now a thirtysomething from Brisbane
It is that time of year again. Ekka time. This year I am going to take Ekka fireworks photos for 5 nights of the Ekka, that is providing that nothing happens between now and Sunday. I currently have another 3 spots planned for taking fireworks photos and might spend the day at the Ekka on Sunday to take some more photos from inside the ekka. Last night I headed up to Eildon Hill Reservoir to take photos.
When I left the Troubadour early last Monday morning, we had made plans to catch Parents on Tuesday night and maybe go to the beach on Tuesday. Monday Arvo, I was awakened by a phone call from Svavar, asking me if I wanted to go to Noosa with them for the night. As I had just bought my BIFF tickets for that night minutes before I said no. Then a phone call to Mum to hash it over I decided to skip BIFF for the night and to hit the road to Noosa. I rang Svavar back and then an hour so later I was at Thor’s house ready to pile into Ronnie’s land cruiser for an escape from Brisbane.
Once we were up the highway we made a toilet stop and supplies stop. For most journeys that is nothing out of the ordinary. Ronnie’s car often takes a little bit of fiddling to get going again. This of course proved a perfect time for some photos.
We made it Noosa and found the YHA, after a walk round town we headed back to the hostel for dinner as well everything else was just slightly out of our price range. Had a very nice veggie lasagne from the hostel kitchen. Then it was time to socialise, play with cameras and watch the International Ping Pong tournament between Pete and Svavar, I believe Pete may have won this round.
From a photography perspective, I love this shot as I took it just as the flash went off on Svavar’s camera.
After some shenanigans, it was down to the beach for some ‘walking after midnight (though it wasn’t midnight yet), chasing the waves, doing cartwheels/handstands and having fun with some shadow plays.
The next morning we woke up and made pancakes for breakfast, Ronnie headed off to do a mornings work with some guys who came to the hostel the night before.
We headed off into the wilderness, well Noosa National Park. Where 3/4 of our party went swimming twice. Do the maths and look at the photos, I was not a crazy nutter. I didn’t go swimming.
Svavar, he relished the chance to swim in the Pacific Ocean and he ended up swimming at all three beaches we stopped at during the day. Pete was also in the water, but he is a Melbourne boy. Thor well she is 50% Icelandic compared to my 25%. I well I am a Brisbane girl, we don’t go swimming at the beach in Winter, the water is just too cold!
After a while it was wisely decided to head round to a more sheltered beach where the distance from trees to water was less. We walked up to Hells Gate which provided a great chance to whip out the 12-24mm and take some portraits.
Shooting straight into the Sun gave me some sweet as sugar flare with this photo.
We then started walking again to the next beach where, Pete, Svavar and Thor frolicked in the ocean like Puff the Magic Dragon.
Before it was time to retreat to the towels for some relaxing and some music.
As well as checking out the local wildlife.
Once we had all baked like chickens in an oven we headed back to the entry of the National Park where we were met by Ronnie and we cooked up a pretty wicked BBQ lunch made all the more special by Svavar’s made on the spot Guacamole. Then we headed off to Noosa’s main beach where we spread out under some Pandanus , chatted and enjoyed some more music with Pete and Svavar providing a perfect soundtrack for an arvo at the beach.
All good things to come to an end and before too long we were back in Ronnie’s land cruiser heading home to catch Parents with Thor’s parents, my dad and Tom the other member of this travelling trio of Troubadours.
A totally random trip and quite possibly the most spur of the moment thing I have done with people that I didn’t really know and it turned out to be the most fantastic experience.
We went to the Australian Outback Spectacular at the Gold Coast on Sunday night for Mum’s birthday along with Aunty Susan and Ian who are over for a short holiday from NZ.
It was an interesting night. For the price of your ticket you get a straw hat, three course meal and a showcase of the outback, the history and where we are now. It was nice to have been once but I wouldn’t be rushing back there in a hurry. Well perhaps I would rush back to have more of the salad that we were served as a starter as it was very very yummy. It had lots of endive which I just love as well. Though I wasn’t fussed over the AACo Steak or the Pavlova.
Upon entry you are herded past a series of photo stations and a shop into the bar/holding pen area where they want you to spend money on drinks for 45mins or so until they let you into the arena to your seat where you are then given free beer, wine, lemonade or water. The holding pen is decorated with lots and lots of outback memorabilia such as signs, hats, fence posts, photos etc etc.
This sign in particular was my fav.
The arena is divided into two sections, one half supports Austral Downs, the visiting station with a yellow hat band and the other half supports Wondoola Station with a red hat band. We were in the Wondoola Station section which was good because I thought the yellow hat bands were pretty average.This of course meant that whilst we were in the holding pen it was a sea of hats.
Now a stereotypical outback bar is just not going to be true blue if there is not a country singer with his/her guitar and if the stage does not suit you, what better stage is there than the back of a ute.
The show overall was pretty average in my view, possibly I think because of how they force the Australian clichés on you. Now I can say g’day and cooee with the best of them but I don’t swing my hat round in exclamation and I certainly don’t do a kookaburra laugh and you won’t force me to said mentioned things if I don’t want to.
There was three acts in the show. The first act introduced you to the outback and the people of the outback as well as some circus style horse riding which was quite good. The second act saw a reciting of The Man from Snowy River as well as “mustering” of sheep, cattle and colts before we see the men breaking in the colts in the stereotypical rough and tough way of literally breaking them and not getting anywhere. Than the daughter comes along and “whispers” to the horse and then proceeds to easily mount it and ride it round the arena. To which the men humbly accept that maybe there are better ways to break in a horse. To show how the outback has adapted to technology they mustered the cattle with a helicopter as well as quad bikes and horses. The helicopter was pretty cool, it is suspended on a rail which runs down the centre of the arena and then uses it own power to move down the rail and turn side to side. Very cool.
The final act was a competition which saw members of the audience pulled out for a kids chicken race, a beer can regatta as well a the typical barrel and flag races.
They also had a camel race round the arena which was a bit of a have really as two camels come in with two riders, they go round the ring once and then out the door again, I would have loved to have seen them go round the ring twice at least so you could actually see the animals and get a feel for them. Whilst points are awarded to the two teams through out the final act it comes down to the audience as to which station wins the show with a hat passing race. On our night the opposing station Austral Downs won the show.
One of the things I did really enjoy were the images that they projected onto the backdrop especially for The Man from Snowy River where they had a series of panoramic scenes which they would pan over as the poem progresses. That was really cool and there were some gorgeous photos on the screen.
This takeaway shop on Gympie Rd has been a bit of an institution round the Chermside area for quite a while now. I have often walked past and seen local workers or tradies at the counter picking up a takeaway lunch or snack. It has also had a few ownership changes recently, which has seen the name change. As I was walking home from work on Saturday I couldn’t help but laugh at the new name for the shop. Abbreviating the suburb name C’side to make your fish and chip shop sound like it is right on the water front. I loved it.
We just received our quarterly council rates notice in the mail and of course the first page that everyone in Brisbane turns to at the moment is the Water Advice. I present to you our water advice page.
We are a family of 4 adults and in the most recent reporting period we were using 308L a day which works out to be 77L per person per day. The target that the BBC and Water Commission are promoting is 140L per person per day. Looking at our notice that is what we were achieving 12 mths ago. According to the Water Commission, the average per person per day usage is currently 137L in the region.
It will be interesting to see what we achieve for this period as our rain tank is now feeding the washing machine which saves about 50L per load, which will add up.
In addition to having a front loader washing machine, we don’t own a dish washer, the garden is been left to fend for itself except a few plants that get the water from the shower whilst waiting for the hot water to kick in. It is all about just taking a millisecond to think when you turn a tap on, is this necessary? Am I able to reuse this water? etc.
This year the ABC turns 75 and what better way than a party at the riverstage with a sway of ABC personalities and entertainment for the kids (Bananas in Pajamas, Fireman Sam etc) and music and comedy for the big kids (The Boat People, Troy Cassar-Daly, Craig Reucassel from The Chaser, Scared Wierd Little Guys, Aunty Jack and Thin Arthur and The Great Debate).
I have mentioned before how much a large part of my life the the ABC has been both the radio, tv and now the internet. That is why there would be nothing holding me back from going along for the show. Was a really great day and a perfect 3rd concert for my 4 concerts in 4 days weekend.
First up on show were local lads The Boat People. I remember hearing a lot of these fellas back in the end of Highschool/early Uni when I was listening to 4ZZZ a fair bit. Since then I don’t think I have consciously listened to them. This meant that I was blown away quite nicely on Sunday arvo.
Scared Weird Little Guys
I have only been exposed to the Scaredies once before and that was on Music Tour in year 12 when Ms Jabs played the Macadamia EP on the bus and we were all curled up our seats doing the actions. It was a funny event. With their matching suits, mis-matching heights and some rather topical lyrics they proved a hit with all members of the audience. At one stage they were siniging three songs between them (Summer Nights, Louie Louie and X) whilst the crowd sung Wild Thing (all four songs have the same basic chords in them)
Aunty Jack and Thin Arthur
I have heard a lot about The Aunty Jack show over the years but this was my first exposure and they were pretty funny.
Craig Reucassel from The Chaser
Of The Chaser guys, Chas takes out first place for my favourite and Craig is a close second. Having him up to muse out the next 75 years of the ABC/Australia and what is happening currently was rather funny. His prediction is that in 75 years time John Howard will still be PM and Maxine McKew will be opposition leader (which thinking about now is rather flawed sine Maxine is running against Howard for the seat of Bennelong). To finish off his segment he picked out people in the audience with Andrew Hansen hair, the crowd then voted for the person who had the most Andrew Hansesn like hair (read weird) and they had to sing a closing song for the segment. The girl who won though by her own admission had a few drinks under the belt and really should have thought more I thought about what words she lets out her mouth at such a day. Moving right along…
The Great Debate.
This was quite an event and a lot of fun. The question of the debate was “Are interviews more important than music?” in regards to radio. Heading the affirmative team was 612 ABC’s drive presenter Kelly Higgins-Devine with John from the Scaredies and Craig Reucassel from The Chaser. Heading the negative team was AM presenter Tony Eeastly with Rosie Beaton from Triple J/jTV and Rusty from the Scaredies. It was really amusing to listen and watch and at the end of the day the crowd decided that interviews were more important than music.
Troy Cassar-Daly
Troy is a bit of a legend in the Australian country music scene, everyone knows who he is and it was great to see him live for the first time. He really got the crowd going with lots of participation which was really good.
ABC Personalities.
These are just the ones that I grabbed photos of, there would have been scores more round the place.
Richard Fiedler, Peter Cundall, Madonna King, Andrew Lofthouse, Jenny Woodward, Steve Austin, Rosie Beaton, Peter Thompson.
Blue King Brown closed the show and they very much deserve their own post which will come in the next day or two.
You may prefer to view a slideshow of the photos which is available below or here.