Anzac day paddle (and trying out Honu!)

I went for a wonderful, soul restoring kayak this morning on the harbour.  Keeping up with Dani and co in their lighter, more streamlined outriggers was hard work (well impossible actually), but it was an amazingly clear, crisp, still morning and everyone was very patient with my slow progress across the bay from Clontarf  to Manly and back.  I then got to try out Honu (Dani's outrigger) myself - what a beauty she is and how effortlessly she glides across the water.  Not quite as stable as a kayak though, as I discovered the hard way when Honu (meaning Turtle in Hawaiian) cheekily dumped me.  Oh well, getting wet is what it's all about!

Sailing on the Harbour

Dani and I went for a lovely sail around the harbour.  The Sydney Harbour always looks its most beautiful from the water.  We had a fun time despite the rather irritating habit of the skipper of yelling angry abuse at other boats for very little reason!

Port Stephens Outrigger Race

I had a wonderful weekend watching Dani  take part in a 26 km Outrigger Canoe race in Port Stephens.  She was part of a 6 women crew.  Great to see finally see Dani in action doing what she loves.  She was in the front of the canoe, so got some nice photos of her ramping into the air and splashing through the waves.  It was nice to meet her paddling buddies too - a great, friendly group of people.

Some highlights of the weekend:

• Getting to the headland literally just in time to capture Dani going past.
• A fun "Mexican" evening with all the paddlers on Saturday night.
• A beautiful, invigorating swim on Sunday in the ocean.

Dani fresh and feisty before the race

Dani and her intrepid team

Getting ready for the start of the race

Get set.  Go!

SOCCI mixed team

And the highlight; Dani in action ...

Dani getting some great splashes up front

Dani getting some impressive air

home stretch

One of the team mascots

Scenes near the headland where I took most of the photos

Weekend at The Hunter Valley

Dani and I had a great weekend in the vineyards of Hunter Valley.  There was plenty of rain on Saturday, but that didn't stop us from visiting lots of vineyards and sampling plenty of wine.  

Some highlights of the weekend:

• Picking up Dani in Newcastle on Friday afternoon after she'd had a meeting there with other University sustainability managers.
• The amazing views from our room.
• A delicious pizza at a very nice restaurant on Friday night.
• Watching several episodes of "Breaking Bad."  What a great series, highly recommended.
• Visiting vineyards and trying lots of wine.
• Selecting delicious home made chocolates at a local chocolate shop.
• On Sunday morning, the best mocha and delicious crumble at a restaurant specialising in nothing but desserts.
• Checking out lots of great sculptures at one of the wine farms.
• Hunting down a bottle of sparkling Shiraz.
• Discovering that most of the ways out of the Hunter Valley were closed due to floods.  It took us quite a while to get back home!

Views of the vineyard from our hotel

view from hotel room

Delicious dessert for breakfast

One of the restaurants in Hunter Valley specialises entirely on desserts.  What an amazing selection of mouth-watering treasures they had.  And what difficult decisions.  I had Apple and Rasberry Crumble and Dani tucked into Lemon Merengue Pie.  The highlight, though, was the Mocha that came with a jug of rich, molten chocolate that we had to spoon in ourselves.  Best Mocha of my life and I've sampled quite a few!

Mocha doesn't come better

Dani wasn't being a glutton - half of that was mine!

Statues at a local vineyard

One of the vineyards we visited had a great art gallery and a statue garden.  Here are some of the statues that caught my eye.

When floods get in the way of home

We took an extra couple of hours to get home because it had been raining hard, and the first two routes we tried turned out to be flooded!