I really meant to post about this quite a few days ago, since there is only two days of the rally left I best do it now!
My uncle and cousin are just about at the end of a 29 day or 14,400 km mad dash from London to Cape Town in their 1923 Vauxhall OD 23/60, known as Penny. Penny (and my uncle) is quite the adventurer having completed the ERA Peking to Paris rally in 2010 and coming 2nd in the pioneer class. The original plan some time ago was to do London to Cape Town in their “everyday” 4wd but look at the picture below and I think you can understand why Penny is doing London to Cape Town and not the Landcruiser…
This is them a few days ago barrelling down a road between Moyale and Marsabit in Kenya. The photo is by Gerard Brown who is the rally photographer.
They are currently placed at 31 in what is now a field of 41 cars, pretty darn impressive for a car which is the oldest in the rally by 41 years … The second oldest car is a 1964 Volvo PV 544 C. The rally was designed for “classic rally cars”, those rally cars of the 60s-80s, that are the type of cars you think of when you think major long distance rally. They’ve done really well climbing up from 40th which at the pointy end of the rally I would really say comes down to how well they prepped Penny to start off with.
One of the coolest features available to us rally watchers is the yellowbrick car tracking, at any time of the day you are able to see where all the cars are located and what speed they are travelling at etc. If you’ve got some time to spend I highly recommend having a poke round the rally website but also looking at the various participant blogs etc
I leave you with this photo also by Gerard Brown. This is what happens when you run out of petrol 500m from the petrol station. I’m betting that is one tale those locals will be talking about for some time to come.
This selection of charms, key chain straps or whatever else you want to call them are some of my favourite things I brought back from Japan. There is an elephant, a hamburger mirror, Hello Kitty doughnut, Mr Green Tea Ice Cream man, edamame, Miffy with Sakura, Madeline, a little tea set etc etc and more. Probably once a week or so, I change round what I’ve got on my hand bag, mobile and uni bag. I get to take some little pieces of Japan with me where ever I go. sigh 
Well, we arrived home on Wednesday morning and boy were we relieved to be home. I’m slowly going through all my goodies (about 22 different Kit-Kat flavours just for starters) and even more slowly going through photos. I’m starting to catch up on the 2.5 weeks of Uni I missed as well as work. I’ve found it extremely difficult to read/watch/listen to any more news about what is happening in Japan. I almost burst into tears whilst reading a news article about people waiting for lost loved ones to hopefully be found alive whilst on the bus home the other day. Whilst we we were nowhere near any of the devastation it was just so heavy in the air across Japan during our last few days.
We ended up seeing a lot of places, doing a lot of shopping (oh the shopping), eating all sorts of things (Kobe beef!!! OMG), talking to a random mix of people and most of all enjoying the plum blossoms. We did see some cherry blossoms but personally we prefer the perfume from the plum blossoms (we were talking to a volunteer guide at the Osaka Castle Gardens and he said that that preference is quite common amongst westerners).
Plum Blossoms in the Osaka Castle Plum Orchard.
Well we are now at our third night in Tokyo and whoa what a city it is. People watching, shopping and walking has been done not so much “proper sightseeing” but that is coming.
We had rain through the night last night and woke up to it snowing this morning, it continued up until midday’ish. The snow melted pretty quickly but it was nice for that little while.
The shops, whoa. It as all about variety and then some more. In some way I like the limited ranges of things back home. For example you want a pair of nail clippers; back home you probably have about 5 or so to pick from in a shop, here we were in one big electronics store and I kid you not there would have been at least 70 different types!
Still we’ve been having a ball and tomorrow is the halfway mark 
.
Mum, the baking powder photo is for you, does it look familiar?
Cherry blossom season is getting quite close and the shops are filling with cherry blossom/sakura themes items (no Kit-Kats yet )but I have had the cherry blossom frappacino from Starbucks and mmm it is very nice, will try the lattes soon.
Tomorrow we are doing more of the sane from the last few days and going to karaoke tomorrow night with a bunch of people from the hostel.
Well I’m back in Brisbane for about 24hrs before jetting off to Japan tomorrow morning. The wedding was fantastic on the weekend. It was a wedding that very much fitted the bride and groom (my cousin Erica and her now husband Ash). The wedding weekend was at Coles Bay in the Freycinet National Park area of Tasmania. It was where Erica and Ash decided to get engaged a couple of months ago and a place where they’ve spent a lot of time.
3 pictures for now because everything else will have to wait till I get back from Japan.
Saying hello to Grandad after the ceremony
This photo just about sums up the wedding 100%. The beach, playing in the water, having a picnic and a wedding as well.
and the cake, mmmm flourless chocolate cake and a very very good one at that. With the mountains of Freycinet in the background
The next six days are going to be slightly manic.
Tomorrow – I have work (of course), I get my tooth implant, I’ve got postgrad orientation stuff to do at uni and then I have The Whitlams with the QSO tomorrow night.
Friday – Work and then straight to the airport to catch a flight to Hobart.
Saturday – Wedding of my cousin on the beach at Coles Bay/Freycinet
Sunday – Post wedding activities and flying home Sunday night.
Monday – Work and first uni lecture
Tuesday – Fly to Japan for 2 weeks. (Yeah, I’ll be missing four classes – two for each subject, whilst I’m away)
I’m so crazy looking forward to going to Japan. G (one of my best girl friends) and I are going to have a blast (literally as they having a bit of a cold snap at the moment and it is forecast to snow for the days we are up in the alps!!!).
It’s going to be crazy. I bought a new lens the other week, the 28mm 1.8 which will be one of the two lenses I’m taking to Japan, the other will be the 50mm 1.4. I was thinking of taking my 16-35mm 2.8 but it is a heavy piece of glass. I took a few photos with the 28mm the other day and I’m impressed
Yep, some more of my Figgjo Flint Lotte. Here you see a creamer which doubles as a bobby pin and nail utensil holder, a sugar pot that holds bracelets and hair clips and my soufflé dish which holds jewellery.
Loose Here by Kain
