Australia Day Party #3 Wetherby 2011

So where do I start with this blog.  I can't really begin better by thanking Vics for her fabulous Ozzie Day beach Volleyball cake.

The ingredients of this cake were chocolate, chocolate and chocolate with magical sand and koala decorations, fabulous.

For our part , Gail and I invited a great bunch of folk, they comprised four local Wetherby friends, six Leeds Writers and Sketchers, eight Alliance medical colleagues and of course we all supplied enough booze to float the party from noon to midnight.
On top of that Gail and I, with some disorganisation and shouting,  managed to prepare and serve enough Aussie style burgers and pavlova to sink the most hardened party-goer into submission.

The day started as a brisk minus 4 degrees but the sun broke out to lift the spirits, if not the temperature.  We are still getting used to freezing cold Australia Days but we will not be discouraged and the party must always go on.

First to arrive were the Leeds contingent who were plied with high octane coffee to assist in endurance.  I must apologise here for some suspect bus route directions but , hey, it was a nice day, the walk did them all good.

They were shortly followed by Angela and Rob our new-found Wetherby friends and then the  the Alliance crowd dribbled in. 

Here is a picture early on in proceedings. 

Cora Kylie Trish Jon Amy Gail

and as the night rolled along,

Amy Kylie trish Jon Karen Andrew Andrew

Vics Ste Hannah Pete Karen Gail

Karen Andrew Andrew trish Ste Vics

Amy andrew Jon Kylie Andrew

Cora Carolyn Karen

Angela Rob

Amy, Kylie, Trish. Karen, Cora, Andrew, Gail, Jon, David hidden.

Amy kylie

cora andrew andrew gail

and Rob and Maria who were first to arrive, in the shot below 

just getting ready to catch the 20:44 bus home,

That would be your nine hours of hard partying all done then.

Stirling effort much apreciated.

There was some collateral damage.

The Usual Suspects.

(a simillar troop of metalic beer vessels were

escorted off premises and recycled)

When all was done and dusted, the night was, in its entirity, a fantastic party.

Sorry I didn't take any firework pics but others did,

maybe I'll get some later to put up, it was a fun display,

everybody pretended to be responsible adults and lit rockets and sparklers and other stuff. 

Top show. 

Thanks to Andrew who bought his really big banger.

We had party people from all kinds of work backgrounds, and places, residents of London, Derby, Leeds and Manchester and nationalities from Canada Australia Greece and UK All of whom made sure they bought a special bit of fun to the night and guaranteed laughter and conversation which drowned the music. 

That, and the fantastic supply of food and drink brought and consumed by attendees all made for a really enjoyable time. 

I will say again the Aussie Burgers went down a treat. We have received rave reviews.

 

For those who have asked, the ingredients of the meat patties were prime lean minced beef, salt pepper Worcester sauce, tomato sauce, fresh parsley, chopped onion, crumbs and stuff. The contents of the burger bun were sesame seed bun, lettuce, tomato, sweet pickled beetroot, smoked back bacon, fried egg, grilled pineapple, tomato/brown sauce, mature cheddar cheese and mayonnaise.   

We are very grateful to all attendees for making it such a great night. 

The overnighters and breakfast gang were most considerate and had all departed by lunchtime allowing us to re-establish the house and for Gail to leave for her training day down London way.

It was a perfect way to close off the first month of 2011.

Thanks Ste.  Great bit of Oz day graffitti

Egypt Nile Cruise Karnak and Luxor

 YAY! We have landed in Luxor airport Egypt.  I have promised Gail I would enjoy my holiday in Egypt. Gail has always wanted to go to Egypt. I am going to enjoy myself.
I promised. 
It is a nice omen that the weather was fine, warm and a beautiful sunset. 
I have split this adventure up loosely into one blog page per day in order to give a sense of how committed I was to enjoying myself.

So, with a free beer after arrival on board, up on the sun deck, things are looking good for my enjoyment.

 And look, Gail is all happy, lovely.

http://www.touregypt.net/karnak.htm    Has all the gumpf on Karnak temple and as this is an adventure not an education blog I'll not be going on about egyptology.  We were up breakfasted off the boat and on our way to the bus early.  6am up 7:30 depart for Karkak Temple.

First, I had to come to grips that these thing were built up to 4000 years ago, before machinery, before the wheel.  
Okay then , a bit about sphinxes. The heads depend on what god was the one the pharaoh adopted as his protector.  The human heads on lion bodies were a much more modern theme.

We thought this a Nice Obelisk, pretty sky.

This revered scarab beetle sculpture is supposedly the largest in egypt and if you walk around it 5 times wishing on something it will happen.  Gail is on her final lap here.  No, its a secret.

 The Karnak priests had to be absolutely clean before doing temple things and this was their bathing pool.  Everyone else, Pharaohs and queens had hair but the priests ( often depicted in temples and tombs) were totally hairless and clean..

The re-build of the sphinx-lined road to Luxor and the gate are being done using modern cranes and methods.  With much of the old structures having been robbed and used in later buildings the rebuild is a jigsaw of found bits and new stone and cement to give the effect.  So a bit Time Team, a bit Hollywood.

This was worth a photo as the local egyptians were actually working.  Not something we saw a lot of.

I am a little tall but these pillars put some scale to these pics.

There is not much in situ from King Tut's reign as it was only short and he was but a lad when he died.  This white sphinx is one of the few items.  All his tomb goods are in Cairo museum, well, those not stolen over the years.

 To build such a big place, rock had to be bought in.  About 1400 years before christ there was only manpower and  boats and barges so they built a dock and dug a channel/canal into the Nile.   Here are excavations and re-building of the old harbour front.  Rocks were rolled on logs up mub ramps which were removed when the structure completed.  Karnak is an uncompleted temple so you can see the mud brick ramps still in place, much weathered , but still......   4000 years....

You may gather that we had a very impressive morning here with lots of information and free time before heading off to Luxor two miles away by bus.

This shot is out of order chronologically as it was taken a few days later down in Edfu,  I include it just because of the Aussie flag, rather incongruous and probably left over from a touring sport fan.

This is Edfu temple as seen from the Nile, again out of sequence thanks to some dodgy dowloading fromthe camera to blog but a nice shot. 





There are lots more blog pages for this trip, if a page ends with no next blog beneath, click on "Older Posts".

Egypt Nile Cruise, Luxor Temple

After a bus drive through the streets of the East Bank of the Nile we arrived at Luxor Temple.  The missing obelisk now dominates the Paris roundabout on the Place de la Concorde. And this is a picture of it we took while we were in Paris in 2008.  How's that for a bit of a synchronicity for an adventure blog. 

We probably have a shot of the Cleopatra Needle on the Embankment in London somewhere.  It is an interesting fact that the Thames -side obelisk is in fact the obelisk of Thotmes III in 1460 BC, not Cleopatra.  The barge that bought the obelisk to England was called the Cleopatra, it was shipped from Alexandria, Cleopatra's city, that's why the obelisk erected now on the Thames to celebrate the Pommy victory over Napoleon is commonly called the Cleopatra Needle. Sorry I said no egyptology didn't I?

Anyway, the Egyptians would now like them both back please.

Luxor temple is also interesting because of the many religions evident by use through the ages.  This shot shows a mosque which is still in use today and has inside some quite erotic pagan hieroglyphs which are apparently inappropriate for a building of such a use.  This shot fails to give an indication of how high the sands were when the mosque was used. There are about three floors of height below of ancient temple which was all under sand.

 Our guide was not prepared to talk openly about this god figure with the erection but it is all about divine conception and birth, semen being anointed with essential oils and other imagery.  I have more pics of the larger wall but didn't think you'd be interested. See http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/luxortemple.htm for all the guff on the temple but following are our images which interested us.

In the middle of the temple it was incongruous to see roman arches and pillars

and ecclesiastical paintings still in evidence

Gail could not resist looking like an egyptian

These sphinxes once went all the 2 miles from Luxor to Karnak, both sides of a wide polished granite roadway,  quite impressive really.   I have no idea how many there were but we will know soon as Unesco is buying back all the land, buildings, schools, churches, businesses, roads, and farms and excavation is well underway.  There is a time limit on the funding from Unesco and I do wonder.... I fear the egyptian process/endemic corruption and current unrest may defeat the best of international intentions.  But Egypt is very dependent on tourism.

Back on board for drinks in the afternoon sun we still had not done any cruising on the Nile.  This was a Nile mooring tour so far.

No mechanised goods handeling systems on the Nile.  36 bottles per back load.

A lingering sunset over the Luxor mooring.

and an elephant and rider was on our bed.