Xmas 2005

After this past Christmas and New Year's Eve in Australia, I've resolved that there's nowhere else better in the world to be, at least in December! The weather is beautiful (it generally only starts getting really hot in January - you get a lot of dry, warm sunny days in December).

The first Sunday I was there I met up with my Dad and my sister, Kate. We caught a ferry from Circular Quay to Watson's Bay, and had some fish&chips for lunch. Watson's Bay is the bay immediately inside south "peninsula" that bounds Sydney Harbor. That is, on one side, you're looking over Sydney Harbor, on the other side is the ocean. There's a really fancy seafood restaurant there called "Doyles" - but they were booked solid for lunch, so we just got their "buffet" fish&chips... but in my opinion, it tasted just as good.

Check out the last photo on the right closely - that's a guy halfway up the mainsail, to give you an idea of how big that yacht is. This was one of the "Maxi" yachts that competes each Boxing Day in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. It ended up coming second, to a boat named "Wild Oats".

While in Sydney, I also caught up with some old friends who I haven't seen for a while:

From left to right across all photos, Greg, Greg, Peter (and friend of Chitra's), Chitra (John's wife), John

I met both Greg and John while at Sydney University - they both got married this year!

I spent Christmas up north near the town of Murwillumbah, just near the Queensland/NSW border, where my Mum lives with her partner, Russ. Christmas in Australia is really different to the northern hemisphere, especially in my family! For one thing, something about Santa didn't look quite right:

From left to right, that's Kate (in the Santa outfit), Russ, Kate, Katy, Mum and Liz. Liz and Katy were two friends of Kate's that came up to spend Christmas with us.

We spent the morning of Christmas day at the beach:

Mum's place is an old wooden house on a block of land at the top of a hill about 7kms from Murwillumbah... The surrounding countryside is beautiful - you have lovely views over the valley, and to Mount Warning, an extinct volcano, from the verandah. But the best views are from the top of the hill, where we went up to watch the sunset and drink some champagne.

There are lots of beautiful bird calls that you hear each morning and evening too - Whip Birds, Kookaburras, Currawongs, Cuckoos - you can hear them all every evening.  I took this mpeg movie to capture them - not so much for the movie but to capture the bird sounds too. Note though that one of the bird sounds is just Kate immitating a bird (the "going! going!" sound - I'm not sure which bird that is).

I spent New Year's Eve back in Sydney with Greg and "Bec" (Greg's wife), at Rushcutter's Bay, to watch the fireworks over the harbor.

The fireworks are spectacular - I couldn't believe how much they launch off of the Sydney Harbor bridge. However, I didn't get any pictures - they generally don't turn out well.

Well, that's about it. I'm going back this December too.