Gone Surfin'

We've been threatening to do it since forever! So a few weeks ago, we headed out to the Warringah Mall's branch of Surf, Dive, Ski (SDS) and bought ourselves a couple of body boards, fins & shortie wetsuits. And then we hit the waves.....

I was ready with the camera for Scott's first surf.

Surferboy hits Mona Vale beach

Ready to go....

Hit play to watch his progress


A little out of breath but the smile says it all!


Enough with the camera already! I can't breath!


Still learning how to work that damn zip


Yes, he managed to snap off a shot of me before I hit the water

And now with daylight savings, there's even time for a surf after work - which we've done a couple of times already. It's amazing how the work day disappears as soon as you hit the water. Wonderful! :-)

That's it for now!
Mands

Reptile Park Pt II

Yip, we did actually get to Gosford after the Reptile Park! Sorry about that - I left the out a chunk of the story....

What can I tell you about Gosford.....? It has alot of fast food places? We didn't see much that made us stand up and notice. But then, in Gosford's defence, we were starving by the time we left the Reptile Park and were looking for something decent to eat (read non-fast-food-type) after 3pm on Labor Day. Maybe that's why we ended up noticing so many fast food joints. Needless to say, we had to settle for MickyD's. Every couple of years I cave in and have MacDonalds. I quickly remember why I've stayed away so long - it's just like eating a cardboard cutout of a burger! Yuck!

Anyway, we found a little table under cover next to a lake and ate our cardboard while watching a thunderstorm approaching. As we finished eating it came pelting down so we decided to call it a day and head for home. It's definitely an area we plan to go back to - we didn't get to Terrigal unfortunately. Apparenly there's a stunning beach there. (Seabee - this is where you give me the lowdown on your home town so we know where to go on our next trip!) {Seabee is an Aussie living in Dubai - he's got a great blog - click here to have a look}

Anyway, here are the rest of our pics from our trip out to the Central Coast...

Scott & I at the lookout point above Gosford

Gosford

Solid rock on either side of the road

Cool shot taken up out of our sunroof

Going over the Mooney-Mooney bridge

Just an arb highway shot - coming up to the Mooney Mooney turnoff

These safety ramps are brilliant! There are plenty of very long downhills on this particular highway (Sydney to Brisbane). In case your brakes fail, you can just head on up one of these safety ramps to stop & call for help. Must say that I wouldn't like to be a big lorry having to use one of these! But I suppose they must have prevented a good few accidents over the years.

And that's all for now - will post again soon 'cos there are a few things to catch up on!


Love
Mands

Australian Reptile Park

After recovering from our hangovers after the "Jazz Festival", we decided to head out for a drive up the coast. We had in mind to go through to Gosford just to see what was there. Before we got there, we came across the Australian Reptile Park so decided to give it a go....

The sign from the highway

Me under the entrance

These Tazmanian Devils are amazing! They look pretty cute 'n cuddly until they start fighting or feeding. Here you can see them feeding & fighting over a kangaroo leg.


One of the indoor exhibitions - this was quite fun with smoke & sound effects around this Sobek-like Egyptian crocodile god.


These were two very curious little guys


You lookin' at me? Huh? You lookin' at me punk?


These indoor displays were all for snakes and exotic species - beautifully done.


Wombats are incredibly shy and are also cute 'n cuddly-looking.


Scott's favourites - the massive bats - Sydney's grey headed flying foxes


A baby emu - very small and obviously orphaned. It was very curious & extremely alert.


You wouldn't think that these chilled out dogs are actually wild Dingo's!


"Miss Piggy" - a pig-nosed turtle. She wouldn't really oblige with the good pose, but you can kinda see her snout - exactly like a little piggy!


I was trying to get Scott to bite this big monster's tale for the photo but he wouldn't oblige either! *sigh* Isn't it a bitch when the wildlife won't play along....?


So prehistoric!


Just hanging out!


This is an enormous salt water croc - just under 5 metres long!!!


I couldn't belive just how soft these kangaroo coats are


Scott managed to wrestle the camer away from me for a few seconds!


Ah! Got it back!


A Superb Fairy-wren - this little bird is tiny with the brightest blue ring around his neck.



You wouldn't want to be out in this tinnie with these crocs in the water!


I love koalas. I want one as a pet. They're absolutely fascinating.


A black shouldered kite



A tawny frogmouth

Just Life & Winning Grand Finals

Well hello there!!!

Gosh, it seems like ages since I updated the blog. But funnily enough, that's not to say that we've been racing around doing all sorts of exciting things.

We've just been getting down to the serious business of settling into our new suburb and living our lives. Which doesn't really make for very interesting reading I'm afraid. So I thought I'd take you through a typical day....

Every morning we wake up with the sunrise - up until this morning, that was around 5.30am. We moved the clocks forward an hour last night so we're into WONDERFUL daylight savings time! Wooohooo - now we've got a whole lot more useful daylight time.

The sunrise on Wednesday, 24 September

We hit the road by 6am for our walk. We head out onto the Mona Vale golf course across the road and along the coastline all the way up to the headland on the other side of the course. I'm going to take the camera with me one of these fine days so that you can see the amazing views on our walk. It's a great way to start the day.

Our morning walk takes us along the coastline on the course and then up onto the headland in the distance.

Sunrise on Sunday 28 September

After our walk, it's shower time, dressing for work and then brekkie. Sometimes it's brekkie on the balcony.

It's a hard life!

Other times, when we're both hitting work early, we eat brekkie while checking emails in the study.

Scott's got a new van at last - a Toyota HiAce panel van. Thank goodness it looks absolutely NOTHING like a Saffer taxi!!! Betsy's been put into semi-retirement. Shame, she really does need the rest. His drives to work are now way more pleasant - he can actually hear the radio and everything doesn't vibrate & rattle around. He's been working all over the place - out in Castle Hill in the west, the city centre, Wahroonga, Mosman and then on a new project down the road from our place in Warriewood. The new project is 2 minutes away from home by car - he really could walk there if he didn't need to transport his tools. He's really settling nicely into the supervisor role they've given him. Initially, it was quite a steep learning curve as he was managing installations of some really advanced systems. But in usual Mupersan style, he's mastered it all and is flying ahead of the pack!!!

Sunrise Thursday 2 October

My work's going great. I'm getting a handle on everything and learning a fair bit about golf. I'm also really excited about the newest member that I signed up last weekend.... Retired Wallabie number 10, Matt Burke. What a lovely guy and turns out that he also lives here in Mona Vale. Maybe we'll bump into him at the beach!

Talking of the beach.... last weekend we finally got around to hitting a surf shop and getting ourselves a couple of body boards & shortie wetsuits. But then the weather turned and the wind blew the waves flat!!!

So back to the daily grind... After work, if we're finished early enough, we head down to the beach with supper and a glass of wine for supper. Maybe a walk along the beach and dip our toes in. If the weather's not great, we'll sit on the balcony or just park off and watch some telly. There are some really good Aussie made programs which we watch regularly. And Australian Idol has brought out some incredible talent. You can see some videos of the contestants on the website here. Let me know what you think. My current favourites are Wes and Chrislyn.

Hrm.... so what else has been happening? Oh we went to the 31st Annual Manly Jazz Festival yesterday with a friend of Scott's from work, Chris who lives in Manly. We had a great day - didn't get to see too much of the jazz because it turned into quite a party. Manly is a real party place and a great party was had by all! We took a bus through there and took a cab home last night.

One of the jazz stages on the Manly Corso

Scott & Jemma having ice cream with Chris Wright (Wrongy) & Chris Pitman (the one who lives in Manly)

The New Brighton Hotel on the Corso

Just some fun in between the rain

Scott & Chris being boys!

This was at the Manly Wharf Hotel - I think!

So today was a bit of a slow day..... Not too much happening but reading, snoozing & eating a greasy breakfast. I think the most energetic thing I did today was change all the clocks!

And this evening was the NRL (rugby league) Grand Final - The Manly Sea Eagles vs Melbourne Storm. And Manly won 40 - 0!!!! Woooohooooo!!!! Go Manly!!!!!!

It's a long weekend here - Labor Day on Monday. So we're planning a busy day tomorrow to make up for the lack of activity today. Hopefully there'll be some waves (not too big!) tomorrow so we can go for a surf.

Until next time...