Happy New Year everybody, hope you had a fun New Year’s Eve and the year ahead is looking good and full of promise.

For the first time ever, I didn’t make any new year resolutions, but today I had the urge to get back into blogging mainly coz I haven’t been doing any photography lately and at least while I’m trying to keep up my blog I do make an effort to do some photography. Hopefully this means I will finally get round to finding the Remuera home and can finish off the Houses I’ve Lived In Blog. In fact I may even go today.

As I haven’t taken any blog-worthy photos today (or any at all), today’s photo is from the walk I did up Franklin Rd with friends to see the Xmas lights.

Today we went to St Kilda, famous for cake shops, the promenade and Lunar Park.

Our first stop was a stroll along Acland St for a look at the amazing cake shops till we’d found the cake we liked the look of the most. I went for the biggest rum ball I’d ever seen.

Eventually we made it to Lunar Park where we had loads of fun.

The first ride I did went upside down and made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle. This was a bit sore for a while, but the pain went away once I got onto the next ride.

After that we did the wooden roller coaster, which is the oldest continuously running wooden coaster in the world. This was also very funny so I bought one of those photos they take as you’re enjoying the ride, coz you can see the look of sheer panic on my face. When the ride was over, the man in the seat in front of me turned round and said the best part of the ride was my hilarious commentary. I’d call it noises rather than words, it was very bumpy and there wasn’t enough padding.

Today we headed back in to the city to check out the many lane ways and beautiful old shopping arcades. I also did my own little tour up Collins Street, sometimes referred to as little Paris, because of all the designer brands like Tiffany, Chanel, D&C, Louis Vuitton etc.

My brother and I ended up doing a rush round to find normal shops (ones that didn’t charge $1,000s for a shirt) so I could buy something groovy to wear for our big night out at the Crown casino.

We left the casino around midnight and caught a tram home at 12:45. I’m not a big gambler so I only lost $20.

Today we got up hideously early to make it into the city by 7:15, which wasn’t easy but we did it and boarded the mini van bound for the 12 Apostles. Ever since I first saw the 12 Apostles in an Olivia Newton John video back in 1988 I have wanted to go there.

Our first stop was at Split Point lighthouse where we got to experience Vegemite, tea from a traditional billy and lamingtons for morning tea and we learnt loads about the famous Victoria bush fires.

We drove along the Great Ocean Road and stopped at Apollo Bay for lunch. Along the way we also stopped at Bells Beach a famous surf beach and the Memorial Arch (at the start of the Great Ocean Rd to remember the soldiers who dug the road after the war.

We also stopped where Koalas can be found in the wild – this was amazing as I’ve only seen one Koala in real life and that was in a zoo in Sydney. Also there were very friendly birds that land on you (my brother was covered with about 11 of them at one point)

After lunch we drove inland and went on a guided walk through a temperate rain forest at Maits Rest where some of the tallest trees in Australia live. I was really surprised by how green the whole area was.

Around 2:30 at long last we saw the first of the limestone stacks known as the 12 Apostles. We even got to go down the stairs onto the beach and see an Apostle up close.

There were three more stops to see the Apostles, the next one was the best lookout point, followed by another chance to go down on to the beach in Locah Ard Gorge where we learnt of a tragic shipwreck story that made the whole experience even more amazing.

Our last stop at the Apostles was the London Bridge, which is the one I was most keen to see because of the Olivia video, sadly one of the arches collapsed several years ago and it doesn’t look anything like the London Bridge anymore.

After we stopped at a small fishing village for dinner called Port Campbell. We made it back to the city at about 8:30. It was an awesome tour and I got to tick another thing off my bucket list!

Today my sister and I spent the day in the city photographing the amazing buildings.

Our first stop was the library which was a stunning building and we just couldn’t get enough of it. There is free wifi with lots of computers available for 15 minutes, fascinating exhibitions, friendly and helpful staff. There is even a room with lots of chessboards set up ready to play – so we did! I couldn’t believe I was actually in a library let alone playing chess with my sister but it was all part of the wonderful experience.

Once we managed to drag ourselves away from the library we set of to the docklands on the free tram and then Parliament Square.

I’m loving my new camera.

This morning we all set out for Highpoint, a very large shopping centre only 6 minutes away on the tram.

The mall was enormous there was three levels of shops, many food courts loads of designer stores like Chanel, Tommy Hilfiger, Fossil and many more that we don’t get back home, like Apple!!!

Very near the Apple Store was a Samsung Store set out a lot like an Apple Store and I couldn’t resist the urge any longer and bought the latest Samsung Galaxy Camera – it’s just like the a galaxy phone, it even has a SIM card so it can text and make the most of the whole Social Media craze. But that’s not why I bought it, I was most impressed by the HUGE touch screen on the back and the massive 21x optical zoom and image stabilisation.

Amazingly I survived getting up at 3:00 am, Dad picked me up and we managed to get checked in with plenty of time to spare and meet up with my Brother and his girlfriend. The flight over was all good and I watched the whole movie I had loaded onto my iPad – now what will I watch on the way home!

We are staying in a really lovely Victorian type villa in Ascot Vale, somewhere close to my sister.

The nearest shopping mall is in an amusingly named place called Moonie Ponds, where we found a Dick Smith store to purchase SIM cards for our phones. It’s a bit sad really how dependant I am on my phone, but we wanted to be able to call or text each other if we got lost etc and of course we all needed data for FACEBOOK.

Buying a SIM in Australia and making it work is not as easy as it was in America. It turned out to be a very stressful couple of hours, but one of the guys in Dick Smith was extreeeeeeemly helpful and went above and beyond what any sales person has ever done before and got them up and running – AWESOME.

Next we bought food from the supermarket and learnt you have to pay for a trolley and beer is sold in SLABS, so I now have a huge amount of beer to consume in one week – I’ll try my hardest.

Day 2, Sunday

We caught our first tram into the city and spent most of the day at the Queen Victoria Markets. What an amazing place – loved it. I tried all sorts of different food and bought loads of souvenir type stuff and by the end of the day we all had severe cases of “Shoppers Foot”.

Day 3, Monday
Today we drove into the city, parked at the Crown Casino which was not as easy at it sounds and walked to the Eureka Skydeck, the Southern Hemisphere’s highest viewing platform. We bought night and day passes allowing us back in later to see the lights at night time.

After that we walked along the river bank to Federation Square to book our day trip to the 12 Apostles and have a beer. Dad, my sister and niece slowly walked back to the Skydeck while my brother, girlfriend and I caught the free circle tram to fill in time till sunset, which backfired on us a bit, coz the tram driver got out for a 10 minute smoke break which meant we had to do the mad dash to get back to the Skydeck before all the pretty sunset had gone.

The view at night time was stunning and even tho the rest of my family decided not to experience the Edge, I did it on my own. The Edge is a glass cube that projects 3 metres out from the building with you in it, way cool.

It’s been a very busy Queen’s Birthday weekend, filled with several unexpected activities.

Firstly one of my neighbours knocked on my door on Friday night and invited me round for dinner, totally unexpected and lovely.

On Saturday morning I got up earlier than usual to go to a Lego exhibition. It was way better and bigger than I expected and a lot more people showed up than I expected, but it was well worth the wait – big long queue. Saturday night I went to a dinner/birthday party.

Sunday I went to Dad’s for lunch.

Today I flew to Wellington which was all a bit unexpected too, a week ago I didn’t know we would be doing that. Work is having a big team conference on Tuesday and rather than get up hideously early tomorrow morning in time for the 9:00 am meeting, I decided to treat myself to a hotel for the night and fly down the day before. The biggest unexpected event was that Te Papa are currently showing an Andy Warhol exhibition, which I didn’t know about, but once I did, I could hardly wait to get here. It was brilliant.

Well that was totally unexpected – I just spent two weeks down in Wellington for work.  I had a great time, the weather was amazing and I was doing really different things for work – no training at all, I was creating!

 
Here is where I spent the two weeks working, this is National Office

and this is where I slept.

I went for lots of big walks. On a really big walk I managed to climb a mountain, well it was only a hill but it wasn’t exactly easy to walk up, I found some track which I thought might take me somewhere with a good view but it ended up taking hours to get to the top. But the view was worth it once I finally made it. Oh and on the way I found Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace.

With all the great weather we’ve been having Wellington seemed to be constantly in celebration mode. Every night there was a big party type atmosphere and everyone was outside eating and drinking having fun. Down on the waterfront there was even dancing!

On one of my walks I managed to make it all the way to the Westpac Stadium which I’ve heard about and seen from a distance many times but never been right up to and seen the very cool entrance. While walking around near the stadium I ended up on a road with a really amusing street sign which simply said give way when wet. I laughed out loud (no really I did) thinking well what happens when it’s not wet – do just drive straight through??? Turns out the pole was missing the middle sign which says slippery.

One of the great things about this trip was, this time my Auckland Boss was in Wellington at the same time so we did loads of things together after work like walking through the rose gardens, up the cable car hill, along the waterfront, eating dinner in some great restaurants and hiring a tricycle and peddling to some beach while nearly dying from laughing too much. I had a blast – it makes a huge difference to have someone to do things with when I’m away on these trips.

Wednesday, 9 January

Today really felt like I’m on holiday.  I had several friends ring me this morning who are still on holiday like me and wanted to have coffee and a catch up but I had to say to both of them that I would love to see them but I’m waiting for a bed to arrive so would you like to come here for coffee instead.

As it turned out one popped round in the morning and the other popped round in the afternoon and about an hour after the morning friend left and 10 minutes before the afternoon friend arrived, the bed was delivered.  It was a gorgeous day for sitting in the courtyard & catching up with old friends, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

However the bed delivery didn’t go quite so well as the rest of the day – the delivery guys could not get the base up my stairs.  Whoever designed the building I live in clearly didn’t give any thought to getting furniture up to the bedrooms.  How have all my neighbours managed to do it?  There was a lot of pushing and shoving from me and the two big fullas, but the base was just not going to fit.  The height of the roof, the angle of the steps, the width of the staircase and the width of the handrail all transpired against us.  So the main bed delivery dude said: “sorry mate but we haven’t got time to muck around with this we’ll have to leave it here”.  I exclaimed that in that case they would have to take the bed back to where it came from coz you can’t just leave me with a bed stuck in my staircase.

Then I had a thought, I wondered if I moved the Xmas tree (yes my tree is still up) out of the alcove at the bottom of the offending stairs, could we fit it through the hole/window thingy.  I ran to get a tape measure, discovered it would fit and that’s how we got it up.  Thank goodness.  And in case you are wondering how I got my previous bed up there, it was a slat bed that completely comes apart in times of moving.