23.08 2007 Melbourne Grand Prix

I know that this is very late, considering these photo's were taken back in March! These really compliment the previous post(click here to view it) about our Grand Prix weekend.

So I thought that it would be a great opportunity as they have just released the dates for next year's race - March 16! Which is very fortunate as its a few days before our lease ends on our apartment! Looks like it going to be even better than last year with the addition of the V8 Supercars!! I'm getting our tickets next week!

Damp Start: Practise was quite wet on the first day, but fortunately it cleared up to be a very warm & sunny weekend - we're looking forward to a return of that weather very soon!

Melbourne: View of the City from the start line.

Great View: Joanna in her seat!

Entertainment: It wouldn't be complete without the traditional flypast!

The Glam: The Minogue Sisters adding a bit of glam to the event. Unfortunately I didn't get any photographic evidence of Stirling Moss touching them both up!

Drivers Photo: Unfortunately we could only see the back of them! So I managed to find the official photo on crash.net.

The Grid: Frantic activity on the grid just before the start. We did see Martin Brundle doing his pit walk & Susie Perry doing a piece on the front of the grid too!

Lights Go Out: This is the moment when there was a mass of noise & vibration, and just before all the air got sucked out from around us!

Big Screens: These are vital to see all the action as it happens!

The Winner: Kimi stands on the top step, with Fernando & Lewis either side. We didn't quite expect that or the way that the rest of the season has gone!

11.08 Screenprinting - The Future?

I have been promising this post for such a long time, and I finally took some shots the other day of my work. I took an adult education class in the city because I had always fancied doing some some proper t-shirt printing. Having organised artwork for screenprinting while working at bellingham + stanley, I was really looking forward to the photographic stuff.

The first couple of weeks were spent using stencils & block outs to get an idea of laying the images. These are just a couple of the first attempts. I'm not a fine artist & trying to come up with something spontaneously was pretty difficult, even though we live in a city with loads going on around us!! As you can see Bolte Bridge featured a couple of times!

This is one of the photos I used, taken on one of those days between jobs - might have had a few of those!?!

The colour image was taken & then converted to pure black & white and the image was cleaned up - logo's removed and some of the fore/background was also removed.

The final pictures are test prints of exposed image. The logo artwork was generated from scratch, and applied to the edited images too.

The process of taking the image, converting & editing it was repeated for the all the photos used. Incorporated on to this picture was the text taken from a tram ticket. All these test prints were done on a day that the negative didn't take to the screen very well, as you can see from the logo!

The finished product! A LazyVee tram print on a t-shirt!!

The first LazyVee.com t-shirt! You'll have to watch the website for any further developments! There were/are plans to perhaps investigate t-shirt printing further. It would be nice to be able to source the t-shirts, printing, etc from a centralised source. Unfortunately I don't have the space to print the t-shirts myself. I have though found a t-shirt manufacturer who use australian grown organic cotton, and who manufacture & print here too. All in the aim of trying to be fair trade & limiting the amount of clothing miles (we've all heard of food miles!).

06.08 Neighbours Update

We saw 'Tom Scully' at Sovereign Hill. This must be where they come when they leave the 'street! We haven't spotted anyone else recently, but our eyes are always open!

The following bit contains some spoilers, so if you don't want to know don't read any further!

Sky gets out of jail!
Frazer can walk again!
Ned's son turns up out of the blue!
Carmella is pregnant - but who's the father? Ringo? Oliver?!
Paul loses his memory - very convenient!
Oliver isn't Elle's brother!
The Timmins leave! As does Sky & Boyd!
Toddie's done for drink driving!
Lou & Andy make an appearance in Scarlet Bar - very amusing!
The Scarlet Bar gets renamed to Charlie's!

29.07 Bellarine Peninsular

After I said some not-so pleasant things about Geelong when we ended up there on our way through to Melbourne from the Great Ocean Road last year, we decided to take another look. My relatives very kindly lent us their car for the weekend, so we thought that we'd do the Bellarine Peninsular. This forms the mouth to the Bay from the Bass Strait, with the Mornington Peninsular on the other side (see our previous posts for the 'story' & the 'photos').

Along the waterfront at Geelong they have a Bollard Trail, where they have carved over a 100 characters out of old pier pylons. All these characters have played a part in Geelong's history.

Although we didn't 'do' the town of Geelong, we, actually I, was more impressed with the place. Seeing it in the light and while it was dry definitely helped!! From Geelong we headed to Portarlington, via Drysdale with views towards Melbourne.

When we arrived in Portarlington we visited the local market and headed down to the small fishing port & jetty. This is where we met this little chap! From Portarlington we followed the coast round to Queenscliff.

On the Peninsular there is a scenic railway that takes you inland to Drysdale. We didn't quite have enough time to do the trip, so we went and had a look at the station just as the train was about to leave.

The town of Queenscliff is a nice medium-sized town, with some great architecture. You can catch the ferry from here to the Mornington Peninsular from here too.

A panoramic view of Queenscliff on the left and Portsea on the Right. This is the mouth to the Bay! There may have been some artist license in the photo, as I couldn't quite get my stitching markers. It took a ship that we saw in Geelong all day to get out of the Bay! It finally made it into the Bass Strait when we reached Point Lonsdale, where this photo is taken from.

Point Lonsdale had some great beaches.

From Point Lonsdale we headed to our final destination of Barwon Heads. This is apparently where Cadel Evans is from. There even had 'Go Cadel' written on the road as we crossed the bridge and headed to a local cafe!

15.07 Sovereign Hill, Ballarat

A little day trip was in order, so we took the cross-country train to Ballarat and headed to Sovereign Hill, which is about 100km from Melbourne. Sovereign Hill is a living museum representing Ballarat during the discovery of gold. So we thought that it would be a little fun...

Welcome to Sovereign Hill. Joanna's packed her lunch and is going to hunt for some gold, if she can beat the bus load of Japanese tourists that have just arrived!

Thank goodness we went before we came - as Joanna is demonstrating!

The town, as you will see, has plenty of shops all selling various wares. That is snow under the bench that Joanna is sitting on, but they had snow making machines there for the school holidays!

This structure was used to house the pump needed pump all the water out of the mine. It was also used to dump all the slag from the quartz & rock processing.

Everyone can have a go! Although the chances of actually finding something are pretty remote - all I managed to do was find a large bit of quartz & handful of pebbles. Back to work for us on Monday then!!

These were the only vehicles back in the day, this horse was enjoying the day off watching the others cart people around all day!

Looking over the Sovereign Hill site from the Pump Tower.

Housed in the Pump House is a massive steam engine driving the pump beam, being fuelled by three enormous boilers! Which was very handy when trying to warm ourselves up!

This is where the Chinese workers used to live. It is still being used to this day copying all sorts of electrical goods and slight redesigns of old Rover cars!!

Some more shops...

Not sure whether Joanna is reflecting about her old stomping ground in London or for her names sake!

Some more horses.

One of the workers cottages, probably not a miner's though!

Looking back towards the gold mine.

Plenty of other shops...

This is the horse-drawn coach ride that you can take around the site.

We had a good day wondering about and learning about the Gold Rush of the 1850's. However you still had to pay for the attractions once you were inside. We paid $30 each (with YHA discount) and extra for the Gold Mine tour - which was the best bit!