For this post I've decided to cast off the Aussie talk and engage is some good old fashioned English weather chatter! ( I promise not for the whole post though :) ) Theres been a cyclone in the north of the state which has meant that for the last couple of days the city has been cloudy and a bit cooler but very humid. I have to say that I'm loving the slightly cooler weather and its proving brilliant for my new exercise routine - I cycle about 5miles to the beach, lock up my bike and swin for 20 mins before cycling home.
So enough of the weather. I've pretty much settled into the Blackburns house now. Its a really beautiful 'old' (i.e. more than 30 years old) house in an area called Mosman park which is between the river and the ocean. They've made me feel really at home and I'm earning my keep by cleaning the house and looking after the grandchildren (yesterday I took them to the zoo). the job front is not looking as promising though. As I've previously reported a lot of the mines in the state have closed down (supposidly due to demand from the Chinese diminishing). This has meant that alot of the miners (and assosciated workers) coming back from the country into the city. I feel a bit guilty searching for jobs in competition with these people who have families, mortguages and no hope of a job that they are used to... I'm still searching but I'm not that hopeful! In the mean time I'm doing some cleaning for a rental company and doing some baby sitting for the lady next door - to be honest this will probably tide me through for the month. I plan to fly to Melbourne at the beginning of March and spend a month exploring the eastern states.
Thanks to everyone whose left comments and I promise I will email everyone soon ;) - now I'm off to Fremantle for the Saturday markets before going to a friends for a BBQ.
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!
The 26th if January is Australia day so in tribute I will write this post in Australian... A quick glossary of words is at the end of the post ;)
I got up in the morning of Australia day and headed to Ros's house for the day. Ros was the house mother for Phils sisters at boarding school so we have a sort of attachement (even though I've never met her before). Upon arrving we cracked open a 'stubbie' and left some others sat in the 'eskie' (sp?!?). I spent most of the day watching some of the neighbours playing cricket and having a bbq on the beach. As an aside it was intersting to note that the were more blokes in the group than 'Sheilas' - aparently Perth as a very high number of Sheilas to each bloke, as most of the boys have headed out to the mines (not for much longer me thinks!). For food we had a typical Aussie meal of BBQ followed by banana and passion fruit pavlova. I then headed into town to watch the sky works 'crackers'. All in all quite a nice day, I was however surprised by the lack of street entertainment during the day for those sat waiting for the crackers. The local police spent the news complaining about drunken behaviour - however if there is nothing else to do all day but sit holding your place for teh crackers and drink... It was also interesting to see that alot of cars had Australian flags hanging out the windows - Ros seems to think this is a demonstration of a new found Aussie pride, I however wonder whether it is another example of creeping Americanisation.
On another note the man names Australian of the year (Prof. Mick Dobson - Aborigional historian and activist) called for Australia day to be changed to another date. He believes that the its an insult to the Aborigional community to celebrate Australia day on what they call invasion day.
In other news I have moved into a gliding friends house, bought a bike and am looking for work!
Glossary:
Eskie - cool box
Stubbie - small bottle of beer
cracker - fireworks
I was also trying to get in Ute - pick up truck! :)
I got up in the morning of Australia day and headed to Ros's house for the day. Ros was the house mother for Phils sisters at boarding school so we have a sort of attachement (even though I've never met her before). Upon arrving we cracked open a 'stubbie' and left some others sat in the 'eskie' (sp?!?). I spent most of the day watching some of the neighbours playing cricket and having a bbq on the beach. As an aside it was intersting to note that the were more blokes in the group than 'Sheilas' - aparently Perth as a very high number of Sheilas to each bloke, as most of the boys have headed out to the mines (not for much longer me thinks!). For food we had a typical Aussie meal of BBQ followed by banana and passion fruit pavlova. I then headed into town to watch the sky works 'crackers'. All in all quite a nice day, I was however surprised by the lack of street entertainment during the day for those sat waiting for the crackers. The local police spent the news complaining about drunken behaviour - however if there is nothing else to do all day but sit holding your place for teh crackers and drink... It was also interesting to see that alot of cars had Australian flags hanging out the windows - Ros seems to think this is a demonstration of a new found Aussie pride, I however wonder whether it is another example of creeping Americanisation.
On another note the man names Australian of the year (Prof. Mick Dobson - Aborigional historian and activist) called for Australia day to be changed to another date. He believes that the its an insult to the Aborigional community to celebrate Australia day on what they call invasion day.
In other news I have moved into a gliding friends house, bought a bike and am looking for work!
Glossary:
Eskie - cool box
Stubbie - small bottle of beer
cracker - fireworks
I was also trying to get in Ute - pick up truck! :)
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Back in Perth
Well we left Narrogin this morning and I've put Phil on the plane back to England. Which leaves me all by myself in a YHA in Perth by a very noisey train station! All is not lost though... at Narrogin i met a very nice couple who have offered me their spare room on the condition of a bit of baby sitting for a couple of weeks. I move into a very nice area of Perth on Tuesday after the Australia day celebrations.
Not much more to report, Phil did quite well on the last two days of the WA state competition - he was the youngeest pilot there by a good 20 years. Its quite funny as each gliding club i've been to seems to have the same characters repeated. So even though i only met the other members for a few days, they appear very familiar to people I already know...
Oh well - I'm off for an evening stroll along the river.
Not much more to report, Phil did quite well on the last two days of the WA state competition - he was the youngeest pilot there by a good 20 years. Its quite funny as each gliding club i've been to seems to have the same characters repeated. So even though i only met the other members for a few days, they appear very familiar to people I already know...
Oh well - I'm off for an evening stroll along the river.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
p.s. - Creepy Crawlies
On a side note, I have now been bitten by 3 marsh flies (evil green things), lots of mosquitos and there was a snake in my shower this afternoon (non poisonous - but even so I decided to shower in a different block!)
Checks flighted out!
WARNING - this is gliding related post, non-gliding types may find it boring ;)
Today we woke up to the kind of weather scenes that would have English glider pilots quitting their jobs and running to the airfield. The Aussies however appeared confused by the strange weather system and scrubbed the day!! RASP had got the forecast drastically wrong and rather than looking out the window the task setter scrubbed the day - cloud base was about 6000ft and the average thermal strengths were 4-6 kts! (they were even nice large even thermals!). Phil managed to fly 270km without too much of a problem.
Today was also the day that I started the first of many check flights. Narrogin had an English pilot fly here two years ago who forgot about the wind gradient and caused $20000 worth of damage to one of their gliders. This means that the club have the most detailed vistiting pilot check list I have ever seen (the club self insure so it hurts all the members if one of the gliders gets damaged...) So before I am allowed to fly solo I have to demonstrate:
* normal low tow to 2000ft and normal circuit and landing (fairly easy, no problems here)
* a tow which includes boxing the slip stream, and a hook off (the proceedure if you can't release the rope).
* two spins, one in each direction with at least 2 turns for each spin.
*stalling exercises
*circuit modified due to sink
*circuit modified due to lift
*circuit with no altimeter/ASI
* simulated rope break on aerotow
and Demonstrate knowledge of local landmarks/ features
*demonstrate knowledge of local landmarks
Further to fly cross country I have to do a field landing and tow plane retrieve and fly a mini xc flight with an 'experienced instructor'.
So far understandable if a little on the overly cauctious side... however after completing all this I have to have a check flight every day that I want to fly until I have flown 8 days at the site.
I am half way through the above list - I can fly solo once I've had a simulated rope break but got alot more boxes to tick before gettting close to going cross country...
On a slightly different note we met a glider pilot from Sutton bank yesterday. He had some of his first flights with my Granddad as instructor. He was telling me all sorts of stories which is always nice. Incidently he flies regularly at another club over here and suggested I go visit them to fly cross country - its further north (i.e. better weather) and hasn't had any accidents with us dodgy English pilots!
Today we woke up to the kind of weather scenes that would have English glider pilots quitting their jobs and running to the airfield. The Aussies however appeared confused by the strange weather system and scrubbed the day!! RASP had got the forecast drastically wrong and rather than looking out the window the task setter scrubbed the day - cloud base was about 6000ft and the average thermal strengths were 4-6 kts! (they were even nice large even thermals!). Phil managed to fly 270km without too much of a problem.
Today was also the day that I started the first of many check flights. Narrogin had an English pilot fly here two years ago who forgot about the wind gradient and caused $20000 worth of damage to one of their gliders. This means that the club have the most detailed vistiting pilot check list I have ever seen (the club self insure so it hurts all the members if one of the gliders gets damaged...) So before I am allowed to fly solo I have to demonstrate:
* normal low tow to 2000ft and normal circuit and landing (fairly easy, no problems here)
* a tow which includes boxing the slip stream, and a hook off (the proceedure if you can't release the rope).
* two spins, one in each direction with at least 2 turns for each spin.
*stalling exercises
*circuit modified due to sink
*circuit modified due to lift
*circuit with no altimeter/ASI
* simulated rope break on aerotow
and Demonstrate knowledge of local landmarks/ features
*demonstrate knowledge of local landmarks
Further to fly cross country I have to do a field landing and tow plane retrieve and fly a mini xc flight with an 'experienced instructor'.
So far understandable if a little on the overly cauctious side... however after completing all this I have to have a check flight every day that I want to fly until I have flown 8 days at the site.
I am half way through the above list - I can fly solo once I've had a simulated rope break but got alot more boxes to tick before gettting close to going cross country...
On a slightly different note we met a glider pilot from Sutton bank yesterday. He had some of his first flights with my Granddad as instructor. He was telling me all sorts of stories which is always nice. Incidently he flies regularly at another club over here and suggested I go visit them to fly cross country - its further north (i.e. better weather) and hasn't had any accidents with us dodgy English pilots!
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Tall trees and attempting to glide.
Not much to say tonight for a number of reasons:
1) its late and I'm tired! and
2) things are trying to eat me...
We drove south from Margaret River on Saturday ( I'm loosing all track of days now). The journey was quite amazing through the wine producing areas into the lush green south of the state (called the great Southern). The fields opened up, the rivers had water in and there was lots of grass. It all felt quite like home, except for the long distances between settlements. Just to echo the home sentiments the sky went grey and the cloud refused to budge until we drove north again.
We stopped at Walpole - home of the tree top walk. In a lovely campsite, with the worlds most grumpy lady on the reception desk. Sunday was spent walking round the lovely Karri forests - think huge trees and walking on a tree top walk. The walk way is suspended from very dodgy looking steel cables around and is 40m above ground at its highest point.
Monday we had another day of driving. Through Albany ( the oldest town in the state) up to Narrogin gliding club. Not much to report from gliding yet as I'm still waiting for a check flight (nothing changes from gliding clubs the world over). We sat next to Australias oldest glider pilot at dinner last night who is still going strong at 90! (Incidently we were the youngest glider pilots in the club which is quite sad - the average age at the comp here must be around 60...)
Anyway getting quite tired now. More tomorrow.
1) its late and I'm tired! and
2) things are trying to eat me...
We drove south from Margaret River on Saturday ( I'm loosing all track of days now). The journey was quite amazing through the wine producing areas into the lush green south of the state (called the great Southern). The fields opened up, the rivers had water in and there was lots of grass. It all felt quite like home, except for the long distances between settlements. Just to echo the home sentiments the sky went grey and the cloud refused to budge until we drove north again.
We stopped at Walpole - home of the tree top walk. In a lovely campsite, with the worlds most grumpy lady on the reception desk. Sunday was spent walking round the lovely Karri forests - think huge trees and walking on a tree top walk. The walk way is suspended from very dodgy looking steel cables around and is 40m above ground at its highest point.
Monday we had another day of driving. Through Albany ( the oldest town in the state) up to Narrogin gliding club. Not much to report from gliding yet as I'm still waiting for a check flight (nothing changes from gliding clubs the world over). We sat next to Australias oldest glider pilot at dinner last night who is still going strong at 90! (Incidently we were the youngest glider pilots in the club which is quite sad - the average age at the comp here must be around 60...)
Anyway getting quite tired now. More tomorrow.
Saturday, 17 January 2009
Wine, Chocolate and Cheese - the foodies paradise
On Thursday we left Perth, for the South west corner, in our little camper van. Margaret River area is one of the most popular holiday spots for western australian - this should have alerted us that maybe booking ahead would have been wise (that and all the guide books saying booking ahead in school holidays is essential!). After much faffing and phoning up places we eventually managed to find somewhere to park our van just in time to watch the sun set over the bay and cook up a bbq on one of the communal bbq spots (most areas have bbqs just off the roads and in scenic locations that are free to use.)
The reason for Margaret rivers popularity is the good surfing (I've taken the guide books word at that, there are alot of surfing types around though and the waves look pretty big?!?) and the abundance of vineyards (or wineries). Back in the sixties an academic wrote a paper suggesting that the area has the perfect climate (no rain in the growing season, warm etc) and ideal soil for vitriculture. After that the people kept coming and coming to have a piece of paradise (and a slice of the huge amount of money flying around). We looked round 4 winneries (each offers free tasting and at most its possible just to pull up and look around).
The Leeuwin Estate is one of the largest and oldest in the region. It is also the first vineyard to open its doors to the public and regulary puts on music shows on its amazing outdoor stage. Unlike some of the more modern large winneries it was very obvious that this one had grown organically form quite small beginnings. The Voyager Estate is another large winnery but this has a completely different flavour. The guy who bought it has decided to completely copy the Dutch arcitecture style of the South African vineyards - think lots of white washed buildings and the most amazing rose gardens I've ever seen. Unusually for one of the larger vineyards he seemed to be pushing a more environmentally sensitive method of growing. At the end of each vine were sacrificially plants - to tempt the various flies that blight grape vines (rather than relying soley on pesticides). He was also running a trial organic area to test the quality of the grape... watch this space I suppose. More importantly in this area with decreasing rain fall, there seemed to be a real effort to control the amount of water used (none of the large show fountains and other water features of some of the other estates.)
On a slightly smaller scale we looked round the Brooklands estate and sampled some of their wine. I'm ont a wine expert so I'm not going to try and describe the taste other than to say the Chardonny was quite nice. The scenery around this yard was very beautiful, particularly impressive was the Kurri woodland.
Finally at the complete opposite end of the scale we visited the Swallows welcome vineyard. This is a tiny small holding set up by a retired couple from the wheatbelt. They have built their own house and cellar using handmade mud bricks and created an amazing wild flower garden. The wife Patricia is a wild flower artist so they have build a wild flower chapel (also out of mud bricks) to show case her work. They open the 'chapel' up for local people to have parties and weddings in etc. The whole area is really beautiful and makes use of the naturally growing trees to keep the place cool. He is an ex wheat farmer (the moved to Australia on a Royal Agriculture post after her trained in tropical agriculture in Trinidad (where my grandfather also trained!)) who has now turned his hand to vitriculture as a hobby (along with treble recorder playing). Their wine was really lovely - they only had red wine but it was really refreshing - so much so that I bought a bottle to enjoy with dinner.
This morning we visited the Lake Cakes - the area is also known for its limestone caves. I closed my eyes for a very steep and long descent into the cave (heights not being a strong point). The cave is quite young (in geological terms) at only 2-3 milllion years, this means that the formations are still undedeveloped so rather than one of two large stalagtites etc (as in previous caves i've visited) there were literally hundreds of tiny straws of limestone and only a few large features. The water in the cave is apparently decreasing at the rate of 1-2mm per week! They're not really sure why but its probably to do with the low rainfall that WA has experienced over the last 30 years...
On now to Walpole - home of the tall trees.
The reason for Margaret rivers popularity is the good surfing (I've taken the guide books word at that, there are alot of surfing types around though and the waves look pretty big?!?) and the abundance of vineyards (or wineries). Back in the sixties an academic wrote a paper suggesting that the area has the perfect climate (no rain in the growing season, warm etc) and ideal soil for vitriculture. After that the people kept coming and coming to have a piece of paradise (and a slice of the huge amount of money flying around). We looked round 4 winneries (each offers free tasting and at most its possible just to pull up and look around).
The Leeuwin Estate is one of the largest and oldest in the region. It is also the first vineyard to open its doors to the public and regulary puts on music shows on its amazing outdoor stage. Unlike some of the more modern large winneries it was very obvious that this one had grown organically form quite small beginnings. The Voyager Estate is another large winnery but this has a completely different flavour. The guy who bought it has decided to completely copy the Dutch arcitecture style of the South African vineyards - think lots of white washed buildings and the most amazing rose gardens I've ever seen. Unusually for one of the larger vineyards he seemed to be pushing a more environmentally sensitive method of growing. At the end of each vine were sacrificially plants - to tempt the various flies that blight grape vines (rather than relying soley on pesticides). He was also running a trial organic area to test the quality of the grape... watch this space I suppose. More importantly in this area with decreasing rain fall, there seemed to be a real effort to control the amount of water used (none of the large show fountains and other water features of some of the other estates.)
On a slightly smaller scale we looked round the Brooklands estate and sampled some of their wine. I'm ont a wine expert so I'm not going to try and describe the taste other than to say the Chardonny was quite nice. The scenery around this yard was very beautiful, particularly impressive was the Kurri woodland.
Finally at the complete opposite end of the scale we visited the Swallows welcome vineyard. This is a tiny small holding set up by a retired couple from the wheatbelt. They have built their own house and cellar using handmade mud bricks and created an amazing wild flower garden. The wife Patricia is a wild flower artist so they have build a wild flower chapel (also out of mud bricks) to show case her work. They open the 'chapel' up for local people to have parties and weddings in etc. The whole area is really beautiful and makes use of the naturally growing trees to keep the place cool. He is an ex wheat farmer (the moved to Australia on a Royal Agriculture post after her trained in tropical agriculture in Trinidad (where my grandfather also trained!)) who has now turned his hand to vitriculture as a hobby (along with treble recorder playing). Their wine was really lovely - they only had red wine but it was really refreshing - so much so that I bought a bottle to enjoy with dinner.
This morning we visited the Lake Cakes - the area is also known for its limestone caves. I closed my eyes for a very steep and long descent into the cave (heights not being a strong point). The cave is quite young (in geological terms) at only 2-3 milllion years, this means that the formations are still undedeveloped so rather than one of two large stalagtites etc (as in previous caves i've visited) there were literally hundreds of tiny straws of limestone and only a few large features. The water in the cave is apparently decreasing at the rate of 1-2mm per week! They're not really sure why but its probably to do with the low rainfall that WA has experienced over the last 30 years...
On now to Walpole - home of the tall trees.
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