November 10, 2007

Today I said goodbye to North Ryde and hello to Cronulla. The project office moved over the weekend from North Ryde to the site of the desal plant at Kurnell, so all of the non-local engineering staff moved closer to the project site as well. I am now staying in a two bedroom apartment at the Quest Cronulla (www.questcronullabeach.com.au) and you can find it at Google Earth with the following coordinates. (34° 3'3.93"S, 151° 9'14.77"E). It's a nice place with two bedrooms, two baths, a laundry room, fully-equipped kitchen, dining room, living room, and nice patio that overlooks the pool, hot tub, and the beach. You can also see downtown Sydney which is about 25 kilometers away.

The nice thing about Cronulla, and virtually everywhere around Sydney, is that anything you need is generally within walking distance. There is an outdoor mall area where there are numerous shops, restaurants,and cafes. There are bakeries, fruit and vegetable shops, butchers, surf shops, etc so you can do your shopping daily. The beach is also right across the street and the train station is within walking distance as well. I think I am going to buy a boogie board and do a little surfing every morning before heading off for work. Here a few photos from around Cronulla.


View from the apartment


Cronulla at sunset


North Cronulla Beach


South Cronulla Beach



The Quest Apartments


View from my patio - overlooks the pool and the beach is beyond the trees


My patio


Master bath


Kitchen and dining room


Living room and patio


Pool and hot tub


Sunrise at the beach


Sunrise at the beach


Cookaburra

October 20, 2007

Kangaroo Valley

Today I went on a canoeing trip in the Kangaroo Valley (E150 31 21, S 34 43 39) with Randy (from Tampa) and Steve (from New Zealand). We rented our craft from Kangaroo Valley Canoes www.kangaroovalleycanoes.com.au/ I suggest that if you are ever in the area that you pay them a visit as the staff is quite friendly.

Before our trip we were advised to stop at the pie shop and have a pie. Many places in Australia are famous for their pies and this one claims to have the world's best.

Outside the store claiming to have the world's best pies

Pie choices

My pie - i picked a chili pie and a chicken pie

The trip down the river was uneventful for the most part, though became interesting at the end (more on this later). Prior to our arrival the river level was decreased by 2 meters as water was released from the dam to service the drinking water needs of Sydney. Needless to say the staff from the canoe livery were appreciative of the work we are doing on the desal plant as river withdrawals will decrease once the plant is online. Because of the decreased level, the river was quite flat and slow, so much paddling was required. There were lots of lizards out having a bake on the rocks which was quite interesting to see. We didn't see any kangaroos or wombats as they tend to stay hidden all day and come out at dusk.

At the end of the trip, as I was preparing to get in the van for the ride back to the livery, I realized that my car keys were missing. I searched frantically everywhere for them - in my pockets, dry bag, and in all the kayaks. No trace. They had fallen out somewhere into the river! A nice day of kayaking and relaxing was about to be blown to pieces.

Once we got back to the livery, the staff was kind enough to let me use the phone to contact the hire car company to see what my options were. I spent more than an hour on the phone trying to get some relief. All the car company could do was send roadside assistance to open the car, but they were not able to provide a spare set of keys so we could start the car. Our only option was to go back to Sydney (2.5 hours north), pick up a spare set of keys from the hire car company, and get back to Kangaroo Valley to rescue the car. At this point the hire car depot was closed and wouldn't be opening until Sunday morning. Plus we didn't have a good way of getting back to Sydney to get the keys. The hire car company refused to courier a spare set of keys to the Kangaroo Valley, so we were stuck. The livery staff was gracious enough to offer us a ride to the train station after they were done for the day, so we chose this option. It was 2:30 in the afternoon and the livery staff wouldn't be done until 5, so we decided to head into the village to have a beer at the pub.

On the way to the pub, which is about a 20-minute walk from the livery, we passed a gentleman coming our way who happened to have a set of keys in his hand. The keys had a "Thrifty" (the hire care company) tag on them, and I started to wonder about the chances of another person in the Kangaroo Valley also having a hire car from the same company. So I turned around and chased him down to enquire about his keys. It turned out, some other kayakers were paddling down the river, and happened to fall out of their kayak. Mind you, the river was flat and the kayaks are incredibly wide and stable, so the chances of even falling out are remote. Anyhow, this person had fallen out and stepped on my cars keys on the bottom of the river, and picked them up. The stretch of river we kayaked was about 6 km and very rocky, meaning that the chances of ever finding the keys was remote.

Needless to say we were feeling quite excited, relieved and incredulous at our sudden good fortunes as we had just avoided the prospect of having to rescue our stranded hire car. So now we were able to drive to the pub for a much needed beer (I allowed plenty of recovery time before getting behind the wheel). So that's my story in words, and here are the pix.

The Hampden Bridge and Kangaroo River

Randy and Steve

One of many lizards we encountered

View from the cockpit

Steve and a lizard checking each other out

Steve and Randy shooting the rapids

Randy getting stuck

Another lizard

This is when I realized the keys were gone


The keys and the car

The best beer ever and the Friendly Inn

This picture has nothing to do with my trip to the Kangaroo Valley. It is a car that belongs to one of my co-workers. This is the kind of vehicle you need when cruising in the outback.