BBQ

For the second time in the space of a few weeks, Ang & I decided to have a BBQ for just the two of us. On the menu today was special corn on the cob cooked to Al's special recipe, spicy pork, venison burgers, and veggie kebabs!! Yummy!

Sunset over Little Thetford

Lastnight, after raining cats and dogs, the sky suddenly cleared and the colours during the sunset were amazing. I quickly ran upstairs, and took a couple of pictures.

Unfortunately, because I have been testing the battery of my new camera to see how long it would last - it was already on its last legs... so I wasn't able to take as many pics as I'd like - or spend as much time framing the shot. Hopefully the pics still show the great colours of the sunset.

Just before the batteries ran out I managed to run to the back of the house to catch the pink fluffy clouds floating above Little Thetford.

Ang's Sister Comes to Visit

Last weekend (13th - 16th of August) Angela's older sister, Claire, came to visit us in Little Thetford.

As usual, Super Ang cooked a fantastic meal for us on Friday evening. On the Saturday I went paintballing (see below), and then got home and cooked the two girls a lovely BBQ!

On the Sunday, we drove down the A14 to Bury St. Edmunds to a National Trust Property called Ickworth House (above). While Ang and Claire went in the house for a nosey, I stayed outside and took pics of the local insect population.

Ang & Claire then came out and posed in front of the flowers.

We then went for a walk around the gardens, and then the grounds. Stoping to stroke a deer on the way. I then found an exercise trail which Claire & Ang thoroughly enjoyed.

I sat in a field and waited for some birds to land on the crop and provide a fantastic photo opportunity. Unfortunately, after 30 mins of waiting there wasn't a bird within 50m of me! Oh well... did manage to take a few photos of the field though.

Ang & Claire then went back on the exercise trail. I managed to capture this great picture of Ang leap frogging across the trail. Unfortunately the camera focused on the background - but it was a hard shot as Ang was running towards me - I should have used manual focus... I'll know for next time!

Matt R's 18th Birthday

Last weekend (14th of Aug) I went paintballing in Pidley (!) with some mates from church for Matt Read's 18th birthday party. What a great day! And I only died twice. Our team wasn't quite up to scratch though, and we lost 3 out of the 5 games. It was however a fun day out, running round a wood shooting small pellets of paint at each other. I ended up with a number of bruises on my back, arms and legs - which Ang wasn't too pleased about... next time we are going to play with marbles!

A&A's Auzzy Adventure - Day 12

On day 12 we left our YHA accommodation in Cairns and picked up our hire car before heading south west towards the Atherton Tablelands. After traveling along the Gillies Highway and climbing up the plateau we leveled off about 1,000m above sea level.

The views on the way up the mountain were spectacular (above), but it was more amazing when we finally arrived at the top to see that we were on a level plateau! Having an interest in volcanoes, the first place we headed was the Lake Tinaroo - an old volcanic lake. It wasn't quite as exciting as we expected, so we quickly headed off to the nearest town, Yungaburra for a swift lunch.

Straight after lunch we drove to a giant tree called the Curtain Fig Tree which was a pretty amazing sight! The were branches dropping down from all sides - it was massive!

We then drove to Lake Eacham were we walked all the way around the 3km circ crater lake. It was a great walk through our first taste of the tropical rainforest and we heard and saw lots of wildlife.

We even managed to spot a turtle in the water watching us as we walked past!!

After spending half the afternoon walking around the lake and feeling like it would never end we drove to our accommodation for the next few days - a lovely chalet right next to Malanda falls. In the evening, as the sun was starting to set we drove cross-country past a huge crater (below) to another crater called Mt Hypipamee Crater.

We really didn't know what to expect, just that it was supposed to be spectacular! Walking through the rain forest for the second time in a day, we finally got to the crater and were amazed to see a massive hole in the ground with a sheer drop on each side! We stayed at the crater for a while and watched a few parrots and cockatoos flying around before making the trip to a waterfall nearby.

As we were walking along the path to the waterfall we stopped in our tracks to see a huge 5 foot bird called a Cassowary. Not knowing exactly what to do, I did what came naturally and quickly got out both the digi-cam and the the camcorder! Crouching down I managed to get within 10ft of the giant bird as it just stood there staring at us. After taking the pictures we were a little unsure what to do as the bird was standing right in the middle of the path that we were trying to walk down! We slowly walked towards it, and as we got closer it kindly moved to the side of the path for us - but we were still within 2ft of the thing!! IT WAS HUGE!!

Arriving back at the car we noticed a warning sign all about the the cassowary!! Apparently they are extremely dangerous and should never be approached (!!) - they can get very aggressive and run at you, jump up in the air, and then kick with both of their giant clawed feed!! Scary stuff! I think we were very lucky that we caught Mrs Cassowary on a good day!!

Wimpole Hall

On Friday evening Ang and I decided to go to the National Trust property Wimpole Hall, just west of Cambridge. We went for a picnic, but also to see how my new camera could cope with some sunshine and sunsets!! I have uploaded a few of the photo highlights below.

Obviously you can't see the detail that an 8MP camera can produce when reduced from 3,264 pixels down to 400 pixels for the web - but it will hopefully give you some idea!

The two pictures below were taken in our front garden just before I left to go Wimpole. The light in the evening was fantastic, and really shows off the colours in the flowers.


One of our garden roses!


One of our garden flowers! (don't have a clue what it is!)


The pictures below are from our trip to Wimpole Hall. I didn't take many pictures of the Hall itself, but mainly the landscape, wildlife, and flowers!


This is one of the lakes at Wimpole Hall, and in the distance is an old chapel.


A sheep.


This picture was taken using the 14x zoom on the camera!! It brings everything closer together. You can even see the geese in the distance.


A leaf.


Some sort of thorny flower.


Groovy orangy-reddy berries.


Flower stick thing.


Ang in the sun.


The ruins of the old chappel.


Sunset over the lake.


Sunset over the trees and hills.


A glowing cloud!

Al's Got A Brand New Toy

As you might have guessed, I am getting quite into my photography and really enjoy shooting pictures. Up until now I have been using the BEST BUDGET BUY OF 2002, a Cannon A40 to do all my picture taking - but this hasn't given me much flexibility as it was just a "point and shoot". Even so, I think I have still managed to take some good photos with it and have wanted to move onto the next stage.

Coming back from my holiday in Australia, I was especially disappointed at some of the pictures that I took - it really didn't capture clearly some of the great views that we saw. Although the camera seems to excel in sunset photos, it has struggled with pretty much everything else. Because of this, I thought it was about time that I took my hobby to the next stage and purchased a better camera, with a bit more functionality that would produce better quality pictures.

After trawling the web for a couple of weeks, I've decided on a Konica Minolta A2, an 8 megapixel camera with a 7x optical zoom with anti-shake stability. The camera provides almost the same flexibility as an SLR, but without the hassle of carrying around additional lenses. In my opinion the camera also has some fantastic features that are not found on the entry-level SLRs. The toss up was between the best non-SLR, or an entry level SLR and I think I have definitely made the right choice.

Although I have had the camera for less than 24 hours, already I can see the flexibility that it will provide me. I have only really ventured out into the garden, but some of the pics I've taken have been out of this world. I really don't have to try - and the camera does all the hard work!!

One of our friendly neighborhood hoverflys.

There are so many functions and buttons, it has seemed a bit overwhelming to start with. But I think in time I would not be able to live without them!! The only problem I have is I am at work again today so can't take any photos. Oh to be in the Lake District, or back in Australia!!

A&A's Auzzy Adventure - Day 11

For our final day in Sydney we decided to visit the ZOO!! But first of all, we had to pack up everything in our room because we were checking out at 10am. Our flight up to Cairns (the next destination) was not until 7pm, so we had pretty much the whole day to spend in Sydney. All week we'd been looking forward to visiting the zoo... so off we went!!

Sydney zoo is located on the north shore of the harbour, and looks back towards the central business district. Again, we took a ferry across the water and then jumped on a free bus which took us to the top of the hill - the idea is to work your way down the side of the mountain, visiting all the animal enclosures on your way, until you reach the ferry port again! As you can see in the picture above - the views were pretty spectacular across the bay.

No visit to an Australian zoo would be complete without the kuala bear, and crocodile!! The kuala's were very sleepy though - and you were lucky to see one move!

One of my favourite bits was when we saw the seal and seal lion show. I find it amazing some of the tricks they can train them to do. The animals were so intelligent.

My favourite animals in the whole world (do I sound like a primary school kid yet?) are the meercats - and this was my opportunity to see one face to face!!

I think its fantastic how they just sit in the sun, so chilled!! and the way they move their heads around, to watch whats going on! Classic.

After a great day of wondering round all the animals, seeing gorillas being fed, watching red pandas and of course the meercats - we headed back across the bay for the last time. Grabbed our bags from storage, and headed off to the airport to catch our plane up to Cairns.

A&A's Auzzy Adventure - Day 10

On the Sunday we decided that we were going to have a chilled day, and unfortunately I wasn't feeling that great.

First off, we went to Sydney's Powerhouse Museum which to be honest wan't that great. It was supposed to be Australia's number 1 museum for science, technology and fashion (!) - but Ang and I soon got bored as we were walking around.

We then headed to Darling Harbour, our favourite place in Sydney, to say a final goodbye and do a little bit of shopping. From the harbour, we took a ferry under the bridge to the CBD, and then a train to the shopping areas. By this time I was feeling a little tired and just wanted to curl up into a ball and fall asleep!

After a short sleep we walked around to the central train station where we cued up for a free bus to Sydney's famous Hillsongs Church. The church service was really good and the music was fantastic - with an 11 piece band!

We then headed back to the YHA, for our last evening meal in Sydney.