Jen had one wish for her birthday – a nice big bit of meat, done well.
But before that, we went to Outback jacks again. 😉
Had a great steak – and also had a problem with getting our order taken. Only a couple of days with folks from the ‘old country’ and our accents have thickened up again.
It’s quite interesting to listen to what Jen’s mum and dad say, watch the waiting staff look at them in complete and total bemusement, then repeat the order (which sounds exactly the same to us) and see the dawning recognition.
The giant croc on the roof made a pretty good attempt at sneaking up on us again…
Jen’s folks don’t reckon that our accents have changed, but i guess they must have changed a little – we don’t get looks of bemusement in the shops any more… alan and penny can be the next ones to judge!
Anyway, after an excellent meal out, we drove to East Perth near my office to go to the Royal. it’s a pretty special little spot, and a favourite with the work guys. I don’t have any good pics – need to get one next time. had a couple of relaxed drinks down by the marina, then headed off to the embankment in South Perth to let Bob get his camera out.
Big Bob and Mary Doll (did I get that right BJ? 😉 ) have now landed in the land down under. We watched them coming from quite a long way away:
We went to the airport to watch the flight come in – Perth being flat, you can see it from a loooong way off, but rather than post a picture of what is essentially a white dot on a blue sky background, here’s one of the plane on the ground instead:
Then we waited for over an hour in the entrance for them to appear from security. Jen and I debated whether Bob had insisted on hanging onto an apple from the plane, or attracted the anger and attention of security in some other way (smiling really annoys them). Still, eventually, they appeared, and much tearful hugging and welcomes ensued. nobody needs to see that, but we have the pictures. heh.
Yes, it’s true… the A380 is no longer my favourite plane to fly in. That honour now lies with the Nanchang CJ6A.
Back in December(whilst i was in Melbourne), I celebrated my 37th Birthday – and we kinda decided to make it a special one… So Jen treated me to something a little bit special – a flight in a fighter plane.
There’s a group called Fighter Combat International that operates from Jandakot airport south of Perth (just off the Kwinana Freeway)
They have a fleet of Chinese Nanchang fighters – prop driven planes that are used to train fighter pilots. We arrived at the hangar and signed in. Predictably, I was bouncing off the walls like a 6 year old amped out of my tits on tartrazine and sugar, the night before christmas.
First, I had to get changed into my flight suit:
Quite cool actually – that’s an XL, and it was pretty darn big on me. With the getting suitably dressed out of the way, it was time to sign my life away:
We had a safety briefing, most of which I missed on account of turning to the other guy flying today (who seemed rather neutral about the whole thing I have to say), going ‘This is SOOO cool’, and so on. There was a description of what we would do, and what not to do (touch any of the controls, projectile vomit, draw willies in the guest book. I may have made the last one up.).
The guys then gave us a couple of minutes to calm down before walking out to the plane… which was soooo Top Gun:
Once settled in, Chooky (yes, the guy’s callsign is ‘chicken’) showed me how to use the straps and intercom, how to slide the canopy back and so on. he also pointed out the various dual controls that I had not to touch, and strapped on the camera (there’s a DVD of me screaming like a girl still to come). That all seemed to go well:
once suitably immobilised, we trundled off down the runway, and took off in formation. You have no idea how cool this feels – almost as cool as it looks, I guess. What then followed is just an insane blur of adrenaline. I’ll try to put some structure to it rather than rambling, but I’m not promising anything.
We performed a set of formations around each other – flying in a close echelon formation. The planes are unbelievably close together – in formation, only a couple of metres apart:
After we had flown formations around each other, the two planes broke off into seperate chunks of airspace and went aerobatic. My pilot asked how adventurous I was – ‘pretty adventurous’ was my answer, so he threw a sharp turn with 2G, then 3G, then 3.5G… like the best damn rollercoaster you have ever been on, but it just kept getting better.
I was making ‘wooo haaaaah’ noises, so he kept going, pulling an amazing turn on the wing (I need to look up what that move was… basically, you fly ‘up’ a ramp, turn sharply on your wing (look right, and you are looking straight down)and slide back down the ramp..
again, I was making good noises, so he did a more extreme one – the barrel roll,where you go fully inverted, and pull about 4G as you pull out… insane.
A couple of full loops (up and over), then the most insane so far – a stall turn. You build up some speed, then go fully vertical until the engine approaches stall – at which point, you kick the tail and dive straight toward the ground (or in my case, the ocean).. it’s eerily quiet, as you are essentially motionless at the top, and the G forces you pull at the bottom… wow.
here’s a youtube video of what a stall turn looks like (this is a remote control plane):
The final ‘stunt’ was a half reverse cuban 8. it’s an odd enough name that it stuck – so I found another video from the same guy:
I had my camera in my pocket, and tried to capture one of the more gentle movements (I couldn’t actually lift my arms off of my legs at anything more than about 2.5G!!):
The view from up there was incredible – here’s looking back towards Perth (the skyscrapers are in the centre of the picture):
So after all the aerobatics, that was it, right? not on your life…
What comes next is probably the most insane experience I have ever had in my life.
The two planes got into radio contact again, lined up and pushed at each other at max speed ( a closing speed of about 680 kph). as soon as they passed each other, they turned 90 degrees, and instantly started dogfighting. One of the pilots is an RAAF instructor, the other is an aerobatic pilot who has competed in the Red Bull aerobatics tournament… and they dogfight, desperately banking, turning, climbing, diving trying to get into a guns position on the other guy.
My pilot (the RAAF guy) got the drop on the other pilot twice, each time, they broke off and started again.. until the other passenger called ‘knock it off’, and they broke off… he was getting sick, and wanted to level out.. so my pilot asked if I wanted to head for the reef, or do some more aerobatics… well, what do YOU think I did? 😀
once my stomach was well and truly spun around, We dropped to the hard deck for the flight (500 feet) and raced each other along a reef, looping and banking over the islands… then came back around to the airport and landed (again in formation).
Okay, ‘boat’ is a little grandiose for a a sit on top kayak, but they are ours. We got a couple of kayaks from Anaconda, the outdoor shop, strapped them to the top of the ute and hauled them back to the pool..
Cue an afternoon of splashing around in the pool, falling off the Kayak (a lot) and climbing back on again (badly), with much water up the nose, spluttering and general making up of new swear words…
but it’s all fun 🙂
I’ll admit that this is mostly a reason for a gratuitous beach shot, but basically, the answer to ‘why did you bother getting kayaks’ is prety much answered by this:
The whole festive season was a bit strange, christmas just didnt feel like christmas with it being warm and the sun staying up till 8:30ish. We kept spotting trees and christmas decorations and doing a double take. the Aussies dont seem to do christmas cards much either – all the cards we got were from home – and thats not just coz we dont know that many people 😉 Nobody in our workplaces had any, and they arent in windows, or the houses we were in. They are in the shops, so there must be a trade for them (maybe for brits), but the Aussies dont really seem to do it the same way the UK does.
We finally settled on adopting it as an Australian Summer Festival. It was less weird 😉
Christmas itself was good fun, we did a lot of cool stuff that we have pretty much covered (though we will probably put up more pictures of Penguin Island). But we havent covered New Year in much depth.
You know how when a band is asked to comment on a Scottish crowd they always say “man, Scotland is the best, they are just wild, we love playing gigs in Scotland” and you think, “thanks for saying that, but we know you say it everywhere you go”. Well, I had the same kinda thinking about Scots and New Year. Yeah, yeah, the Scots make New Year a big thing, but its just not a big deal everywhere else. You see the fireworks in Sydney and Times Square and all round the world and you know everywhere likes New Year.
It appears WA doesnt get the point of New Year. The plan was the day trip to Penguin Island, then you know, probably bed, coz its always tiring being out on the boats. WHAT! says us, BUT ITS HOGMANAY! We have to stay up for the bells! “Hogmanay” and “The Bells” being two scottish concepts, it took two goes to explain we wanted to stay up to celebrate the new year arriving. It didnt take any persuation at all, just a suggestion and another paella and champers and all sorts was planned in moments.
There were 6 of us (plus the kids, who went to bed – I remember being put to bed, and then getting up again for the bells and steak pie as a kid) and the paella was fab, and there was wine and beer and sangria and whiskys. Another couple of people dropped by briefly wondering “whats all the fuss about New Year, I mean, its dull and boring, its no different from any of the other 364 days …” So we let them know they were doing it wrong!
The Aussies were enjoying the night, if not the whisky, but didnt seem that interested in the bells themselves. So, I ducked inside, and with 10 minutes to go, got the telly on. Mostly it was just old movies that was showing, but one channel had a New Year countdown on. Sydney is 2 hours ahead of Perth. I had expected to see Perths New Year countdown, but what we got instead was Sydneys, repeated two hours later. I have to say I think this is a little bizzare, rather than show your own fireworks at the time, repeat someone elses two hours later. But hey, Sydney does it very well. Apparently it wasnt just a repeat though, Sydneys fireworks had already been shown in Perth live as it happened in Sydney. So, it wasnt just a repeat, it was a repeat of something that had only been shown 2 hours previously! Weird!
Calling the UK was a bit of a no-go – the international phone lines were filled pretty quick, however, thanks to the wonders of skype and skype out – we could call across the internet and get out onto the UK phone network no bother (what with it being 3pm in the UK)
So, in summary, it was good, but a little weird. Next year, we are hoping to make it to Sydney for New Year, we have seen it many times on the tv over the years, and have always said it would be cool to do. This year will hopefully be the year to do it!
Mel and Rudy were great hosts over chrimble and new year, but serously, these guys are crazy. It must be something about the heat, or the water, or goodness knows what… but yikes.
let me explain.
After the shark attack in Port Kennedy, they were non plussed, and to be honest, I can see the point – back home if you heard about a climber falling to their doom in the grampians, you would just shrug your shoulders and accept that this is what happens sometimes. I guess the aussies view being eaten by a large carniverous fish in the same light.
So, yesterday, we spent an incredible day at Penguin Island. Sounds nice and safe, penguin island… complete with fluffy penguins. At the end of the day, and after much cajoling/emcouragement, Jen and I kayaked back across from the island to the mainland.
major achievement – as most of you will remember, I can barely swim. heck before I came out here, I couldn’t swim at all. but hey, there’s us –
basking in the glory having kayaked across. (for what it’s worth, we beat the ferry 😀 ).
As it is, we did much better than the poor asian girl who tried to *walk* across the sandbar – and swallowed a stack of sea water when it got rough. The ambulance was just arriving for them at the jetty when we landed in the kayaks.
So today, when Jen spots the story we have a read, and flick through the comments, to find the guy who says ‘what, no comment about this being just round the corner from the shark attacks?’
one quick visit to Google maps, and it all becomes clear – these Aussies are downright certifiable. not only do they choose to go boating a couple of days after a shark attack, they go to to the same damn bay.
So, once more, a Happy 2009. I’m kinda glad to be in one piece to say it!!!
I am going around like an eighty year old woman at the moment.
We were taken 4×4 off roading, which was fun and enjoyable, we went along the beach at Preston Beach, and then around a reservoir further inland. Up rocky roads that the 207 would get swallowed up in. We also rescued another 4×4 that was up to its wheel arches in mud, it was surprisingly easy to do.
See that white 4×4 in the picture (if you click on the picture it will show you it bigger), thats not us, but thats what we were doing.
It is fun, but its damn difficult on the spine. My back is killing me now!
We also did some kayaking on the reservoir.
The kayaks are pretty stable in the water, and it was also fun. Me and my clumsiness however meant that when I was trying to get out, I fell over, skinning my knees on the gravelly ground, and bruising my leg on the edge of the kayak.
The reservoir was also pretty bad with flies
This is apparently “no flies”. There are “no flies” this year. Given that we spent the entire time doing the aussie wave to keep the flies out of our faces I have to say I am mighty glad there are “no flies” this year. I did get mozzie bites on the leg that wasn’t kayaked. This time though, they are looking worse than before, with the red itchy bit spreading and being damn itchy. The flies seemed to like it too. Blearg.
There were also (I think) march flies. When mosquitoes bite, you don’t feel it till usually the next day, certainly it takes a while to appear. A march fly bite you feel. It hurts. And I got a march fly bite on the back of the bruised leg. It stung like buggery. It took a few hours to surface and now half of the back of my right calf is red and sore to the touch.
On the same leg, one of the dogs, Minnie (who looks very like Misty), launched herself at me to try and bite one of the march flies, leaving me with another bruise!
So, in the space of two hours, I ended up with a sore back, mozzie bites, a march fly bite, two separate lots of bruises and a skint knee.
*sigh*
This was a couple of days ago now, so I am starting to heal. In time for the new year 🙂
For days now, we have been doing double takes when driving past houses – christmas trees look sooooo weird in the middle of summer!!
My boss Rudy and his wife very kindly invited us down to their beach house in Preston Beach (we have been down a few times) and we have had a relaxed fun couple of days so far. It’s been pretty awesome.
First night down, we had a giant tapas style feast – we brought a frittata, some devilled sausage and some patatas bravas – but the star of the show was Mel’s paella. To say this was a big paella pan was a bit of an understatement…
After spending christmas morning at the beach house with Rudy’s parents, we headed off to Mel’s folks – an absolutley gorgeous place by the murray river (well, ‘a’ murray river, rather than ‘the’ murray river – that’s over east where they are having the big drought). incredible. They have their own jetty and a couple of boats.
Mel’s folks (also called Ian and Jenny!!) made us very welcome for dinner, and Ian took us all upstream on the river
The guys had upgraded their net connection to make sure we had the bandwidth to do skype video, so we spoke to Jens family (asides from Robert who refused to get out of bed). Diana did a nice little rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas on the xylophone, and Adam ran around like a maddy.
We have recorded a wee christmas video message, but youtube is being a bit odd, so it may be a day or so before that appears.
Today, we went down to the beach, where the aussies insisted that it was too windy (!) seriously, the best beach we have seen outside of the carribean, and it’s too cold… check this out:
My Birthday was nearly two weeks ago, so I didn’t really expect to be finding anything in the post waiting for me.. but tonight, there was a fairly bulky parcel in the postbox.
I expected it to be for the landlord (he gets a lot of mail, which stacks up until we get bored and drop it off at the letting agent’s office), but no, it was addressed to me (and I have to admit to being a little excited)
Rush into the house like a kid, and attack the package with scissors to find out it’s a parcel in birthday wrapping paper – all the way from Falkirk 😀
Alan and Penny, you guys rock – thanks for the card, and also for the T-shirt:
For anyone who hasn’t come across the atheist bus campaign, it’s a humorous antidote to those tedious alpha and ‘real meaning of christmas’ adverts that pop up all over the place at this time of the year – and an indication of just how many people really would just rather get on with their lives in peace, thanks all the same!!
I think in all honesty, that I won’t be wearing this one at the office, but I will be wearing it at the next Perth Atheist/Humanist meetup – I’m sure it will go down a storm!!
