Central Europe Adventures 2016 – Part Two: Innsbruck

March 7, 2016 by Brad

Arriving in Innsbruck after almost 40 hours of travel, one would expect to fall straight into bed, but as it was such a beautiful afternoon I decided it go up to the top of Nordkette instead.

To get to the top of Nordkette you catch a very modern Funicular from the edge of the Innsbruck city centre to the suburb/village of Hungerburg. From here you switch to two cable cars which take you to the top of the mountain. At the top I walked around for at least 30 minutes in snow that was literally knee deep. The ski runs off the top were the steepest I’ve ever seen. After deciding against trying to get to the absolute summit of the mountain in the deep snow I headed back down one cable car to grab a traditional Austrian lunch – Apple Strudel and Red Bull.

Central Europe Adventures 2016 – Part One: Sydney to Innsbruck, Austria

February 7, 2016 by Brad

For the second February in a row I jetted off to Europe for a holiday. Unlike last year this trip had a little more planning and was close to twice as long. Over the month of February I visited five countries and caught up with many friends.

To get to Europe I chose to fly on Etihad, whom I have flown to Europe with twice before. However, getting to Europe this time around was slightly different to previous trips, while I could take the usual Sydney to Abu Dhabi flight I chose instead to go first to Perth and then to Abu Dhabi. This allowed me three hours to stretch my legs in Perth and reduce the length of the ultra-long haul Australia to Abu Dhabi leg of the journey.

Happy 2016 – Harbour Fireworks from Sydney

January 1, 2016 by Brad

Once again I spent my New Years Eve on the edge of Sydney Harbour.

The plan for this year was to watch the fireworks from Blues Point. However, despite arriving before 11am the site was already totally full. So my friends and I ended up next to the Northern Pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Bradfield Park.

As seen in the series of images below the fireworks off the bridge just kept on increasing in size as the performance went on and eventually the bridge was lost in a ball of white.

Goals for 2016

January 1, 2016 by Brad

Many of these goals are a continuation of goals from previous years

Continue learning German
Read 30 books
Travel and/or move to Europe or Singapore

2015 – The Year of Challenges and Opportunities

December 31, 2015 by Brad

At the start of the year I set some goals which I subsequently completely forgot about, but looking back now I achieved four out of five of them. They were:

Continue learning German
- This goal ebbed and flowed, but in the later part of the year I completed around 90 days of continuous practice on Duolingo.com
Learn python
- I completed multiple Coursera courses on python and had to crash course myself through it to work on a Baxter robot in the middle of the year.
Go to Europe
- I went in February on a whim after finding myself out of work.
Read 20 books
- I read 33!

Each month of the year also had a number of highlights:

Exploring Henry Head and Cape Banks

December 30, 2015 by Brad

At the end of December I went with a friend to La Perouse in the south east of Sydney. From here we walked through scrub to the Henry Head Battery and Cape Banks. This is a great short (6km) walk really close to the city and we had a lot of fun exploring the old military tunnels underneath Henry Head.

Extreme Sailing Series Sydney 2015

December 9, 2015 by Brad

In mid-December Sydney hosted the final act of the 2015 Extreme Sailing Series. I went down by myself for a few hours on the Saturday afternoon and then returned for the entire afternoon of the Sunday with friends.

Below are a few photos of the racing near Farm Cove in Sydney Harbour.

V8 Supercars Sydney 500 2015 Photos

December 8, 2015 by Brad

In early December I went to all three days of the finale round of the V8 Supercars Championship at Sydney Olympic Park.

I was very fortunate to have won a competition for a hot lap in a V8 Supercar on the Friday afternoon. I was not told of which team or car I would have the ride in until a few minutes before the lap. The car I was assigned was the Erebus Mercedes Benz E63 AMG V8 Supercar. I’ve been lucky enough to have ridden in race cars before so I knew what to expect when the car was braking for a corner. However, what I had yet to experience was the sheer power that the V8 Supercar has while accelerating, it was far more powerful than any rollercoaster or ride I’ve been on before.

There are a few photos from the three days of racing below.

A Wedding in Bali

November 24, 2015 by Brad

In mid November I traveled to Bali for a friend’s Wedding.

Bali is not a place that I have ever wanted to visit and a raft of stereotypes held up quite strongly in areas of the Island. In fact when I first arrived I was a little surprised at just how poor some areas of the island are. However, the wedding was good and we did some sight seeing on a day either side of the wedding. During the three days I was there we had dinner on Jimbaran Bay Beach and Kuta, relaxed at Nusa Dua, and did a day trip to Ubud.

Photos are below.

Sculpture By The Sea 2015

November 17, 2015 by Brad

Below are some photos from the 2015 edition of Sculpture By The Sea. The highlight of the day was seeing a whale off the coast.