All posts by beddy

Kangaroo valley kayaking Autumn 2011

Our camp site for Friday night

Our camp site for Friday night

We just got back from my 4th visit to the Kangaroo valley to kayak along the river all the way to the huge dam. Ian and Yeemun and Yeemans sister and partner from England Heloise and Fry joined us so there were 6 of us together.

We left just after 5pm on the Friday and got down to the camp site on the Friday evening and camped on the grass next to the car for the first night. In the morning we got our 3 double sea kayaks, one for each couple. We filled the watertight bags with the important stuff like anything electrical and clothes and the other stuff that can get wet and float like plastic bags of food on top all strapped down, see the photos and you’ll see how we pack.

We then kayaked down river at a slow pace for the day until we found the camp site of our choice in the late afternoon, stopping for lunch on the bank of course. Well that was the plan but we got hit by a sudden thunderstorm of biblical proportions. We were out on the water and seeing the dark storm clouds coming towards us. We wanted to find and get setting up a camp site ASAP because of the thunder and lighting fast approaching.

We ran out of luck and it came down so hard, the rain was so heavy it was bouncing back up off the water and into our eyes. Visibility was so bad at one stage I could only just see the banks. Ian and me were afraid of being out in the centre of the water with all the lighting going on, so we ushered the kayaks over to the banks without telling the girls why so not to scare them.

Then we setup camp out in the wilderness by the river, a very wet camp. It was very hard to get the fire going as all the fire material was absolutely soaked, it took us at least half an hour to get a fire going, I didn’t think we were going to get it going but Ian had confidence. We did start toasting some marshmallows as soon as the fire was going Smile

Sunday morning we got up when we wanted and after a morning swim and wash, kayaked to the end of the river to the big dam.  It was all downstream so very easy, where a mini-bus picked us up and took us back to our cars. A lovely trip again, enjoy the photos.

The Audi RS4, perfect high-performance camping vehicle

The Audi RS4, perfect high-performance camping vehicle

Ian cooking up some bacon sandwiches

Ian cooking up some bacon sandwiches

Picking up the double sea kayaks from the hire company

Picking up the double sea kayaks from the hire company

Ian and Yeemun on the river

Ian and Yeemun on the river

Landed for the 1st days lunch

Landed for the 1st days lunch

Camp just setup on Saturday night after the thunderstorm

Camp just setup on Saturday night after the thunderstorm

Getting the fire started with soaking fire starting material

Getting the fire started with soaking fire starting material

Fry on Fire! and we have warmth

Fry on Fire! and we have warmth

Me playing with fire

Me playing with fire

Ian and me having a bit of a chat in front of the fire

Ian and me having a bit of a chat in front of the fire
with some Johnny Walker Gold label Whisky

The mornings beautiful view from our camp

The mornings beautiful view from our camp

Venturing into the water for a morning bath

Venturing into the water for a morning bath

All of us having a freshening morning wash

All of us having a freshening morning wash

Possibly one of the most beautiful views to brush your teeth too

Possibly one of the most beautiful views to brush your teeth too

The fly's and ants decided they loved the top of our Yellow

The fly’s and ants decided they loved the top of our Yellow
tent and it was their new home by the thousands

A Goanna spotted looking for food

A Goanna spotted looking for food

Just a few hundred metres to the end - we made it

Just a few hundred metres to the end – we made it

Sydney Mardi Gras 2011 Party and the Parade

Well another years Mardi Gras has come and gone, and this years party was as fun and frolicking as the last years one (although I had the trail end of a cold). Here’s a simple video I put together showing some of the build up to the parade on Oxford St and some of our own party behind the scenes, enjoy!

Sydney Mardi Gras 2011 – The Main Parade

> Watch the whole video in HD here <

Thanks for everyone that came to the party, I know we all had a great time.

Supercar Spin March show all done

Note, all the official Supercar Spin articles will be on www.supercarspin.com from now on.

Supercar Spin March show

> Watch the show in HD here <

All done with the March show of Supercar Spin, this month we have news from McLaren, Porsche, Jaguar, Lamborghini and Aston Martin. Brendon and I had the most fun making this show yet I think.

What did we try new this month? well my friend Ash gave lots of top tips from his presenting/filming experience and one of them was to try filming in takes instead of one long 10 minute filming. So this is the first show trying that method out, how’s it look? better than before?

The other new bit for this month was that friend Jay Ng make a new titles sequence for us. He didn’t have time to get it to us in HD (that will be included next month) but we still got in in this months show, just before the deadline.

Just had the first comment on YouTube for this show and its a nice positive comment:

“i like it :). i like how you guys add your own opinions about
the cars rather than just telling us the specs.”

What’s new for next month? well we have a new filming location for a trial and also the possibility of a guest presenter also for  a trial and guess what she’s a girl that’s really into her cars, a rare find.

Go-karting stupid pose

We all went go-karting today. No special reason, just were all into trying to beat each other on the track but telling each other were not competitive, and we love it. Jesus the girls were quick too!, even faster than Turk!

I had to share this stupid photo we took afterwards Smile

Feb_2011_kartatak

Stupid posing photo alert

I have to share my favourite karting video too, if youve ever played Mario Kart on the Nintendo you’ll get this.

Watch out family ‘Kraut Wagon’ on the track

The fastest and possibly ‘coolest’ wagon in the world ready for its virgin track outing

The fastest and possibly ‘coolest’ wagon in the world ready for its virgin track outing

I said I would take the RS4 family wagon or ‘Kraut Wagon’ as mines been nicknamed by the guys in the Lotus club, on the racetrack once to see how it goes, it was real fun and what a car.

I’m glad I went, it was good fun, Me and Ben in his Lotus Elise had a great battle over 10 laps swapping places on the last session of the day in complete darkness. Amazing the power on the straights, I was able to pull away from even the supercharged Lotus’s over 100kph.

The ‘Kraut Wagon’ as nicknamed by the guys in the Lotus Club

The ‘Kraut Wagon’ as nicknamed by the guys in the Lotus Club

So much fun to drive, I was literally trying to get the car out of control to induce a slide, then turning the front wheels where I wanted to go and flooring the accelerator and the all wheel drive Quattro system sorted it all out, amazing, clever, faultless. I’m now aware how safe a car handling wise it is on the road and have a massive respect for how something so big and heavy can change direction and accelerate so well.

One of my highlights of the evening was watching on TV ‘My Kitchen Rules’ at 200 kph on Eastern Creeks main straight 🙂

Red Hot brakes proving I was using them well, yee har

Red Hot brakes proving I was using them well, yee har

Nothing beats a Lotus for shear fun on the track though (apart from Barry’s top machine) for maximum fun and involvement.

Wagons had its fun, its back to cruising the Sydney streets at 20 kph on the urban crawl at the hands of Sanna.

P.S if your wondering what the hell I’m on about ‘Wagons’ that’s what Aussies called ‘Estates’ over here.

Wolfgang Gartner – Space Junk iPhone Ringtone

For all you iPhone junkies out there, I made this ringtone of one of 2010’s most popular House/Electro hits ‘Wolfgang Gartner – Space Junk’. Actually I made a version 2 also which is a little bit more banging than the first one, enjoy the 8 bit sounds to annoy all your work colleagues Smile

image  image

How to put these on your phone, if you have iTunes installed its easy:

  1. Click on the above ringtones and click ‘Open’
  2. iTunes will now play the ringtone and will also automatically add it to your ringtones folder in iTunes Music Library
  3. Now connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones
  4. On your iPhone, go to Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone and select your ringtone from the Custom section
  5. And all done!

Supercar Spin Feb 2011 edition all done

Note, all the official Supercar Spin articles will be on www.supercarspin.com from now on.
Supercar Spin Feb 2011 edition

Here it s the February edition of our little show supercar spin, I think this month turned out pretty good. We had a couple of small changes this month:

  • The intro layout is now a short 15 seconds blast of all the upcoming news bits for this month, then it goes to the intro titles then onto the main show. This was Jays idea to make the beginning of the show more impactful, I think it works much better.
  • The supercar stats or ‘Hot specs’ as I call them, are now scrolling across the bottom of the screen in a news ticker style way. This is good as in future episodes we can leave the techy stats stuff down there scrolling along and leave the main talking in the show to a more personal natural discussion.

Some good stuffs been happening behind the scenes, we were approached by a women who likes the show is really into her cars and is keen to get involved if she can as a guest presenter on the show. Were in discussion with her now on that so we’ll see if it works out as a trial.

Lastly Jay the master of Adobe editing (you can see some of his editing work here) is cooking up a new title sequence to replace the current one I made. I know he will make something pretty dam sexy and in HD and featuring a lot of supercars of course, we’ll see.

Australia Day 2011

Australia Day 1

Here are a few quick photos from Australia Day 2011. Australia Day is about aussies just having a public holiday off to celebrate being all things Australian, food, beer, sun and being with friends and family.

I don’t know how the aussies do it but every Australia day for the past 7 years I’ve been living here, its always been a beautiful hot sunny day and this year was no different.

Every Australia day I go down to look at all the classic cars at the big NRMA sponsored classic car display. They close off the roads around Hyde park and all the classic car clubs of Australia get together to show off their pride and joys.

Every year there is a Red e-type series 1 Jaguar Roadster owned by a guy called Neil by memory. I go look over the car each year and have a quick 10 minute chat to him (so I should remember his name). I absolutely LOVE this car, its my mornings highlight of each Australia day to go look at this car, I always tell Neil I want it to be my car for my wedding one day.

ausday2011a.jpg

Red e-type series 1 Jaguar Roadster

ausday2011b.jpg

After I went and looked at the cars I went for a mountain bike ride with friends Ian and Trent around centennial park for an hour in the 30+ degrees heat and then joined Sanna at our swimming pool afterwards to cool off.

In the afternoon we went down to look around the cars again! (well mostly I did) and walked down to the harbour front to meet some of Sannas friends at the Opera bar. It was close to 35 degrees in the shade, it was just too hot with no breeze. We then went to the old rocks area where there was a slight cooling breeze and we headed into 2 separate pubs, one with a roof top beer garden with a great view of the harbour.

ausday2011c.jpgSanna, Brendon & Josh

In the evening we headed to darling harbour for the big Australia day fireworks which are always really good as your up very close to them. Me, Sanna, Brendon, Josh and a Indian guy we made friends with who just got off the boat from India 3 weeks ago, all had a meal and drinks over looking the darling harbour fireworks. A great busy day!

ausday2011d.jpgAustralia Day 2011 fireworks at Darling harbour

Jan episode of Supercar Spin is done yay!

Note, all the official Supercar Spin articles will be on www.supercarspin.com from now on.
Supercar Spin Jan 2011–The monthly sports & supercar news show

The 1st episode for 2011 is done and up for our subscribers on YouTube and iTunes!

And if your wondering why I’m a bit quiet in the episode compared to previous episodes, well it was a 33 degree’s on the day of the filming, and I was so uncomfortably hot I couldn’t concentrate!

It was also so hot I forgot to plug the proper microphone in for the 3rd take (the one you see here) that’s why the sounds a little echo’y and distant. Now I know why all proper television studios have aircon!

By the way 2700 people downloaded and watched the December episode on their iPhones/iPods last month, cool.