People of the Sydney Summer

beach + surf + sunshine = Sydney summer

Seen at the icebergs

Seen near Bondi

Seen at Manly

Seen at Manly #2

Sydney: the Beautiful City

Sydney is a beautiful city. Yet unlike many European cities, whose attractivity derives from its architecture and urban design, I believe Sydney’s beauty lies in its harbour. The ocean is Sydney’s true masterpiece. And it is what makes the city so visually attractive. Yes, the harbour bridge is an eye catcher, and yes, the opera house looks fantastic, but both are reliant upon the ocean the flows underneath and beside it to show these attractions in their best light. In this way, these world famous constructions are dependent and in fact, complementary features of the ocean itself.

I was lucky enough to witness this oceanic beauty of Sydney when I spent one day on a boat owned by the people I work for last Sunday. We followed the 18ft skiff race around the Sydney harbour, soaking in the splendour of the sunshine and the view. And although the Yandoo fan club on board (consisting of everyone who lives and works on the farm) was unable to cheer the Yandoo skiff to first place, the time spent onboard at sea reminded me, once again, of Sydney’s allure.

People of Melbourne

An afternoon spent walking around the streets of Melbourne:

Spray-painting

Texting

Strolling

Watching

Cooking

Smoking

Fade out Lines

Absolutely loving this song. Every time it plays, I turn it up to full volume in my car and just enjoy:

Stories of the Ssangyong

There’s so many things that I want to write about, yet somehow, just like my attempt at a diary, I struggle to write and post on this page. Over a month since my last entry, and yes, lots of things that are worth sharing have occurred. So where to start when there seems so much to say?

Perhaps I will begin with two stories of the car that I have been using:

As part of my employment, I have access to a car, a necessity when one lives on a property far away from any sort of public transport. I was using a ssangyong ute, a great vehicle for getting from A to B but with its fair share of issues nonetheless!

On one of my first drives to visit friends for the weekend I begin to hear a grinding sound every time I steer the car to the left. Like metal was scraping against metal, the crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr gets louder the faster I go or the more I turn. I begin to get worried. So, I stop at a service station and check all that I think of checking: oil, water, tires… Finding nothing except for cobwebs and a collection of gum leaves under the hood, the guys working at the service station offer to have a look, again, finding nothing wrong. Getting anxious, I decide to call the NRMA (the road service and assist in Australia) who tell me they will come within an hour to look at the car. Having now already eaten an icecream and a bag of chips as my dinner equivalent and getting impatient of waiting, I suddenly realise that calling the owners of this car might be a good idea – simply to let them know what is happening. I get the wife on the phone who tells me her husband, Woody, might know what is wrong with the car. On the farm, he is known to “woodify” vehicles – there is the truck that now has a plastic button that needs to be pressed for three seconds before turning the key in the ignition (we know have a European style car was his reasoning), and a horse truck that has to be turned on once a day otherwise the battery runs flat. Similar things happen to pumps, and drain pipes and the like. So, once I get him on the line, it doesn’t really come as a surprise when he recommends putting the car into neutral and then flicking the switch from 2WD to 4WD a couple of times. Following his advice, I try it. And, who would have thought, the crrrrrrrrrr is gone. The car purrs and we make our way down to friends as if nothing was ever wrong, only my late arrival as a reminder of the fiasco.

My second problem with the ssangyong, however, not even a Woody trick could fix. I had driven the ute virtually every weekend to get to friends and back, and due to its lack of horsepower believed the slow setting in of the brakes was simply a compensation. When the gardener nearly ended up running into the fence due to the cars “compensating” brakes, however, there was a general consensus that something was both wrong with the car and “that crazy German girl” for driving it all this time in the first place. And yes, the brakes were broken. Very broken in fact. So broken that the car was out for three weeks over Christmas, meaning I have ended up driving a wide arrange of cars and spending long times on trains instead. It has made me realise how much of a luxury a car is! And through driving other cars, that brakes are definitely not something proportional to horsepower!