Categories
australia general

Australia Part 1: Melbourne to Mildura

And so, after three years, we were finally off to visit Australia again. This time flying via Hong Kong, in an epic series of flights that took us over 34 hours door to door. Still, it could be worse. A billiard table could fall on you.

On the way we discovered that there’s nothing quite like an airport full of pokestops and pokemon catching to make a seven hour layover absolutely fly past. Thanks Hong Kong. Also, it’s possible for a six-year old to watch the Lego Movie four times in a row, even when there are other movies and TV shows available (actually, that last one really isn’t much of a surprise when I think about it).

On arrival, I got really excited about all of the roundabouts and give-way signs that feature in Australian traffic design, and started taking lots of photos of random roadside features. And then we had the whirlwind visit of friends and family in Melbourne.

Trampolines, playgrounds, cousins, beer, goats, family, backyard bonfires, riding fixies on suburban streets, making random cakes, bike talk, lots of hugs.

All in all, it was a pretty good taste of Melbourne: excellent, except for the traffic and all the other people!

Then it was on to Mildura, for my cousin’s wedding. Ostensibly the reason for the trip, as we’d missed out on many weddings and funerals in the past three years, it made sense to try and make our visit coincide with one. Wonderful to catch up with family I hadn’t seen since moving to Canada.

There was a wonderfully epic thunderstorm the night before the wedding, the best I’ve ever seen. But the day itself was beautiful, and thankfully not too hot.

And to top things off, the Moosling was introduced to the wonders of snapchat filters by my brother. What more could you want in a family wedding?

Categories
bikes general

the fixie returns to melbourne

Breaking the fixie out of confinement, I took it for a ride along the river and through the streets of Melbourne. Going back to riding fixed wheel was fun. Though I forgot I have to look out for snakes rather than bears, and at one point clipped the tail of a brown snake who was happily wriggling across the bike path.

 

 

Categories
general travel

an ode to airports

Yesterday I spent nine hours in airports and aeroplanes. For the sake of flying from Melbourne to Canberra in the morning, and back again in the evening. The first culprit was the ice. As we sat in the plane at 0730 we waited for the de-icing equipment (a man with a ladder, a bucket of warm water and a credit card) along with a lot of other planes. Then came the good news! Thanks to a security breach (some contractor passed their keys around the security barrier) the entire domestic terminal was being cleared. Including us lucky folk already on planes. We all had to file out to wait to go through security again, while staff wandered around poking things in shops in the secure area with sticks.

After passing through security again at 0930 and finally boarding, we naturally once more experienced the joy of queuing as our plane waited to be allowed to take off. This required some waiting, and some manoeuvring of other planes which had arrived but had not been allowed to disembark.

[insert fun part of the day where I ride around Canberra on my bike visiting people]

And then I checked in and found out my flight back to Melbourne was pushed from 2030 to 2200, no wait, make that 2235, and I’d just missed being bumped to the earlier Melbourne flight. *mutter*

Categories
craft general

jim’s ninjas

A new branch of the well-known “Jim’s” franchise. Coming soon to a location near you.

Categories
general

docklands sunset

Sunset, and the black clouds that rained on me afterwards.