Let's go surfing-part one.

 Earlier in the week I was having a coffee with son,Toby, in a surf shop/cafe here in Terrigal.  As we were waiting for our coffees I leafed through some surfing magazines on the table and was prompted to later look up the surf photos I have taken in the twelve years I have lived here. 

Professional surf photography has turned into an extreme sport. Surf photographers go out in massive waves riding pillion on jetskis or even swim in the surf to get those inside the barrel wave shots. Some use drones flying just a metre or so above surfers as I saw last year at a professional surf competition at nearby Avoca Beach where I also saw a photographer on the beach using a Canon DSLR with a mammoth lens which probably cost more than a small car. I can't match that but here and in a future post are some of my modest efforts.   

      

Muscleman.

 I am not sure whether this photo has been on the blog previously but here it is anyway. Taken at dawn on Terrigal Beach.

MTB bikepacking in the Blue Mountains

 Son, Toby, has just spent three days with two friends bikepacking on  mountain bikes in the glorious Blue Mountains west of Sydney. They covered 230kms mostly on dirt road and trails and climbed a total of 3533 metres. They were self contained carrying tents, sleeping bags and all their food and they topped up with water from town supplies and from streams. Carrying enough water is a major issue. Currently there is plenty of water in the streams which can be used after filtering but that's not always the case.

Toby says the trip was a great success. The weather was kind but he says that it would not be feasible in high summer and it could be too cold in winter.

 

Red Day 1.Blue Day 2 .Green Day 3.

To record the trip Toby used an Olympus Mju 2 which he had last used in 2006 and which then had been retired early as he went digital. The camera had laid unused in a box for 14 years with an unprocessed film inside it.

The Olympus Mju 2 was a very popular camera in its day and going by the prices on eBay it is enjoying a  cult following currently. It is a full frame, point and shoot, 35mm film camera with a good 35mm F2.8 lens in a very compact body. The Mju 21 fits easily into a pocket. My wife owned its predecessor, the XA1,  for a number of years. We do not know where it is now but maybe it will surface again one day.

 

There is no digital equivalent to the Mju 2 today. That category of compact point and shoot camera has vanished from the market displaced by smartphones.

Toby loaded the Olympus with the excellent Kodak Portra 160 negative film for his bikepacking trip. Here are a selection of his photos.

Bushfire went through here earlier in the year.

The distinctive Blue Mountains blue haze is due to eucalyptus droplets in the atmosphere.

Suddenly it's high summer

 If you are in lockdown in the northern hemisphere and the weather is bleak it's probably best if you don't read on.

The last few days the weather here on the east coast of Australia has been superb. Warm-27ºC- but not too hot with no wind and cloudless skies. And we're not in lockdown. In fact for quite a few days no new covid-19 cases have been found in Australia. We have not eliminated the virus but we have done extraordinarily well.

Tomorrow the forecast is for some really hot weather-34ºC -here in Terrigal. At this time last year bushfires were raging. So far there have been none but after a lot of rain over winter there is a lot of fuel again if hot weather dries everything out.

I feel so sorry for my poor wife confined to a hospital bed in this glorious weather. At least she can rest comfortably that I am keeping the house and garden in good order. This morning I was out weeding the front garden at 7.00am before it was too warm.

This afternoon I took a walk with my camera.  Terrigal has always been a popular beach destination but in the past three years it has become very popular and not just at weekends. The quiet retirement town has gone crazy and last weekend's opening of the North Connex motorway/tunnel has made it even easier for residents of Sydney's northwest and west to travel to Terrigal. The beach today was like it would be at Xmas. With international travel still not possible Xmas in Terrigal is going to be chaotic. Fortunately we live within easy walking distance of the beach.

Some photos from today's walk.

My garden in good shape

 

Terrigal Lagoon

Terrigal Lagoon 2

Terrigal Beach

You can put up as many warning signs as you want but boys and girls will still jump off the bridge into the lagoon.

Loud exhale....

 I've just spent some time looking at posts of joyful celebrations of Biden's victory in US cities on Instagram and in news media. A lot of people are certainly breathing easily again in the USA and across the world. The wicked witch has gone.

Congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on a very sweet victory. Decency and honesty and respect for science will be back where it should be.  No more running America by mad midnight tweets. 

I loved travelling in the US.and have been there many times for work and pleasure. I have driven all over and seen the country away from the tourist trails.

As Trump's rheoteric became uglier and uglier and his behavour became more unhinged into his presidency Val and I decided after our 2017 Mississippi River Road trip that we would not/could not visit the USA again whilst he remained president.

With Val very sick,  the pandemic raging in the US and the travel restrictions, a US visit in the forseeable future is not going to happen anyway but at least one restraint has gone.

Good riddance, orange man. You will not be missed by us and millions of others although I understand that your good mate, Vlad, is a tad upset at your demise. 

A collection of American snapshots from a wonderful visit in 2015. Wonderful smiling, welcoming people and a beautiful country. Let's hope sanity really has been restored.

The PITS again

 For the first time in many months I managed to join the Porsche 356 and other car desperates for the monthly gathering at the very scruffy Pie in the Sky biker's cafe at Cowan for a lunchtime pie today.

The Pie in the Sky is in a great location-it's good drive to get there- and it is a big site with plenty of bike and car parking and it overlooks national park but it is a dump. The pies are ok and the staff are friendly but that's it. It really could do with a big make over. Still it is an institution and it has a following so there we are.

A few regulars and a few newbies in the cars there today. No interesting vintage bikes but plenty of Ducatis and other late model crotch rockets. And it was a beautiful warm day. Roll on summer.

Photos taken on my newly acquired 'spare' Leica X1-its first outing in my hands.

A very large Siddeley Special

An aluminium bodied sports Bentley special. A staid, upright Bentley was probably sacrificied to make it

A

Vintage Hotchkiss .

It seems like only yesterday

 It's difficult for me to comprehend that a year ago Val and I were celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary in Port Macquarie with our family and afterwards we went on a road trip through New England, New South Wales.

Since then so much has happened and almost all of it bad. Covid-19 has arrived and wrought devastation on the planet. Fortunately through good luck-being an island does help-and very effective action by our federal and state governments Australia has managed the pandemic well. There was a setback in the state of Victoria with a second wave but  by imposing a very harsh lockdown it was effectively bought under control. Yesterday there were zero new locally communicated cases of covid-19 in Australia.

Covid-19 put an end to comprehensive travel plans for the year. I really was looking forward to our roadtrip through southern Spain and also our riverboat trip into darkest north Myanmar.

As well as the covid-19 lockdown Val and I have had the devastating diagnosis of her illness-a very severe shock which has upended our lives. This year we "celebrated" our 51st wedding anniversary last Sunday with her in an acute care ward of Gosford Hospital. What a difference.

At the time of of that road trip in 2020 eastern Australia was in the grip of a long and devastating drought. The tragic bushfires which ravaged vast areas of eastern Australia started in early November and lasted right through to early March. At home in Terrigal a blanket of choking smoke from the enormous Gosper Mountain fire became a daily occurence.  

So 2020 has been a terrible year for us and so many others. Yes, the drought has broken and indeed the rains have been so good that the farmers are looking at the best harvest for at least 15 years but other than this it is bleak, bleak, bleak.

Some photos from that now so distant Australian road trip in November 2019 when we had no idea what horrors lay ahead.