A Massive Lady

Today I saw the most massive lady ever, she was in town for less than 24 hours, but there was alot of hype about her, so I just had to check her out. Luckily for me, I had a delivery in the city today, so after finishing up, we headed on over to Mrs Macquaries chair and had a squiz. She dwarfed the navy ships she was next to and made them look like little models.

the Queen Mary 2 is 344 metres long and has 15 restaurants and bars, 5 swimming pools, a Casino, ballroom, theatre and planterium.

An Early Memory

When I was younger Mum and Dad took us all on a holiday to the mainland, I believe I might have been 8, or turned 8 while we were away. We drove up in the van and there's a couple of things that stood out while we were in Sydney, one was Mum and Dad going to see Ray Martin and we also stayed at this caravan park, that had a river near it. I always remember the river and the track that ran along it and when I first moved up here, I always thought where was the caravan park. I remembered it was the lanecove caravan park, but as I worked around lanecove I couldn't work out where it was.

A couple of years ago I had a delivery for the caravan park and so I knew where it actually was this time, not in lanecove but in north ryde. After buying the kayak I decided i'd one day give this river a paddle and last night I decided i'd try it today. I woke up at 3am and it was pouring with rain and also at 6am, so thought ok, a day inside instead. About 9 it cleared up a little and so I loaded up the car and off I went for a drive.

The river wasn't as clean as others but it was abounding in life. There were fishing jumping and surfacing everywhere, lizards, even an eel was casually swimming along and lots of birds chirping away. I actually nearly jumped out of the kayak once, when a big fish jumped out of the water with a crash not more than 30 centimetres from me.

These two characters must have thought I was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing.

He must have been worn out and hitched a ride, didn't pay a fare though.

I saw these two ducks and wandered on a little closer to them and they took off and look what I found stuck in the leaves, it's not everyday you find a $20 note

I was about 20 mins paddle back to the car when I heard some thunder and within 5 mins it was crashing right above me every 2 mins, there was also lightning flashing and I was considering jumping out of the kayak for awhile, especially since my paddle was part aluminium. I soldiered on and eventually made it back but the ramp I launched out of and there were a heap of people in the boat rental shop and they just all smiled when they saw me coming in all soaked through. I asked someone to take a picture for me of me, but my camera battry had died and now I think it might have been water as well as it will turn on, but thats it, so hopefully it will dry out again and start working properly

I'm actually quite liking just floating along and doing my own thing and just relaxing. I had the river all to myself as most people kayak the other part, which I will try out soon enough.

Some Days

There are some days where I wouldn't give up my job for anything, today would be one of those days. The morning wasn't that great, but it was ok, I was given an offsider to help me for the day and we headed to the city and delivered 160 computers to a grammar school, we then came back to work and loaded up some more computers for a hospital and we also had a couple of pickups to do.

After we were done with our work, we went and got ourselfes a pizza each and went down to monavale and found ourself a picnic table and looked out over the beach at the swimmers and surfers. It was a gorgeous day and there were 4 people out paragliding.

Sometimes it's good to have some nice perks of the job and this is one day I'm glad I'm able to get out and about

Painting reshuffle

For the last few days I've been the offsider at work, it's hard work sitting in the passenger seat and staying awake :)

Today we had a special delivery, Star track in Canberra had been to the lodge( the PM's residence in Canberra) and had picked up and wrapped three pictures to be transported down to Kirribbilli House ( the PM's residence in Sydney) so this morning we went to the security cage at work and picked them up.

Usually you need to pass a fair bit of security to get in, but I just jumped out of the truck and walked up to the gate and said we have 3 paintings for you and they said no problem and opened the bollards and gate and let us drive our truck right on in. As the truck was driven in and I walked, a couple of people came out and said you have our Three paintings do you and said can you please not drive on the grass or the garden, as there was a roundabout in the drive and we couldn't quite fit.

The three paintings were antiques and were worth quite alot of money, so I'm not quite sure why they sent them with us, but they arrived safely, well I think so as they weren't reopened yet.

It's not everyday you get to visit Kevin 07's residence.

Thought it was trouble

Today like the last couple of months I rocked up to work and got my work for the day. With the economy going the way it is, we haven't been getting much work and some days I get moved to another section to be able to work for the day. Today I only had three deliveries given to me and they were all in the local area, so I went and got my truck and thought I'd try to find some work in a different area. I came back down and one of the other drivers asked me what I had to do and I told him three drops, so he goes, we could just combine them and still do it all, he only had 6 deliveries and a couple of pickups, so we talked to the boss and he goes, no problem, So I parked up my truck and jumped in the passenger seat with him for the day.

While we were waiting for our freight we had a bbq put on for us and afterwards I was on the forklift looking for some pallets and drinking away on a can of lift. One of the big bosses was standing around and one of my bosses came up to us and go, you two need to go into the office, we were trying to get out on the road, so we said why and he goes because frank says so.

We reluctantly go in and there are a few people in there and Andrew goes, what do you want us for? Another of the bosses goes, we don't want you, we want Christian and the first thing I said was, what have I done, am I in trouble for drinking while operating a forklift and he goes yes. Frank, the big boss comes up to me and he gives me a certificate and an envelope and shakes my hand. Seems as though I got driver of the month in November and they were finally getting around to giving it to me. The envelope had a $50 gift card for coles/myer, so that was a nice suprise.

It was alot better than getting a kick up the pants :)

A new pursuit

If anyone knows me very well, they will know that I've been in a rut for lack of a better word. Maybe slump or rollercoaster would best describe it. I decided there was a few things I needed to change and the easiest one to start with would be getting rid of the net and getting active again, in a physical sense that is. So number one thing is the net is going, I've talked to the company and they are cutting it off before I get billed again as I was a day late this last time.
So the blog will get neglected unless i'm over at friends and using there's sometime. I'll still use my phone to check hotmail and facebook messages though. Well the next thing was to get out of the house instead of just working, eating, sleeping and playing on the net or watching tv. I've always liked Kayaking, we used to have a couple that we would use down at Pops River flats, and sometimes we'd float on down to Dynans bridge for fun. We used to have lots of fun, I remember mum getting into a kayak one day, when we were going on a trip and in the flattest water you could find, she tipped straight on back out :) haha, (sorry mum, just had to share that)

I decided it was time to get into it again, Sydney is just surrounded by water and there's lots of places to paddle, so for the last few months I've been looking for a kayak to buy. I'm pretty fussy when it comes to buying something, I have to have something that I like, or I'll just keep looking and looking.

I probably spent a little more than I should have, but I got one I like and am planning on spending alot of time on water exploring places.

The Gorgeous Nepean river, just down at Penrith

One hazard of kaying here, was all the boats, there were over 20 cutting around at various times especially as it was 42 here in Penrith today.

The local paddle boat

I kept to the speed limit and kept it under 4 knots. lol

just kicking back and relaxing and letting the river take me on down, while I check out the scenery

Soon I'm going to do the proper trip and head right up into the gorge and the return which is 6 hours.

There's so many places to be discovered, so it's adios for the time being