What a difference a day makes… look at that sky. Some rain came through, cooled things off and cleared the air.
This cool statue guards my hotel.
The Opera House at night.
Their lunar festival lanterns are way bigger than Auckland’s.
Operatic Sydney Busker
This woman had a great set of pipes and a good sound system, so you faintly heard the music a block away. I couldn’t tell if she was a truly good singer or not, but she was certainly good at tugging on the heartstrings!
From Long White Cloud to Thick Brown Crud
I flew into Sydney this morning and got to make the same approach over the harbour that I’ve made before… normally a treat. Here’s a shot from last April:
And here’s the same today…
Action Man
That, my fellow Americans, and my formerly European friends in the still for the moment United Kingdom, is Action Man.
Action Man was G.I. Joe in other markets and has quite a history. How he ended up wearing this rather unconventional collection of accessories (outside of the highly sought after Action For Men Rainbow NightClub play set) is unknown.
We met him on the way in to tour an open house that we were already leery about… would a large complex of townhouses we can afford be a bit too noisy and full of kids for us? Yes, said Action Man, it will. It most certainly will.
Ho ho Hobart
I got to visit Tasmania this week for a 42-hour work trip. Thanks to Bugs Bunny cartoons, it’s a place I’ve always known about but couldn’t have found on a map until moving to the region. More recently, Hobart came to my attention via this amazing article about the Museum of Old and New Art.
The 17th largest island in the world, Tasmania was a timber-based economy for a long time. Now a lot of that land is given over to (legal) opium poppies. Hobart, the state capital, is about 230,000 people, slightly less than half the population of the whole island. If NZ ever starts to feel too crowded…
The part of Hobart I stayed in had a lot of great 19th century architecture and the best collection of door knockers I’ve found since the first time I ever really noticed door knockers in France.
It gets hot in the summer, but the ducks found a way to keep cool.
And I think people also have ways to keep cool, although I didn’t get the chance to experience a Pimm’s or G&T here myself…
Altogether Hobart looks like a perfect place for a long weekend. It’s likely we’ll be working there for the long term so I hope I’ll get to go back.
Anniversary weekend
Auckland Anniversary Day is yet another excuse to have a long summer weekend, and we took full advantage, of course including fireworks down by the waterfront. While there, we got to see this giant cruise ship pulling out.
I did my longest ever ocean swim, and another normal one the next day, and a bike ride the day after that. Other people took it a bit easier.
My natural habitat
is a pedestal.
Since I have this cool hat
I must be a real musician! Our band played a gig at Coopers Creek Winery the other week.
If you have to ask…
At the Spiritualist Society, you already know when the next meeting will be.
Red sky in the morning
… doesn’t mean impending bad weather in this case, but probably does mean smoke drifting 1,300 miles from the Aussie fires.
Get out of here you dirty hippie
Last weekend’s trip to the market netted us both mung bean sprouts and hemp seeds. Either one is probably OK, but together I fear they represent some sort of consumption turning point.
The predictive polling algorithms would probably identify us as Bernie Sanders supporters based on that single purchase (not correctly, as it turns out… I’m hoping for a ticket where Bloomberg gives his billion dollars to Buttegieg).
Strategery
All these lockboxes– I think — belong to AirBnB properties inside the adjacent building.
I love the word lockbox, and here’s why…
Fergburger
Everybody told us we had to eat at Queenstown’s famous Fergburger. But the lines at lunchtime were ridiculous. No burger is that good.
But if you’re willing to eat a burger at 9 AM, and we were, you can walk right in.
Apparently Fergburger has been around a while, but Lonely Planet named them as some sort of global best burger and it really blew up after that.
I still wouldn’t stand in a long line for it, but it was pretty damn good and we went back, again at breakfast, on our last day.
Arrowtown
Yesterday we took a bus trip to Arrowtown, which was a gold rush town in the 1860s and still has most of its original buildings. Super cute…
There’s a little museum, which we didn’t go in, and as many cafes and shops as can be crammed into the available space. Whilst we were sipping a beer we got to watch a good juggler practice in the park… nice.
It led me to think about hobbies and passions… I’m very susceptible to their siren song. But only up to a point. I can juggle, for example, but I’ve never had the focus to truly be “a juggler”.
This guy above, who was on the return bus with us, seemed to have gone all in on photography, although when I took this picture it looked like he was trying to find a YouTube video to help him use his camera.
But this guy below, taking a break from his construction job, maybe hasn’t found his passion yet… he needs a gold rush to come along!
What Goes Up
That stripe on the right is the Queenstown Gondola. It’s super-steep, and gains about 1500 feet of elevation.
The main reason people go up there is to come back down in some creative or exciting way. There’s one part of that wants to point out that you’d end up in the same place a lot easier by not going at all… but that would be boring!
Early in the morning, a lot of mountain bikers use the lift and barrel down. There’s a little luge-thing at the top, which we rode and which was a lot of fun.
But the best was the paragliders… I wanted to do that but it only goes certain days… next trip.
Our motel was right next to the landing field… here’s a video.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 