The LambCutlet Disorganisation

The end of April is upon us and what better way to see it off than having another huge Photogasm™ of knicker elastic straining proportions? ;) Though my stay in the Northern Territory totalled just 7 days where it was mostly at Alice Springs (with the exception of 1 day on a long trip to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park), it was still very action packed!

That week in the beginning of August ‘05 was to prove an unexpected (though welcome) break from having any Internet connectivity whatsoever. Also, the weather in the Red Centre took a little getting used to as it was the winter season and where for the entire week I saw not one bit of cloud, not even a little one. This meant the air was actually very cool and dry, though being so clear meant the sun still packed quite a punch. So the side that faced the sun would get roasted and the side facing away would get rather chilly…

Being someone that doesn’t drive, it was time to hire a bicycle like I did in Hawai‘i so that I could get about Alice Spring and the nearby area. The Penny Farthing Bike Shop was the place I settled for in tracking down a stead and did the trick for the 5 days that I needed it. I think I must have covered over 150 kilometers on it, with 50 kilometers being when I decided to ride the Simpson’s Gaps Bicycle Path to Simpson’s Gap on the West MacDonnell Ranges and back! :D

Further heroics occured on the penultimate day where aside from getting up at a completely unreasonable 5 a.m. so that I didn’t miss the coach for the tour at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, was that when we got our two hours at Uluru for sight-seeing, I managed the 10 kilometer trek to circumnavigate the rock. The coach driver did decide to pretend to drive off, though that didn’t fool me for one second! ;)

Still… enough monologuing from me, so here comes the Photogasm™ from the Red Centre!

… and in time honoured fashion, the albums individually:

1. Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia - A week long stay from the 3rd of August till the 10th of August in Alice Springs, Northern Territory right at the heart of the Red Centre
2. Alice Springs Desert Park, Alice Springs - Cycling out to the Alice Spring Desert Park on Larapinta Drive located about 5 kilometers west of Alice Springs
3. Simpson’s Gap Bicycle Path, West MacDonnell National Park, Northern Territory - A 50 kilometer round trip by bicycle to Simpsons Gap of the West MacDonnell Ranges via the Simpsons Gap Bicycle Path
4. Alice Springs Telegraph Station, Alice Springs - A visit to the Alice Springs Telegraph Station Historical Reserve located 4 kilometers north of Alice Springs
5. Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Northern Territory, Australia - 18 hour day trip with Emu Run Tours to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park which is now Aboriginal land
6. Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia to Republic of Singapore (新加坡共和國/Republik Singapura) - Leaving the Southern Hemisphere as I travel from Alice Springs, NT, Australia to Republic of Singapore (新加坡共和國/Republik Singapura) via Melbourne, VIC, Australia!

Till the next Photogasm™ (finally back in Asia!) in the “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”, otherwise known as Singapore! ;)

May Day, May Day… almost the 1st of May. Aside from that being Inese’s birthday, it’ll mark 6 months since I’ve come full-circle back to Blighty after my travels, which according to Google Earth was some 58856.68 kilometers (give or take a bit ;)) in distance!

Whilst I’m certainly itching to get back to 香港 (Hong Kong) for a whole host of reasons, I don’t think I’ve got enough “green karma” left after all those flights during 2005 to get me back there, even though since the age of 17 I’ve had no intention of car ownership and went by public transport to everywhere assuming I didn’t walk or cycling it first.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way! The most obvious and less polluting would be going over land by train. Having had a little dig around on the Internet, the route would go something like this:

• Northampton, UK to London, UK
• London, UK to Brussels, Belgium
• Brussels, Belgium to Köln, Deutschland
• Köln, Deutschland to Москва, Росси́я (Moscow, Russia) (via Санкт-Петербург, Росси́я (Saint Petersburg, Russia))
• Москва, Росси́я (Moscow, Russia) to 中國大陸北京 (Beijing, Mainland China) (via Улаанбаатар, Монгол Улс (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia))
• 中國大陸北京 (Beijing, Mainland China) to 香港 (Hong Kong)

Good points are that I’ll travel through Brussels meaning I can drop in on Inese and Arta, I will actually go through Санкт-Петербург (Saint Petersburg) which was an intended stop back in 2005, though things actually worked out a little differently and lastly I might be able to squeeze in some gallivanting around Монгол Улс (Mongolia)!

Bad points are that it’ll cost about double what a long haul flight from London to 香港 (Hong Kong) would plus the train journey times totals up to something like 10 days (perhaps a hidden blessing) on their own.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if this particular bout of lunacy becomes real… :)

These guys have been commandeering a fair chunk of my time hence the lack of blogging, Photogasmic™ or otherwise, though I figured I’d abuse the former format and bring forth a little “making of” because you all love Bertie Bear! ;)

With the obligatory timeline:

1. In the process of creating a successor to phpBB “Creating Communities” Bertie Bear, the highly experimental –enable-bertiezilla configure option was accidently enabled and Bertiezilla started to romp his way around the world. Whilst this had the advantage of reduced shipping costs since he’d make his own way there, I decided that occasionally wiping the odd city off the map (even somewhere like Luton!) would just not be acceptable.
2. The first prototpye with the “Olympus Odssey” tag-line arrives by the way of a phpBB Mega-Bear and is checked out by Bertie and Domo. Curiously blond and overly nice looking… we weren’t too if we could trust this new guy!
3. The next generation Bertie-clones arrive, sporting a red sweater and red hoodie respectively, both with the “Olympus Odssey” tag-line. The Mega-Bear was starting to look too creepy at this stage so he was sent off to the gulags… :D
4. Original Bertie with his two potential successors… which of the two shall it be? How would two plush toy bears fight it out anyway? Out-cute each other to death? The mind of mere mortals, what with our limited perception, boggles…
5. During the evening whilst I wasn’t looking, the hoodied “Olympus Odssey” Bertie-clone had sliced to pieces the more mild-mannered Bertie-clone with the red sweater. Fearing what he could potentially do to pet humans, he was set off to the gulags too. Probably to be shredded and reused as suffing for a sofa or some such! ;)
6. The recipe for the next generation Bertie was tweaked and after a 1 week assembling period, he arrived! With the new “Conquering Olympus” tag-line, he seemed to be well balanced on the axes of cute-and-cuddleablity versus world-conquering-megalomania…
7. For the next generation Bertie, the back of the hoodie carried an extended version of the old tag-line too, in an effort to please the old conservatives… You just can’t trust the young’uns they say, whilst waving their walking sticks. Pah to all of you! :P
8. “Conquering Olympus” Bertie snarls for the camera just as he would do before devouring phpBB forum trolls and spammers alive! :D
9. Promotional photoshoots are always a pain though “Conquering Olympus” Bertie seems moe than happy to show himself off to the world…
10. … and of course his über-cool red hoodie which has a tag-line on the back too!
11. Next generation Bertie takes a little time out to conquer “Bertie Mons” as 50-something of his clones prepared themselves to be boxed up and shipped to their new pet humans.
12. Around about 110 boxes of “Conquering Olympus” Berties all ready to be picked up by Royal Mail to go off to the far corners of planet Earth…

If you’ve yet to opt to become a pet human for phpBB “Conquering Olympus” Bertie Bear, there still some left, though be quick as it won’t be that long till he’ll have to go back to Mars and finish off conquering Olympus! ;)

I hadn’t actually realised that my stop in Melbourne in July of last year, was the most southerly point of my travels till I had double checked on Google Earth just today, where I was 1 whole degree further south than my transitory stop in Auckland, New Zealand… Wooh! :D

On the other hand, I was quite aware the Southern Hemisphere have their seasons the wrong way round, it was still rather weird to have experienced the depths of the Melbournian winter, even though the calendar quite clearly stated it was July! Was really good to have seen 貝貝 again, as the last time I saw her would have been back in October ‘04 when she was in Bangor, Gwynedd.

Anyway, another stop… another knicker elastic straining Photogasm™! ;)

… where the four albums individually are:

1. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - A week of sightseeing around Melbourne from the 28th of July till the 2nd of August having spent 5 days since the 24th of July crashing at where 貝貝 was living!
2. Melbourne Aquarium, Victoria - A visit to the Melbourne Aquarium located on the corner of Flinders Street and Kings Way to have a gander at various types of water-dwelling fauna
3. Albert Park, Melbourne, Victoria - An afternoon wonder around Albert Park & Albert Park Lake, otherwise known as the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit when the Formula 1™ circus is in town! ;)
4. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia - Heading into the outback on the 3rd of August as I travel from Melbourne, Victoria via Adelaide, South Australia to Alice Spings, Northern Territory!

So till the next Photogasm™ “Down Under”, which shall be from the outback in the heart of the red centre that is Alice Springs & Uluru-Kata Tjuta in the Northern Territory of Austrlia! ;)

『清明時節雨紛紛，路上行人欲斷魂；借問酒家何處有，牧童遙指杏花村。』

A drizzling rain falls like tears on the Mourning Day;
The mourner’s heart is going to break on his way.
Where can a wineshop be found to drown his sad hours?
A cowherd points to a cot ‘mid apricot flowers.

The 106th day after the 冬至 (Winter Solstice) brings forth 清明節 (Ching Ming Festival), also known as “Grave-sweeping Festival”, “Spring Remembrance Festival” or “Bright and Clear Festival”. This year I shall have to tend where my late mother’s ashes were scattered “virtually”, though father had already lit some joss sticks at the altar at home plus doing some gardening, something my mother also thoroughly loved, as today really is a “bright and clear” day in an otherwise dreary and wet England!