22. November 2011 02:17
by Rene Pallesen
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On the weekend we went tot he beach. Initially Aiden was a bit scared of the waves (although he loves the sand and the water)...but after a while he didn't mind the waves splashing around his little legs (I found the water cold but he didn't mind).
As usual he threw a tandrum when we pulled him out of the water.
Afterwards we spend some time in the sand and I was teaching him how to build really cool sand castles and he was teaching me how to demolish them.
22. November 2011 02:13
by Rene Pallesen
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The other weekend we took Aiden to the swimming pool.
He is really happy with water now and loves splashing around. He is no longer afraid of it and doesn't mind getting his head under water.
Only problem now is that he throws a tandrum every time we have to leave the pool.
22. November 2011 02:03
by Rene Pallesen
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This year I didn't get a chance to go to Sculpture by the sea during the daytime, but I did have some time to go there one evening after we had put Aiden to bed.
I had seen some daylight photos from the exhibition from Tamarama beach where they had these 'Easter Island' type statues. I thought I could do some really cool night time Off-Camera-Flash photos using just ordinary flashes.
When I got there it was almost pitch black darkness...perfect.
I got my gear set up and managed to take the following shot which was exactly what I envisioned in my head.
While there I had a look at a couple of the other sculptures in the area...I did shoot the following photo of this 2 meter tall red chinaman sculpture.
24. October 2011 01:20
by Rene Pallesen
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When we came back from our holiday our watertank had started leaking significantly. Actually it had started leaking slightly back in May where at the same time the government was introducing the stimulus package as part of their rescue plan for the financial crisis. Part of this package was an increased rebate on Solar hot water which provided a total $3400 government funding.
Back then I got a couple of quotes, but never proceeded hoping that the tank would last a little longer.
When we came back the leak had become a lot worse and could burst any time. It therefore had to be replaced very fast. It seemed that just replacing the existing electric tank would cost almost the same as installing Solar hot water and would be more expensive in electricity. Besides we have already installed extra insulation and energy efficient appliances so it only made sense to use Solar hot water as well.
It took them 3 hours to pull down the old 160 litre tank and install a new 300 litre tank on the roof. So far we are happy with the system. We have more hot water than before, it is not nearly as hot as the old system, but plenty hot for what is needed (The old system had water which was close to 90 degrees Celcius and the new is appx 60 degrees).
It has an electric booster installed for cloudy days, but once summer is here I should be able to turn that off completely. And an extra advantage is that it has cleared out some space on the side of the house.
27. August 2009 02:00
by Rene Pallesen
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17. August 2009 10:30
by Rene Pallesen
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After Lake Como it was our last day and Italy and was time to go home. We had to return to Milan that evening to fly back to Sydney next morning.
We decided to detour around the lake and possibly stop at some of the villages along the way. At the top end of the lake we came to a T intersection. I told kim that Switzerland was one hour if we turned left and Milan was 2 hours to the right. I asked her if she felt like a quick dash across the border before returning.
Most of the borders to Switzerland (and Austria) are located on the top of the mountain passes since the Mountains was what defined the borders the old days. The road up to this mountain pass was very narrow and full of blind corners. Kim developed stomach cramps on a number of occations on the trip and we eventually came to the conclusion that it was the tension when driving on these roads.
The scenery on the way up there was stunning. It was nice and cool climate and we were soon above the tree line and could see patches of snow on the mountains surrounding up.
The style of houses changed from being traditional italian to be more swiss looking.
Eventually we got to the border. Unfortunately the officer at the post didn't have a stamp to stamp Kims passport.
We had lunch at the border and then returned toward Milan. We had dinner at the southern end of Lake Como and arrived at our airport hotel at 10pm.
I had to return the car to the rental company at the Airport. Fortunately the hotel had an efficient shuttle bus service that made it easy to come back to the hotel. Unfortunately I forgot the cover for my phone in the car so I had to make the trip twice and was pretty knackered (and grumpy) when I eventually got back.
At 6am next morning we were back at the airport returning to Sydney.
17. August 2009 10:29
by Rene Pallesen
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This weekend we went with a couple of friends to a place in
New South Wales called Mudgee. This place is about 270 kilometres from Sydney
on the other side of the mountains and is best known as a wine district.
On the way there we did a quick stop at Lake Windamere, famous for its dead trees in the water.
We arrived to Mudgee after about 5 hours of driving (including a couple of
brief stops) and had some lunch with Chris and Yvonne. While in Mudgee we did
some jump shots of Chris and I pretending to fight (obviously I did some creative editing to get to this final result).
After lunch we headed to a couple of wineries. We were immediately impressed,
some of the local Cab Savs. and some of the whites were excellent and Kim and I
walked away with quite a few bottles from the first couple of places we visited.
The wines were also more reasonable priced than the Hunter.
Late in the afternoon we headed to the Bed and Breakfast where we staying for
the night. This was a place run by an elderly couple with 4 dogs, 7-8 Alpacas, mini horses
and some cattle.
Before dinner we did a quick stop to take some sunset photos. It was a very
quick stop, because within 5 minutes from us arriving at the location the sun
disappeared behind a thick cover of clouds and the good light was gone.
Chris and I had been planning to do some star photography of the Milky Way. The
weather forecast wasn't promising, but after dinner is seemed to clear up a bit
so we decided to give it a go.
We hadn't scoped out any good location so it was a bit of a trial and error to
find a good place. The trick with start photography is to also include an
interesting foreground subject into the photo.
The first place we stopped was next to a vineyard and although the Milky Way
was reasonably clear the grapes weren't that interesting.
We therefore headed
up some of the back streets. On this paddock we found this really old truck
parked in an almost perfect position...it was something different.
While we were setting up dogs started barking at the property behind us and
after a few minutes all the outside lights came on and a woman came out and asked
what we were doing.
Chris said that we were just taking some photos and if she was alright with
that.
She went back into the house, but the dogs kept barking at us. After another
couple of minutes she returned and asked us to leave because we were disturbing
her dogs and parents.
We were on public property so we could have told here that we wouldn't leave
and that we were in our rights to be there, but sometimes it is better to not
push the issue, especially when you are just visiting the area.
Instead we found an area with some trees...alright, but not that interesting
and by that time the Milky Way had started setting in the horizon.
Next morning we met up with Sacha (he's driven up from Sydney in the morning)
to go and visit another couple of vineries (We bought more wine).
And Aiden loved all the attention and new locations.
On the way home we were planning to stop at the Blast Furnace Park in Lithgow.
As we drive into the city we passed a couple of police cars. I was going a few kilometres
over the speed limit and hit the brakes as soon as I saw them. A couple of kilometres
further down the road the cars came up behind me with their lights on and I
thought..."Damn, I got busted", but I was really surprised when they
went past me without stopping...I was even more surprised when they pulled over
Chris in front of me.
He was busted for driving his car without a valid registration (he had
forgotten to pay it a few weeks earlier), given a fine and they told him that
he was not allowed to drive any further without a valid registration.
After the cops left he quickly went on the internet and renewed all the
paperwork online so we were able to keep going.
The blast furnace is an old iron smelter dating back to more than 100 years ago
when a lot of iron was dug out of the surrounding area and processed here to
produce steel. It is interesting walking around the old ruins of which much of
the building foundation still exists.
We also used this as an opportunity for some more fighting
jump shots.
After this it was back to Sydney...
7. October 2011 07:17
by Rene Pallesen
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After Pisa we headed to the Italian Riviera, also called the Flower Riviera. I asked Kim to find us a nice spot along the coast for lunch and she picked Lido di Camaiore.
When I was a kid I went to the italian riviera quite a lot with my parents. My mum and dad met eachother here in a town called Diano Marina, both working for the same travel company as travel companies. We used to stay in caravan parks along the coast and I don't remember the place being very busy (but I may remember wrong).
When we arrived to Camaiore we were met by beaches full of hotels (whom had each closed of an area of the beach for themselves), umbrellas and people boiling in the sun and tanning oil.
After lunch I decided to drive along the coast to our hotel in Sestri Levante...this turned out to be a mistake. After 30 kilometers full endless beaches covered in umbrellas, of dodging pedestrians and cyclists, traffic lights and people parking to go for a swim I decided I'd had enough and headed for the motorway. This part of the riviera is really not very nice and I was looking forward to go somewhere with a bit more charm.
Sestri Levante was the only place we could find accomodation. The hotel was up in the hills far away from the coast line, it was expensive and absolutely nothing special compared to all the other places we were staying during our trip.
In the evening we drove to a town called Rapallo for dinner. The city had closed off the roads around the water because of a festival, so it was really nice to sit at the water eating seafood and watch people.
After dinner we went for a walk along the water down to the area where the festival was taking place. We were sitting there for a while listening to the music and enjoying a perfect evening.
When we came back to the car to drive home it turned out that we'd received a parking ticket (20 Euros). We were parking in a valid parking space and I thought we were outside the hours wheer we had to pay....but obviously not. I'd done lots of illigal parking elsewhere on the trip so didn't feel too bad about it.
Next day it was time to explore Cinque Terre. This is a national park along the costline with 5 small villages accessible only from the ocean (There is a trainline now). We drove to the only one of the villages that can be accessed by car Monterosso and parking right next to the village area.
From here we walked down to the water. It turned out that the trains weren't running between the villages so the only access was by boat or walk. We didn't have time to walk so bought a day ticket for the boat.
While on the boat we did a bit of planning and decided to go to the furtherst village Riomaggiore first and from here walk to the next village Manarola. From here we would take the boat to Vernazza and then back to Monterosso.
Cinque Terre is a beautiful part of the Italian riviera, and although there is a lot of tourists there it doesn't feel overcrowded such as many other places. When we vere having lunch along the beached the previous day I was dreading that Cinque Terre would be as crowded as that.
In the evening we decided to drive to Portofino for dinner. We arrived there (along all these small narrow streets) around 7pm. Although Portofine if a nice place it doesn't beat the villages at Cinque Terre in beauty. The place is expensive in all respects and there isn't a lot of shops and restaurants, it is mainly fashion and expensive jewellery being sold there. Obviously catering for the Euripean rich who dock here in their expensive million dollar boats.
We therefore decided to go back to the centre of Sestri Levante and have dinner here.
17. August 2009 10:27
by Rene Pallesen
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When I was a child I spend a lot of summers with my parents in Italy. They used to work in the Northern part of Italy as travel guides and as a result we generally headed that way during the summer time with our caravan or with a tent.
When I was a baby my parent took me to Pisa (I have to trust them I an don't remember) and also up into the leaning tower.
Kim and I was planning to drive from Tuscany to the Italien Riviera and I asked Kim if it was ok to make a short stop at Pisa for me to have a look at the tower some 3X years later.
Our Tom-Tom navigated us by the backway into the city and within a short timefra we were at the tower. We had a look for a parking spot and literally found a spot less than 100 metres from the tower (so far pretty fortunate with the parking).
It was really cool to have a look at the tower. They have started allowing people to enter the tower again, but when we got there they next timeslot was 6pm in the evening (8 hours later) so we instead took some photos and bought some T shirts for Kims family.
Of cause we had to take the classic photos of trying to straighten the tower.
And a couple of nice ones
And then there was the silly ones
And then some photos from the beautiful architecture of the tower and the church next to it.
17. August 2009 10:26
by Rene Pallesen
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17. August 2009 10:25
by Rene Pallesen
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On the first day in Tuscany we decided to drive into Siena and have a look around.
Our first impression was that parking was going to be a problem. There was some large tourist carparks on the outside of the city walls changing an exorbant amount of money per hour. We were planning to have dinner in the city and was planning to be there for most of the day and eventually we found a spot in a parking area that didn't have any meters. There was some italian scribling underneath the sign and we hoped that it didn't say "Reserved for residents and permit holders".
Anyway, eventually we made it inside the city walls and was met by 8 storeys of escalators from the walls to the innner city (You wouldn't want those fat Americans loosing any weight while on holiday).
We went around to some of the tourist attractions and there was unbeliveable queues everywhere. We started queuing up to get into the large tower at the main square and for 30 minuted the queue didn't move. Eventually we gave up and couldn't be bothered.
Instead we decided to wander around the city looking at the old buildings and at shops which is really nice.
Siena is known for the annual horse race in the center of the city. It was amazing to look at the area and suddenly realise why the horses often go flying into the barriers when they get around the corners of the race course.
The details of the houses is incredible. Everything is decorated. A metal spike is not just a skike any longer, but a instead formed into a dragon, a snake or a swan.
In the evening we were going for dinner at an italian restaurant called 'Cane e Gato' (Kat and Dog). It was recommended to Kim by one of her colleagues who had also warned us that it was a bit on the pricey side.
At the place we were staying I found a book about Tuscany where it said that the degustation was 50 Euros (Appx $95 AUD). When we arrived we were given no menu's or any price list. The girl (Who turned out to be the daughter of the owner, who himself was in the kitchen with his wife) showed us our table.
We were told what was the degustation menu consisted of and got started. The food was quite nice...all ingredients that were in season from the surrounding country side. The pastas were home made and everything was very delicious.
At the end Kim and I was discussing what the damage was...a bit of a surprise when we were presented with a bill of 175 Euros ($320 AUD). This was a bit more than we expected.
Fortunately we didn't have a parking ticket when we got back to the car (This would have been the icing on the cake).
Another late night finishing dinner after midnight and then 45 minutes drive back to San Gimignano.
17. August 2009 10:21
by Rene Pallesen
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17. August 2009 10:18
by Rene Pallesen
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