Dave's trip, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005 -- Just a few pictures today. I took the ferry across the harbour and went downtown for a walk. Saw the usual busy cityscapes, buildings carved into the sides of hills framed by busy highways, tall buildings, tall buildings framed by parks (the building here being entirely prefab and capable of being deconstructed and moved elsewhere), and nice small parks stuffed between buildings. It is a fairly cloudy day, as can be seen in this picture of part of the skyline taken from the Star Ferry. Part of the city is blocked off due to left wing protesters at the World Trade Organization meetings. These barriers, filled with water, are about 8 feet high and have closed off a nice portion of the city. Here is one fellow that won't be protesting the WTO anytime soon. More interesting snaps to come tonight - horsies and nighttime skyline.

Thursday, December 15, 2005 -- Last night's trip to Sha Tin racetrack was fun! It is an amazing site. Here's the paddock (empty), with a multimillion dollar jumbotron-type screen. You can see the size of it by comparing it to the people in front of it. Here are a couple of stills. It is huge. Note the roof over the paddock. It is retractable. The racetrack, itself, is mammoth. Lots of people on a Wednesday night. The Guinness Book of Records calls this "jumbotron" the world's largest TV - and here you are only seeing part of it. Here is the whole thing. Here's another shot of part of it while a race is on. You'll see that on the screen on the left you can follow the exact placing of your horsie as it runs. The horsies rush the finish line just like home and always pass in front of the crowd when they win. Not only the horsies sometimes win. :) Finally here, here, here and here are some night shots of the holiday-time Hong Kong skyline, with the buildings all decorated up. Sorry, they are a little blurry.

Friday, December 16, 2005 -- A busy, fun day. First, a trip to the highest building in Hong Kong. Another walk around downtown. Then a trip to Victoria Peak, one of the highest points in Hong Kong, where the views are stunning: for example, see here, here, here and here. Hong Kong is very crowded - roughly 7 million crammed into an area about the size of the City of Toronto (before merger) and they do it by putting most people into endless rows of tower-blocks. Having had enough of the city, I went to an old fishing village (Aberdeen) on the south side of Hong Kong island. Here's a boat that looks like one I would have (compare to my office). Here's another with tires. I guess the driver of the boat has very little confidence in his driving ability. Next, a nice visit to the village of Stanley and it's time for a late lunch. Back to the hotel. Here is a nice boardwalk near the hotel on the shore across from the main part of the City. Here is the neighbourhood next to the hotel. This photo shows the arts centre in the background and the egg in the foreground is the space museum. Here's another shot of the egg, this time with the art gallery in the background.

Saturday-Monday, December 17-19, 2005 -- This includes my last day in Hong Kong, my travel to Australia, and arrival in Sydney. Now begins the most restful part of the trip. Before leaving on Hong Kong,I went to the races on Saturday, which is the social highlight of the week in Hong Kong, a time that is very crowded at the track and even the paddock. It was a beautiful day at the track. As a result of the day at the track, passage across international frontiers is slower. Not a bad problem to have. After an overnight in Sydney, I flew to the NW coast of the country, to Hamilton Island. Then a ride on a boat, with some champagne or four or five champagnes and some nice scenery like this. This is where I am going to be through Christmas, in particular in this building. Lots of tropical forests, and great views like this and this. It somehow makes all of the hard work during the year worthwhile.

Tuesday-Thursday, December 20-22, 2005 -- (Note: because I have a dial-up line, I have reduced the resolution of photos temporarily, in order to speed up uploading to this site). Deep in relaxation mode around the resort. Some pictures: * * *. A major highlight was a visit by helicopter to Whitehaven Beach. Here is an aerial view of the resort. Here is some scenery on the way: * * * * * * * Conde Nast Magazine ranks this beach in the top 5 in the world. It is very beautiful: * * *. Well, it used to be beautiful.

Thursday, December 22, 2005 (extra) -- Just a few shots around the resort: * * * * * * * * *

Friday, December 23, 2005 -- This was a special day. A full day at Whitehaven beach. So relaxing! Got a whole book read, and read the latest SCC offerings from the blackberry. Left at 6:15 am, and got some interesting views from the helicopter: * * *. After landing, time to walk about. Oooh, a stingray, very close. Some nice beach shots: * * *. Back when I was overworked, this was the day I looked forward to - a full day at this great isolated place. I had all 7 km of it alone to myself. It was low tide, so there was plenty of wildlife foraging for food on the exposed portions of shore. Very restful. It was everything I had hoped for. Great scenery on the way home in the helicopter: * * * * .

Saturday-Sunday, December 24-25, 2005 -- A couple of lazy last days at the resort. Taking in all sorts of scenery. Lots of animals are around. Here are some horsies. Go horsies! Here are some birds - they come right up to the window. "Dave, please don't feed the birds".... ooops, it fell out of my hand. "Dave, please don't feed the ducks." How can you NOT feed the ducks? Good-bye to this wonderful place and back to Sydney.

Monday-Friday, December 26-30, 2005 -- I spent the last part of my trip in Sydney and environs. I lived in Sydney for about seven months in 1988, so a good part of my time was spent visiting old friends. Here are a few snapshots of some of my favourite Sydney places. First, here is Hyde Park, a park located right downtown. I used to eat lunch here alot, sometimes playing chess against somebody, as it was very close to the office tower where I worked. Another one of my favourite places is the Sydney Botanical Garden, where there are are great scenes, good views of the City, plenty of bright gardens, quiet laneways, and nice fountains. The Gardens also offer some of the finest views of the Opera House and Bridge. Further down from the Gardens is Pitt Water, Captain Cook's first port of call on January 25, 1788 and where, in the bicentennial celebrations 200 years later, replica ships came to visit hundreds of thousands of celebrants, only to be met by hundreds of swimming aborigines yelling "Go back! Go back!" Here is a view of the Opera House over Pitt Water. If you turn 90 degrees to your left, you see the City skyline. A little further along, you get good views of the harbour too. Here is a view of North Sydney, where I used to live. Lots of tourists in the area - here is one now. What's that in his hand? Yup, a horsie form. Off to Royal Randwick, Sydney's premier racecourse. It's a pretty well-attended place, very much a place to be seen for high society. The horsie action was good and fun, but not very lucrative. A couple of days later, at another Sydney area racecourse (there are four major ones) called Canterbury, I left the camera behind and had a spectacular day. My last day in Australia was spent at a small country town north of Sydney called Gosford, at what is probably my favourite track down there. Easily reachable by comfortable journey by train, Gosford is filled with warm, friendly country people, good racing, closeness to the paddock, and nice scenery at the well-kept track. The scenery on the way up is spectacular.

That was the end of the trip - time to take the Qantas jumbo through L.A. across some nice scenery, then finally to home and the office.