Australia 2011 Early days

 This was our first time to Aus and our first real day. We were on our way to meet our youngest daughter who we had not seen for 2 years. This is Glenelg where she worked in a restaurant. The little men were something my wife was doing her aim ,to photo them in every  locations in Aus . we visited A bit like the garden gnome that toured the world . These are that sort of sticky plastic that supposedly sticks on glass . These are hanging on grimly'. I took a picture of my daughter to the amusement of another customer who asked if I photographed all waitresses.

 Giant Jaws ,you wouldnt think it was 2 years since I saw my duaghter , deep down I was glowing to see her again, being English I couldnt think of anything to say .

 Glenelg beach

 Port Adelaide . Went here on the Sunday after we arrived because nobody was around to keep us company so basically we got on a bus simply because it said Port Adelaide and it was a name that seemed familiar. My son in law was horrified and said we should not have gone on our own and it can be dangerous. It seemed to me to be a port which like so many around the world was suffering from container cargo symptom and was in decline the short fall being to make it  a bit of a tourist destination.
One strange thing, I saw a bus driver sat having a cigarette and I went to ask him where we got the bus back. As I approached he said I know you ! He, it turned out, came from Basingstoke and had worked in Motorola before he was made redundant and moved to Aus. Small world especially as although we recognised each other we could not figure out why.

I had read somewhere that an Aussie dish was a thing called a pie floater a meat pie upside down in pea gravy with a blob of tomato sauce . This eaterie was in a park in the middle of Adelaide . It was midday amd meltingly hot so though I am trying to look as if I am enjoying it I am sweating buckets and you will see its only a pie and tomato sauce it appeared nobody in Australia had heard of a Floater ?

This building was in the entrance to the park I dont know what it was becuase jet lag was catching up with me.

Glenelg I think this was a kind of curio , tourist , gift shop kind of place , it was right in front of the beach .

Christmas 2015 Vesta ready meal a treat from the past ?

 OK Christmas 2015 , I had gone on about the cuisine from my childhood and that you can still buy the original fast food Vesta Chow main. My wife bought this for me as a christmas present. I thought it was a couple of minutes to prepare , it is a hugely long process , requiring pots and pans and cooking oil hardly the bung it in the microwave of today - one day , perhaps when I retire and have time. ONE promise to self I must exercise more in retirement , I could hardly exercise less.

The cats chill out

 I couldnt see from the snapshot what I was posting and I thoughtthis was the cat inspecting the dishwasher and not a bomb , Picture courtesy of my German friend Tatiana this was discovered in Stuttgart under I think what is now a playground , fortunatley it didnt explode either then or now

 Drawings by mty son for his mum

My son living the life ...  

Rugby world cup

Rugby World cup supporting the Aussies, My chest has slipped a bit , No worries !!

Wildlife cameraman of the year

On the map somewhere

 On the way to the south pole or at least the bit of New Zealand that get closest and it felt like it as you can tell from the pictures . This was part of my antipodean adventure I went dressed and equipped for tropical clime . Australia was cold and wet and NZ colder and wetter. My Australian son in law bought me the jacket because he knew what was coming (he wasn't my son in law at the time I had no idea who he was he seemed to be with my daughter. My daughter was in Aus at the time one of the reasons we went - well the reason I went ..

 It was colder and wetter than it looks . My wife wanted to see these fossilised trees . I stood on the beach asking where these trees were to be told I was standing on them. Wasn't worth it to me but if you are into fossils Curio Bay . My wife also wanted to see the penguins coming ashore you will see by the absence of penguins that they didn't come ashore. I didn't see any penguins I think it was to cold for them.

 You can tell by the dejected stance and wet bum how much fun I was having

This was the camper Van I hired. I am not a camper or a carravanner the last time I was in a tent I was in the scouts , no I wasn't I was in St Tropez and it was a lot warmer . Thing is I picked the cheapest van of its class. If you want to rough it or are young then its fine but it is a converted transit and not a camper van if I do it again I will pay more and get a purpose built one they are less work. If you do do it rent a water drum thing. One of those that rolls about on a handle. We went early in the season so the camp sites were pretty empty and I always managed to park by a standpipe and fill the tank from the hose buy if I had had to park away from a standpipe I don't think I could have filled the water reservoir using a bucket. It took ages to fill and minutes to use if you had a shower. Unless you are masochistic don't use the onboard toilet you have to empty it  not pleasant I did it once then used the camp toilets well worth the walk.

A big lake and spherical objects

 A lake in New Zealand, it doesn't matter which one they are all like this , never came across anywhere as scenic as NZ. Trouble is you never get anywhere because you keep stopping to take picture

 Moeraki boulders New Zealand extraordinary  hollow spheres created by concretion (look it up like I had to) they are on Koekohe beach on the Otago coast in NZ and millions of years old .

I accept none of this is about retirement but I have not retired yet and I am filling in. Its aspirational as I want to go back to NZ as my son is there so this is a daydream ,I would say dream time but that's Aus. What I will say is its about as far as you can go without coming back .

Mercedes musuem Stuttgart

This is a early road test vehicle full of monitoring equipment it seems it had an umbilical cord of cables between it and the test vehicle both set off with only feet between them to record data  used in development . As far as I can make out this was done on public roads . it's what in my youth would have been described as "neat". 

You can see i n the picture below the cable from the test vehicle to the recording vehicle 

A very few of the hundreds of pictures I took at the Mercedes museum stuttgart. If you like cars or even if you just like sculpture there are some exquisite motors here and it worth going if you get a chance . there is I was told a Merceded Muaeum at Brooklands so whichever is closer . The glass topped estate was used in road testing and they seemed to tether the estate to the vehicle under test and feed the data into an early computer, They must have been going bumper to bumper, The blue truck was for transporting the race car but the transporter does 105mph , well it may go faster it says dont exceed 105 mph. The yellow van is a post office. There are so many many cars .