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My sister Rachel and I began the 2004 year winning the open category of the annual Australia Day Sand Sculpting Competition at Cronulla beach for our sculpture of the Australian of the Year, Steve Waugh on a television set (see photo), both a surprise and a lot of fun.
Snowy: 16 years old.
I've now sent an entire year (except for a short trip to NZ) in just one country (Australia), pretty good achievement huh... Chrissy was good although Snowy wasn't present. He was put down in July after a very happy 16 years and 1 week (about twice the expected age for a Maltese Terrier) and after his ‘peeing in the house quota’ reached triple figures. I suggested taxidermy but it was never taken up...
Rach and I win the Australia Day Sand Sculpting comp at Cronulla.
I started studying a Bachelor of International Studies at the University of New England and made the move to Armidale, a smaller town of about 25,000 located around 7 hours north-west of Sydney. I love the town and the community who have since converted me into a country lad. I share a house with a beautiful older lady in her 60’s, Lorna. I attend the Anglican UNE Church on campus with around 150 fellow students, play Ultimate Frisbee, partake in a weekly bible study, joined the Wright Village basketball team (taking second in the 2004 comp.), dabbled lightly in youth work with the local Aboriginal kids, joined the Mountaineering Club, and to fill my love for water sports whilst away from the coast have really taken to white-water kayaking, with a few weekend trips down the Nymboida River over grade 2 and 3 rapids.
Fire twirling in Armidale on a kyak weekend.
Above: Hiking through the Blue Mountains.
Finding a waterhole to escape the summer heat - Blue Mountains.
Other camping trips included a beautiful and sweltering hike on areas of the Six Foot Track through the Blue Mountains with mate Aussie. It held traverses over wire bridges, inspections of Aboriginal rock holes, swimming in drought depleted water holes, and sightings of red belly black snakes. More recently I camped with uni friends Dan and Micah on the beautiful Aboriginal site called Nobby’s Rock on Dan’s farm in Gunnedah. The weekend involved goannas, diamond pythons, 4-wheel drive bush bashing, caving with masses of ticks and bats, and chasing wild goats in an attempt to capture and sell them, but with no real success.
Dan, Micah and me in Gunnedah.
Micah and I caving in Gunnedah with a pack of bats, soon after this photo Dan disturbed them and they all flew into our heads and hair trying to escape from the tiny room we were in.
Part way through the year Grandma Conly passed away (on my Mothers side) resulting in a sudden trip by the family to New Zealand for the funeral. The trip was a good opportunity to see cousins and extended family, some of whom I hadn’t seen since my teens. The completion of exams was celebrated with a three day snowboarding trip to Perisher on a weekend where it dumped so much that Jindabyne was cloaked in white and roads to Cooma were blocked. The most powder I have ever boarded or seen in Australia. I have spent the majority of my holidays trekking up and down the coast visiting friends in Brisbane and Melbourne and anywhere in between, or relaxing in Sydney, surfing, running and delivering pizzas. Another friend, Shane, brought a new speedboat which we sometimes put in at the end of my street in the wee morning hours and wakeboard the glassy Port Hacking.
Above: Dan, Mum, Dad, Rach & Azz in New Zealand.
Skiing and boarding Perisher
Cousins reunited in NZ
Most recently I replied to a salty sailers internet advertisement for people to crew a yacht. Paul invited me to assist in sailing his 43ft Hans Christiansen ketch from Brisbane down to Sydney, and within a few hours I had conned a friend Ben onto the plane up to Brisbane to help in the exercise. Having never undertaken such a sailing voyage both Ben and I felt consistently nauseous from the outset and were met at midnight by a storm of the size the captain claimed he had never before experienced in his 50 or so years of sailing. Whilst around 25 miles off the coast our pleasant north-easter turned to a south-easter of force 9 gale winds approximating 45 to 50 knots forcing us to attempt to tack into the coastal town of Yamba. I won’t forget a night spent tired and saturated on deck, standing almost upright on the base of a mast that came next to parallel with the ocean in the boats excessive lean, clenching my life line as waves broke over the bow, and attempting to synchronise my continual spewing with my winching of the sails to arrive in the harbour well after daybreak. A week was spent repairing the boat in Yamba, our steering wheel had almost come loose during the entire gale wind drama, and with Ben leaving for a wedding I continued another nauseous day of sailing to Coffs Harbour before leaving the skipper and jumping ship myself to hitchhike down the coast, having given up on conquering sea sickness.
The smiley soldier on boot camp (not very scary I know).
Have seen some good live music at uni including Eskimo Joe and Butterfingers. Am taking up a scholarship to study in New York for a semester followed by China for a semester next year. The latter should be helpful for my Chinese language major and I hope to leave for New York in a few months. Just enlisted in the Australian Army Reserves to train as a Medic. I start Recruit Training, ‘boot camp’, on the 3rd of January 2005 for the next six weeks so will dissappear off the face of the earth for the next while with outside contact banned or limited. I hope your 2004 reflects great growth for you, and wish you all the best in 2005! Have a great New Year!
