This wasn’t a set up … last night I found our cat asleep on the lounge room coffee table, with her tail wedged between the cordless headphone ear pads. What was she listening to? Cat Empire maybe?
Phoney tail
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Category Archives: Personal
Spring 2019
Four days earlier than last year, spring has hit home, with the first green leaf bud emerging from our ornamental mulberry tree.
Apollo 11 50th Anniversary
Thanks to the fabulous work by the people at Apollo 11 in Real Time, I’ve enjoyed the weekend reliving the excitement of the Apollo 11 mission, minute by minute.
I was only 5 years old when it all happened back in 1969. Because of timezones and other constraints I didn’t see the moon landing or Armstrong’s first steps live, but I well remember the general excitement of the time, and seeing the replays on the television.
Well done to all!
Tacky
My ride to work this morning was aborted by this little tack that I picked up while riding on the bike path alongside Ford Oval in New Lambton. I hope this is just a random bit of debris and not some idiot deliberately having a go at cyclists.
On track
While in town today I spotted the Newcastle Light Rail for the first time, as it conducted driver training.
The crew were obviously very happy with the the tram and the training, giving a big thumbs up as the carriage went past.
Later in the morning I spotted some tram related stupidity for the first time, as I witnessed a pedestrian who thought it was a good idea to run across the road in front of an approaching tram.
I hope the new light rail gets patronised more than the current bus network. For much of my trip home I was the only passenger, until suddenly the number of passengers doubled!
Ten Years of Turning Tyres
This week marks 10 years since I first cycled to work, in January 2009. For that first year I set myself a modest target of cycling to work at least 20% of the time. Over the last decade I’ve ramped up the target, and in 2018 I achieved a rate of 94.5% of trips to work on the bike.
In the last 10 years I’ve cycled to work 1439 times, riding a total of 17,141km.
Flickr’ing Hot
It was hot today. Too hot to do anything but stay inside. This however gave me a great opportunity to organise the photos in my Flickr account. Recent changes to Flickr mean that free accounts have a maximum of 1000 photos. So today I cleaned out my Flickr account leaving just a small collection of my favourite photos. Click on the image below to see more.
Royal Re-visit
Four years ago I visited Mt Royal National Park north of Singleton, and walked part of the the loop track that goes down to the creek in the valley. On Friday I returned and completed the full walk.
The walk down and back was 6.2km, and it took 1 hour down, and 1 hour 20 minutes up. At the bottom of the track, just near the creek, there’s one lone picnic bench.
The creek itself is quite small, not much more than a trickle, even after some heavy rain the day before.
We walked back up the northern track, which in contrast to the southerm track has steps in some of the steeper sections.
Both tracks conveniently have a bench seat at about the halfway mark, for well earned rests.
On returning to the Youngville picnic area where we started the walk, the mountain was shrouded in cloud and mist, making a very picturesque scene.
After some lunch at the picnic area, we did the short walk up to Pieries Peak. This is only 2km return, and a much gentler grade than the creek walk.
Leeches? Yes. On the way home I found one very bloated leech in my sock, and four leech bites on my ankle.
