Sydney for Anzac Day

Friday was Anzac Day over here - poppies in April, which I can't get used to because poppies are for November. It's a big thing, with dawn services and themed TV and memorials, in commemoration of the day in 1915 when thousands of Aussie and Kiwi soldiers landed at Gallipoli in Turkey, many of them losing their lives. It's a public holiday both here and in Australia, so I took the opportunity to hop across the Tasman to visit friends in Sydney. It was a fun weekend - we did the traditional Aussie barcrawl in the suburb of Balmain on Friday afternoon, along with the rest of Sydney. Everywhere was packed! And they were all playing a traditional gambling game which is only allowed to be played on Anzac Day, called Two Up, which involves two old pennies being tossed. You bet with your mates on what way they'll land. It's that simple - and it seemed like total chaos. We didn't really understand what was going on and contented ourselves with drinking beer and watching in bemusement.

The next day I went dragon boating with one of my friends, who's recently taken it up. She assured me the sessions weren't long - yeah, right! We were on the water for a good 90 minutes and it was really difficult. Using lots of muscles I don't normally use, plus it's been a while since I did any decent exercise owing to this cold (which stripped away my voice to a croak for the entire weekend). I enjoyed it, though, and it was a glorious day to be out on the water.

After brunch we headed to the Australian National Maritime Museum because I wanted to see Endeavour as a museum ship. She was undergoing some maintenance - apparently they'd had the mizzen mast out to check for rot, and she was missing her forecourse yard - but was looking lovely nevertheless, all decked out 18th-century style. The guides were good too, and my friend seemed to enjoy herself. :) Afterwards we wandered around the museum a bit, particularly enjoying the rowing section. As we came out the sun was just setting and everything was coloured a beautiful pink (see pictures below).

We had dinner that evening in a posh Chinese restaurant near Circular Quay, with views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Two of us had wanted steak but the other of us is veggie, so we picked the restaurant with the best veggie options - as she pointed out, half of them weren't actually veggie, for example the noodle soup with a pork stock base. Lucky she checked!

On Sunday morning we started off with a swim in a nice, open-air, 50m saltwater pool. Annoyingly I hadn't brought swimming things with me, so I borrowed a costume and hat from my friend. She didn't have spare goggles though, and after half an hour my eyes had gone rather bloodshot and my vision was cloudy. Really unpleasant, but it cleared up eventually (phew).

We met up with a friend of mine from school who I hadn't seen for ten years but is currently working in Sydney - hurrah for the wonders of modern technology and social networking - for brunch, before a wander around the Covent Garden-esque Rocks district which has a Sunday market full of jewellery and art and so on. Then to the Opera House, to take plenty of pictures, although we missed the tour because there wasn't quite time.

All in all, an excellent weekend.

Pictures:

Cook's cabin:



Outside the Maritime Museum - HMS Vampire:



Darling Harbour at sunset:







Night views:





Many pics of the Opera House:

















And a ferry, to finish off with!

Rainbow Warrior

The Rainbow Warrior (mark II, obviously) is touring NZ at present to highlight climate change. Because NZ emissions are skyrocketing, the country hasn't committed to an emissions target under Kyoto, and nobody seems to care. Given the almost complete lack of basics like double glazing, decent insulation, and central heating in this country, coupled with a major agriculture industry, second-hand cars and far too much reliance on planes (I'm guilty there) it's not surprising Kiwis are among the worst per capita emitters of carbon in the world.

Anyway, Greenpeace wants the politicians to act now, and want Kiwis to get behind the campaign, so they're taking the ship around. I went on one of their tours today (I confess I was more interested in the ship as a ship, but then I'm a ship geek).

Rainbow Warrior II is a three-masted schooner, converted from a fishing trawler for campaigning purposes. She carries 15 crew, 12 of whom are allowed to get off the ship and go and be activists when that's the task at hand (leaving three on board to operate her at all times). There's a whole mix of nationalities apparently. We got a history of ship and organisation, a talk on climate change, a chat from the South African captain, a video and an invitation to join Greenpeace, and a story about Dave the Dolphin:



the figurehead.

I didn't join, though I sympathise with the aims; I'm doing my bit by not having a car, recycling, turning things off, wearing jumpers before I turn heating on, and reusing bags (obsessively). And I'm still not 100 per cent convinced about the rather crazy-dangerous ways of protesting, which while peaceful do put people's lives at risk.

Anyway it was an interesting tour.

End of the summer

Autumn is definitely here. The weather's been all right this week, but cooler - and it's raining now. I even turned on my heating for a bit earlier in the week. Clocks go back tomorrow.

Mum pointed out I haven't blogged for a bit. There's not been a whole lot to blog about really; life's been a bit quieter which is nice! Back trying to swim regularly and there are some meets coming up - usually good fun.

I spent Easter in Australia with friends from rowing at home. Flew to Melbourne and then we drove 540km through Victoria up to the town of Mildura, which is on the Murray River that borders Victoria and New South Wales. They have a little regatta there every Easter. It was fun; won a medal in the masters doubles (my first masters race rowing!) and a pot and a 9th share of A$1000 in the women's open eight. The mixed eight was less successful winnings-wise but fun - racing with four old gents, one of whom had an Olympic bronze from 1956. If I'm still rowing in 50 years I'll be a happy person. We all went out in the evening, and then we drove back the next day and spent Easter Monday pottering around Melbourne. A nice trip.

That's about it really - going to Sydney for Anzac weekend in three weeks and I'm planning to spend the Queen's Birthday weekend at the start of June in the Coromandel - it's doable in three days, and I found cheap flights to Auckland.