Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty Four

Tuesday 27th November

Spent first part of the morning on a Skype call to my counterpart in New Zealand, a good opportunity to share ideas between events.

As I left I passed Beau having his wash and cut on the trailer outside the house.

Got into work and carried on with mapping, also led a four way meeting between myself and counterparts in VIC, WA and QLD.

Came home, had some dinner and TV. Big thunderstorms here tonight.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty Three

Monday 26th November

Back to work, spent all day doing battle with the graphics software on my work machine which lacks the memory to cope with it. Should be getting it upgraded this week. 

Wore my new boots to work and they cut into my ankles, thankfully took my trainers as backup and wore them home. Good old Dr Martens, forgotten how rough they can be on the feet.

Muggy day with a thunderstorm this afternoon.

More backdated updating of blog will happen during the week.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty Two

Sunday 25th November

A lazy morning around the house followed by a bit more shopping and lunch at the Chase. In the evening we had Skype calls with H& P, brief chat to Adelaide and then more Skype with Alvin and Crystal.

Kathleen from UK also gave birth to her first child Ethan Thomas today, congratulations to her and Tim.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty One

Saturday 24th November

A day spent finalising Christmas shopping for UK family so we can get stuff in the post.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty

Friday 23rd November

Got up and walked to Brisbane office after checking out of hotel. With the others went for a meeting at Parks HQ to talk through new trail plans for 2013, all went very well. We spent 10 mins checking out the creatures inthe wildlife centre where Kate used to volunteer, took some pics to show her later when I got home. We drove back to office at lunchtime.

After a quick lunch I caught train back to Brisbane airport and flew back to Sydney. Kate picked me up at the airport and we headed home for some dinner. Nice to be back in Sydney after heat of QLD.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Nine

Thursday 22nd November

Met the Brisbane team in Toowong in the morning, (I caught train there from the valley) and we drove to the majority of checkpoint sites so I could explain my reasoning for why things are like they are at the event. We grabbed a late lunch at the Mt Coot-tha lookout cafe. Was a good day and handed over lots of information.

After work we went for some dinner in Chinatown in the valley before I headed back to hotel for some sleep.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Eight

Wednesday 21st November

I caught the train to the airport this morning and flew up to Brisbane. Upon arriving caught the train to the valley and headed to the office. Primary purpose of the trip is to handover knowledge to new Brissie Team. 

Later in the day after checking into hotel we headed to the Suncorp Stadium to Coldplay gig. We were there to campaign for Oxfam in return for a free ticket. Campaigning is hard but between 20 of us we got about 900 signatures from a crowd of 50000 people.

Then we watched the gig and managed to get within 2m of Chris Martin as they walked through the stadium ot B stage.

I legged if 2 songs from the end to avoid craziness of getting out of Suncorp Stadium, I have learnt form U@ experience that it takes ages to get out.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Seven

Tuesday 20th November

A normal day at work and in the evening I spent time packing for trip to Brisbane tomorrow.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Six

Monday 19th November

Back to work. Got a few bits done including some copyright access to maps we want to use in next years map books.

Met Kate at Artarmon, came home, cooked dinner and then spent time updating this blog!

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Five

Sunday 18th November

An easy day around the house before headed to the Allianz Stadium to catch Coldplay concert. We parked the car at work and grabbed the bus to the stadium. A superb gig, very visual with many cool effects including cool wristbands that lit up. You can see some of it in the pictures/video below.

Pics

Video

Was a bit crazy getting out afterwards with so many people and we walked back to the office and headed home at midnight.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Four

Saturday 17th November

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Three

Friday 16th November

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Two

Thursday 15th November

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty One

Wednesday 14th November

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty

Tuesday 13th November

Not much to report today, quiet day at work and quiet night at home.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Nine

Monday


Back to work, not too much happening there so knocked off at 5pm. Kate picked me up at Artarmon. Quiet night in.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Eight

Sunday 11th November

We got up and decided to spend the day at the zoo, here are some highlight pics below

Red Panda

Sumatran Tiger

Meerkats

Meerkat

Mountain Goats (with a view)

After we left the zoo we did some shopping at Northbridge, came home and put some pictures up for Carol, had some dinner and the Skyped UK.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Seven

Saturday 10th November

Awoken at 1.50am by the cat Alaska throwing up all over the bedroom floor, not pleasant. It is very rare we even let her sleep in our room, but tonight we did and she decided to repay us by hacking out her guts. So at 1.55 we are cleaning up cat sick in a daze. Went back to bed at 2am...

Got up at about 9am and Kate and I headed out to Rhodes shopping Centre near Olympic Park. I needed to use the free JP (Justice of Peace) service to get certified copy of my passport done. With a new passport I need to update immigration of it's details to make travel easier and then need a certified copy of the new one.

We looked around the shops after that and got a present for Christmas and then headed home, ot be honest it was a crap shopping centre.

We relaxed in the afternoon, did some more family tree research on Carols family trying to trace Irish connection.

A walk to off licence and then dinner, before a quiet night in, including a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Six

Friday 9th November

Spent most of the day in the garden relocating the washing line for Bill and Carol. First job was installing new retractable washing line to wall, this needed new fixing as it was a different model. The proceeded with Bills help dig out old post which was embedded in concrete. We finally got it out. 

Spent some time knocking off this concrete to get post back ot original state.

Then dug new hole nearer hose and set a pasting pipe in 40kgs of concrete so that this allows post to be placed and removed in hole so that it is not a permanent feature in middle of lawn. To Bills pleasure this could also act as a putting hole in the lawn.

Had a thunderstorm late in afternoon.

Kate came home from work and we had dinner.

We had a Friday night movie night watching 'The Hurricane' with Denzyl Washington in which was very good. Went ot bed just after midnight.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Five

Thursday 8th November

2nd day of hols. Today I spent some time this morning doing some Christmas shopping up at Chatswood Chase. It's nice to go in the week when its less crazy. Got some bits and then did some food shopping in Coles.

In the afternoon I started digging out the washing line post which needs moving in the garden, this job will need finishing tomorrow.

In the evening I cooked up a risotto for everyone.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Four

Wednesday 7th November

First of three days off. I saw Kate off to work and then spent the morning helping Bill re-lay the side path along the house. This involved a trip to Bunnings to buy weed matting and a shovel.

We knocked the job off before lunch. After a proper English lunch of a ham sour dough sandwich I spent much of the afternoon in front of the TV until Kate came home. The evening was a quiet affair in front of the telly with a Skype call to UK.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Three

Tuesday 6th November

Last day at work as I have next three days off. Spent some time writing up a lot of Brisbane de-brief notes to hand over to new Ops person there. Wrapped everything up and headed home.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Two

Monday 5th November

Back to work in the office. Drove in and parked to take a load of stuff back which has been here in Willoughby. Relaxed day at work and came home at 5pm.

Cooked pasta for dinner and easy night in front of TV this evening.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty One

Sunday 4th November

We got up and headed over to Bronte Beach for a spot of lunch followed by a walk along the Sculptures by the Sea, highlights below.

Came home, had a BBQ and Skyped folks in the evening.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty

Saturday 3rd November

Nice to be back home with Kate. We spent some time getting our Christmas Shopping further underway at the Chase. Apart from that a fairly typical quiet Saturday weekend day.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Thirty Nine

Friday 2nd November

Up early and got driven to Perth airport by my colleagues. Kate had already checked me in yesterday so I simply had to drop baggage off. Went through security and then had the joys of a delayed plane. The flight was late arriving into Perth so it was already an hour and half late arriving. It transpired they had also changed the aircraft, I guess original went technical somewhere beforehand. This resulted in the staff reallocating everyone's seat at the gate, this slowed our departure event more.

Finally we got away a few hours late and flew for 3 hours 2 minutes and as such with time difference the day was gone by the time I landed in Sydney at 6.30pm. Was very nice to be met by Kate and we drove home. Had a spit of dinner, watched some TV and went to bed.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Thirty Eight

Thursday 1st November

Up at 5.30am this morning, my job along with Carrie was to act as support crew to Daniel our test walker today. All the staff are working in rotation supporting him as he tests the trail. I got the first and second shift, which is good as I'll be done by mid afternoon.

Daniel started at the 'start line' at 6.50am, and then Carrie and I preceded to follow him along the trail meeting him at road crossings etc to ensure his safety. We fed and watered him at Checkpoint 1 (just after we grabbed some brekkie in a local cafe) and he was off again.

Carrie swapped out at midday and I was joined by Ruth. This was good as I could spend a lot of time telling her lots about Brisbane as she takes over from me there.

We met Daniel at Checkpoint 2 and again re-fuelled him.

He left there and then got a bit lost so Carrie and others came back out to meet us (they had to anyway As I was swapping with Rob at that point). We set Daniel back on the right path and I headed back to hotel to relax after grabbing some food.

Everyone continued to support Daniel through the night and after approx 110km and 22 hours he finished at 5am the next morning.

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Thirty Seven

Wednesday 31st October

Day two of track testing, spent a lot of time both driving around and walking various parts of the trail to document the route. Once we had done all that we grabbed some takeaway food and headed back to Hotel. The others picked up Daniel out test walker form Melbourne from the airport and he joined us for food. He has walked 18 TW's around the world so should be a good guinea pig for this test event starting tomorrow.

Perth in distance

Damn changes

What will eventually be part of trail

Don't look down

The team planning and writing up days events

 

 

The hotel garden, which doubles as a concert venue

Basketball break...

Day One Thousand Two Hundred and Thirty Six

Tuesday 30th October

Day one of trail investigations. Primary purpose of today was to walk numerous sections of trail, write instructions and do extra measuring with GOS and wheels. All went well although Ruth and I got lost in section 1 fairly early on, not our fault we were following dodgy instructions.

Below are pictures of the trail, fairly typical Aussie bushland.

Once we were all done we all met back at hotel and got a Thai takeaway in.