusiasm.

When the Olympics rolled into Sydney in 2000 Andrew bought tickets to as many events as he could get his hands on, surely setting some sort of record for attendance. I think he was only outdone by a couple of members of the IOC. He was quite taken with the whole Olympic thing & decided that he himself should compete in the next ones. He got a list of sports and went down the list looking for something he could qualify in…. Looking down the list the answer was obvious – Table Tennis.
Andrew had spent a large portion of his years at University playing ping pong with Neil rather than actually attending classes and had therefore established a solid base for his goal.
The next step was to find a coach. After getting in touch with the NSW table tennis association he found one out at Dural – his enthusiasm for a tilt at Athens lasted about 4 sessions before the drive to Dural become too far and ping pong was placed on the back burner.

More recently, after a brief return to tennis which included buying Rafael Nadal Shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, sweatband, hat and one of those massive racket bags that the pros carry 5 or 6 rackets in, Andrew’s sporting energy has been turned to Cycling. Soon after taking up cycling Andrew had declared the bike shop to be one of his favourite places and was regularly clearing their stock of both DVDs and power bars on each trip in there. With full matching black & yellow Lance Armstrong Nike cycling gear he certainly looks the part and whilst the dream of playing for the Wallabies must now be all but extinguished I am sure he has not entirely given up hope of competing in the Tour de France.

Whilst Andrew’s practical skills can be extremely limited – things like changing light bulbs and getting air out of pumps and into tires are well behind his abilities his organizational skills are a strength. Whether it is organizing touch football games, a meal out with mates or a waitress to bring drinks over to a group of friends Andrew is at his best. This skill and the effort he makes to stay in touch with everyone goes some way to explaining the large number of friends he has remained in touch with from each phase of his life..

The first I heard of Sandy was in an email from Andrew after she had been hired by Optiver. I have dug it out of the archives – it reads – Tony has done some of his finest work. He has hired an extremely hot accountant. Over time I heard more & more about Sandy. Now sometimes Andrew’s enthusiasms have to be taken with a grain of salt but in this case they appeared well founded.

A beautiful intelligent girl with a healthy dose of determination & smarts was and is a perfect match for Andrew. Alex & I also feel lucky to call Sandy a friend, apart from her fabulous English Roast Dinners & Sri Lankan feasts her fun nature and kind heart make her great company.

I wish you all the best for your future together – it is truly yours to make what you want out of it.

Thursday 2 November 2006

So here we are!

So after that stellar start from Andrew (post a bottle of red wine) here are my two cents...

What you can expect from our blog;

- drunken monologues and sober rants from Andrew

- copious pictures of our fluffballs, for example;




- holiday piccy's

- andrew's antics on the bike

- in lieu of our own baby, piccy's of my nephew jacob (surely the cutest baby ever born)

- and much, much more...

Wednesday 1 November 2006

If you can't beat 'em...

Seeing as everyone on the planet has a blog then we say US TOO PLEASE!!



today I dug a hole, feeling oddly dissatisfied with the experience I decided to start a blog..



thingz i like to do include listening to tina turner, watching australia's next top model ("game on mole") and beating peoples' brains out at settlers!



i think i look like ethan hunt (circa MI II) when i wear a leather jacket and block coloured t-shirt



and here is the proof..



and although everyone keeps making the obvious ethan hunt reference i try every day, in every way, to be like lance.



imagine how different your life would be if every time you made a decision you thought first "what would lance do?"



are you satisfied with winning ONLY 5 TdF's? do you run out of breath rushing to the fridge for that last piece of chocolate mousse? are you a scientologist, or worse, a metrosexual??



do you think lance is?



if you haven't guessed yet i am 3 sheets to the wind & about 25 keystrokes away from earning myself a jihad









till now i've assumed the internet was invented by & for the enjoyment of paedophiles & i.t. programmers, however, it is a great place to dump pointless vitriol which no-one will ever, ever read.






there comes a time in every man's life when he has to accept his advancing years, nay embrace them, and purchase a jacket. i have chosen this moment to buy a smoking jacket..

i think my favourite place in the whole world is sardinia although i have never been there. in fact, i never will go there since the odds of it living up to my expectations are as remote as a korean skipper beaching a 225m japanese coal ship flying under a panamanian flag of convenience on a newcastle beach in 18m seas & 60 knot winds.

and that is all the reluctant blogger has in him.

BTW, things that keep me awake at night include - what does missy higgins really mean when she sings "we will bleed together"?, is jessica simpson a bloke in a bad blonde wig (check out her jawline!)? & if you were coaching the tahs what sort of drugs would you need to ingest before you signed sheehan & valentine ahead of holmes, i mean honestly???????

my interesting fact for the day is about the dog on the tucker box (5 or 9 miles from gundagai). did you know why we still celebrate that dog? cause he took a dump on a ploughman's lunch, hilarious. a fact which has not dulled my gorgeous wife's enthusiasm for this aussie icon.


my question for the day is - how many people around the world are being evicted from reality tv shows each week?



oh, and here are my girls