I heard you like bridges so I took a photo of a bridge over trouble waters while on a bridge from neither here to there.

Old warehouses convert into expensive houses.

Hark, a bridge doth approach our merry band of… Melvin, stop that, you’re supposed to stay in character. Geez.

A wedding party attempts to get a nice photo amid the trrts.

Thus endeth the bike ride. Well, I went home from there.

I took this on my new workphone, a Nokia E72. Seems a good phone, kinda Blackberry style with a full physical keyboard and the like. Rubbish web browser though.

Firstly, let me point out for the uninformed, my new job tends to lead to a few drinks or so on the last day of the week. In fact, the first two fridays lead to being pleasently surprised to find myself at home the next morning, but I digress. Last thursday was no exception, only without excess. This is mainly because after lunch (in a pub) an afternoon drink at the RSL, some drinks and nibblies put on by new work to celebrate an Occasion and a couple more back at the pub to farewell a team member, I popped off to Newtown (or N00btown if you prefer) for a few cocktails and some dinner/wine with a friend who was temporarily back from London. This was followed by heading into the city for a few beers with her other half, then getting home shortly before 2am, checking into my flight and packing my bag. I managed to forget nothing, which suggested to me that getting drunk the night before a trip isn’t such a bad thing after all.

5 hours later however, with the alarm cacophanising me from lovely slumber, that was revised back to ‘not ideal’. Tired and slightly queasy I staggered downstairs, called for a cab, leapt into the first one that came along instead and was whizzed off to the airport by a complete nutter. Nice guy, but part of the 95% of cabbies that give the rest a bad name when it comes to driving. A bit of lining up and a ham and cheese croissant later I was waiting to board, alternating between keeping my eyes open enough to read my book and closing them for a recharge. Which is also pretty much what I did after I boarded.

As an aside, I hate flying. If I had time/means I’d rather drive to places, but as flying is much faster and cheaper, that means I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like. Still, at least I’ve done it a few times.

So anyhoo, that started a sleepy day in Nearly Melbourne. That afternoon we visited a Buddhist temple that’s nearby (well, it took over an hour to get there.. we went the scenic route). It was in a great spot, but it was kind of a non-descript building with the gold horns chucked on the top. Nice though. On the way back we spotted a pub that had all day meals on, so with it being 3pm at that point we decided to stop and have a feed. Very tasty fish and chips, and Asahi on tap. Yum. Not pictured: everything.

The nice thing about visiting Dad is that I can drink his wine. He has very nice wine. He also has some Raki, which is a Turkish spirit that tastes like aniseed and burning until you put a bunch of ice in. Then it’s aniseed and nice. The other side of it is helping around the shop/restaurant they run, which is fine most of the time.. cleaning out the rangehood over the kitchen was a mucky job though. Ergh. Still, I earns me keep. Also I got to play with the pressure washer, so it wasn’t all bad. Squwoooosh! Only got a bit soaked…

Anyhoo, I got back last night. I decided to take the train and bus home from the airport, which is actually the first time I’ve done it from a flight home. Usually I’m too tired/cranky to be bothered with anything other than queuing for a cab, but I decided that the line would be huge and I might as well spend half the cashola to get home. (Though seriously, $15 is a ridiculous fare for about half a dozen stops.) Sitting on an empty train makes me want to think of something to write about, but it never happens.. probably because I’m not much of a writer.. I get writer’s block before I start. I think I shall call it aspirant’s block. Kinda makes you wonder why I’d have a blog with an imaginary flipside, but heigh.. why the hell not.

In other news, I mended my wardrobe yesterday (pics if you ask nicely.. it’s uninteresting), am still pondering both whether or not I want a new laptop and why more manufacturers don’t make 11″ models and I bought a new secondary monitor. It’s a 23″ Samsung, a P2350. ‘Sgood, though the stand is a little wobbly so make sure you have a sturdy desk if you buy one. I’ve been motorbikling to the new jeorb which is good, though there’s rain forecast for the next while so that’ll be fun. Good thing I have plastic pants to wear over my real pants (they want to stop the ones who wear the plastic pants on real pants) so that I might remain dry. We’ll see anyway.. tomorrow might be a mite uncomfortable otherwise.

In internet news, here are links.
- The ping-pong door. I want to make it one day, in the mean time I may design a mechanism to achieve the tilt and slide. I have a few ideas anyway.
- Llewtube. Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge) gives people a ride in his car (it’s a Prius, but don’t hold that against him) and has a nice chat. Anyone who likes The Mighty Boosh should watch the Rich Fulcher one, and everyone should watch the Stephen Fry one. And a bunch of other ones. Or just listen to them as you would a podcast, they work well that way too.
- Earth hour was this on Saturday night, which is a load of tokenistic crap. See: this. In short if you want to be green, do it all the time.
- This comic. If you don’t get it, think back to when you were seven and loved space. If that’s still no good, try this.
- LASERS MAKE WATER GO UPHILL. Lasers, fuck yea.

So on Tuesday, myself and the bossman decided to ride up to the Hunter Valley (wine country NSW) on our respective beasts. This is the route map.. not embeded to make it easier for you to zoom about and follow along at home. Got that going? Good, cos I’m going to point out a few things. Firstly we head north, and it’s all mostly boring until we get to where it splits.. except you get imagine me crouched over the handle bars, chin on the speedo, providing amusment at 80kph for anyone coming the other way. If I sit up, all I get is 75kph, see. Well, I could open it right up, but riding for hours at wide open throttle (that’s WOT to those of us in the know) isn’t a good idea. So 80% WOT it is. So anyway, it splits at Wiseman’s ferry, and on the way up we took the route to the west. The plan was to have lunch in St Albans, and that all went well. The route from the ferry (yes, there really is a ferry at Wiseman’s Ferry.. two even!) was rather fun, nice and twisty so I could lean off the bike ans scythe through the bends. At least, that’s what I was imagine myself doing. I’m sure it all ended up rather comical really. Still, after lunch is where things got a little.. rough. See, it looks like a main road on the map doesn’t it.. now a main road in country Australia doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wide… or well travelled.. or asphalt. It does usually mean that there’s some sort of maintenace routine for it though. From looking at the google maps street view and having ridden up it, it seems that the maintenance involved REMOVING the asphalt some time ago, then letting the rain wash away most of the surface. Not the most condusive surface for a leisurely bike ride, but not really a problem at all on a postie bike.. they were designed for trails after all. The bossman’s 125 scooter with 14″ wheels with smooth road tyres on the other hand… pretty damn awful. Unfortunately the first half of it was not so bad.. it wasn’t until the second half when we were going up hill that it got unbearable. Still, he soldiered on and we got out.. mostly unscathed. From then it was pretty uneventual.. then boring through Cessnock. That night, a few well deserved beers were consumed at the local irish pub.

Wednesday was wine tasting day. We hopped on a bus (ok, 10 seater van) and pootled out to a few different vineyards with mostly disappointing or uninspiring selections of wines. Except for Vinden Estate wines, with whom I signed up for a half dozen bottles to be sent every six months. Yum. All in all, it seems as a general rule I prefer South Australian reds to anything else. The rest of that afternoon was spent doing some work so we could claim this all as a work retreat. We were nearly productive!

The ride home was a little more considered than the ride up.. we considered going further west down Putty Rd, a well known route for motorbiklists out for a day’s ride, but the last/only fuel stop between us and there (in Broke) had no power, so we couldn’t fill up.. and we wouldn’t have made it to the next stop. Even with fill tanks we’d have been pushing it, so we decided to turn south towards Wollombi and head back down that way. On the road between Broke and Wollombi we saw the results of an accident, there were a couple of cars on the side of the road and some people in the grass off the other side giving CPR to a guy. His bike lay nearby. We stopped, as you do, but they said they had the situation under control.. as much as could be anyway. So, with nothing we could add, we headed on. This time we decided against going through St Albans for obvious reasons, instead going through Central Mangrove back to Wiseman’s Ferry. This ended being a good idea, as the road between those two is a nice peaceful jaunt along the river, very pleasent. From there it was home again home again, jiggady jig.

The beastie stood up to the rough treatment rather well, though I think it’s a little low on oil now. Not surprising really, given the workout it had. I think I’ll change it again anyway.. ’tis about time.

I went to be last night happy in the knowledge that I had been tired all day, so was all set to get straight to sleep and be ready to start my time back home. Three hours later, I got to sleep. Two hours later I was woken by a strange keening sound.. I punched at it until it stopped, then realised that it was my mobile phone awakening me at the predetermined time I set it to in order to get me to the airport early enough to get through the no doubt wild and crazy crowds that would be there for a packed plane at this time of year. I got to the airport just before they started opening the check-in counters for the morning. I dropped my bag off and got to the security terminal just before they opened to let us through. I got to the gate about an hour before boarding. Turns out I could have slept another hour and evened out the trying to sleep/sleep disparity. Oh well..

Listen to this song now.

Not too long after I got to the gate, I noticed the coffee place over there had their coffee machine warmed up and ready to go. Most of the lights were off, but they seemed operational so I headed over for a long black to start my long day. Turns out that the guy operating the machine gets in early for the early flights to supply us early morning passengers with an early cup of joe before embarking on our early morning trips purely because he can. He has no change in the register because they’re not officially opened yet so when I hand him some money he tells me what I owe him and gestures towards a bowl of change telling me to ‘go for it’. As I kick my brain into gear to calculate my change he prepares my morning repast (the coffee and a ham & cheese croissant) while completing the previous chap’s order and taking the next one. I sit and eat my croissant while listening to my ipod (same song you’re listening to) and waiting for my coffee to cool in a darkened corner of the cafe while watching the shuffling human morass start their day similarly to mine. We’re all up too early and trying to offset the sleepyness, seems some are more capable than others in making it happen.

I spend the next five hours in a wing’d beige tube of tedium listening to music and daring myself to get some sleep for the first time ever on a plane… I fail. Still, I’m back home.. ish.. for now. Hello family, hello friends, hello dogs. It’s/ll be good to see you again.

I will do this on my bike. Preferably with more meandering through national parks.