Charlie's WorldNow, where were we..?
Hello, dear readers! 1000 apologies for the slight hiatus but I’ve been sick. Stupid winter flu bugs have kept me from doing a lot for the last month.
I even missed a day of work and as I only get paid for what I work (no sick leave for us company directors) that’s a pretty big deal. For me to sacrifice that amount of money to the flu god, it was pretty bad. That’s kind a shit buys a lot of wine.
Anyways, its not all been doom and gloom, I have managed to ride my bike a lot, even though it’s suddenly turned very cold.
0.7C at 6:45am kinda cold. Yes, I know northern hemisphere dwellers would say ‘thats not cold, if you want cold, try riding in the snow yer great southern shandy drinking poof’
Yeah, no. I’ve done that, it’s not fun. Plus it doesn’t snow here.
Actually, what you don’t realise about Australia is that temperatures are not the equivalent to the the northern hemisphere. 0C is really bitingly cold, the kind of cold that I would have associated with well below zero in the UK. Even 20C during the day sometimes doesn’t feel warm.
And on a bike, 0.7C is the kind of cold that at 100+kph feels like ice daggers were piercing my legs and chin. Thats the thing about riding on a bike, there are always some bits that cop the wind blast and some bits that are just exposed more than others, like the underside of my chin. Ah well.
But I don’t really care, riding the bike is so much fun, hot, cold, wet, fog – whatever, it’s just an inconvenience. I love riding. Plus I always have the camera and having places to take a quick diversion on the way to and back from work makes it worthwhile.
All of these shots were taken with my trusty little Panasonic Lumix LX5.
On my way to work, 6:50am, sunrise. It was already raining a bit, but I got very wet about 15 minutes later – on the freeway, nowhere to hide, the heavens opened. Bugger!
On the way home, however, things were a little different. Skies cleared, warm air. I always take the long way home so I can ride back along the coast. If I time it just right, the light is perfect at the moment – I get to the beach just as the sun is setting. But for the next 6 weeks or so as the light closes in for the middle of winter, I’ll probably miss the light by the time I get there. Another month from now, I’ll be chasing sunsets again all the way into Spring. I can’t wait!
These are from Kwinana jetty.
Back to the same location as the first picture. We have misty mornings in the low lying areas at the moment It’s a kind of inversion layer which seems to trap fog close to the ground (and it’s so damn cold in those spots) – looks cool though, but I don’t much like riding through it , its like having a ghost walk through you it’s so chilly and damp!
Trusty little steed. It’s great in traffic actually – nippy enough not to be left behind, but I really need a bigger bike, as fun as this one is, it’s really too dinky!! I actually followed another one of these up the freeway today, ridden by a very tiny girl and it still looked small on her. Only another 3 months to go before I can start thinking about a properly bigger bike or just settling on a bigger bike in my current licence class. Either way, I can’t wait!
Again, on the way home, we have had some wicked light again. This is from Rockingham Beach jetty.
Back at Kwinana Jetty on a different night, the sky was moody but the colours were a bit flat and the photos looked a bot ordinary, so I converted a few shots to black and white as an experiment. What do you think?
I had a bit of an accident a few weeks ago. Trying to reverse the bike out of the shed, it toppled over 😦 Ever so gently and slowly, but the front fairing clipped the shed door and got scratched 😦 So annoying! I’m kinda hoping it’ll buff out, but I haven’t had a go yet – need to get to the car body shop and get some wax and 1600 grit wet and dry and see if I get make it shiny again.
That’s me for now – I have a load more pics to show you, plus I had some film developed at last, so there’ll be some posts on that too.
Charlie's World 
I like the black and white ones, but I think the colour ones are better due to the setting sun. Just my two pence worth!
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We are still hoping for the beginning of summer here in the UK! You do have some good sunsets in Rockingham. Lovely photos.
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