RIVERFIRE 2009 FEATURING F111 DUMP & BURN

Tonight marks the start of Brisbane's Annual River Festival with "RiverFire". It's a monster fireworks display all the way up and down the reaches of the Brisbane River from the western end of the city to the mouth of the river. It has always been highlighted by and "Dump & Burn" display of 2 F111's as they fly at low level down the river. This was all simulcast on one of our local FM radio stations too.

The planes are based here in Brisbane at the Amberly AirForce Base. Unfortunately, because of the age of these planes, this is marked the final Dump & Burn by these planes, so it was a very special night here.

Because of this, we decided to take the kids half way into town to see it IRL instead of just on TV, like we've done every other year. Being nearly 10, DS was very keen to see the planes perform IRL anyway.

We didn't go all the way into the city or river bank because all roads leading into the city were blocked off anyway, and all the public parks close to the city and river were packed with 1000's of people. Best to stay away from those numbers of people, with young kids, after dark anyway, we thought.

The city also put on a FREE Chris Isaak Concert in the Botanical Gardens in town tonight as well. It is right in the centre of where all the entertainment etc was. Would've been a great gig, if you could get there early enough this afternoon. Great music, great light show, great overhead entertainment - and all at an even greater price : FREE.

Oh well, tomorrow it's back to normal again - washing, cleaning and relaxing a bit. Talk to you again soon.

"NARNIA" FILMING HAS STARTED

Earlier this week, I read in the local paper that the filming of the latest "Narnia" film has begun here at Cleveland. On Tuesday, I picked the kids up from school and took them up to the site to have a look.

All of the filming was taking place in the deck of the ship so we couldn't really see very much, but the Director was connected to a PA system so that all visitors to the parkland could listen to all the directions of the movie. What we couldn't see, we could get a mental picture of by listening to these directions.

I was able to take some random photos with my little camera which surprised me somewhat when I uploaded them to the computer. One of the stars of the movie appeared in nearly all of my photos. It was rumoured in the local paper that Aussie TV star Garry Sweet was starring as the ship's captain. Anyway, the proof is in these photos. There, on the Quarter Deck, overlooking the 'sword fight' scene is Garry Sweet himself. Clearly given away by his bald head in the photos. Sorry the quality of the photos isn't brilliant, but that is the best I could do with my little camera.

FATHER'S DAY 2009

Father's Day was a beautiful sunny and hot day here.

We had my Dad & Shirley and Aat come over for a special morning tea because Rick had to go to work after lunch. That ruled out any plans for going out to lunch.

Of course, swimming was the order of the day for the kids and they were in and out of the pool several times during the day.