Go to your bedroom, switch your hair-dryer on to medium heat and medium power and then this gives you an idea of the weather today - 34 degree but with hot wind

From the Sydney Morning Herald: A "nudge" by a scared shark has left a British tourist with slight injuries while diving at a marine park on Sydney's northern beaches. The man was grazed on the top of the head after an open-mouthed grey nurse shark lurched towards him after being frightened by a power surge at Oceanworld in Manly today. "The lights turned off due to the power surge which spooked the shark before it grazed one of the divers in there on the head," Chief Executive of Sydney Attractions Group Kevin Bush said. "It turned and scratched him with a tooth. "It did draw blood."

 

Mr Bush said the man's head was bleeding but did not require stitches. A NSW Ambulance Service spokeswoman said the man was conscious and breathing when ambulance officers arrived. "They sustained minor injuries only and did not require transport to hospital."

 

Mr Bush said the dive was discontinued after the incident but the tourist indicated he wanted to return to complete his "extreme dive". All five paying divers in the group had been offered a free dive, he said.

 

This is where Colin, Colin and I went swimming with the sharks last year!!

It snowed in Sydney  - okay, not actually Sydney, but the Blue Mountains - but it's meant to be SPRING - that means sunshine and not grey horrible weather - I want my money back!!

When we are in Adelaide, we are going on a dolphin watching tour and Colin and I will be going swimming, which I hadn't given a second thought to until I read this on their website:

Shark Shield™
Please note that at the end of our swimmers lines we use Shark Shields™. These are electronic shark deterrents that creates a unique protective electrical field around the swimmers. For more information, please visit the website www.sharkshield.com.
Please also note that we have been using these devices for over two years and the electronic field does not affect the dolphin interaction in any way.


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH - swimming in Manly Aquarium is fine with "tame" grey nurse sharks but the real wild ones are not fun!!!

UPDATE: Just finished watching new series of Top Gear Australia and am now even less happy about the whole swimming thing - one of the presenters decided to see if they could get a shark to eat a car (?!?!) and they tested it off the coast of South Australia - only a few hundred kms from Adelaide and the sharks they attracted were HUMONGOUS!!!!!

Apparently, well according to one of the newspapers over here, when the lovely pilgrims came to Sydney to see the Pope they brought more than their good cheer - they brought bugs and illness. Allegedly, the reason that Sydneysiders have been experiencing more flu and illness this winter is that the pilgrims brought their different strains of bugs to Sydney - the only reason I mention it, is that I was ill AGAIN last week - I have been more ill in the last two years in Oz than I have been in previous 5, including being pregnant (okay, I may be exaggerating but enough is enough!!)

Last week I was in Melbourne and to celebrate they threw me a parade . . . okay, it might have been for the Olympic team but I like to think of it as being for me. As I left the office (keeping my eyes on the pavement so as not to be distracted by Gucci, Chanel, etc that are right outside our Melbourne office), I started grumping that the street was shut and the one shop I wanted to get to was on the other side of the road and then I realised why.

Just in case it is not obvious, I did not take this picture, although I did see Grant Hacket - pretty much the only one I would recognise!

Also, it should be noted that this photo does not acuratley represent the weather in Melbourne - it was cooooooold and seriously windy.

 

This is the medal table from the Sydney Morning Herald paper and the hilarious thing is that it was just shown in the TV news with Germany ahead of GB (even with less golds and less in total) and the presenter said absolutely nothing about it despite them gloating just a couple of days ago when Australia was about five places ahead of us - it is quite entertaining

Beijing Medal Tally

Adam's School held their own Olympics with each of the kids assigned to a country.... Can you guess what country Adam was?



Emily and I went along to watch.. The whole school recreated the opening ceremony, with the countries marching, the music and speeches.

They then rotated round 8 different events including the traditional Olympic events of Jungle Jim climbing, Vortex throwing. Soccer target practice then the bench balance beem.

It was all very cute and they all seemed to have a lot of fun.

As one of our divisions is concerned of the appearance of encouraging staff to drink, pub crawls have been renamed to cultural walking tours!!

I am getting very confused watching the Olympics as the Aussies insist on giving their teams names - Olyroos (normally the socceroos), Matildas (women's football), Opals (basketball, I think), Sharks (Water Polo, obviously), hockeyroos, kookaburras (women's hockey). I think there are more so will update the list as I go.

And, by the way, how odd to be watching the opening ceremony to realise that we were listening to a pipe band playing Scotland the Brave - quite disconcerting

Last weekend was (remarkably tall ) Jenny's birthday and to celebrate, she decided we should all go . . . . camping!! For a number of reasons, not least of all the low temperatures, we decided it was best if I just went on my own rather than all four of us. In addition, the place we were camping was a either a 20 minute walk from the car park or a ferry ride so we couldn't do our usual, which is, fill the car to bursting and worry about it when we get to the camp site.

We headed to Ku-ring-gai national park and the Basin campground - which you get to by getting a ferry from Palm beach - when we were waiting on the wharf, I was starting to get seriously concerned as it was coooooollllldd - even with my ski jacket and Ugg boots on. Thankfully the campground is naturally sheltered so with no wind and the sun, it was actually quite warm - I was even running around bare foot.

After setting up camp - there were twelve of us in total in six tents - five two men doom tents and my small mansion-type tent - a group of boys challenged us to a game of football which was good fun, including one of the boy's mother getting a little too excited about a game against a bunch of slightly tipsy (unfit) thirty-somethings - she was shouting direction from the sideline.



This is me, Jen and her cousin - I felt like a munchkin all weekend!

One of the most entertaining aspects of the campsite was the wildlife - wallabies!!! I was quite blown away by the site of real wildlife hopping amongst the tents although it was slightly less entertaining at night when you could just make out shadows and had to remind yourself what they were.



We manged to keep ourselves warm and entertained with BBQing and roasting marshmallows on the open fire - although this was a "basic" campsite - cold showers anybody? - it still had a good number of gas BBQs included in the site fee. 

The next morning as we packed our kit, we were all greatly relieved by the site of this man:



Never mind, the Pope on a Boat, this was even better - coffee on a boat!!! This guy went around all the coves and the yachts and kept them fuelled on caffeine - for quite a fee!!

Today is the official start to the World Youth Day celebrations with an opening mass at Barangaroo (insane Australian names) which is the bit of Darling Harbour just up from my office which means, of course, most of the roads around my office are shut, the office is in "security" mode (amusingly it means the receptionists are sitting in our office lobby instead of the swish reception area on level 15) and there are millions of touroids/pilgrims all over the place.

More annoyingly they are playing music to keep them entertained (it is lunch time and the mass doesn't start until 4.30pm) so we can hear the base and some of the tune - just enough to be annoying!

(no not Jaws) - Out of the 24 women in our division in Sydney, SIX of them are pregnant - you can tell we are a more "family friendly" division!!

As big bad Benedict and a few hundred thousand "pilgims" are currently descending on Sydney, a new law has been introduced so that it is an offence to fail to stop causing annoyance to them!!

The other day was the shortest day of the year. I think it went dark around 4:45.... although it was 21 degrees :)

Roll on SPRING!

It is that time of year again, "winter", when we get to complain about how "cold" it is! I know that it is not really cold but we still dont have double glazing and this year we dont even have any heating - we have a small fan heater to take the chill off - and our house is not as well insulated as the last place - worst still, we have lost our electric blanket!

I have succumbed to the pressure and bought a pair of Ugg boots (or Ugly boots as they are known)


They may be hideous but they are super warm and if I thought I could get away with it, I would wear them to work!

It has also been quite wet, to carry on the theme from summer - we have had 110 mm of rain in the first 10 days of June (the monthly average for June is 128!)

Our neighbour's son says that his ball is in Scotland whenever it comes over our fence

Emily was talking about her pants, and not her undercrackers - she also talks about her singlet, gum boots and worst of all, has made us buy vegemite!

She is also going through the delightful stage where every question is why, or actually wwwwhiiiiiiaaaaay, which is how she actually says it with her little Aussie accent.

That' s the worst spell of weather we have had in a while, boom boom!

We have had about seven days where it has rained every day (not necessarily all day, but precipitation at least once) and it is apparently the longest wet spell in nine years!!

It has come round to that time of year again and we all went off to the Easter Show - same as last year and just as much fun - animal shows - cows, sheep, horses, llamas, goats, geese, chicken - including brand brand brand new baby chicks



The highlight of Colin's day was the Toyota Hilux display; the highlight for Mum and Jennifer appeared to be Dangerman and Dangerwoman (I kept trying to sing the Dangermouse theme tune) getting stuck on a high wire above the arena and having to be rescued! Adam and Emily loved riding on the ponies and of course, the showbags - another odd Aussie tradition - (The showbag is a themed bag of commercial merchandise, and a distinctive feature of Australian fairs and carnivals. Showbags are also known as sample bags, as they originally contained samples of the range of goods produced by a single vendor or brand group. Such sample bags were originally given free of charge, or carried only a nominal charge, to promote brand awareness; however this is now unusual, with showbag prices as at 2007 commonly in the A$10-20 range.)- Emily was delighted with her Dora bag and Adam equally so with his Incredible Hulk goodies.

Mum and Jennifer decided enough was enough at about 5 but we wanted to stay for the final entertainment - the bull riding - the best bit being when one of the commentators (who had a radio mike on in the ring) was heard screaming like a girl as some giant bull came charging towards him - we even saw one bull to a cartoon-style scrape on the ground before charging!

Last weekend we decided that the Walker family would go camping. So we reserved a powered site at the Ocean Beach Holiday Park and packed the car with every imaginable piece of camping equipment you could think of. Even the kitchen sink!!!

We left just after swimming lessons, drove about a 90 minutes north and got there around 2:30pm.

View Larger Map

The place was really nice, lots of facilities and the weather was clear blue skies which helps too :)

As you can see we were right on the beach:

We then set about pitching our tent. It was good having the trial run in the garden as we were confident about putting it up and it was very simple.

15mins later we were relaxing with a drink in our seats. Sadly, the one thing we forgot was the BOOZE!!!! So Leigh took the car and scouted the local town for a bottle shop.

Once we had had a wander round the site it was time for dinner. I unpacked our little travel BBQ, complete with travel gas container and fired it up. The kids had sausage rolls and we have lamb kebabs and some salad. All very civilised.

The kids played around the site for another couple of hours on their scooters and then we got ready for bed. We have blowup mattresses for us and the kids and an electric pump. Emily and Adam were very excited about their new beds and sleeping bags. Perhaps a little too excited as sleep was the last thing that they wanted to do. This took a couple of hours of persuasion and Emily was up and down most of the night.

The morning came round quickly and I sat and watched the sun come up over the beach. Very pretty.

We had some breakfast. Regretting that I did not bring the bacon!!!

The tent was pretty wet from all the dew and I don't think we tied it tight enough as the inner layer was a bit wet from touching the outer layer. But will be better next time.

We then went for a little swim/paddle/play in sand and some lunch at the cafe before packing up around 3pm and heading home.

All in all a very successful first camping trip and something we will definitely do again.

 

Sydney, as usual, got very excited when the QE2 and the Queen Victoria met in the harbour for the first and last time.



We managed to make it into the city to see them but didn't hang around until they cross on the harbour, although we did hear them from our house.

As with the UK, Australia is bringing back Gladiators - all tight Lycra outfits, big hair, big muscles and cheesey music.



As they were filing at Homebush (site of the 2000 Olympics), we were able to buy tickets to watch it being filmed - for a grand total of $20 for all four of us.

So one Saturday morning we found ourselves singing along to "Another one bites the dust", "I get knocked down, but I get up again ... " and booing and cheering whenever the nice man held up the appropriate sign.

We watched the Pendulum, Dual (the one with the giant cotton buds), Whiplash and Gauntlet but didn't get to see the final eliminator round - it took them best part of four hours just to do those four events. I have to say, it was quite disappointing that the referee didnt have a Scottish accent - my impersonation was lost on everyone at work.

It was good fun to watch but they could have done more to provide entertainment to the crowd as they changed the sets to keep our energy levels up as it felt quite odd trying to get excessively excited about an event after been sitting still for about 20 minutes - luckily we had been warned to bring our own snacks so didn't need to buy the monstrously expensive ones at the venue and we kept Emily entertained as we were repeatedly told not to move from our seats whilst they were filming.

Now, of course, we have to watch the whole TV series to see if we can see ourselves!!

On Friday night we headed to Leichhardt Oval to watch Bee Movie on a giant inflatbale screen under the stars - okay film, quite funny but not as good as Nemo or others - didn't make Adam laugh out loud so obviously not enough falling down for him.

The evening did not start well as we had forgotten to check the fine print that said no BYO food or drink - they were selling food and drink inside so they obviously didn't want the competition. Thankfully we had arrived in plenty of time so went to the park opposite to eat our picnic and then hide some snacks to take in with us.



Once we went inside the oval we got ourselves settled with mini-deck chairs, beer and wine.



Thankfully, the rain that had been threatening all day held off long enough that we didn't need our umbrellas.

Twelve emus kicking
Eleven crocs a weeping
Ten wombats sleeping
Nine devils playing
Eight flies a feasting
Seven possums playing
Six sharks a swimming
Five kangaroos
Four cuddling koalas
Three fairy penguins
Two pink gallahs
and a kookabura up a gum tree

For some totally unknown reason Colin G, Leigh and myself thought it would be a great idea to go diving with sharks.

We got up early and got the Manly ferry over to the oceanarium. Oli and the kids were going to drive over a little later as there was a training session for us and we could not get every one into the car.

We arrived a little early and decided to go for a little walk around and see the sharks.... BAD BAD IDEA!!!. we were even more scared. Our diver arrived about 15mins later and took us for a quick tour and introduced us to all the sharks. He knew them all by name. You should have seen the look on Leigh's face when he told us they were 25% bigger than they look, as the glass makes everything smaller. After some more scary facts about how the sharks are 3.5m long and about 1m wide!!! Everything is huge.. the 2 turtles are about 5 feet long.

We were then shown back into the aquarium and we had to sign all the documents to say what we are doing is dangerous and stupid and do it at our own risk. We also had to sign a form to basically say if we panic and grab a shark and die then its all our fault.

The next part of the scary build up was watching the introduction film.. which started with the Jaws music and had lots of close ups of the teeth! Honestly, I think if we could have backed out then and not lost face we probably would have. Then came the slightly calmer part about sign language under water and the basic tasks that we are going to need to do like clearing the mask, taking the respirator out and in, etc etc.

We were then taken down into the bowels of the building and given wet suits and weight belts to change into. After suiting up we were given our breathing equipment and we got into the training pool which was connected to the main aquarium. The first shock was as we looked through the connecting passage we could see the large dorsel fin swimming past. We then all performed our basic tasks including a press up on the floor of the pool to make sure we had enough weight attached.

One by one we dropped into the main pool and saw the main attractions.



Suddenly all our worries about the diving were gone and were much more concerned about the muckle great sharks with very very pointy teeth.



We then walked along the bottom of the pool past rays, smaller sharks and turtles, one of which bumped into Leigh. The turtles are a bit dim. The same turtle bumped into a poll three times!



Oli and the kids were watching us from the observation walkway and they had lots of fun shouting and laughing at us.



We were underwater for 30 minutes, but it passed so quickly. It was  an incredible experience and it was very tempting to touch them as they brushed passed you at less than a couple of feet. We were then led back the way we came and taken back into the training pool and then out for a nice hot shower. It was starting to get a little chilly towards the end.

The diver also took a short video clip that I have uploaded too



We were all a bit stunned and the adrenalin was still pumping as we left to go and meet up with Oli and kids.

I will blog more about it later, but here is proof that I did actually jump. Colin G also followed by down just after.

I am feeling like a proper Aussie now - I went to the doctor to get a (only slightly) suspicious mole checked . . .  and the doctor decided to remove it there and then - THUD (that was my Mum fainting) - a lot of local anaesthetic and five stitches later, my mole is gone - it was quite big - about the size of a one pence/five cent.  I was feeling fine until the anaesthetic wore off and now I am a little sore.

Lesson for everybody - get those moles checked!!

Someone getting on the bus with a surfboard - most entertaining

On Friday night I went to a 21st (I know, how long has it been since I have been to one of those!), that started at a go-kart track - Suong my team's administrator turned 21 on Wednesday - although she looks younger! We had great fun flying round the track and trying not to bump into each other (too much). After that it was back to her house for a proper BBQ  - a pig on a spit!!!!

Today was Melbourne Cup day (again), and despite the equine-flu, they still had the big race. My department rather unimaginatively decided to go across the road to Moretons for their annual BBQ offering. Before that we had the obligatory sweep-stake - I drew Black Tom and Efficient. After a very tasty lunch and a couple of glasses of sparkly wine, we all got very excited as we watched the race . . . to see Efficient win!!!

A most enjoyable waste of about 3 hours of work!

Yup. Its official, I saw my first Christmas decor and tree this week. The QVB shopping centre has its tree. It goes all the way up 3 floors. Its huge!

One very amusing side effect of the equine flu doing the rounds is that the local harness racing club has managed to arrange races with a difference . . . camel racing!!