Brent's Blog

And you thought you've been busy....

2007-04-20T07:35:00.001+01:00

Ok, finally an update. Things have been very hectic, so not much time to update a silly website. dam real life I tell ya, gets in the way too much.

We are madly house / apartment hunting, depending on which suburb. We still haven't found anything that really takes our fancy a few places are nice but too expensive, others just rubbish. Although after our trip up north to Queensland things might be changing...more on that later.

A few things we have been up to over summer are...Tropfest film festival in Sydney's Domain, popped in to watch the Margi Gras, walked the harbour bridge for it's 75th birthday, saw Brian Henson's puppet show and have been out with friends a lot.

For those friends still in the UK, the weather here has been superb :-) we have been to the beach a few times, but nowhere near as much as we would have liked.

We took an additional 4 days off over Easter which made for a great 10 day getaway. First heading to Byron Bay for the Bluesfest. Ghostwriters, John Butler Trio & Ben Harper being amongst the best acts. A huge weekend and great to catch up with old friends :-) We then headed off to the Gold Coast and straight up to Noosa taking in some of the smaller towns along the way.

Noosa is still an amazing place, loads of people due to school holidays and what gives Noosa such an awesome vibe I think i the near perfect weather, restaurants and bars along Hastings street that back onto the beach, or maybe the fact that for $140 we got an amazing Resort room for the night with a spa in the bedroom...sweet :-) Takeaway seafood on the beach looking at the stars, doesn’t get much better.

On the way to Brisbane we stopped in at small town called Buderim. It used to be the ginger & coffee capital of Australia, yeah sounds good already I know. It is on top of the plateau and has views to the coast and across the valley. Awesome views and just so chilled, think rainforest. Looking at house prices there, this could be one place that would be great to head to in a few years time...

Anyway, I will try and make updates a little more frequently, I hope everyone is well! Some photos soon...

2006 in a page or so

2007-01-08T02:44:00.000Z

So much happened in 2006 it was hard to keep track of it all. But of course I have still managed to come up with my 2006 in a page or so...

2006 in a page or so.

2005 is here.

New Years Eve - Sydney Harbour

2007-01-03T02:26:00.000Z

A happy New Year to everybody, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Santa brought you everything you wished for and more. :-) Our New Years period was exciting, fun and relaxing. I spent a couple of days down the south coast at my parent’s beach house in Mollymook. I did some beach and rock fishing, general lazing in the sun on the beach and just chilling. On Boxing Day we went to North Head (Sydney Harbour) to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart yatch race, very cool indeed. The harbour was complete chaos. Sensational! Christmas day was spent with the family, my sister put on an awesome lunch. New Years Eve we headed to the harbour to watch the 9pm fireworks then back to a friends place in Bondi to carry on. So nice to be walking around outside in the warm air on New Years Eve :-) Just a slight change from London. We also discovered that we can walk from our place through bush land to the harbour which just feels like you are 1,000 miles away from civilization. All up, the small break over the festive period proved that it is indeed very nice to be back home in Sydney :-)

Merry Christmas

2006-12-23T06:13:00.000Z

We thought we would send you this little video wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Settling in just nicely thank you :-)

2006-12-12T08:49:00.000Z

Riiiiight, a long time between updates I know. Things have been very hectic, what with finding a place to live, buying a car, getting a job...anyway it's all sorted now and I think it has all been worth it after we spent last week camping at Booti Booti National Park on the NSW north coast. We tried a bit of beach 4 wheel driving and quickly realised you need to let some air out of those tires for traction. hmm ok, so some light standard 4 wheel driving instead... We camped next to the beach and between the beach and a lake nestled under the rainforest. Ahh this is the Australia I have been dying to get back for. This weekend is BBQs and beers for birthday celebrations. Next week, more beach and sun...so long as it makes an appearance! Anyway, here are some photos from the weekend.

Finally Sunny Sydney

2006-11-15T01:24:00.000Z

Well finally we are seeing some nice weather here. As well, we have found a place to live, Wollstonecraft. It's only a short trip to the city and we move in this Friday. Whoo Hoo! so, how's the weather in Lodnon? hehehehe

Back in Sunny, Chilly Sydney

2006-10-23T07:25:00.000+01:00

Well it's been a week now and we have bought a car, Serena has been for a few interviews, I have spoken to a couple of agents, so fingers crossed we get some work soon. Then somewhere to live. Newtown looks go so far after traipsing all over Sydney. A couple of good things...Windsurfers are going for about $100 on eBay and summer is on its way. Bring it on!

LA Woman

2006-10-09T04:45:00.000+01:00

Venice beach just gets more amazing each day. Some many people live in this area, most of which is rent controlled enabling creative types to live here. We went into Hollywood Blvd today as part of a tour and saw the sights, seemed almost nice to get back to Venice beach with all the crazies :-) We walked Hollywood Blvd, Rodeo Drive and did some shoppng, ahhh Levi's for $30! All is good with the world.

The band in the pub downstairs is cranking out Doors tunes, there is a massive muriel of Jim Morrison down the street, awesome...LA Women...

I bought a new camera in San Fran and dam me the lens is buggered. Ho Hum, anyway I'm still having fun with it and hopefully some better photos will eventually turn up! Off to Theme Parks tomorrow. Then Sydney. ARGH!

Photos to date...

2006-10-07T07:13:00.000+01:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is L A!

2006-10-07T06:43:00.000+01:00

Well. San Fran is full of homeless nutters and yes that is my highly technical observation. Every corner has someone screaming, whether that be at you or just abut some crazy stuff. It can be a bit unnerving at first, but you do get used to it. The funniest thing I saw was after a brief down pour, a taxi was trying to get up one of those typical San Fran hills and he kept sliding down it, ok, small things I know. We are in LA now staying right on the beach at Venice beach and I now know where all the nutters in San Fran come from, yep LA. Good lord! This place is crazy, everyone seems to know everybody else and they all seem to be just slightly mad! I love it! As I write this some woman outside was tipping over all the tables at an outside resturaunt and yelling to call the police. hahaha GOLD!

It took us 8 hours to get from San Fan to LA by Greyhound. I think to see the true US every tourist should take a Greyhound bus some distance. hehehe It's a different world on that bus I tell ya. . Man, talk about all sorts. Anyway, off to sleep then the beach tomorrow, it's all going way too fast!

Vegas to San Francisco

2006-10-03T06:34:00.000+01:00

We hired a Jeep in Vegas and are on our way to San Fran now. The hightlight would have to have been Death Valley, an absolutely bizarre place of immense size and power. We drove off road for about 30 miles through Titan's canyon, not a soul around except for Coyote, Long Horned mountain sheep and rattlesnakes. After Death Valley at sea level we drove to Yosemite around 7,000 above.

Some photos from the trip are here.

Death Valley, Yosemite etc
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=11vip4kv.y2grmff&x=0&y=2aq8g3

The Grand Canyon
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=11vip4kv.fvzdbfv&x=0&y=-byj0o0

Las Vegas
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=11vip4kv.b6gudzf&x=0&y=-u0jkic

Las Vegas - Show me the money!

2006-09-29T21:03:00.000+01:00

Lack of wireless has meant no updates for a few days, crap eh! Right now we are staying on the strip in Vegas and the buggers don't have wireless so this is coming to you loud and clear from the Las Vegas Convention Centre :-). We dropped the car off yesterday after driving in over the Hover dam from the Grand Canyon, where we took a helicopter flight over the south rim and got up to watch a magnificent sunrise over the canyon. In all of our photos we look super imposed, it's crazy!

We got chatting to an old biker somewhere along the trip who said we should visit a place called Sedona in Arizona. OH MY GOD! My mouth was ajaw driving down the valley into Sedona. This place was amazing, red rocks, mesa's, we took a red jeep tour up into the hills and thanks to Jack our real life cowboy complete with Colt 44 hand gun, ensured we didn't get mauled by any mountain lions.

Following the mother road, Route 66, we drove over 2,000 miles and through 7 states. The changes in landscape from forest to corn fields to desert is amazing, it almost feels like each state has been divided according to it's geography.

We have moved our flights back a week and cancelled Fiji so we get some more time in the US. After a few days in Vegas we are going to drive to San Fran via Death Valley and Yosemite national park. Anyway, I digress. It's 8am in Vegas and time to hit the shows and casinos. Whoo Hoo bring it on! Tonight we have choices of female jelly wrestling and bikini bull rides and that's just in our hotel!

And in true Vegas style, we both took a Corvette and Hummer for a spin...SWEEET!

On the road again...

2006-09-24T02:37:00.000+01:00

We made up a little more time today by sticking to the Interstate for a few hours. We did however manage to stop at a local country fair and feast on a corndog. Good lord! This place was actually quite scary :-) In a nice central American kind of way. We came across some old oil wells too which were very cool, some still working. More to be expected as we get into Texas I presume. We are staying at Elk City tonight, there are no Elk and there is no way in hell this is a city. Oh well a nice early start down Route 66 sounds like a plan. I seriously just can't get enough of Route 66 so here are some more photos.

Tornado Time

2006-09-23T14:03:00.000+01:00

Before heading off from St Louis yesterday morning, we had seen on TV that there were Tornados in the area. Cool I say, lets go and see if we can see one. We had lunch at this great little Hickory BBQ place along Rt66 and the staff were saying something about Tornados being 10 miles away. That's all good. We hop in the car and head off. Serena took the video below while we were driving beside Interstate 44, we were thinking the lightning looked mad and the dark clouds, like a pretty serious storm. Just after the video finished, we looked to the left side of the car and there was shit flying in the air. (I mean shit like fence palings, big branches, that kinda of shit!) You know like in the movies. Holy crap I tell ya. We turned around and headed back into the town we had just left. Sirens were blaring so we ducked into a supermaket and waited for the rain and wind to stop. After it looked to have passed, we drove back down the I44 and saw a water tower in the middle of the road, houses and trees ripped up and a semi-trailer over turned. Madness! The forecast for today is more bad weather. We're outta here :-)

Here is a link to the news story.

Serena's Video is below

Get Your Kicks...

2006-09-22T05:10:00.000+01:00

This morning we headed off on Route 66 from Chicago to LA...well ok, just to Vegas. We are staying the night in St Louis, having visited such exciting places and things like Dixies Trucker Diner and the Gemini Giant Astronaut. I tell ya Route 66 has it all. We had a mad night out in Chicago. After wandering around not sure where to go out, we stopped by the typical Irish pub and got a huge list of things to do from the waitress. Needless to say one of them was a blues club just next door. Sensational How handy is that!!! We heard some awesome Blues, even ended up buying the CD. Oh..and they just keep giving us better rental cars. We have moved up a notch to the Chevy Impala ahh the small things...hehehehe

19 hours on a train...

2006-09-20T16:21:00.000+01:00

It's 4:30am in Toledo, we are 14 hours through a 19 hour Amtrak train trip. Screaming babies, quite abrupt staff, Amish people and general freaky red neck types. It's funny but when you get onboard the train, you tend to be all excited. The seats have loads of room, at least twice as much as the Greyhound bus service. Although after 14 hours they somehow manifest themselves into the most uncomfortable seats ever designed. One fellow Serena was chatting to, lives in New York and after not having left Manhattan island for over a year decided to travel across the states just to remind himself how big it really is. I am sure when he gets to San Fran in 4 days time, he will have a perfect understanding how big it is...nutter! :-)

Sitting here wide awake while the rest of the carriage is uncomfortably tossing and turning, I have been thinking back about the trip so far and that this is the perfect interlude to jot down some dribble. So long as the lady with the 3 kids stops yelling "Behind the last seat Niha." I am loosing guessing Niha is the kid that is looking for the toilet.

The trip so far is going way too quickly, isn't that always the case, good times just go screaming by you. Ok, quick back peddle. New York, what a fabulous place :-). After leaving Boston, I was more than happy not to see another big city, in a strange way even dreading NY. The first NY day was fairly manic starting off in Harlem probably didn't help the cause, but it didn't take long before it all seemed way to familiar. Great bars, terrific places to eat, easy to navigate. I mean seriously all the streets are numbered. Getting lost a few times on the subway did suck though...I never could get the hang of those underground railway systems. They really need to install some decent DMI's...To live and work in New York would really be something amazing, maybe I am a big city person after all.

Right that's enough back peddling, I'm bored now as I am sure you are with my rant :) Hurry up Chicago!!!

New York Photo Time...

2006-09-18T17:49:00.000+01:00

Here are our photos from New York so far.

We saw Bush arrive by helicopter this morning for the UN meetings in NY, yesterday walked the Brooklyn Bridge, took a carriage ride in Central Park, went up the Empire State Building and had dinner in Greenwich Village :-) After visiting Wall St this morning we are packed and on our way to Chicago by Amrak! Whoo Hoo

New York New York!

2006-09-16T02:02:00.000+01:00

...What a wet, no, a drenched and rainy town :-) Please stop raining so we can stop going to Macy's :-) In case you haven't guessed we are in New York...What a fabulous town! How did we get here I hear you ask...

We left Rangeley at about 8am driving to Boston which we made by about 1pm. Hopped on the Chinese version of Greyhound the Fungwahbus hehehe and for $15 made it to New York by 7pm. We stayed in a really crappy hostel in Harlem. We decided to go for a brief walk and changed our minds deciding that it was a pretty dodgey area, but I'll just say it was raining too much so we headed back to the hostel. Today wasn't much better we lugged our bags across town to Grand Central only to be told that after 911 there are no lockers. ARGH! We popped down to Ground Zero and wandered, Macys'd, had sushi and enjoyed New York...but please stop raining...

Moose...

2006-09-14T00:43:00.000+01:00

We rented a canoe this morning and spent a few hours paddling down Kennenbrook river. on the way we managed to see 3 moose which was awesome. Later in the day we took a scenic flight over the lakes and rivers, seeing another moose from the air. Total moose seen today 5!

We leave this amazing place tomorrow morning for New York, Whoo Hoo! A slight change in pace, but I am looking forward to it!

As I slowly fall asleep to the sound of logging trucks in the distance and the low buzz of sea planes, I dream of CHEESE IN A CAN!

An Amber Affair...

2006-09-13T04:54:00.000+01:00

A mate of mine who works for Sydney's Children's Hospital has let me know about a beer night :-) Click here for full details of the beer tasting event. You know I would be there if I was back home!

From Bar Harbour to Rangeley

2006-09-13T03:28:00.000+01:00

Maine is seriously the most amazing state. The Americans we have bumped into really wonder why we are here when most American's don't bother to make the trip. We basically say look around, how awesome...o, and that I'm a Stephen King Freak! :-P hehehe ok so maybe I have neglected that little bit. Bangor, boring in all the books, but I was in awe ..I mean STEPHEN KINGS home town! All the books he writes are set in Maine, I think that slightly explans why I won't drive down that quiet road. hehehe

Anyway...we are now in Rangely, which is on some awesome lakes and mountain kinda things. Tonight we went in seach of moose but alas saw none. The old couple in the room are from Pensilvania saw one tonight, ARGH! Anyway, we are staying here another night and going Kayaking tomorrow morning for a few hours and again looking for moose for Serena, although I am hoping to sneak in a scenic sea plane flight. :-) The motel we are at is called Sadleback Mountain Motel, (not Brokeback...) it has an awesome view over the Rangely Lake. - see below. (After all this magnificent wilderness, we will be in New York in 2 days time, ARGH big cities)

The photo for today is this one, yes Stephen Kings house. Whoo Hoo! He wasn't home, so no coffee, maybe next time I'm in Bangor we'll catch up...

We have been playing a couple of mini golf or Putt Putt for you Aussies :-) We are 1 game all at the moment, but I am sure I will whip Serena next time. hehehe

Ok one one more photo...Me and Paul Bunyan!

Rangeley Lakes...

2006-09-13T01:09:00.000+01:00

A quick update from Bangor Maine

2006-09-10T14:52:00.000+01:00

Here are our US photos so far!

Ok, there should be a few more updates now as we bought a laptop. This is great as every hotel/hostel has Wi-Fi, sweet!!

We are currently in Bangor, Maine the home of Stephen King. :-) Whose house we will be visiting today, hopefully he will invite us in for coffee. Ok...back track....

From Boston we went to Cape Code by bus, whilst on the bus we met another Aussie girl who was visiting family on the Cape for the summer and she dragged us off the bus so her grandmother could give us a lift to the Hostel. This turned out to be awesome as we had no idea where the hostel was...which turned out to be bloody miles from anywhere! Thanks (I think your name was Jess!) On the cape we grabbed a couple of bikes and went cycling for ever, had lobster at Land Ho, played mini golf and visited Province Town for a half hour. The Hostel was fantastic, set in the bush in little cabins, we were given a cabin to ourselves, the staff, Caroline and Judith were great! Drop us an email guys!

Back in Boston, we picked up a Chevy Malibu which was a free upgrade from some crappy economy car and headed off to Maine. Driving has been pretty easy and fun with a nice powerful car, I', sure the speed limit is 80 mph not 65..We have only missed a few turn offs which generally ended up in some cool little town anyway. We Stayed in a Budget Inn Motel at Portland then set off to Freeport (this town is a town made from outlet shops, talk about heaven!) We saw the ex presidents beach house, whoop di do!

My next favourite Australian comment, after the water uphill one would have to be one from a ... "Gas station attendant" Where are you from... Australia...Yeah but which country? GOLD I tell ya. When they realised what Australia was they then told me to have fun with all my Kangaroos...hehehehe Maine is the home of all the lighthouses...yep, all of them, so here's one we visited.

Boston - Greyhounds and Seafood Chowder

2006-09-05T16:45:00.000+01:00

Well Boston is a pretty town, after enduring a 12 hour greyhound bus ride that actually wasn't as bad as expected, we arrived bright and early. An American guy on the bus asked if the water in Australia goes up hill because we are on the other side of the world. Of course I told him yeah it does.

The highlight for me would have to be Wally the wall frog :-) How cool!

Today we are heading along the Freedom Trail in Boston and hopefully then for some more Seafood. (Yesterday's Nantucket Seafood Chowder in a bread bowl was sensational!)

Ok...photo gallery time

2006-08-31T04:54:00.000+01:00

I have not had enough time to actually get the photos properly organised so, I have relented and uploaded everything to that Kodak photo thingy. :-) Click here for Serena's awesome Travel Pod thingy :-)

Canada so far...
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=conw81h1.1j00n0fp&x=0&y=992iqm

London for West Ham...
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=conw81h1.7n1svdv9&x=0&y=-uzab24

Haggis Tour...
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=conw81h1.c84gocc5&x=0&y=-ba5udy

The Fringe Festival...
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/I.jsp?c=conw81h1.ayhq5pth&x=0&y=-d80aqp

Serena's Canada...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=tbm4kev.i9b4pof&x=0&y=-az7ged

Serena's Scotland...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=tbm4kev.19gb9akf&x=0&y=-rgc75y