No, this disreputable pair are not us! The masks are good, but there is no disguising my Bil and Sil!
All Souls Day sees us moving up to Queensland, drawing ever nearer to Brisbane for the first day of play on 23rd November. I may not be in regular contact during the next couple of weeks, but never fear, I'll be back!
Central Coast, as its name suggests, is an excellent location - there is the juxtaposition of coastline and large lakes almost abutting, providing lovely beaches and inland water for sailing and other recreational facilities, all within an hour of Sydney.
Lake Macquarie - bigger inland water area than Sydney harbour, which has a series of small villages on its banksides - such as Swansea and Belmont. The picture below is from Mawson Lookout at Caves Beach near Swansea. In the distance Lake Macquarie is on the left and the ocean at Blacksmith's Beach on the right - you may have to click to enlarge. 
As a contrast to Sydney you have a series of small towns, which apart from Terrigal are low rise, small town Australia - Toukley, Budgewoi, Wyong. Then there is series of small resorts - Bateau Bay, pretty Hardy's Bay (pic below), and Copacabana. 
The area has a Series of conservation areas, including National Parks like Wyrrabalong; State Parks such as Munmorah, with its heathland covered with flannel flowers and pockets of littoral rainforest - cabbage tree palms; and local community conservation areas, such as nature trails done by ratepayers and local councils. A good example is the lovely headland walk at Norah Head which you can turn into a loop walk by passing the pristine Norah Head Lighthouse, built in 1903, and coming back along the beach, past the sea pool formed by placing rocks to provide sheltered water, safe to swim in, which is refreshed when high tide floods in.
You can just see Norah Head Lighthouse in the picture above. We walked along the beach as part of our loop beach/nature trail walk.
Headlands with lookout areas give good views up and down the coast. We saw Whales off Soldiers Beach. Washing machine seas - white frothy churning.
Closer to Newcastle, for instance Catherine Hill Bay, old mining industry abandoned and village now having to turn to tourism with concomitant pressure on old housing stock. Below is a picture of a disused coal jetty which would have sent coals to Newcastle! Mining is still carried out around Newcastle and we saw big cargo boats lined up in the sea waiting patiently to be filled with coal.
A lot of development in this part of Australia consists of pulling down old houses and rebuilding bigger, modern houses filling the plot. Not much regard for privacy - decks overlook backyards etc.
I don't think the shopping malls, such as the Westfield Shopping Centre at Tuggerah were there when we did a whistle stop visit 12 years ago.
Water conservation measures are being taken by individuals - brother in law (bil) has large rainwater tanks which filters the rainwater from the roof for garden use. There are bans on certain usages, washing cars, hosepipes etc. but no apparent spending on water conservation by local authorities - for instance when it did rain it rained heavily and the run off pours out to sea instead of being held in tanks etc.
Lovely to meet younger members of the family not born when we were here last. Jezza's two live the closest to bil but strong contact is maintained with Jo's 3 through babysitting and holiday visits. Dom still lives at home - looking after Ma and Pa while running her catering business.
Urrgghh! I'm determined not to turn into a Whinging Pom but really! The damn flies! They are a nightmare and that's a fact!
According to a short film on smh they will only be around for the next 6 weeks. That is 6 weeks too long as far as I'm concerned!
To counteract the swarms of flies that find us an instant attraction as soon as we step outside we are stripping the local vegetation, as we find that small branches act as ready made fly switches and are the best thing to fight the marauding hoards.
The switch on the left of the picture is a bit too harsh when it hits bare skin, but it is effective against the flies! They scarper pretty damn quick! My favourite is soft broad leaves similar to those on your right, they are much easier on your arms, back, head and face.
No wonder Aussies are world famous for their hats with corks. I shall save my corks from the unlabelled bottles of nectar called skin-frees, or skinless, or something along those lines. These are being offloaded by the wine producers as there is a glut of red wine. It's a bit of a gamble as to what you get but oh joy, it is something to mitigate against them darn flies!
Nick's birthday bash was on Tuesday night in the Astral Bar at Star City high on the 17th floor with panoramic views of the bright lights of Sydney including the Harbour Bridge. Fantastic.
All the beautiful people were there including singer John Rowe taking time out from Australian Idol and Home and Away star Tim Campbell who plays Dan Baker.
Marcia Hines belted out some numbers from her new album Discothéque. She strutted her stuff along with her dancers and was truly fabulous. Nick wanted her at his party as as a family they had grown up listening to her.
She was follwed by a stunning collection of Sydney Drag Queens. Their make up was flawless, figures perfect, and outfits divine.
The champagne flowed, it was a memorable night .....
Breakfast this morning was at bills in Surry Hills. Bill Granger is a world famous Sydney chef renown for his scrambled eggs and ricotta hotcakes. Such a good way to start the day after a gentle workout at the gym!
Then we went down to Circular Quay and mooched around the Opera House. It is not as open as when we were here last some 12 years ago, they have built some contentious flats that restrict views across to the Opera House. But Sydney Opera House itself is still one of the most iconic buildings in the world.
Sydney Harbour Bridge now offers walks over it and we could see small ant like figures labouring along the ironwork, not for me I'm afraid, I'm sure the view would be good but really not worth the effort! But who knows ...
Nipped on a ferry over to Manley for a stroll along the beach to Cabbage Tree Bay and back in the sunshine. Lovely clear blue sky but still nippy in the shade. Good sport spotting shapely guys strutting their stuff in trunks emblazoned with 'Manley'.
We had Italian last night ;but with half a dozen oysters to start and no pudding!
This is not meant to be a foodie blog but it is in danger of turning out that way! I am perilously close to not being able to fit into my outfit for Nick's party on Tuesday so today I am off to the gym to sweat off all our weekend socialising!
Sunday Brunch was a Dim Sim at Marigolds in George Street. It is so popular you have to be there by 11.00am or it is difficult to get a table. Trolley loads of goodies are pushed around and you just
choose what you fancy. We had an amazing variety of dumplings, spring rolls, prawn and pork delicacies, accompanied by pots of delicate steaming tea, finished off with a fantastic, melt in your mouth, egg custard tart. Yum.
Afterwards we went shopping along George street calling in at the Victoria Building Centre and David Jones. We got Nick's present. It's a gadget - more of which later ...
Dinner was at China Doll, Woolloomooloo. This is in a very poignant waterside location for it is where the old chap's brother and his family first washed up in Australia. Nick was five then. The £10 poms were landed and sorted in the very converted warehouse we ate in. It was yet another fantastic Asian feast. Great vegetables, the asparagus in a chilli sauce was interesting. Puddings were out of this world, tapioca with passion fruit was my personal favourite. The loos are achingly trendy, all black but blinding colour injected by the pearlised multicoloured mosaic tiled floor. Beautiful.
Part of the wharf has been sympathetically converted into a fantastic hotel, Blue. It is worth popping into just to see the clever avant-garde lighting. Too smart and clever to describe properly here! Go see!
Right! Off to sweat!
..... is cold!
We arrived early yesterday morning and I've had to dig out my one jumper from the bottom of the suitcase! Last week Sydney was experiencing the hottest ever October temperatures of nearly 40 degrees. Now its slipped back to 18 or so but that is way down on Singapore temperatures and I'm feeling it!
Nick's apartment is in Darling Harbour, its in a converted wool warehouse and has high ceilings, old beams and varnished wood floors. The banner at the top of this blog is the view from his lounge. It's to be our base, the mother ship we return to from our forays around Australia's cricket pitches, for the next few months.
We went to Darlinghurst last night and had a fab Vietnamese meal. It was a BYO place (Bring Your Own wine) which the old chap finds hard to get his head round, but I'm sure we will manage eventually!
... and its hot!
I have a private bet with myself that we will have no delays at all on this trip simply to limit our use of airport business class lounges and all their comfortable, free, help yourself, coffee, snacks, newspapers etc. etc.
Once on board our Quantas flight we were massaged most of the way to Singapore by our Skybed seats, which among lots of other things are also able to gently knead your back for five minutes every time you push a button in the arm rest - no, I didn't manage to sleep a lot during the flight!
We did crash out for a couple of hours when we reached the hotel which joy of joys had a room ready for us at 8.00am. On coming too, being fuzzy, and not capable of much, we thought an open topped bus trip round the city would be a good idea. It was. We had a great overview of the city; of Orchard Road, Chinatown, Little India, the Esplanade and its splendid new theatre that looks like the top of a couple of microphones, Raffles, and so on and so forth. The Haze - had lifted especially for us, and we could see blue sky and the top of skyscrapers.
After our quick dip into the town we went back to the hotel, the Shangri-La, for a cuppa tea by the pool and a quick dip. Then a quick change and out for dinner with Nick's friends Vanessa and Philip. Vanessa works for Nick, she is his Asia manager, her husband Philip went to college at Loughborough and knows Swindon. They took us to the Long Beach seafood restaurant, which is on reclaimed land at Marina South. It was fantastic. We enjoyed a seafood banquet, starting with bamboo clam, (I'm searching my childhood memory banks, I think we may have called them razor shells, but I'm not 100% certain of correct recall here) with loads of garlic and spring onion, that prepared us for working our way through both chilli crab and black pepper crab and a pile of prawns.
We finished off with the most spectacular pudding - 'glutinous black rice pudding and ice cream' which came out served over smokin' dry ice! Fantastic!
To shake it all down we had a walk along the river admiring the bright lights and Singapore's iconic Merlion statue spewing out a torrent of water by the bridge. A very special evening.
On Thursday we came round at 9.00am local time having slept like logs from midnight. Hopefully banishing any jet lag lurking around. This morning we wandered round Takashimaya, a huge Japanese Department store in a Mall called NAC. Lovely goodies, we could have bought masses if we'd had enough room, we even looked at suitcases, but sense prevailed, after all we do have to lug them round with us! We had lunch in the basement food hall. A cheerful, noisy, cavernous place. Amazing value.
Then onto the Asian Civilisations Museum which has been opened for 4 years now and the taxi drivers still don't know where it is! Ours dropped us off at the Singapore Art Museum, which would have been great to look round if we had had the time, but we were on a mission!
We finally reached the beautifully refurbished colonial administrative buildings, behind the swanky Fullerton Hotel, at Empress Place, which provides an appropriate backdrop to a fabulous collection of artefacts from mainly 4 Eastern areas. India, the birthplace of 4 major religions, Hinduism, Buddism, Jainism and Sikisim; China, with different regional cultures tied together by common bonds of an imperial system of government, writing, and a hierarchical social system based on Confucianism; Southeast East Asia, Thailand, Indonesia, and headhunting tribes from Malaya - Singapore's nearest neighbours, whom they split from when Singapore became an independent republic in 1965; and West Asia, what I guess we would call the Middle East, concentrating here on the rise of Islam.
To try and give some sort of meaning to all these beautiful objects we joined an English speaking tour taken by a jocular American who described himself as a 'trailing spouse' - his wife is working in Singapore on a two year contract, he tagged along for the ride and to keep himself occupied takes these tours. He gave a tantalising glimpse into the mysterious world of The East, totally fascinating. We could have spent a week just in the ACM but with limited time other parts of Singapore were calling us.
We caught a Rickshaw - yes with my weight - the guy was game. He steadily cycled us through the traffic, pointing out the sights, to Raffles Hotel where we downed the mandatory Singapore Sling in the Long Bar the pink, sweet tasting, gin based cocktail hit the spot.
Tomorrow morning we are 'doing' orchids in the Botanical Gardens before flying onto Sydney tomorrow evening. Which to you dear readers in the northern hemisphere would be all upside down time - when day is night, and involves a days change or so .....
It may only stand four inches tall, but the Ashes urn was given VIP treatment with a first-class seat and security guards as it embarked on its journey to Australia.
BBC SPORT | Cricket | Ashes urn heads to Australia
