Chronological Activities for 2019

27m 39s

From ABC-TV, Back Roads visits the town of Finke in the Northern Territory when it's population explodes from the Alice Springs to Finke car and motorcycle races, and indigenous football competitions take place.

17m 28s

Peter had 2 birthday parties - a pizza night at home, without Keiran, Marina and Victoria (due to Keiran being unwell).

And a second surprise party at Bendalong on the following weekend.

14m 44s

New South Wales Transport Museum stages this event over the 3 days of Queens Birthday Weekend in June. This year's event added steam boats to the mix of buses and old trains.

To start with a bang, the first event on Saturday is the Great Train Race, wherein 2 (or 3) trains "race" from Central to Strathfield station. After that event, there are scheduled shuttle services from Central, mostly to Hurstville, but the rail motors had 2 unusual routes - one via Olympic Park station, and the other along the freight lines normally inaccessible to mere mortals.

Information on Garratt locomotives:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garratt

This particular Garratt:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6029

11m 30s

Victoria's Baptism was held at Holy Family Church in Menai on 23rd June 2019. After Mass it was off to Club Central, Menai for lunch.

The weather forecast was for wet and windy, but transpired as quite pleasant.

12m 34s

The Parkes Radio Telescope received all but the first 8 minutes of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's walk on the moon. It was the source for world wide coverage. The first 8 minutes came from the NASA station at Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra which was later closed and the antenna moved to Tidbinbilla, a few kilometres away.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the landing, the Parkes Radio Telescope held an Open Day, including tours of the telescope building itself.

References:
Grote Reber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_Reber

Parkes Radio Telescope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkes_Observatory

Open Day program: https://events.csiro.au/Events/2018/November/26/Parkes-Open-Days-2019

Cowra Japanese Garden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowra_Japanese_Garden_and_Cultural_Centre

Margaret Hamilton in moonlight: https://www.blog.google/products/maps/margaret-hamilton-apollo-11-tribute/

Honeysuckle Creek: https://www.honeysucklecreek.net/Apollo_11/index.html

Note: Margaret Hamilton wrote the software for the lunar module!

14m 34s

Victoria's first birthday was a small family and close friends affair, as appropriate to her age.

8m 24s

A tribute to Peter Harris

8m 10s

SJR takes us to Bundanoon for lunch on rail motors, then to Summit Tank atop Macquarie Pass for the lookout only accessable by train overlooking the Illawarra coast. Then return to Sydney.

The return journey was planned to go down the lookout and return to Sydney via the Illawarra line. But just a few weeks before, the line was closed for the weekend maintenance, so we returned to Sydney following the outward journey.