I’m in Bris­bane, Queens­land for the Matil­das vs. Nige­ria foot­ball match on Thurs­day night, as part of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. As today is my birth­day I decid­ed to take the day off work and spend it fish­ing and relax­ing in the sun­shine. So I packed my light gear and trav­el rod and hitched a train out to Sandgate, and fished the beach around Shorn­cliffe and the riv­er inlet into Cab­bage Tree Creek.

Read more…

Latest posts

Cycling

Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 5: Lorne to Geelong

I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty this morn­ing to sleep in a lit­tle in my nice hotel bed before lug­ging all my gear and bike down­stairs (the hotel does­n’t have a lift) to have a buf­fet break­fast at The Larder, the hotel’s restau­rant. I had a lib­er­al help­ing of hash browns, bacon, eggs, sautéed mush­rooms, mues­li, fruit and lots of gua­va juice. And of course: a dou­ble espresso!

Read more…
CyclingFish­ing

Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 4: Apollo Bay to Lorne

I was awok­en at var­i­ous times dur­ing the night by the sound of cows moo­ing in the fields on the oppo­site bank of the Barham Riv­er. What nor­mal­ly might have been irri­tat­ing was actu­al­ly and per­verse­ly quite pleas­ant. I even­tu­al­ly rolled out of my sleep­ing bag just before 08:00, and imme­di­ate­ly packed up my gear, tent and bike and got moving.

Read more…
CyclingFish­ing

Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 3: Lavers Hill to Apollo Bay

I left Lavers Hill this morn­ing in heavy fog and light rain, but with good spir­its as I rolled eas­i­ly down the hill, savour­ing the ear­ly morn­ing smells of wet for­est, the ghost­ly gums fad­ing into and out of the fog, and gen­er­al­ly enjoy­ing being on my bike in the out­doors. At the bot­tom of the hill I stopped to take a pho­to of a kook­abur­ra on the side of the road, and as I checked my GPS to see what kind of inclines I had await­ing me today, I noticed some­thing ter­ri­ble: I was on the wrong road!

Read more…
Cycling

Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 2: Port Campbell to Lavers Hill

I woke up ear­ly this morn­ing, packed my gear and got away as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, want­i­ng to max­imise the time I’d have to spend at The Twelve Apos­tles, Loch Ard Gorge et al. before tack­ling the long slow climb up to Lavers Hill, the high­est point in the Otway Ranges. Even fur­ther press­ing was the severe storm rag­ing its way across the west of Victoria.

I did­n’t want to be rid­ing a steel bicy­cle in a light­ning storm, so I had to reach Lavers Hill by about 13:00, when the storm was pre­dict­ed by the weath­er bureau to arrive. I left Port Camp­bell at 7:00, not even hav­ing break­fast as I hit the open road from Port Camp­bell to Loch Ard Gorge. The sun was ris­ing as I rode along and the tran­quil qui­et was very soothing.

Read more…
CyclingFish­ing

Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 1: Warrnambool to Port Campbell

I spent yes­ter­day soak­ing and unwind­ing in the Deep Blue hot springs at War­rnam­bool with my part­ner Danielle, and it was a beau­ti­ful day of rest and relax­ation before tack­ling the Great Ocean Road.

Today start­ed off just as nice and calm, as we had a break­fast in the hotel’s restau­rant before check­ing out at 10:00, and rid­ing my bike up to Logan’s Beach to meet Danielle at the whale watch­ing look­out (she drove after drop­ping by the super­mar­ket to grab me a replace­ment lace for my shoes). Here we saw a South­ern Right Whale moth­er and new­born calf frol­ick­ing in the shal­low surf.

Read more…
Cycling

Planning a winter getaway tour along the Great Ocean Road

Although I’m absolute­ly lov­ing my job at Starlight, I’ve been work­ing pret­ty hard this year and between the pres­sures of work, fam­i­ly, home and par­ent­ing I am des­per­ate­ly in need of a lit­tle break. So I’ve booked out a week’s leave at the end of August to tack­le the Vic­to­ri­an Great Ocean Road. And because I’m a sil­ly bas­tard I’ve opt­ed for the wild and wet weath­er that the Ship­wreck Coast is renowned for at this time of year. Fun!

Read more…
Cycling

My Melbourne commute to work

One of the great ben­e­fits of my new job at the Starlight Children’s Foun­da­tion is the loca­tion of the Mel­bourne office: right on the Yarra Riv­er where Church Street becomes Chapel Street, in a com­mer­cial hub of the city known as Cre­morne in Richmond.

Read more…
CyclingFish­ing

Roaming around Wodonga/Albury

My part­ner is a crim­i­nal bar­ris­ter, and a few times a year she under­takes cir­cuits, where she trav­els to a region­al court and works there for 3–4 weeks. Some­times she’ll come home on the week­ends, some­times not, depend­ing on the dis­tance from home. This year her Wodon­ga cir­cuit has run for the past four weeks, and I’ve joined her for this last week to spend some time togeth­er rid­ing around the area, both with her and on my own.

Read more…
Camp­ingCycling

Planning a tour of the Apple Isle: Tasmania 2022

With inter­na­tion­al bor­ders closed (for Aus­tralians, any­way) until god-only-knows-when, and a nice local trip look­ing very attrac­tive as an intro­duc­tion to tour­ing for my part­ner Danielle, we’ve been plan­ning a Tas­man­ian East Coast cycling trip for a few months now. We’ve out­lined a nice 15-leg route that will take us 13–14 days in total rid­ing, across per­haps three weeks (giv­en rests and sightseeing).

Read more…
Cycling

“Tell ‘im he’s dreamin’!” Dealing with lockdown boredom by prepping for Europe

Vic­to­ria is cur­rent­ly in our fourth COVID-19 lock­down, and I find myself sit­ting inside, on a chill but sun­ny Sun­day after­noon in late autumn, prepar­ing for a Euro­pean bike tour that might nev­er even­tu­ate, but even if it does, cer­tain­ly won’t for quite a few years. So why both­er plan­ning it at all? Well, pri­mar­i­ly the answer to that ques­tion at the moment is: I’m bored shit­less. But I also need some­thing to look for­ward to.

Read more…

Latest crafted items

Leather handlebar wrap with waxed linen whipping

Tiny Garmin ANT+ dongle wallet

Kangaroo LARP sword sheath

Travel journal for Robyn and Rodney

Carved leather pirate belt for Tim

Jarrah and glass display box

Fishermen’s stool

Leather saddle bag and key holder

Latest status updates