Pete Johns - Blog entries of the highest uptodateness

The ferry journey from nearby Parramatta to Cirular Quay, at the heart of New South Wales was wonderful. It doesn’t matter how many different angles I see the Sydney, the Opera House or Harbour Bridge from, I still look on it and think, "wow!"

I think it’s high-time I filed an update. I haven’t touched the laptop for a couple of days, now.

A brief pause in the day in between visiting the breathtakingly magnificent Blue Mountains and heading into Sydney for an evening meal provides me with the opportunity to record a word or two!

In the skies again! Days seem to be passing at more than the recommended 60 mph (minutes per hour) rate, I tell you!

Rottnest Island or Rotto, as it’s known locally by the folks who like to abbreviate as much as possible, is a small Island to the West of Perth. Mrs Johns and I thought that this place would provide a nice setting for our first Friday in the Antipodes. This decided, we caught a train into the City, followed by a bus to Hillarys Marina where in turn we boarded the fast ferry to the Island.

Yesterday was an excellent day. As previously mentioned, we had an early start to drive into the City. In the City, we boarded our 27-seater 4×4 bus; a weird and wonderful vehicle and very, very comfortable, it has to be said. The bus drove us North of Perth, to the Pinnacles Desert, making a couple of stops along the way. These stops were largely to give us a break on the long journey, but were also there to give us a glimpse of Australian life outside the city. We saw a solitary koala, munching on some eucalyptus leaves, but nothing of real excitement…. until we reached some rather large sand dunes. This is where the 27-seater 4×4 came into its own. It mounted the sand dunes without too much effort and hurtled down the other side. Being in a bus going over the edge like that was pretty exciting and made me think of the Italian Job! Some of us took the opportunity to witness the bus going over the dunes from the outside, affording us the opportunity to record the occasion for our own posterity.

Time for another update, methinks, while it’s all fresh in my head.

"What’s the weather like, this morning?"

The thing about taking even the shortest period of time off work is that it takes so damned long to catch up on your inevitable return.

Software is a bit like making sausages. People want to enjoy it but they don’t really want to know what went into it