It is the 29th February and the last day of the bet I had with Kim....and believe it or not, but Aiden started walking by himself today.



We are very proud of him and I am double proud of him as he delivered the goods just in the nick of time...one day later and I would have been cleaning the house (lucky that this year is a leap year)!

Aiden is now able to stand up by himself.

He is now 20 months and should have been walking ages ago, so he is a bit behind on that front. Hopefully I can get him to take one step before the end of next week...I have a bet with Kim going whether he will walk before the end of February.

Today we went to Centennial Park to take some family photos. I had been complaining that I didn't have enough (good) photos of myself and Aiden so Kim offered to take some.

We found a nice spot in the park and managed to take a couple of shots before my camera ran out of battery...and unfortunately I had forgotten my spare at home.



Kim just came back from a business trip to Singapore a couple of days ago and it is really nice to have her back. I missed her but I am not sure Aiden missed her as much as he is such a daddys boy. When she was back he just turned away and would rather stay with me.

Also the little tiger is now 20 months and he is still not walking...what is going on?

Last night Kim and I went to the Ronan Keating concert in State Theatre in Sydney.



Kim is a long time fan of Ronan and really wanted to see him live. I am to be honest not really familiar with his music but had a good evening nonetheless.

The warming up band was Sharon Corr (from The Corrs) and I really enjoyed her both playing and singing...she is pretty talented on the violin.

Chong brought his Tinny (Australian slang for boat) to Tomakin and every morning the guys went out fishing for a few hours (I only went out one morning because 1. I had to look after Aiden and 2. I am not a morning person).





We caught lots of fish, but none of them were worth keeping as they were too small.



Just as well we didn't keep any, because on one of the days the fishing inspection gave us a visit.




In fact the only thing we caught that was above the size limit was this blue swimmer crab (and he was allowed to live another day).




We also had a visit from two massive sting rays (about 1 meter in diameter).

The house we stayed at had a table tennis table in the garage. We had enough people to form three double teams and we spent quite a few hours playing each other.





Kims dad is 78 years old and is still going strong...he loves playing games.

On the last couple of evenings we went to the beach to do some nice sunset photos. Tomaking is very onique in that it has some beaches that are facing west so you can use the nice light in the evening.

We did some family photos (some of which are on the previous blog post) as well as some of just Kim, Aiden and I. Kim still looks as beautiful as the day I met her.











I also did a rush job taking some long exposure shots of the ocean and the cliffs (not sure if I like the post processing...may have to come back to it some other day).

This years christmas family trip went to Tomakin on the NSW south coast (about 5 hours drive south of Sydney).



We rented a house with four bedrooms (for 9 adults and 5 kids) very close to the beach and fishing in the river. Fun with this large a group of people.





As usual we spent some time at the beach and I was showing Aiden how to build sand castles again.



He is still not walking so we had to hold his hands walking on the beach and in the water.





Right next to the house there was a nice litte organic coffee shop serving really good coffee and scones.



One morning we went to Mogo to have a look at the shops. There was a lot of art and crafts shop that Kim was interested in. The town had very conveniently created facilities for husbands as well.

Christmas day we spent at Bondi Beach with Sacha and Mavis and their daughter. We met up at the kids pool at the end of the beach to let our kids have a splash in the water.



Aiden couldn't get enough of walking around in the water with myself and Kim holding his hands (he still can't walk by himself), he is very fond of water.



Sammi, Sacha and Mavis' daughter was wearing a flotation suit which was causing her a few problems as this photo series testifies.

Christmas Eve this year was celebrated with Kims family. Normally we do this on the 25th like all other Australians, but this year we decided to do it the day before like in Denmark to avoid a lot of leftover food before going down south on out family trip to Tomakin.



Later in the day Santa Claus arrived to hand out presents for the kids.



For the lunch I roasted two ducks and Kim baked a chocolate ganache and made a salad.





Aiden was very excited and played with all Ethand and Kaylas toys.

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.

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.

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.

During my first year in Australia, after coming from Denmark, I was contracted out to work at Port Macquarie - a quiet, but beautiful and peaceful seaside town a few hours north of Sydney. The first pictures were taken in Port Macquarie during Easter 1998.

Lance, Anne and Graham, some good friends of mine, decided to do some exploring around the area...

Graham here, on the right, The Admiral himself... (also called "Wobber") "Is that a chicky-babe in the water ?"

The photo is taken on "Kermit" (Note, the green seats...) in the river at Port Macquarie.




Lance seasick ???? No, just a little tired !

This is one of many photos I have of Lance sleeping - he has a knack for taking a nap just about anywhere - just ask Anne! *smile*

It's a great day to sail on "Kermit".




Whereas, who do we have here?

Me! I love sailing, and as usual, like to be a'head' of things...

"Clear water ahead Navigator?"

"Aye-Aye Admiral!"



"The Admiral" is giving Anne a good whacking.

Poor Anne...












Lance and The Admiral in front of the lighthouse at Port Macquarie





In the mangrove at Port Macquarie, there are millions of these small blue crabs (Taste like shit). It's pretty amazing though - crabs do not exist only on a beach. They live wherever there is enough water and they can burrow quickly and easily away from danger.

The photo above is taken on a sandbar in the river at Port Macquarie.

There are also a lot of pelicans in Port Macquarie. I managed to get a picture of one flying. And one yawning!

There are quite a few pelicans here in Narrabeen, on Pittwater Rd - a main street near where I live. Narrabeen lakes draws its salt water from the sea, and at one point on Pittwater Rd, there is a bridge. This is where I see most of the pelicans - perched on top of the flat heads of street lights! It's quite funny to see them there, and have never managed to get a photo of this yet, as I usually see them when I am driving over the bridge.



We went bushwalking in the mountains and forests at Port Macquarie and found this beautiful rockpool. We used the opportunity to go for a swim.











Off the beaten track in the forests around Port Macquarie!







Moi!

One of the few pictures of me (as you will notice in this whole website). I tend to prefer taking pictures of other people and places - but my girlfriend is trying to remedy that! (she's still trying not get blurry pictures...)














As you can see, this place is really good for getting comfortable, enjoying my lunch, no worries, good place to get a bit of sleep...



Like my new haircut?

I wanted to do something radical. I needed a change, I wanted people to look at me when I was walking down the street. So decided to change my hairstyle. By the way, you like it green? I can't be a dumb blond forever...







A picture of Lance and I with the beaches at Port Macquarie and one of the Brothers in the background !







There was a storm in Newcastle. These were the biggest waves I had ever seen - some were 7-8 meters high. The waves were washing all the way up to where I am standing taking the picture.

The kids in the photo were waiting for a big wave to hit them and wash them into the rock pool. You know the big wave coming towards them? They were still a couple of hundred meters away from it...





Henrik, Lance and I made a bet with Anne about whether or not we would be able not to use a computer in our sparetime for two weeks while we were up in Newcastle. We accepted the bet and won it simply because it was impossible for us to lose since we didn't have access to any computers!

That meant that Anne had to cook us a dinner... Australian Style!









Aussie?

We had to dress "Australian style" for the dinner (at least to start with). Reckon it is Aussie with a billabong hat? (Need some flies for the corks to chase away). But it is DEFINITELY Aussie with that holey surfie t-shirt and a Fosters (disgusting) in hand!












Can't see, can't hear and can't talk, who am I?

No actually he was trying to wear his wife's earrings but didn't want it on a photo!

I have often said that Port Macquarie was a beautiful place, but it is much too quiet for me in the long run. Working there during 1998 was good, but I was also glad to be back in Sydney!

We celebrated Anne's birthday at a restaurant called Pete's Bite. The only access to the restaurant is by seaplane or boat. It is located 2 hours north of where I live.

The food is marvelous and bloody expensive. It is definetely worth trying (once)!



It was 40-45 degrees that day and no wind so everybody moved out on the lawn in the shade of palms!




So this is what a heat stroke looks like !

Before heading back to Australia we spent a couple of days in Croatias capital Zagreb.

Kim had found us accomodation at the Best western which was centrally located very close to the centre of Zagreb and just across one of the big parks.

One of the advantages of this hotel was that there was plenty of parking at the hotel and it would have been difficult/expensive to park on the street otherwise.

Driving in Zagreb was a real challenge. It was full of one way streets with lots of road works. There were lots of bicycles and there were trams everywhere.




After arriving we went for a walk across to the park and square and along the way we didn't see many restaurants so I stopped at a tourist information to ask them where we should go to find a selection on places. When we went to those places later in the evening there were hardly any restaurants. There were a lot of bars serving drinks and the places were packed, but they were not restaurants.

We eventually found a place and the food was very nice, but this was pretty much the trend for Zagreb, lots of people going out for drinks, but very few people going out dining. I am not sure if this was a cultural thing or just because of the costs associated with going out.

Next day we did find the one of the old streets had loads of restaurants but still nowhere the variety we had seen elsewhere on our travels.

Next morning we decided to first visit some of the places that were on the outshirts of the inner city and required us to have transport. We first went to the Maksimir Park which also has a zoo. The park itself doesn't have much in terms of scenery and facilities although it is nice enough.











The building for the cafe (Kiosk) in the middle of the park was was in bad need of some maintenance with large pieces of rendering and paint falling off the building.



The Zoo was pleasant and they had a large selection of different animals. It was really hot in there so the zoo keeper were spraying them with water to cool them down a bit.

The most exciting specimen in the park was this lot of Homisapiens...very rare and irreplaceable.







Next was the Mirogoj cemetry. This is the oldest cemetry in Zagreb and is absolutely amazing in terms of the graves there. Some of the graves belonged to old families and I counted some that had 15 family members buried there dating back to the early 18 hundreds.







The place was huge, the really old section would have been at least 500 metres long as was very beautifully set up.



The following day we decided to explore the inner city of Zagreb. at the hotel we had picked up a "Zagreb Step-by-step" guide. This turned out to be the best tourist guide I have ever seen. It was very comprehensible and provided us with a very logical route to follow. It was so good that I was able to provide ongoing commentary to Kims video. I brough back a copy of the guide which I intend to send to NSW tourism when I am done with it.

On the way back to Zagreb in Croatia we decided to visit Lubjiana the capital of Slovenia as we had to pass through here anyway.







The old city was pedistrians only and was very nice and very clean and with small canals running through it.



There cathedral there has these amazing bronze doors.





There were a number of water water fountains and I let Aiden have a splash to the point where he was all soaked, but fortunately is was really warm so he dried quickly.



The butchers bridge is a new bridge. People who are in love put padlocks on the sides of the bridge to symbolise their unbreakable love for eachother (I wonder if they keed the key just in case or whether they throw it the river).



The Bridge also have some really special art pieces.





It is a fairly old city, so I expected a lot of stairs and a lot of carrying Aiden up and down. I was surprised as there were ramps everywhere and I didn't have to carry him once. I think it is because a lot of people use bicycles (they have a free bicycle system similar to Copenhagen).



The Tivoli park area was a really nice and relaxing area with a cute little 'Mansion' in the centre.



One of the things that amazed me was that they had a fantastic outdoor location for a permanent exhibition of photographs and artwork from different artists. When we were there is was a Serbian artist exhibiting his works and there were some really good pieces there.

Second day we went to a place called Vintgar Gorge. We weren't quite sure where to find it apart from it being listed on a not very detailed map. We punched in the closest town on the GPS and hoping that we could 'wing' it from there.





When we arrived to the town we were unable to find any any signs towards the gorge, but we did find a fign with a drawing of a car pointing left and a man walking pointing right.

We were sitting in a car so we decided to follow the left sign. This took us down this gravel logging road for a couple of Kilometres (Kim saying 'This is scary') and eventually we came to an open area with a set of stairs leading up to a building.

There some people coming down the stairs and we asked them if we were in the right place...yes we were.












Once we got up the stairs I was worried that this was going to be horrible getting Aiden through...so we asked some hikers coming out of the gorge and they said that most of the was was pretty flat and we shouldn't have too many problems with a Pram. I went a few hundred meters ahead to have a quick look and confirmed that it didn't look too bad and that there indeed were a lot of waterfalls in the area.

While there I also did some photos to be used for HDR - High Dynamic Range:







The Gorge was really nice and cool in the morning and there was a fine mist forming over the waters surface. The waterfalls, the river, the gorge and walking track itself was really amazing. There were people there, but it wasn't crowded and despite the track being really narrow it was easy enough getting through.



We walked for a fair bit to make sure we have seen the main falls (someone coming from the other direction said that the falls were fairly small after the point where we turned back) and by this time the sun had started entering the gorge and it was getting really warm.

We therefore decided to drive to lake Bohinj to go for a swim (see previous posting).

Our first impression of the area around Bled was that it was very Austrian looking (whose border is very close) with all the surrounding mountains.



Bled is this really beautiful little town at Lake Bled. The lake has a castle sitting high on the hillside and in the middle of the lake there is beautiful little island with a monastery on it. It seems that most of the area along the lake has been reserved as a public space and there is a really nice little walking track all around the lake.







Kim had found a very groovy little place for accumodation called Alice House. It was very modern and it was obvious that the owner had put a lot of thought into the looks and feel of the place.
It had this really little pleasant garden and it was really nice to just sit down and relax and have Aiden play with the pebbles and eat the strawberries.





After we had settled in the first thing we did was visit the castle (getting a bit lost along the way). I was pretty buggered after driving all morning, so when we arrived to the castle and saw all the stairs I asked Kim to check out the castle while I would check out the park in front of the castle with Aiden (Kim came back after a while and said that there wasn't that much to see in there).





After this we went around the lake and found this nice little spot with a beautiful view of the lake, the island and the castle.







When we were there they were getting ready for the Rowing worldcup week after, so the town was swarming with muscly atletes. There were a large number of Australian rowers and Kim was pretty keen to have me take a photo of some of them in case they won and were famous (I asked her if I should ask them to take off their T-Shirts too so she could better perv at them). It turned out that some of them did win gold..congratulations Aussies!!!



The Day after we went to one of the other lake Bohinj and went for a swim with Aiden. Aiden was very excited that he could be splashing without getting salt water in his eyes.