Paul’s Random Ramblings

I have been lucky enough to spend the last five years working in and around Newcastle Harbour.

The scene captured in this photo is the beauty that greeted me one stormy afternoon as I left work on Dyke Point (a point of land that juts right out into the centre of the harbour).

The view is looking along the Eastern edge of Dyke Point towards the city with Christ Church Cathedral silhouetted against the skyline.

The map below shows shows the approximate location from which the photo was taken:

New South Wales Waratahs played Fiji in a trial game in Newcastle last Friday night (30/1/09).  Not the highest standard game with many passes going to ground (not surprising I suppose for a trial) but still great to have professional standard rugby union in Newcastle.  The final score was Waratahs 60 to Fiji 0 (Zero).

Here are some photos I took during the game, for the full gallery visit Waratahs vs Fiji gallery.

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During our Christmas break Ruth and I had the pleasure of making a short visit to the Wombeyan Caves south of Sydney (see map below).  These are some of the most beautiful caves caves in Australia and several are readily accessible on self and ranger guided tours.

Being the Christmas  to New Year week all of the guided tours were booked out so we did the self guided tour of Fig Tree Cave without great expectations.  We were to be pleasantly surprised, Fig Tree Cave features several quite large caverns and a range of well preserved features thanks to a very well thought out path that gives good views of the cave while keeping people far enough away to protect them from the worst of the effects of visitors.

While the caves are a long drive from main roads it is well worth the effort.  The easiest accesses are from Golburn and Oberon, while the most interesting drive in is from Mittagong.  Allow plenty of time for this route however as it includes about 60 km of very slow dirt road.

This months photo’s show some of the highlights of Fig Tree Cave.

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Some good sites with further information on Wombeyan Caves are www.walkabout.com.au/locations/NSWWombeyanCaves.shtml and http://www.showcaves.com/english/au/region/Wombeyan.html.

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Photos of Northern Lights taken in Northern Norway in September 2002 during a trip to Scandinavia & Russia.

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The dunes of Morocco’s Sahara desert display a brilliant range of colours across the day.   These photos were taken on our 2004 trip to Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Please visit these links for more photos from our Sahara and Morocco galleries.

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