Chapter 14 - A Year On

This is going to be a long entry - so if you just want to cut to the pictures .... and the important bits - click the links below.

My First Novel - Now Published - Check it out Click Here

Melbourne City Photo's; many of these in the current Melbourne City Guide

Carlos Birthday and behind the scenes at Melbourne Zoo

Parkour - Meet these guys Photographing for the Melbourne City Guide - Shot at Hanging Rock


Its been a while since i last made a blog entry, for those of you who don't know - my blog started as a way to communicate my travel adventures to my friends and family around the world (it actually started as an email - but i thought "Hey i'm a technology geek although less and less so these days - i can do better than an email).

And i did have some amazing adventures, from spiritual surgery to witnessing someone drive off the edge of a gorge and me climbing down to the wreck (what was i thinking).

After reading some truly inspiring blogs lately (Bill in Exile particularly) - I decided i needed to get back into the blogging thing and at the very least keep my friends and family up to date with happenings in my life. And particularly after someone recently found my blog by random chance and contacted me to say they loved it except for the ending - it just seemed to trail off...

So after 12 plus months i have finally put fingers to the keyboard to continue the adventure. It's been an very full year.

So after taking 4 months off to bum around the world (read my previous posts) i finally made it back to sydney, my home since i was 12 (apart from the 4 years of startup mania in San Francisco). Not long after returning home and tallying up the credit card bills etc, i quickly figured out that my plans to take 12 months off were in deep doodoo ... i had cash flow - the only problem been, that is was flowing in one direction only. The reaslisation that i would have to get a job again, hit like a ton of bricks.

Deciding that my skills in IT was the quickest way to get the cash flowing inwards - i set off in search of a job .... blah blah blah boring stuff about interviews, how fabulous i am, what a genius i am (that's for you Gus) how quickly i was offered not one but two jobs.

Oh the dilema ... take job a job in Sydney and continue my life pretty much as it was, a job that would certainly have paid the bills. Or take a job with Lonely Planet in Melbourne ... a company thats all about travel (one of passion), writing (another of my passions) and photography (gee yet another of my passion)... so i thought long and hard like i do with all the life changing decision i have ever made (3.4 seconds) and decided to take the job with Lonely Planet and head to Melbourne.

The Move

I have only ever visited Melbourne for short visits, work mostly. So the decision to move here was fairly huge, leaving all my sydney friends behind, my family who are all based in NSW and the comfort of a city i know like the back of my hand. I have often thought i should be a taxi driver in sydney.

In late October i headed to Melbourne for a couple of weeks, to check out the city, sign offer letters, find a place to live.

As i was packing up my life in sydney Carlos entered my life. Carlos happened to be up in Sydney for a couple of nights with his job. I could not believe my eyes when i meet him, nor could i believe that he was interested in me! While i don't think i am ugly, i am certainly don't believe i am a supermodel and Carlos could well be a model if he wanted.

The move to melbourne went extremely well. Most of my life was packed up in a storage locker - so it was easy to pack up my room, hand the removalists the keys to the storage locker and let them take all the crap i have accumulated to Melbourne. Probably one of the easiest moves i have ever completed (compared up to one we have just done).

What a shock going back to work was! The first week in Melbourne i was staying with my friends Sue and John and each evening i came home and just fell asleep on the lounge.

I meet up with Carlos again and that was the start of something beautiful. He has been a permanent fixture in my life since them.

I am not going to describe the minutia of life in Melbourne - its the same as life just about anywhere on the planet. I get up, clean my teeth, shower, shave, go to work, eat, watch tv etc.

What i will say is how i have fallen in love with Melbourne. Of all the cities in Melbourne it is probably the most European. The architecture is fantastic down here - the old, the art deco and especially the new. Melbourne is not afraid to be different, is not afraid to embrace the unusual. Some people criticize the architecture and the art. But very few cities in the world are prepared to give space to unusual art (cows in trees included).

Melbourne has an excellent tram system - i know Melbournians complain about it - but you know what - live in sydney for a month or more and you'll come to appreciate how fantastic the tram and train system is down here. I love the cooler weather, and summer although it can get a lot hotter than Sydney is mostly a dry heat - how i love dry heat. Sydney summers 30 degrees with high humidity can be ugly - Melbourne at 40 degrees and almost no humidity is just divine.

The only thing that melbourne lacks is decent beaches. For those of you reading this from Overseas i'll give you a quick geography lesson. Like most of the major cities in Australia, Melbourne is a coastal city - however Melbourne is built around an enormous bay - Melbourne Map . As a result although there is a lot of beach frontage - there are only little tiny waves - so you have to travel a fair distance to get to decent surf beaches - not a major problem for me as i am not much of a beach bunny. Sydney on the other hand is built right on the coast and there are loads of great surf beaches.

Photography and the Guide

Earlier this year Lonely Planet as part of publishing it latest version of the Melbourne City Guide, asked staff to participate in the guide by contributing photo's. I of course jumped at the opportunity and spent every weekend for a month roaming Melbourne taking photo's. 17 of my photo's were selected and included in the Guide. Check out a selection of the photos Click Here ......

It was a great opportunity to purse my passion and it was a great way to get to know melbourne. A rather controversial train station has been several years in the making. It has a unique wave formation roof and a huge open air internal plan. It is rather spectacular and as part of my submission i spent time photographing the Southern Cross Station. I contacted the station and got their permission to roam the station (in this day of terrorism blah blah security concerns blah blah - wont bore you with my thoughts on our governments involvements in fear generation events etc etc). So i got permission to photograph the station and also got permission to go up on the roof and photograph the roof as well - which was an amazing experience, clambering across this amazing rooftop - not a right angle in sight.

So as you can see i have settled well into Melbourne. It has certainly helped having a gorgeous man like Carlos in my life. Carlos is truly an angel in disguise and certainly needs to be to put up with me - as i know i am not the easiest person to live with and get on with. I have a healthy Leo ego, am stubborn as hell and like everything done my way - but despite all this he loves me with all his heart and i love him with all mine.

Birthday Bash and Zoo Visit

We both celebrated our 39th birthdays this year and looking forward to the big 40 next year. For Carlos birthday we both had a couple of days of work and we headed to the great Ocean Road and drove to the 12 Apostles. This part of the australian coastline is truly spectacular - it reminded me greatly of Highway 1 in California, the Big Sur - south of San Francisco. The coastlines are equally spectacular - but the great ocean road has something that California doesn't - the 12 Apostles - a series of amazing rock formations that form part of the coast line. The drive took a lot longer than i was expecting - about 5hrs - so we got there late afternoon - which also meant we got to experience sunset on coast around this extraordinary area. I decided that a helicopter ride was the best way to see this beautiful and amazing landscape... so check out the photo's by clicking here.

We returned to Melbourne that night and the following day decided to go to Melbourne Zoo. A close friend of Carlos works at the Zoo - so Colin arrange some behind the scenes encounters. I really wish that everyone could get to experience a Zoo they way we did that day. It truly was a unique and fun experience. To begin with we got to hang out with the Lion Keepers and it happened to be feeding day (they don't feed them every day). I really cant describe what its like to be 1 metre (3 feet) away from 4 fully grown male lions. While the keepers feed them a pre dinner snack. I was both terrified and exhilarated. The lions were then drawn into the holding pen, about 10m x 10m (except for one) with food bribes - so the keepers could clean the main area. One of the lions decided he would be cooperative - so he was encouraged into one of the smaller holding cage 2m x 4m at a guess - with a large metal trap door separating this enormous beast from us. We strolled around the Lions Den's the keepers on cleanup duty and also hiding large chunks of deer meat for the Lions to find and feast on. As we were walking around the den - the lion trapped in the small cage started pounding on the door of the cage - adrenaline levels increase significantly i gotta tell you. One of the keepers said "its right about now you are realising you have just placed your life in my hands" - and he was entirely right. After the cleanup and generally checking of the state of the den - we removed ourselves to a secure location and the lions were released - these lumbering giants flew with the speed of a hummingbird in search of there meals.

We left the Lion's Den and where taken to meet one the newest members of the Zoo - a baby giraffe. Again we go to go inside the giraffe enclosure and hand feed mother and daughter with pellets or feed. These giants of the Savannah were gentle lambs as the nuzzled our hands and licked the pellets of food from our palms.

We had lunch and afterwards were taken to the bird enclosures. Melbourne Zoo is attempting to get a flight show off the ground. We got to meet and interact with a couple of Macaws and in buzzard (which i would have thought was an eagle or hawk). The buzzard LOVED having the back of his neck scratched.

We then spent the rest of the day been normal zoo visitors. The butterfly enclosure is fantastic and the new elephant enclosure well laid out and awaiting the arrival of some more elephants from Asia.

The Book

As some of you know i completed my first novel in late 2002. It is the first in a series involving three young adventurers. In the first novel Keegan is kidnapped by the mighty and evil Visnbel and Terri is sent to rescue him (aided by some unusual nuns). They meet Tosh a teenager also imprisoned by Visnbel and the three of them embark on an adventure to find the Dragon's Heart Amulet ....

I have had the novel sitting on a shelf since then and have started working on novel 2. As you can appreciate moving cities and starting a new job has not left much time for writing so novel 2 has not progressed as far as i wanted to.

In the course of surfing the internet I discovered a website called Lulu - which does print on demand printing. So i spent some time getting my first novel into the correct format and have now published novel number 1. Check it out Click Here.....

i am very pleased to finally have the novel out there in the world.

Parkour

As part of photographing Melbourne for the City Guide, i came across a group of guys doing Parkour. Parkour was a movement started in France and is a sort of free from gymnastics. Where the participants interact with their environment using various movements to leap, bound and generally traverse the urban terrain. These guys are amazing to watch and there are tons of videos at You Tube http://www.youtube.com/ ... do a search on Parkour. I have kept in touch with these guys and had the privilege meet them at Hanging Rock to photograph them. Check Out the Pictures Here. A friend of mine Gus was down from Sydney and came with me ... a great day, lots of fun and some good photos.


Life Goes On

So life continues ..... i am hoping to spend some time working on novel 2 over christmas. We moved house a couple of weeks ago - something i don't recommend. And hopefully it wont be so long between entries.