As part of Vivid Sydney the Opera House, Museum of Contemporary Art and other structures were being lit up at night. I’d been at the movies with Neil and Claudia on Tuesday at Circular Quay, and had seen the images being projected on to the Opera House, so I resolved to come back in to the city another night and take some photos.

I’d received a tripod as a present a few years ago and had never got around to using it, so this was the ideal time. On Thursday night, I packed it up, along with my camera and remote shutter release and caught the train to Milsons Point just as it got dark. Not having shot time-lapse photos before I just played around with various settings, experimenting as I went along.

Starting from Milsons Point, I then headed to Kirribilii, then walked over the Harbour Bridge to The Rocks, then Circular Quay and finally to the Opera House itself.

Here are the photos.

On Saturday, after relaxing on the couch for the day, by 4pm I was starting to get a bit bored and looking for something to do. I remember that, while running in Centennial Park at dawn or dusk, I’d often thought to myself that I should show up with a camera some time, so I figured I’d head down and take some shots.

Bloody traffic was terrible, so I got down there a bit later than I would have liked and was a bit rushed trying to get around to a few different places before the sun went down, but I still got a couple of nice shots.

Sunday morning saw my return to the triathlon scene after a couple of months off, competing in the Cronulla Olympic Distance Triathlon With all the weddings and buck’s parties after New Year’s I hadn’t done all that much training, and when I started up again a couple last month I immediately got shin splints from running too fast too soon. Still, I’d paid my entry fee so figured I might as well do the race.

I had to head down to Cronulla on Saturday to register and drop my bike into transition, then return at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning for the actual race. Saturday evening was nice and warm, with decent size waves promising to make the swim eventful. I’d been swimming at Bondi earlier in the day having fun in the waves, and since the ones in Cronulla were breaking much cleaner all was looking good. Race start was scheduled for 0645, and my wave was scheduled for 0745.

Woke up on Sunday morning and must have been a bit dopey, as I was leisurely eating my breakfast when I realised I should have left 10 minutes previously. The transition area is closed off before the race starts, so, although I wasn’t starting until 0745, I still had to have all my stuff organised in transition before 0630. I managed to get into transition just as they announced it was now closed, so I was a bit rushed in my preparation. I set everything up and walked out of there to join the pre-race toilet queue. While standing there I realised that not only had I still got my sunnies and running cap still with me, I’d also left all my race gear (lycra shorts, top & rash vest) in transitions, meaning I’d nothing to wear for the race. Thankfully they let me in to get my gear!

I ambled down to the beach about 10 minutes before my wave start, noticing that the waves were considerably more confused than yesterday evening, but, despite not having done any swimming since the beginning of December, I wasn’t worried. Some poor guy in the wave in front of me couldn’t get past the break: race effectively over after three minutes. After a brief instructive chat from the Technical Official, the horn sounded and we were off. I got going reasonably well, ducking under the incoming waves, but there was a lot of water moving around and you could really feel the pull if you came up too soon after the wave had passed. I did it twice and got sucked back a couple of metres, but that was the worst of it.

Out to the buoys, left turn for a few hundred metres then back into shore, constantly watching for a wave to catch in. Managed to catch a beauty, body surf the last 50m and stand straight up on the beach. Due to the big waves the swim had to be shortened from the expected 1500m to closer to 1000m, and relocated further down the beach where the surf lifesavers deemed it was safer. The downside to this was we had to run about 1.5km to get back to our bikes. Not ideal for me really, but it wasn’t too bad in the end.

Once out on the bike I resolved to take things easy enough not to fry myself on the run, especially since I’d had shin splints up until a few days previously. It was a two loop, out and back course, and it wasn’t until I reached the turnaround that I realised I’d had the wind behind me up until then and the way home would be a tiny bit harder. Towards the end of the bike my lower back was hurting a bit, just as it had done in Canberra, reinforcing my belief that the bike shop sold me a frame one size too big, so will have to trade it in before next season. I rode into transitions feeling fine and wondering what shape my run legs would be in.

It turns out that cruising the bike worked beautifully and my legs were fine, so I just concentrated on settling into a conservative pace so as not to wreck my shins again. The course had 4 small inclines per lap, which, although not super steep, were enough to prevent me settling into a nice rhythm. I was careful not to drink too much water or electrolyte, fearing that bloated feeling with too much liquid sloshing about, but things went smoothly and I crossed the line in 2:34:10.

Spilts:

In retrospect, I went way too easy on the bike, being a full eight minutes slower than the last time I did this distance (albeit on a different course), though my run was almost four minutes faster which I’m pretty happy with.

That’s it for triathlons for this season. Next race is the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon on May 17th.

Football in Australia has always been the poor cousin of the ‘native’ codes, Australian Football (AFL) and Rugby League (NRL), generally gaining very little air time and being seen as a game for immigrants, or Wogs, Sheilas and Poofters as the title of Johnny Warren’s auto-biography suggests. The old National Soccer League was disbanded a few years ago, and relaunched after a year’s break as the A-League, an 8-team competition spread across the country.

Sydney FC became my local team, as their home stadium is about 3km from my house, and I’d always considered becoming a member, but never got around to it. That all changed today, when myself, Darrell & Monique bought our season passes for the upcoming season, due to start in August. We now have our own seats for all the home games, and preferential access to tickets for non-league games involving the club.

This will be the 4th season of the A-League, and it’s going from strength to strength. When the national side qualified for the 2006 World Cup, the country really woke up to football and the contrast with AFL & League was stark, neither of which have an international series (League does, but only a handful of countries play and Australia usually wins). The sport has managed to build on that foothold and average spectator numbers are rising every season. NRL, which I always thought was massive, turns out to be an ugly duckling, with the A-League already matching it in terms of average attendance. In fact, most of the NRL teams have dismal attendances, and the average is only as high as it is due to the Broncos and the Titans. Roll on next season and we can relegate them to third place!

Well it’s been quite a while since I posted anything, but things are starting to settle down now. Myself and Jacqui finally found an apartment to rent, five weeks after arriving back from Canada! We moved in two weeks ago and the place is slowly starting to take shape. It’s quite a bit smaller than our previous place in Vaucluse, so we still have to get rid of some stuff that we don’t really have any room far. Once that’s done all will be well, as the place is still a bit cluttered at the moment.

I had hoped to get iiNet’s Naked DSL installed, but it turns out that our apartment doesn’t have a phone line connected to it! In 2008!! Anyway, we could get the landlord to pay $300 to get a line installed, and then wait another 2-3 weeks to resubmit a new Naked DSL application, but since both myself and Jacqui are working from home at the moment, waiting 4-6 weeks to have internet wasn’t practical, so I signed up with BigPond’s Cable Internet instead. We should have that up and running later this week.

Also, I nearly burnt the place down a few days ago. I’d got the gas connected, so I decided to make a coffee with my stovetop coffee pot, but I forgot all about it and went off to the supermarket to meet Jacqui and do a grocery shop. I wandered around, filling up the trolley until I got to the coffee aisle and remembered “Fuck, I left the coffee pot on the gas”. Ran all the way home (just as well our new place is close to the shops, eh?) to discover coffee pot on fire. Thankfully it’s almost all metal so there wasn’t enough flammable material to cause anything serious, so all I had to do was open the windows to let the smell out and reassure the cat that things were OK.

Had a perfect start to the day today: up early, down to the beach for a run, then a swim in perfect azure water, then coffee and toasted banana bread for breakfast, before heading home to start work. Can’t get much better than that!

Also, yesterday I finally got around to uploading my photos from “Tiff & Nick’s Wedding”:/albums/35.

I’ve been back in Sydney for three weeks now and have been looking for an apartment all that time. Since we left 15 months ago, the rental scene has gone crazy, mainly due to ever-increasing interest rates. The Reserve Bank raised the cash rate to 7.25% last week and, since the credit crunch increases the spread between the cash rate and the rate at which the banks can actually borrow from each other, most banks plan to “add their own extra increase”:http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23335011-36418,00.html on top, meaning a variable rate mortgage will cost at least 9%.

Most first-time buyers are wary of entering the market in these conditions and are looking to rent instead, increasing competition for an already scarce resource. Sydney is “full”, with 99% occupancy of rental properties, so there have been times in the last two weeks when we’ve gone to view a place and had up to 70 other people show up as well! On the plus side, I did make it on to national TV when a news crew showed up at a place we were viewing to do a piece on how bad the rental market is, and I could be seen walking in to the apartment in the background. Fleeting glimpses of fame…

Anyway, we have applications in for two places, so hopefully one will come through with the goods.

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Apple has submitted a planning application for an Apple Store on King St.

Apple’s secretive plans for an official retail store in Sydney – understood to be the first in the southern hemisphere – have been revealed in council documents, which suggest it’s unlikely the store will open for business before mid-2008.

How thoughtful. It’s just in time for me to get back from Canada and upgrade my laptop!