travelling allrite

It's school holidays, which means more time for doing fun things. Back in 2014 we discovered a gem of a place in Sydney at  Blaxland Riverside Park and the Newington Armory . It was time for another visit! We hired bikes and took a ride around the Armory grounds and along the Parramatta River, stopping by the BirdLife Discovery Centre. A very enthusiastic guide described the nesting habits of a pair of sea eagles that had taken up residence in the trees nearby, video cameras providing a feed to centre screens. On Sundays the Armory runs heritage train tours on the two foot lines around the old naval armaments facility and, while the other two headed off to the playground, I took another ride on the train. My previous post had enough detail about the ride. I found the commentary somewhat lacking today and the example of the armaments train was now gone, but it was still a pleasant little ride and I'd love to have a model railway layout of it!

Miyoshi Station I'm rather sad. Today marked the last day of operation of the Sanko Line in Chugoku, Japan. I'd long wanted to ride this quiet rural line, but never got around to it. Now it is too late. The line runs from Miyoshi, inland of Hiroshima, to Gotsu on the San'in Coast, one of my favourite regions of Japan. I've been through both those end points, but never on the direct line between them. For a nice photographic essay of the route I recommend taking a look at niepong3t 's photos on Instagram, like this one. The next Japanese line scheduled to close is the Yubari to Shin-Yubari stretch in Hokkaido in one year's time, a year later than I first thought. Hopefully I can make if back to Hokkaido first. Gotsu Station

I wake up wishing for a teleport to take me home. I'm sick of Singaporean airconditioning on the inside and heat and humidity outside. I'm tired of being constantly on the move and staying up so late. I miss my dog. And I want to be able to eat again without the solids constantly liquefying. Yes I'm nervous about the flight, but it's not nagging me to the core life before. But I would rather not spend eight hours locked in an aluminium can. I just want to go home right now and be home right away. But I can't and we've got a whole day to kill before we board that flight. Alex and I go down to inspect the Duxton's swimming pool. It looks very nice, but it's way too cold. Our pool at home will be warmer. These Singaporean swimming pools are disappointingly cool. Breakfast turns into brunch is lunch. Stopping by a streetside vendor to buy an ice cream sandwich, we walk down historic Kreta Ayer and Neil Roads to reach the Maxwell Food Centre...