Friday 8th March 2013, 1.00pm (day 561)
Lunch here today – and if you can’t find some variety of ethnic food to satisfy you on this street, well, you just ain’t trying.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Daily Post
Sydney Opera House
Thursday 7th March 2013, 3.45pm (day 560)
Task one on arrival in Sydney – head straight to this place. I’ve long admired this building from afar and I was very keen to see it for real – and my high opinion of it has been in no way diminished by being up close to it. (Although I never realised it’s effectively three separate buildings: and it’s also somewhat smaller than I thought.)
Task two – take a photograph of it that is not the same old cliched photo of it that everyone else takes. How have I done?
Before my seminar at CSU
Wednesday 6th March 2013, 12 noon (day 559)
These are the nice people at Charles Sturt University (Information and Library Science department) who have been looking after me the last few days and were nice enough to turn up today – along with a bunch of other online participants – to hear me talk about my work. I like this shot because of little details, like the disembodied legs and the distant perspective down the corridor to the right. Anyway – last day in Wagga today for now, though I may be back in May. Sydney tomorrow.
Research awayday, Charles Sturt University
Monday 4th March 2013, 2.00pm (day 557)
Just to confirm that I am still getting on with the occasional day’s work while on this trip. In Manchester we are lucky if we can get a sight of the smelly and overtrafficked Oxford Road from one of our office windows, here at CSU in Wagga we have a view of miles of uninterrupted hills, scrub and vineyards.
Also a happy birthday to Joe today – 10 years old, born 04/03/03 (and yes, we have all sometimes regretted that he arrived 14.6 hours too late to have a really numerically cool birth date). Sorry I couldn’t be there, my son.
Near Wagga Wagga, sunset
Sunday 3rd March 2013, 7.35pm (day 556)
Left New Zealand today and was mildly grumpy about it. Wanted more time in that beautiful country, where the climate is more agreeable and the beer better than in Australia (well, it is). Wasn’t particularly motivated about going back there to go to work tomorrow morning, wasn’t bothered about spending yet another few hours in a plane and then coming out into some little town stuck out in corn-chewing country.
And then as we flew in – bloody hell. What a glorious evening. What a brilliant view. Happy to be back.
Dallas, my personal pilot
Saturday 2nd March 2013, 3.55pm (day 555)
Karamea is not an easy place to reach and as I have to be back in Australia by Monday morning I shelled out a few hundred NZ dollars for a flight out, with Golden Bay Air. This turned out to involve not just one, but two chances to have my own personal pilot, as both legs (Karamea – Takaka, then Takaka – Wellington) involved me being the only passenger on a tiny little Cessna. On the first plane I rather meekly sat in the back but here I am on the second flight, sitting up front next to Dallas the pilot as she flies us both over the islands of the Marlborough Sound. It was really cool to be able to talk to her during the flight and hear her conversations with air traffic controllers. I could become quite a convert to this light plane flying actually. Thoroughly worth the money, a really excellent experience.
107.5 FM Radio Karamea
Friday 1st March 2013, 2.20pm (day 554)
After my exertions on the Heaphy Track, spent the day chilling out and doing a bit of work at Rongo Backpackers in Karamea, another great hostel in another New Zealand town that feels like it’s halfway to the end of the world. This one was a little community operation, including a radio station broadcasting on 107.5 FM to the local area. “Want to play some of your tunes on the radio?” was asked. Sure, says I. That’s my iPod there, giving it out to the world. Well, to Karamea, anyway.
DOC worker near Twin Beach, Heaphy Coast
Thursday 28th February 2013, 1.40pm (day 553)
DOC is the Department of Conservation, the body who look after New Zealand’s wonderful environment, and are trying to continue to do so in the face of the same old funding pressures foisted on us by the moronocracy. Be nice to these people, who are basically trying to help the world. Mind you, they do get to work in some pretty attractive locations.
Last day walking the Heaphy Track – usually people take five days, I did it in three, including a 37km (23 mile) last day. My feet hurt. But I’m happy to have done it, and now I’ve caught up with this blog: however, more photos from the walk, and details on the experience, are shortly going up on my walking blog.
The James Mackay hut
Wednesday 27th February 2013, 4.25pm (day 552)
Seven of these huts are spaced along the Heaphy Track, providing shelter, gas for cooking, and companionship – at least, if you don’t mind being woken at 6.30am by a large group of middle-aged hearty types making tea and strapping on their hiking boots. Oh, hang on – that’s me, these days. Still, not a bad view is it?
