Granville bike ride

The weekend started with some cleaning up after the dust storm of midweek - a thin layer of dust outside and in the house, plus both cars needed a good clean.

On Sunday we joined our bike group for a ride ‘out west’, in an area south of Parramatta that Clive and I are unfamiliar with, so we were looking forward to discovering a new part of the city.

The day dawned bright and sunny, but with a strong westerly wind which we hoped would have blown away by the time we got to the meeting point at Granville Station, but sadly, it only seemed to get worse during the day, making it feel like cycling through custard at times!

There were just 8 of us on the ride, which was a good number. Most were of a similar standard, but I always seemed to be the back marker, a position I’m very proud of! The ride leader claimed she ‘wasn’t a bike rider’, yet set a cracking pace, explained by her admission later to being a state-level squash player!

The beginning and end of the day involved travelling through residential streets, which weren’t terribly interesting, but the middle bit was much more enjoyable, taking us through lovely parkland and along Prospect Creek just north of Chipping Norton! As we discovered, it’s an area popular with migrants from Turkey, Lebanon and Vietnam. Some on the ride bought Vietnamese meat rolls for their mid-morning break and when I struggled to complete a long, slow drag soon afterwards I began to wish I’d eaten one rather than my banana! (Not really, they didn’t look that good!)

We stopped briefly at a Buddhist temple, then at a golf club for lunch, followed by a Turkish ‘fete’ on the way home to watch a little Turkish wrestling, where bald men cover themselves with oil before attempting to floor their opponent – not easy! There were plans to call in at Japanese gardens to see the blossom trees, but by that time we were all happier to head for home. Five hours’ battling headwinds was enough

Dust storm

We awoke to a strange event this morning, with Sydney covered by a red dust storm - apparently this is a very unusual 'once in a lifetime' event here. It was caused by some high winds bringing over dust from inland NSW and for the first hour or so of daylight, the sky was very foggy with a deep orange colour. The birds were also very silent for a change!

These pictures were taken from the house at 7am:



The dust remained in the sky for most of the morning, although the colour subsided as the sun got up, but there was major traffic disruption during the rush hour.

Training

It was a bit of a 'training themed' weekend just gone, starting with Friday when I was running one of the training days through the University of Sydney. The venue for the course had to be changed at the last minute on Thursday as a contractor had drilled through a major power and phone line in the city, putting the hotel that we usually use out of action. In the event, myself and the 18 attendees had to make the journey out to the University area in Newtown instead, which was much harder to get to, but the day went well and we were rewarded with a better lunch than usual!

Most of the weekend was then taken up by some work on a grant funding application to the Australian government, which has to be in this week. I'm hoping to get some finance to support an expansion of my training courses to the other main cities in Australia over the next year and someone had told me about this grant opportunity at the last minute. However, we managed to get a few walks in down at the beach, with the chance to feel the sand for the first time in what seems like ages!

Kirribilli House open day

The week ended with a hot and sunny weekend, so we'd planned to go cycling in the national park to the south of Sydney. However, we then heard that the annual open day at Kirribilli House was on Sunday, so we changed our plans and decided to go there instead to have a good 'sticky beak' at the official properties - Kirribilli House is the PM's residence in Sydney and next door is Admiralty House, the residence of the Governor-General.

We arrived about 30 mins before the opening time and joined the queue which wasn't too long at that stage. By the time we got into the grounds it was still reasonably quiet, so we managed to tour both properties and then enjoyed the grounds, overlooking the harbour and opposite the Opera House. By the time we left the queues into both properties were much longer.

Kirribilli House is quite a small property and we followed a route around the downstairs rooms, including 'Kev's' study, the dining room and lounge. Besides the lovely position above the harbour, it's a comfortable and informal looking place which must be a great place to escape to, although we don't believe that the Rudd family use it as much as John Howard did.

In contrast, Admiralty House is a more formal building with some large rooms and clearly set out to cater for larger parties and functions, but still a comfortable looking place with some great views. The grounds around the properties were also wonderfully kept in the style of a Victorian garden and the day gave 'the commoners' an opportunity to enjoy the space.

There are some more photos from the visit here.

Long weekend (for me)

This weekend has been a great treat, with my birthday and Father's Day falling within several days of each other! I took Friday off, so Sue and I headed to Cremorne to catch the ferry across to the city. Just before we parked we passed a road where, we discovered later, a 'shady' businessman had been shot dead the night before in an apparent contract killing, so there was lots of police and press activity in the area.

Once in the city we walked around to the Opera House and the botanic gardens on the way to the Art Gallery of NSW - one of the places we had yet to visit. We spent some time looking around the galleries, which were a manageable size and reasonably interesting, before getting some lunch at the nearby Harry's 'Cafe de Wheels'. This is a well known kiosk near the naval base which has been there since 1945 and offers a good selection of pies!

Sue went for Harry's 'special', which was a meat pie with mashed potato and mushy peas on top - however, I couldn't face that so went for a more conservative chicken pie. Both were good fillers and kept us going for the rest of the day before we went out in the evening with the girls to a local Indian restaurant for dinner.

On Saturday we visited the Quarantine Station (now trendily renamed as the 'Q Station') at North Head, which was running an open day as part of the History Week events in the city. We joined a tour of the grounds and buildings, which have a great outlook over the harbour and Manly, and the place was used to quarantine sick passengers from the ships arriving with immigrants, before they were allowed into Sydney.

Many of the buildings have been renovated with a substantial investment over the past few years and now offers good accommodation and other events, as well as the ghost tours which have been running for years. The place still has a spooky feel about it, particularly in some of the buildings and rooms, and maybe if we feel brave enough we may go back for one of the night tours, or even the new sleepovers in the isolation block, which they are launching soon!