April 2006 Archives

We went on this trip on the 17th - one day after our Great Ocean Road trip.

Miraculously, I managed to drag Siao Yin out of bed to actually get on this trip. However, she felt we had to take Cookie - so we did.

Lake Mountain is I think the closest Alpine Resort you can get to from Melbourne. I've been there before and I think the drive there is one experience any car lover shouldn't miss.

The meet point was at the Warburton Shell petrol station where we would meet up with Richard's family and Andrew + Su Yi. Richard's family came in their spanking new Subaru Outback and Andrew and Su Yi in their Saab convertible. What a convoy!

Anyways off we went, and everything went smoothly except for having Cookie throwing up just before we reached the turnoff to Lake Mountain. :-/ So we went slower from there, and Richard took Andrew, Siao Yin and Su Yi up the part to Lake Mountain in my car whilst I tried the Saab. Camilla took Cookie in the Outback then - to let the poor thing feel better from his car sickness.

Up there, we managed to secure one of their covered BBQ/picnic areas. Richard's family came very prepared compared to the rest of us.

Check out what Richard brought along.

Anyway, while the kids went to play along with the ice leftover from the recent snowfall, we ate what we brought along. BreadTop bread, green tea biscuits, tuna sandwiches, roast chicken, hot chocolate and coffee - all very refreshing.

A group of British sports car lovers came up just as we were finishing our food. When Richard went to check them out he realised it was the same club he went to a motorkhana with. Small world.

:: Check out the rest of the photos from this trip here ::

On the way back, we stopped by Marysville to visit the famous sweet shop there. Cookie almost killed himself here when he shaked his collar off and dashed across the street. O_o Luckily he made it across although a car missed him by mere inches; thanks to the reflexes of the lady driver.

So we split up at that point to go home from there - and I think it's safe to say the trip went along quite well, the weather was good, the traffic was light and even Cookie was satisfied.

Finally! After so many years being in Melbourne, we finally dragged ourselves out of bed to go on this trip on the 15th of April.

The weather certainly didn't look very good when we woke up - the weatherman had predicted that it would be 'clearing' showers. Well, for the first time these people got it right.

It basically rained and drizzled on and off until we reached Apollo Bay. We had breakfast at one of the local cafes here. The toast,bacon, sausages + eggs certainly refreshed everyone - with the exception of I think Hui and his wife who had been *seriously car sick almost all the way through the windy roads.

Anyways, we managed to reach the 12 Apostles around noon and the weather was really nice and sunny then. Unfortunately that area was still like a crazy wind trap, and the strong winds were still pretty cold.

We managed to check out the surrounding rock formations as well, the Gorge, Thunder Cave (don't ask) and spent a little extra time on the beach at the Gorge.

After that - we headed to the Otway Fly Treetop Walk and we were seriously (well, maybe it was only me) hoping to have lunch there but when we reached there at 4, the cafe kitchen had already closed. Bummer. Luckily there was still some Big M Coffee Milk and Carrot cake left at the coffee counter or I would have gone mad there on the spot.
Even the coffee counter ran out of milk.

Anyways, this Otway Tree Top Walk was quite a nerve moving experience. Basically this structure is built quite high up from the ground for you to walk "along" the trees. A lot of my pictures here didn't really come out right as the structure itself swayed + shaked quite a bit when there was someone walking nearby.

As you can see from the picture on top, that's the center and tallest point of this metal structure. Walking up there was quite a scary experience I can assure you, as the winds and slight swaying didn't stop till you reached the top.

:: Check out the rest of the photos from this trip here ::

Anyways on the way back, we just headed for Colluck and had dinner at the local La Porchetta there. Good ol' La Porchetta.

Overall - I think it was quite a good trip. Well worth going - but not sure if it's something you'd do again for some time. Definitely go if you're in Melbourne and have a day to spare. ;)

I actually went on this quite a while back.

Picked up Davie at 6:15 am and headed to the Village Hotel at the corner of Ferntree Gulley Rd and Springvale Rd to rendezvous with other WRX club members. Once everyone was there we then headed to the Philip Island track as a convoy. It took us about 1 hour I think to get there, whilst making a stop at a BP servo on the way to refresh ourselves.

Anyways, when we got there, volunteer flag marshalls like myself were assigned 2 to a corner.

Me and Davie got assigned to Corner 2, which was pretty good as I got to take my car down on the track to drive to the place. Barry, one of the stewards came down to the corner with us and he provided us with the training - which made the experience even better.

Davie and me were pretty tired by the time it was 12 pm and we were even provided a nice lunch package by the organisers. Mmmm...

Oh and here's one of my favourite cars on the track.

We hung around for a short while after lunch and then headed home for Melbourne. Davie was knocked out pretty much after 15 minutes in the car and woke up when we were almost half way back heheh.

:: Check out the rest of the photos from this event here ::

Another plus side was that we actually got a decent tan without getting burnt. ;)

After putting up with all those pesky spambot commenters for 1 year, I have finally decided it was enough.

I was just also too lazy to get off my ass to work on a new design - which I know I know...is bad.

Therefore, I have finally reinstalled a newer version of MovableType which will hopefully solve that problem.

However, the idiot that I am, I accidentally deleted my whole database along with it - with no backups. Therefore I lost everything, including the forums for my year of high school friends at http://www.harbx.com/sxi/. Good job Andy.

The site will be going through some changes and tweaks the next few weeks.

Please bear with us. Fingers crossed - to hopefully no more mishaps.

Went to my company's birthday lunch today at the Melbourne Zoo. We haven't been there for ages, ever since my family was here in 2003.

SEEK basically booked out the carousel area - which had this indoor tent structure. The weather report for the day wasn't very good, but luckily for us the weather held out right till the end.

It was a Madagascar theme, and there were quite a lot of Madagascar soft toys around that people could take home. We brought home a little hippo soft toy with us. Cookie still thinks its his and will bite him and run off if he gets his teeth on it.

Lunch was a BBQ lunch, sausages, burgers, etc. We ducked off to take a walk around the zoo after lunch and went back at around 3 for ice cream.

:: Check out the rest of the photos from the zoo here ::

Quite a nice day - good chance to meet the families and partners of colleagues.