Last January Saturday

Saturday morning means parkrun... It's entirely a volunteer based organisation, and the photographers can be pretty random, but not in this case. What you can see here is the hill at the halfway point, with one of those curious blocks of flats that somehow appears to have escaped planning permission. Oddly, though, it's the  aesthetic making of this picture.

None of those people is me. I ran a PB today (still not under 20 minutes) and there are no pictures of it. I only run for the photographs.

While I was off doing that, Liz was engaged in the bridge-to-bridge, a 14 km "race" from the Spit Bridge at Mosman to Roseville Bridge (right). I didn't get up there in time to catch her at the halfway point, but the bridge wasn't going anywhere so I caught it instead. Actually I've run over this bridge a couple of times as part of the NOSH race - this is an amazing place for running, but not so convenient for me on a regular basis. Sydney has managed to hang on to an extraordinary amount of bush, given that real estate speculation is the true meaning of life here.

Spit Bridge marina - probably there is more than one - is another stunning Sydney vista. These are, believe it or not, the cheap boats. Well, perhaps "cheaper" would be more accurate. They're all very nice. The super expensive ones tend to be powerboats.

This is the new boat in action - you can get an idea of its unique features, to some extent. Note the very wide out-curved sides; this is the tumblehome, which provides additional secondary stability. The bottom of the canoe is a little narrower - for speed - as is the top, to assist with management in the wind.

It's 17'6" long - American made, quaint that they are probably the last users of the imperial measurements in the world. You can see the stabilising ribs through the kevlar stiffened fibreglass, and possibly a hint of the rudder.

It's a very nice looking boat.

Paddler's eye view - feet on steering pedals. This is Deadman's Creek, off the Georges River, at a king tide. It was extraordinarily high this AM.

Federal Highway and a new boat!

 We went down to Canberra, combining a trip for me to catch up with an old friend and bridge partner, a trip for Liz to see her nieces and a trip to Robertson to pick up the new boat.

I took the opportunity to explore the manual operations of the camera as we drove down the Federal Highway. It's a pretty hit and miss business taking pictures from a moving car with shaky hands, but this tree turned out pretty well.

The left hand side of the road.

 The right hand side of the road.

Focus failure. I thought there'd be more cyclists, but we only saw five or six on the entire trip.

Windmills on Lake George

This is the new boat. The key difference is the rudder at the back, but it is also 2 feet longer than the last one. Longer boats are faster. The physics of steering are that sitting in the middle of a boat is probably the worst place to try and steer from - we got the hint from a Canadian guy a couple of years ago; he'd had a rudder added to his canoe prior to setting a record on the Yukon. This is Liz's boat for the Hawkesbury.

2015 so far

Finally I saw the photographer in time to pose for the picture! This is one of the best volunteer photographers parkrun gets - it's an excellent shot of Sydney Park, looking south. Under my left elbow you can see the Cooks River and to my right is a reasonable sample of the building that's going on around what used to be the purely industrial suburb of Alexandria. I'm pleased to announce that the guy behind me stayed there all the way to the finish line. Sadly, the park is under threat from roadworks.