One of my favourite buildings

In terms of the grandiose abandoned buildings, Detroit's Michigan Central Station is up there. It's amazing that I did my first post on it Abandoned in America nearly 2 years ago - December 28 2007. Recently Opacity added this page on the MCS with a video of the station just before it was abandoned.

Long live the Book

Came across this YouTube video brought out by New Zealand's Book Council, again someone with a lot of time & patience created this.
Maurice is regarded as the Kiwi's major contemporary fiction author.

Down with Canberra

Interested to see the website for the HMAS Canberra, which was sunk off the coast at the beginning of October.

Everyone has to wait to dive it till ParksVictoria deem it has settled sufficiently & is safe. But will express my interest to the dive group for a weekend away!

The secret's out

A little 'Noah Wyle', but a lovely idea.

Surviving Samoa

I watched the first episode of Survivor Samoa on TV on Tuesday night. Looks like it was filmed on the island of Savai'i with the blow-holes & black lava rock beaches.

Not sure I'd want Russell on my team.

This photo is of Papapapai-Tia Waterfall, the tallest in Western Samoa.

Back again

Wow, again a long time between drinks or blog posts. This time the excuse is our building renovations, even now I'm crouched over the PC which is set up backwards on the desk return while the carpet guy is measuring out for the skirting boards behind me.

What do I have to blog about - well, the death of one of Britain's great actors Edward Woodward. Loved him playing those enigmatic, flawed characters - Callan, The Equaliser, and Kyle in 1990, also as Howie in The Wicker Man.
And most especially as Breaker Morant. A great story, great acting and a great location, was in Burra before they filmed there, and below is the jail as featured in the film - they chopped down the tree when they did the actual shooting.


Must pull out my copy of Breaker Morant to watch it again, or see if I can source episodes of 1990.

Holiday pics

Hard to imagine it's been a month since I've added a post.

My excuse - I've been on holidays. To prove it here are some of my shots.

Went to Troubridge Island and stayed in the lighthouse keepers cottages below.

It was a lighthouse odyssey, we visited a dozen lighthouses, including the unusally coloured orange lighthouse at Cape Banks, site of the Admella tragedy,

and the atomspheric Point Malcolm (all very Wuthering Heights)

We saw some wonderful scenes including these creatures - Homer the NZ fur seal, and these Little Penguin chicks.

There was the history element - staying in the Inneston ghost town where they mined gypsum.

A number of shipwrecks, including this one of the Ethel hence the lighthouses.

And finally there was even an abandoned bridge or two.

It ticked all the boxes!

Samoan tsunami

My thoughts are with the Samoans trying to cope with the aftermath of the tsunami.


Here is my photo of a beach wedding on the beach at Lalomanu on the south coast of Western Samoa, taken in 2005. Behind my left shoulder are a row of fales with an uninterupted view of the beach and water.


Now the 'after' shot taken by Associated Press almost the same position, but from up on the road.

Listening to one of the survivors on the radio this morning, he related how the wave had come up to within inches of the ceiling of his room at Coconuts. Below is my photo from our room at Coconuts, so the water would have inundated this view and reached to the lattice roof at the top of the photo.


Below is a photo from the SMH of Sinalei the neighbouring resort looking towards Coconuts halfway down the beach.

Sheep-ish

This clip was emailed to me.

These guys really have too much time on their hands, but I appreciate the level of ingenuity and the level of effort needed to present this