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Rene Pallesen's Blog

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  • Mothers day with Autumn colours in Mt Wilson

    It is Autumn here in Sydney and today the forecast was for 19 degrees and sunny...the first cool'ish day here. In the morning we went with Kims family to the cemetry to visit Kims mum. After this we were planning to head up to the Blue Mountains to Mt Wilson to visit some of the private gardens to take photos of the Autumn colours and get some new family photos of Kim, Aiden and I.

    When we arrived it was really windy and only 7 degrees (later it dropped to 5 degrees). We had dressed for the cold, but Dylan who had joined us on the spur of the moment was a bit underdressed and cold so he borrowed a spare jumper I had with me. We immediately found a pile of leaves and they started having fun throwing them up in the air.

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    We decided to visit the Yengo Sculpture garden and the owner came to greet us, tell us about the garden and charge for the entry.

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    The garden was very nice and the colours were awesome.

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    There were lots of sculptures hidden around the garden.

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    Dylan got a bit upset because we had to scold him for running around (this was a private garden so deserved a bit of respect), throwing pebbles, thrashing my camera gear and keeping to run into the frame of the photo I was trying to take. I had also been trying to get a bit interested in what he is seeing around him to learn more things and asking him if he was interested in some of the lookouts to experience one of the most beautiful places in Australia, as well as look at the things in antique shops etc., but he was totally dis-interested..."you can drag the horse to the water, but you can force it to drink".

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    After the garden Aiden was really tired and cold and we were getting hungry, so we decided to head back and stop along the way for lunch. It was good timing as it started to rain a little. I decided to drive on the great western highway as there were more options for food and I though it would be quicker getting back...turned out everyone else had the same idea so it was at a crawl.


  • An Officer and a Gentleman

    Today Kim and I went to the Lyrics Theatre to see the 'An Officer and Gentleman' musical.

    It was a remake of the 1982 movie, but on the stage.

     

    It was ok but nothing special. The acting and singing was great, but the screenplay itself as well as the music/lyrics could have been more original and the stage setup was pretty basic.

  • Halfway there - Baby brother for Aiden

    Kim is pregnant again and we are now halfway there and on Monday we went for the halfway scans (due late September).

     

    Everything is on track and looking good so far (5 fingers and toes etc.). For the first time we were able to tell the gender of the baby and it turns out that we are expecting a little brother to Aiden.

    This means that Aiden very soon will have someone to play with here at home. 

     

  • Kurnell walk

    Today was Anzac day. We decided to use the day to explore some of the local area in the National Park on  the other side of Botany bay near Kurnell.

    It was very windy (Aiden wasn't happy with the wind). The walk along the coast is easy an quite scenic. There is even a small lighthouse about a kilometer down the track and the rocks have cook textures.

     

     

  • Luke and Alexsandra's wedding

    Today Luke and Alexsandra was married. She is from Serbia so the wedding itself was a beautiful traditional Serbian Orthodox wedding in a small church in Alexandria.

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    The church was very darkly lit and I was shooting using natural light trying to be as discreet as possible using my old Nikon D50 camera (still waiting for the new D800) but by some miracle I was able to capture the above photos (by setting it to my max 1600 ISO and underexpose 2 stops and then push and noise reduce in post...would have loved to have one more stop). 

    Luke has some Scotish ancestry so ourside the church there was a guy playing the bag pipe.

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    Afterwards the reception was in Drumoyne with about 250 guests invited. Lots of very loud Serbian music and traditional Serbian line dancing (Not sure what the correct name is). 

     

  • Symbio Wildlife Park

    Today we went to the Symbio Wildlife park together with some of our friends.

    They don't have a lot of animals in the park, but the ones they have a pretty cool and it is a good spot to get some nice animal photos (It was especially nice to see that they had polished the glass surrounding some animals).

     It was also really cool to have Aiden and Sammi feed some of the more friendly animals.

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  • Easter show and EQ

    Synday we took Dylan to the Easter show at Fox Studios. We had bought him a 5 hour pass as a reward for an assignment we gave him.

     

    Dylan tried a number of rides, but I think his favourite was a dodge'm'cars.

    While Dylan was queueing up we had a look around at the other entertainment.

     

     

  • High Tea in Royal National Park

    Today we went to High Tea in Audley in the Royal National Park 30 minutes drive from where we live. Kim had bought a 2 for 1 deal and decided to try it.

    Verdict was that is wasn't anything special and even with the special deal it was a bit over priced.

     Afterwards we decided to go rowing up through the creek. 

    Aiden was very keen to get to play with the water which was difficult in the rowing boat (next time we will get a Canoe).

    Afterwards we let him play a bit on land before heading back.

     

     

  • Countries I have been to

    I just updated the map of the countries I have set my foot in...now  62 countries.

     


    AfricaRene(62)KimAiden?
    Kenya YES


    Tanzania YES


    Uganda YES


    Egypt YES


    Tunesia YES


    Morocco YES


    Gambia YES


    Senegal YES


    Europe



    Turkey YES


    Spain YES YES

    France YES YES

    Swizerland YES YES

    Austria YES YES

    Greece YES YES

    Italy YES


    Lictenstein YES


    Vatican YES YES

    Yougoslavia YES


    Croatia YES YES YES
    Slovenia YES YES YES
    Bosnia YES YES YES
    Montenegro YES YES YES
    Poland YES


    East Germany YES


    West Germany YES YES YES
    Belgium YES YES

    Holland YES YES

    Denmark YES YES YES
    Sweden YES


    Norway YES


    Finland YES


    Portugal YES


    Luxenbourg YES


    San Marino YES


    Monaco YES YES

    Cyprus YES


    Hungary (YES) (YES) (YES)
    United Kingdom YES YES (YES)
    Americas



    USA YES YES

    Canada YES


    Mexico YES YES

    Chile YES YES

    Peru YES YES

    Bolivia YES YES

    Argentina YES


    Brasil YES YES

    Asia



    Japan YES


    Russia YES


    Malaysia YES YES

    Thailand YES YES (YES)
    Singapore YES YES (YES)
    Cambodia YES


    Laos YES


    Burma/Myanmar YES


    Hong Kong YES


    Yemen YES


    Indonesia YES YES

    Diego Garcia
    YES

    Vietnam
    YES

    India
    YES

    Australia/Pacific



    Australia YES YES YES (YES)
    New Zealand YES (YES) (YES) (YES)
    New Caledonia YES YES YES
    French Polynesia (Tahiti / Bora Bora) YES YES YES (YES)
  • Bora Bora Island Scenery

    The island itself is a beautiful place. I took a lot of photos of the lagoon and the beauty of Bora Bora....so many that it would be too many to have in the previous Bora Bora post. 

    With the risk of creating a post full of Blue photos...I had to separate them out to prevent the other posts from getting too big.

    Here they are...I will let them speak for themselves...

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  • Snorkeling with Sharks and Stingrays

    One of the days at Bora Bora we went with a boat around the lagoon to go snorkeling and have lunch on one of the Motu's (Islands). Along the way we went snorkeling in spots where we also could see sharks and stingrays.

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    Our first spot was a snorkeling spot with lots of coral and different fish.

    I Even saw a big fat murray eel.

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    Kim also had a bit of a snorkel in the clear blue water even though the water was deep and there was a slight current. 

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    Aiden was facinated by the fish and wanted to join mummy in the water to say hello to the fish'ies...

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    After this we went to a more shallow spot on the reef with lots of reef sharks.

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    Yes, that is me in the water with 12 sharks circling around me (and no safety net in place).These sharks would come swimming towards me and then turn around within a meters reach.

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    After lunch we stopped to feed the Stingrays in the lagoon.

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    They are fairly harmless and I was feeding them dead fish. While doing so I was bitten by one of them that mistook the camera I was holding in my other hand as a fish.

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  • Bora Bora

    Bora Bora is a beautiful island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Kim and I had promised eachother that we one day we will go there.

    It is about an hours flight from Tahiti and along the way you pass a number of other Polynesian islands and atolls. When we landed we were met by the stunning blue lagoon and the very characteristic mountain which is an old extinct volcano.

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    Aiden especially was mesmerised by the view going on the boat from the airport to our hotel.

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    On arrival we were met by traditional Tahitian music and someone blowing a seashell.

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    And Aiden immidiately got into the mocktails.

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    Our hotel was on the main island itself and we had a small hut facing the lagoon and had a beautiful view every morning waking up.

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    Every morning we had breakfast overlooking the lagoon where Aiden would stuff his face with fruits, bread and youghurt.

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    We spent a lot of time at the small beach close to the hotel just swimming in the clear water of the lagoon.

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    The locals were out on the lagoon showing off their skills.

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    Aiden loved the calm clear water and the beach...it was a pleasant 27-28 degrees. Every time he saw water he would point at it and shout BoBo (Water)...and insist on going swimming.

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    One evening I did a couple of sunset portraits.

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    Aiden again insisted on going in the water. 

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    I also went for a swim after we finished the photos, which was absolutely magical as the light was surreal and the water was absolutely calm.

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    Across the lagoon from the hotel we had a little island (Motu) with beautiful place to go snorkeling. First I went in the water and notices a small reef shark circling around the corals...being kinda shy. I mentioned it to Kim and as soon as she also spotted it later in the day she rushed out of the water (A couple of days later she had a similar experience with a large stingray at the beach).

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    It was hard to leave all this beauty behind

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  • Flowers of French Polynesia

    I took a lot of photos of flowers...enough to warrant a separate blog entry..

    If you are not a flower person then just scroll down the page past these...lots of other good stuff there.

    Anyhow...I will let them speak for themselves...

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  • Tahiti

    This Easter we decided to go to Tahiti and Bora Bora in French Polynesia in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

    We were supposed to have been going to Japan, but we decided that we instead wanted a more relaxing holiday and changed it to an Island holiday enjoying the sun, sand, water and sunsets.

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    Tahiti is the main island of French Polynesia and is not larger than it is possible to drive around the entire island in a couple of hours (appx 120 km).

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    On one of the days we rented a car and did just that. We could have joined a day tour, but I am not very keen on the 5min photo stop kind of tours and much prefer to be able to travel independently and take time to see what we would like to see.

    It is reasonably easy to find your way around the island. There really is just one road and the entire road is marked by kilometer markers and we had the distances for most of the sights we wanted to see. We didn;t go too much into the interior because of time restraints and some of these roads are only accessible by 4WD.

    First we stopped at one of the old Tahitian temples which was interesting

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    After that we headed to some large caves full of freshwater (would have been convenient in the old days)...very damp and very dark.

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    After this we tried to find the road up to a lake and supposedly large waterfall. Some of the locals were very helpful with assisting us with directions but unfortunately the road was closed.

    Fortunately we did find the nearby gardens which Kim wanted to visit (I will do a separate flower blog posting).

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    We did find some waterfallson the island (and saw several from a long distance away high on the mountains).

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    After this we headed to Point Venus where Captain Cook in 1769 supposedly saw the passing of Venus ...now this houses the only lighthouse in French Polynesia.

    The next passing will be 6th June this year...243 years after the previos passing (can be seen as a shadow against the sun).

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    We decided to skip the museums as we would rather experience the outsde rather than objects behind glass.

    The other days we spent around the hotel and the marina, just relaxing, swimming and dining. Aiden loved spending most of the time in the pool at the hotel.

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