stellar_muddle: (Default)
stellar_muddle ([personal profile] stellar_muddle) wrote2005-12-12 11:10 am

Good weekend....

Definitely good weekend spent down in Sydney:

Sat: Drove down, leaving oh, about an hour later than we intended... Oops... Met up with Tina and headed into the National Maritime Museum to see the Viking exhibit. Definitely worth it. It's free:). No catalogue, but they allow you all the photography you want. Not suprizing wrt the shiny metal stuff, but for the silk and wool fragments from Jorvik...? Z spent the entire hour and a half drooling and taking photos:). There was jewelery and swords and tools and cooking impliments and a leather shoe from Jorvik and clothing reproductions and lots of cool every-day as well as shiny stuff. Not gigantic but well planned. Then off to a brief tour of Paddy's Markets - a bit late there, back to Tina's for dinner, then off to [livejournal.com profile] vonstrassburgs. The great mouse/rat chase of 2005 - eventually captured inside the cat perch with only minimal blood on the walls and given to [livejournal.com profile] fluffymonster's tender mercies outside.

Sun: Sailing on Sydney harbour:) Started grey, miserable and raining, but turned into warm, sunny and gorgeous by late morning. Highlights included the views, tall ships, big ships, little ships, all sorts of boats, fairy penguins, views. Lunch retrieval was made more exciting by the dinghy having the steerability of a mixing bowl, with the added advantage of odd length oars. We did make it with the fish and chips intact though*. Made it out as far as Fort Dennison (?sp) in the afternoon, after dodging the maniacal high speed racing boats. A little more exciting on the way back was Z nearly being knocked off the boat by the boom, due to a sudden wind change. Luckily the railing broke the fall (bits snapping in the process), but his hat was less lucky, and after flying off into the water and being missed in the "man overboard" manover to retrieve it (we think due to possible ferry crushing), is probably now a penguin toy. Back into the marina, dropped stuff off, picked stuff up, paused and iced Z'd damaged shin. Then off to Tina and Dan's to drop stuff off. Ended up starting the commute across Sydney to depart around 9pm, making it home at 12:30am after a pause to look at stars at Lake George. Nice and boring:)

So, today, Z gets to sleep in and/or catch up on email and do other chores (reminder reminder/hint/nag:) while I sit in office and summarise/produce stuff for a meeting on Weds. Things to note. It is all very well and good applying lots of sunscreen, but when you sit with your legs crossed, the sweat of the top one washes off the sunscreen on the bottom leg. This may result in a large red sunburnt patch... and a disinclination to cross your legs that way for a while.

Work now...

*Not certain what anyone watching thought we were on. There were 360 degree spins, annoying currents and unhelpful comments from small children on the beach. The throwing of a line to haul in at the end was definitely a good idea...

Edit: Time in Sydney was spent in the Northern and and North-Eastern suburbs, not the South Coastal "Patriotic" ones...

viking exhibit

[identity profile] alpha-angel.livejournal.com 2005-12-12 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
I guess I should see if I can persuade the NZers on the same flight as me to go see it on our way to Festival...

Re: viking exhibit

[identity profile] stellar-muddle.livejournal.com 2005-12-12 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
I suspect people like Maggie and Martin will have seen bigger and more focussed exhibtions elsewhere, but for general stuff that you just wont see unless you travel to the northern european museums, it is definitely worth it. Showing til June I think.

[identity profile] cataragon.livejournal.com 2005-12-12 03:38 am (UTC)(link)
The question is: is it worth flying to Australia to see?
Because I'm tempted, especially since my beloved husband owes me a trip over the tasman, and flights are So Cheap.

C.

[identity profile] stellar-muddle.livejournal.com 2005-12-12 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
Probably not in and of itself, but in combination with a bunch of other things and/or you are coming over anyway for something like Festival or whatever, then definitely.
We had planned to drive up for it anyway, and it was worth spending 3 hours in the car each way (about 2 tank loads of petrol - but we ran around a lot), but car fuel isn't up to the price of jet fuel and airplane seats.