Autumn in Oz, and seasonal affective disorder is defiantly no worries over these parts, there is still plenty of sunshine despite colder evenings and always more to do & see. I had a cheeky long weekend free a couple of weeks back and jumped at the chance to go on a good old fashioned road trip with my friend Lisa who was traveling up to Newcastle to visit a mate. We left early on the Friday morning and firstly traveled out of Victoria and through the national disaster bush-fire area that was affected in 2009; despite the still black-burnt vegetation you can still see how beautiful the area is & was great to encounter. It was a 10 hour drive up the Hume highway but we finally arrived in Sydney to stop for a drink with a friend, Adam, in the city and grabbed some dinner in the Kings Cross area. Despite tiredness setting in we set off again fuelled with Red-Bull and a Live Coldplay album and sang our way 2hours north to reach Aimee’s place in Newcastle in the early hours of saturday morning. The following day we hired a big car with a group of Aimee’s mates and toured the Hunter Valley Winery Region. The vineyards were pretty as a picture, we tested sip after gulp of free wine and filled in the gaps with ample free cheese and olive samples, to any wine drinkers this is such a great day, got to love a freebie. The following day we were headed to the beach but there were announcements all over by the government that a high risk Tsunami warning had been issued due to the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, so we headed to the high cliffs overlooking the waters for safety & fish and chips :) Monday morning we left our nest to start making our way back home, firstly back through Sydney for some playful snaps of the main attractions and a stop for coffee at the Sydney Dance Café in Darling Harbor (owned by two of my friends who I traveled with in America last year but unfortunately weren’t in that afternoon, my poor planning!). The next stop was Australia’s Capital Territory, Canberra, to stay with some of Aimee’s Army mates & to visit the Parliament House. We all had a little bit to much to drink that night due to sampling the delights of our purchases in Hunter Valley, very funny night, will look forward to seeing you all at the Royal Aust. Artillery Corp Cocktail Party in May boys, cheers for putting us up! Our final long stretch home on tuesday back to Melbourne went smoothly after a quick Macca’s breakfast hangover cure, Bon Voyage Lisa what a great trip, thank you so much your a legend.
The long awaited Australian F1 Grand Prix was on the weekend just gone and I can't tell you how exciting it all was, it felt as if I had been drip fed a concoction red bull, no doze and espresso, from begging to end I was on a high! I had already sorted out a job position with REP models and I was over the moon to find out a week before that I had been assigned to work in the Paddock Club, the grand prix's most exclusive VIP Corporate area, flamin oath! I worked thursday- sunday on 12hour shifts with the AGPC hosts in suite 11, the perks of the job as follows; being able to walk down in the pits, amazing skydeck & panoramic views of the main straight, able watch the drivers early morning wheel change practices and engineering throughout the day, working around the likes of John Travolta, Richard Branson, Dannii Minogue, Holly Valance, the Neighbours Crew, a whole lot of TV personalities/ AFL players/ models...not to mention the biggest bonus of seeing the drivers & even more importantly Lewis Hamilton and the gorgeous Jenson Button! We got to go to the after race concerts too with our passes, so sat night we had a rave to ozzy band Powderfinger which had great stage graphics and visuals. My dad and brothers are huge fans of Formula 1 so I managed to get Jenson's signature for them, would have loved you to have been there too boys. The race itself was such an adrenaline rush, I ditched the earplugs and you could literally ‘feel the energy’ right through you, unfortunately ozzy-hope Weber crashed into Lewis during the 2nd to last lap and ruined any hopes of Hamilton getting a poll position, but our champion Button was always out in front and him winning really put the icing on top of the cake of my time in Melbourne. It was an experience I'll never ever forget and I'm definitely going to try get a ticket to Silverstone 2010 which is on just after my return to the homeland...Steve from the F1 Mclaren Merc GB team I'll return your sharpie pen there, o and thanks for the sausage rolls & HP sauce guys!
Also in the world of work, I assisted a photoshoot recently for a menswear brand called P O BOX with navi. It was for there autumn/ winter collection and we had male model Julian for the day on location & in the studio. It was a pretty funny shoot as the client/ stylist and model were both gay and had me and the make-up artist in giggles as they ran around screaming and complaining about bee's on set! I have earnt the money for my flight ticket home now from the Prix and extra’s so next stop this week is STA for a booking back to London which I’m going to make for late June. Plenty more time to explore in the next 3months…comedy festival starts this week and im defiantly going to get out for some laughs in the city, happy days!
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