A world of art. Here. Now.

Winter is one of my favourite times of the year on the Sydney cultural scene. Although summer has the fabulous flashy Sydney Festival, there's still a lot going on in the city in the colder months. A couple of weeks ago I caught the free ferry out to Cockatoo Island -- the largest island on the harbour -- where they host the Biennale every two years. You may remember when I visited in 2008.



The island used to be an old shipbuilding hub, among other things, and many remnants of that industrial era still remain. Although the whole place was peppered with incredible art, sculpture, video art and more, sometimes I was more fascinated by the buildings and leftover machinery than the art itself!





My two favourite pieces were actually video art, so I have no photographs. One was an incredibly moving piece by Isaac Julien about the Chinese cockle-pickers who died at Morecambe Bay -- it was projected onto seven screens suspended from the ceiling and was quite incredible, and very moving.

Lots of the rest of the art was fun.

Exploding cars!

Green colanders suspended from the ceiling

A sign about the Cockatoos

This year I was much more able to enjoy it, having not been rendered by the festival immediately prior! More about that in a later post.

cx

Manly

Quite outrageously it's taken me four years to get myself over to Manly, which is just a short ferry ride from Circular Quay. Even mum and Keith managed to get their when they visited a few years ago! But finally I visited last weekend, as my German friend Ariane lives there and she's just got a gorgeous new apartment.

The beach at Manly

Manly is on the northern side of the harbour mouth, where the harbour meets the ocean. It has harbour-facing beaches and ocean-facing beaches and is popular with surfers. It's got a very village-y feel to it, and as we walked along the coast we bumped into several people Ariane knew.

Morning coffee

After breakfast in a gorgeous cafe run by the Italian mafia (!) we set off on Saturday morning for a bracing walk along the coast towards Dee Why, pas Curl Curl and Freshwater. Very silly names, but beautiful and almost deserted beaches. Winter doesn't bring many tourists to Manly so it was pleasantly quiet.

Winter fisherman

Ariane

After lunch in Dee Why we bought some provisions and headed back to Ariane's flat, where we cooked up a gorgeous beef casserole and quaffed copious amounts of red wine, putting the world to rights along with her Colombian friend Claudia. One of my favourite things about Australia is its multicultural nature -- we're from all over the world and yet we all feel at home in Australia. The very nature of Australia is this melting pot of different cultures and backgrounds.

Following a resounding win by the German football team and a bit of sleep I headed home to Bondi on Sunday. Commuting by ferry to the city must be one of the best things about living in Manly. Definitely a place I'll be visiting again.

Catching the ferry home

Approaching the city

cx

Welcome to fabulous Brisvegas, Queensland

A couple of weeks ago I flew up to Brisbane for a conference for work. This was an annual conference run by the Australia Council for the Arts, bringing together my peers from almost all the arts organisations in the country, including theatres, symphony orchestras, productions companies, festivals, galleries and the rest. It was fantastic to spend three days away from the office meeting people who are all engaged with finding audiences for the arts in Australia. I won't go into the content here as it probably won't mean much to you folks far from Aus, but while I was in Brisbane I also tried to see a bit of the city.

The Brisbane skyline

Brisbane is about an hour's flight north of Sydney, in slightly warmer climes, and is quite a modern city built on a river. I spent most of my time there on the South Bank, which was the arts district, but was creepily similar to London's South Bank, with its concrete brutalist square architecture and a wheel that seemed a copy of the London Eye.

South Bank: London or Brisbane?

The Brisbane Eye

Brisbane's GOMA is a star attraction, the Gallery of Modern Art. I really enjoyed a Ron Mueck exhibition there. If you don't know him, he creates incredible lifelike human sculptures from silicone and real hair, only their dimensions are either tiny or absolutely huge. I found his work unnerving while strangely intriguing.

Two very little old ladies

A giant newborn

I also caught an exhibition from London's V&A museum (which I do miss terribly!) of Hats through the ages. It was beautifully curated and quite astonishing -- hats from the 1200s were placed next to Dior creations from last season -- and the through lines were wonderful. A surprise hit of my trip.

Hats galore!

It's taken me four years to make it up to Brisbane, and although it was a flying visit for work, I made sure I popped in on the rellies. Yes, my mum's cousin Sean lives in Brisbane, and I stayed with him and his 12-year-old daughter Caitlin, and their very cute Guide dog that they're training.

Trainee guide dog for the blind

It was a very brief trip but I really enjoyed myself. The conference was energising, and I got to see enough of the city to make me want to plan a return visit.

Sean and Caitlin saying goodbye at the station

I'm now back in Sydney riding out the winter and longing for the Spring. My new heater's making it more bearable, but it's so cold! The other day it got as low as 6 degrees and I just couldn't get warm. What a softie I've become!

cx

The Great Beef Gumboot Off

Infected by Masterchef-fever, two teams of intrepid wannabe chefs (ie me and my friends) embarked on the Great Beef Wellington-off last weekend. Or in Australian, Beef Gumboot.

True to the show: product placement

Recipes were laminated, girls pitched against boys, Jenny's kitchen was commandeered and beers were opened in readiness.

Chopping herbs

Team Boy got off to a good start, barricading themselves in the kitchen while the girls loitered in the bedroom talking tactics, but we were soon neck and neck.

Beef Wellington is a pretty convoluted recipe so we began by dividing up the tasks and preparing the different elements: crepes, a mushroom pate thingo, seared beef etc.

Team Girl crepes

Team Boy crepes

Mushrooms in a blender

Meanwhile some of us chipped in to help Shari make some delicious chorizo and potato bombas. YUM.

Hiding the chorizo in the potato

Mmmm... Bombas

Replenishing our energy with Bombas

After pausing for our starter we got on with the task of assembling the Beef Wellington. First the seared beef was basted with mustard. Then it was wrapped in the mushroom layer encased in proscutio.

Sarah places the beef on its bed of mushrooms

Encasing it in crepes

"What shall we do?" "I dunno, let's copy the girls." (Note product placement of Handee Ultra in the foreground)

After popping it in and out of the freezer, wrapping it in crepes, pastry and making a little 'valve' for the top, they were ready to go into the oven.

Before cooking. The lopsided cut of beef on the left is Team Girl

Fresh out of the oven. YUM!

It looks just like it did on the telly!

It was about 11.30pm at this stage so we were pretty hungry. We'd also neglected to find an impartial judge to decide on the winner, so instead we each had a slice of the boys' and the girls' beef wellington. To be totally honest with you, they were both delicious, and we were too full of pride in our achievements to declare an overall winner.

Team Boy on the left, Team Girl on the right. Both delicious.

Not to do things by halves, the girls also prepared dessert: chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, whipped cream and raspberries dipped in melted chocolate.

Dessert

V glad we made the effort

What a fun way to spend a day! The recipe was so complex I probably never would have tried it on my own, but the combination of teamwork and healthy rivalry helped egg us all on. I'm hoping this becomes a regular occurrence, as I love cooking with friends and trying new recipes. Looking forward to the next Masterchef challenge!

cx

A weekend in Byron Bay

When Siobhan visited Australia she really enjoyed her trip to Byron Bay, so this weekend I finally made it up the coast to see it for myself. My friend runs a travelling film festival which visits Byron, and she's recently announced her impending departure overseas, so a bunch of us went up to give her a good send-off and get away from the city for the weekend.

The beautiful waters of Byron Bay

Byron is a small hippie coastal town near the border with Queensland, so we flew to Coolangatta and hired a car. The landscape is beautiful there, really lush and green with stunning sea views. In the predominantly rainy wintery long weekend we got one sunny day, so decided to do the walk out to the lighthouse.

Approaching the lighthouse

Coincidentally my housemate was there with one of his friends so we joined forces and larked about by the sea.

Oli jumps off a cliff

We spotted a wedding on the beach

Australia's most Easterly point

We had hired a lovely house and on Saturday we barbecued some fish and had a dinner party on the verandah.

The view from our house

The rain returned on Sunday but we headed inland to a friend's place for brunch. Some of their other visitors had brought their pet bird, imaginatively called 'Bird' who had free rein of the house.

Nick with Bird

Glenys has horses and a lovely expanse of land, so we played with the dogs and searched for Koalas that hang out in her gumtrees -- but didn't see any :(

Glenys and her horses

Nick and Jeff went diving but Nick's wetsuit was too tight so his hands swelled up to mutant proportions (we took a trip to Byron hospital but he was declared fine). Luckily he managed to ease the swelling by holding several cold beers on Saturday evening.

Jeff's underwater camera

I can see the appeal of Byron Bay but I found the town quite grubby and I think the proliferation of hippies and crusties would drive me nuts after a while.

We did get out to Bangalow though, which is quite swish, and I bought some lovely jewellry in the markets.

Now back in Sydney and it's raining all week. Winter is here -- it's great to wear boots and tights again!

cx

Rodeo! (and other excitement)

It's been a while since I've blogged, I apologise. Since January's cultural overdose I've been settling in to a great routine: work, seeing friends, going to the theatre and enjoying everything that summer has to offer in this wonderful city. So I've been very busy, but unlike in previous years, it's not work-related! Hurrah. Now let me tell you about my weekend away at the Rodeo...

Each year there's a Rodeo in Tumut, as well as the Festival of the Falling Leaf. Now that Autumn is upon us, a group of friends and I decided that we wanted to see these cowboys in action, and leave our city comforts to experience life in the country. The parents of my friend Sarah own a farm called 'Quidong' near Tumut, about a 6-hour drive from Sydney. So on Friday we left work a bit early and headed South West into the heart of Regional New South Wales.

Early morning on the farm

The CDs we bought for the journey wouldn't play in the car's CD player so we ended up rocking out to Lyle Lovett, which wasn't quite what we'd planned, but we arrived in Quidong at 10pm where I marvelled at the liberal sprinkling of stars in the sky -- much more than you can see in the city!

We started the next day by tromping up one of the huge hills on the farm and building a fire to get rid of some of the dead gumtrees and blackberry bushes.

Taking the passengers up the hill

The boys have their Iwo Jima moment while building the fire

And then it was Rodeo time! The Rodeo featured many different events, including bull riding, bareback riding and my favourite: the rope and tie. This was where the cowboy had to lassoo a calf, then get off his horse and tie up three of the calf's legs. The best guy did it in less than 5 seconds! Incredible. The champion of the day was Clay Bush. Yes, that was his real name.

Bucking horses at the Rodeo!

The audience were fantastic -- all the country folk were there. I'd say about 95% of the crowd were wearing jeans, checked flanelette shirts, boots and cowboy hats. Even the 3-year-old kids.

Bullocks

But the best thing about the day was definitely the music. The soundtrack was a constant stream of classic country music, peppered with Aussie country tunes. Including 'I love this Bar', 'She's my Whiskey Girl' and many others. We picked up the lyrics quickly and sang along.

Back at the farm we lit a great big bonfire, and toasted some marshmallows while watching out for shooting stars.

Roaring bonfire

Mmmm, marshmallows... nom nom nom

On Sunday I helped Sarah's dad Miles with some of his landscaping before we left for Sydney. This was my most exciting moment of the weekend, because I got to drive a yellow digger! Yes, if my career fails I think I have an alternative living to be earned from knocking down trees in a giant yellow digger. What a huge amount of fun.

Now that's what I call machinery!

Look at me! I'm driving a digger

Moving a little log

On the way home the clouds looked like trays of croissants, and we had some new mix CDs so the 6 hours went quickly. We stopped off on the way to visit Nick's auntie, and stopped at the 'Dog on a Tucker Box', and were back in Sydney by 7pm. Isn't it mad? In the UK I would never have 'popped' 6 hours up the motorway for the weekend, and yet it's nothing here in Aus.

Buzz the working farm dog

Oh well, that was my fun weekend. More pics are here. And I promise I won't leave such a long gap before the next post.

cx