we have arrived at the beautiful bay of islands in NZ.
The weather is wet but not cold. One thing we were looking forward to dong here was to go on the boat tours arrount all the islands.
the weather has been so bad that they have canceled all the tours.
Anyway i am enjoying having a lazy day sitting by the fire. It is a nice place to be stuck.
View NZ holiday 2012 in a larger map
We are heading off to New Zealand next Febuary to celebrate Karin’s 50th .
Neither of us have been there before and are keen to hear from anybody who has suggestions of places to go.
Just fill in your suggestions below.
Autopiloted glider knows where to fly for a free ride – tech – 28 June 2011 – New Scientist.
Salah Sukkarieh of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics in Sydney says
He is designing an autopilot system that maps and plans a glider’s route so it can use a technique known as dynamic soaring when thermals are scarce. The glider first flies in a high-speed air current to gain momentum, then it turns into a region of slower winds, where the newly gained energy can be converted to lift. By cycling back and forth this way, the glider can gain either speed or altitude.
Dynamic soaring? I only know that this has been achieved by model gliders and sea birds. If real gliders can use this method then this would mean we would have 4 ways to stay up (without an engine).
- thermals
- ridge lift
- wave
- dynamic
If you know of anybody using dynamic flying in a glider i would like to know about it.
Springbrook
Went on another hike with the Brisbane hiking group. I have been to springbrook many times as i am gob smacked how beautiful this bit of earth is. It has many lookouts with sweeping views of rainforest and huge waterfalls. Every time we have been here i have wanted to do the walk down to the bottom of the valley to walk under the waterfall. Well this walk we did exactly that. The reason I was never able to do it before is that it is not a little walk. This walk was at least 17km with a lot of walking up and down steep hills.
http://www.meetup.com/hiking-312/events/21020901/
Waterfall
This is the cool part …walking through the waterfall
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| From 18-19 june 2011 |
“Certainly not looking good if you’re planning to travel somewhere or you’re expecting someone to arrive in Perth on an aircraft after 1pm.”
Sorry Perth friends but Karin is not coming to Perth tonight. We cant get through to the airlines but we have been told on their web site that all flights have been cancelled to and from Perth until further notice.
The last time that Karin travelled by plane her flights were cancelled due to bad weather. I guess the gods are trying to tell her not to fly.
Gliders Ridge Running the Sidmouth Cliffs [HD] | Soaring Cafe.
This looks fantastic. So Cool!
One of the best days of my life was spent doing what this guy is doing on the ridges at the stirling ranges.
It is great to watch this in glorious high definition.
Check this out!: YouTube Blog: Welcome to the future of video. Please stay a while..
You Tube will be showing over 3000 movie titles for rent. Who needs to go to a video store any more? And the price of these rentals would not pay for the petrol to drive to the video store.
Of course you need to have a good internet connection and there are a lot of people in Australia who don’t.
Toolona Creek Circuit – O’Reillys – Brisbane Hiking Meetup Group Brisbane – Meetup.
Had a great hike with the Brisbane Hiking group at O’reillys on Sunday. The walk was about 20km through beautiful rain Forrest. We followed the Toolona Creek circuit which lead us along the creek and many beautiful waterfalls.
Another water fall
Fans soak up Chemical Brothers.
The Chemical Brothers have unveiled their supersonic strobe-heavy show in Brisbane, boasting an amazing mix of tunes from a back catalogue spanning nearly 20 years.
The wet weather continued at Brisbane’s Riverstage venue on Friday night but it didn’t bother fans as they soaked up the British pair’s dashing visual display of fluorescent lasers, a giant cylinder of flashing lights suspended above the stage and of course those insanely creepy clowns with bad teeth and smeared make-up. The gentle rain also played its part, contrasting starkly with the high-tech equipment on show.
- chemical brothers concert
The night was fantastic. I fell i love with their music many years ago and i never thought that i might see them live in concert. Not many groups hang arround as long as they have.
Their music is very high energy and i listen to them when i go running or working out at the gym. That is how i first found them when looking for good workout music.
They obvious love what they do and it shows. The music was great but they turn the music into a fantastic visual experience with lasers , a huge screen , hundreds of lights, smoke and strobes. They have this huge screen behind them that has all sorts of dancing images including lots of freaky clowns. It is like being inside a firework display. The experience is enhanced again because you are sharing all this with thousands of fans all moving to the beats. We were up the front , about 3 rows from the stage and we were so packed in we are all rumbling up against each other.
Karin and i managed to stay dry because we were under the cover of the stage but everyone else behind us was drenched. The grass turned to mud as everyone was jumping to the beats.