This weekend we rented a house at Lake Macquarie in a place called Overnight Reflections at Fishing Point near Newcastle.
The place is an easy 1.5 hours drive north of Sydney assuming that there is light traffic.
It was a fantastic and very relaxing weekend. The house was right at the water, so we could hear the water and see the full moon (almost) reflect in the water at night.
Saturday afternoon we went playing golf at Toronto Golf and Country club. This was quite an experience. The course itself is nice enough although it needs some maintenance (especially the bumpy greens)...but some of the people playing there should not be allowed onto a golf course.
One of the players stole Kims golf ball and on several occasions started bashing up his own golf bag while shouting Fu...k!!! Fu...k!!! Fu...k!!! Obviously it wasn't a great idea confronting him regarding the ball. We were planning to complain to some of the members of the club...but there was no-one else around and eventually we lost track of the guy (fortunately...because he was quite scary).
In the evening we went to a very expensive restaurant (even by Sydney standards) at Warners Bay...it was ok, but not a place I'd recommend. Kim and I wanted a bit of a special night out to celebrate and this seemed to be the best we could find outside of Newcastle itself. From living in the Newcastle area years ago I know that it is hard to find a decent restaurant up there...most people regard fish'n'chips as a romantic night out!
Anyway...the place we stayed at was very nice although it troubled the owner of the place that we didn't want to have breakfast until after 10.30 in the morning...what IS WRONG with these Sydney people!!! Kim and I enjoyed catching up on some sleep and just relax without having to rush around for set meal times, be a tourist etc.
Especially Sunday troubled her at we didn't want to check out until 2pm because we wanted a snooze. She even sent down her grandchildren to make a bit of noise to wake us up.
Anyway...it was actually quite amusing and Kim and I didn't mind, the woman running the place was actually quite sweet....and $300 for the two nights in a lake front cottage was good value. It is definitely a place I'd go back to.
18. March 2007 10:09
by Rene Pallesen
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This Saturday Kim and I went to Hunter Valley with a couple of her Colleagues from Epicor. They had one of her colleagues visiting from the US office.
I was invited along as Joanne was the driver and kim doesn't drink, so I was the only person who could drink with the visitor (I didn't mind :-) ).
Normally I go for all the red wines, but I decided on this trip to dry some of the white wines, especially try and find a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio...which I eventually did at the Bimbadgen Vineyard.
Kim also bought a couple of really nice desert wines that I'm sure I will be allowed to share.
12. March 2007 11:29
by Rene Pallesen
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Saturday Kim and I want to see La Traviata in Sydney Operahouse.
For Christmas I got a couple of tickets for the opera from Kim. It was an opera I hadn't see before and the stage setup was really good and the performance was excellent. Kim had gotten us really good seats...we had front row seats in the dress circle upstairs.
During the performance they were broadcasting the show to the steps in front of the operahouse as well as to one of the parks in Melbourne. They wanted to show what Opera is like to a wider audience.
Afterwards we had dinner at Circular Quay close to the Opera House.
Sunday we drove down to Catherine Fields to Camden Lakeside Country Club to play a round of golf. Sasha and one of his friends dad visiting from Canada also came along.
It was really hot, so for the first time I was actually glad that we were driving a kart rather than walking the course. The guy from Canada was almost dead by the time we got back to the club house.
I played a really good round (43 points stableford, HCP 13) and Kim played almost at her handicap.
It is obvious that there is a drought on. Most of the lakes were dried out, I was looking for a photo online to post here, but the course is totally unrecognisable because of the missing lakes.
28. February 2007 12:19
by Rene Pallesen
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This year Kim met her targets at work. This meant the she got invited to Hawaii (with a partner...me) as part of the Chairmans club.
We got back two weeks ago and had a fantastic trip. The first few days we spent in Honolulu at Waikiki Beach...we got to see all of Oahu, went snorkeling and Kim went shopping. One night we all went to a shooting range in Honolulu.
After this we went to Kauai where we were staying at a big resort. Here we went snorkeling, sailing and played golf.
There was parties every night and we also managed to find a bit of time to ourselves.
See the rest of the photos from our trip here:
Hawai Photos/
Slideshow
27. February 2007 12:55
by Rene Pallesen
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In Mid 2006 I went to a work meeting in Krabi in Thailand.
This happens to be a few kilometers away from one of the best rock climbing destinations in the world. So, after the meeting I took a few days off to go rock climbing.
Kim happened to be travelling in the Northern part of Thailand with some friends who had to leave on the same day my meeting ended. Kim flew down to Krabi where I picked her up at the airport.
Unfortunately it was rainy season, so most of the time in Railay it was raining, but we did manage to get one day of climbing done and the rest of the time we spend in the restaurants and playing cards.
Click here to see more photos from:
Thailand/
Slideshow
27. February 2007 12:54
by Rene Pallesen
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I have now started adding photos from 2005. For this I have created a new blog just for 2005, the plan is that I will add blogs for the remaining years as well.
Click here to see what happened in 2005