LOOK WHAT’S ON THE ROAD AHEAD

Of course there’s some hiking coming up.

We’re in pack up mode, leaving Sydney next week to head back to Europe, sad to be leaving family and friends here for a while, but looking forward to the adventures we’ve planned for the next few months.

BIKES ON DYKES – planning a Dutch cycling tour

Cycling in Holland is a family affair.

We’ll be back cycling in The Netherlands in less than a fortnight, so we’re planning some interesting routes.

Coincidentally, my correspondent Lianne just sent me a few questions (with attached compliments – flattery will get you everywhere!) about how to arrange a cycling holiday there.

So here it is – info on bike hire, route planning, weather, all the essentials to get started on planning a bike trip through Nederland.

PORTUGAL COMES TO PETERSHAM – Festival in Photos

“It feels like I’m in Madeira, mate.”

It’s on again, the annual Biarro Portugues – the Petersham Food and Wine Fair.

I was there with the requisites – a camera and an empty stomach.

THE LEGO MOVIE – it’s okay to play

This could be the start of something very big.

Hundreds of people have spent a good part of this decade in dark, windowless rooms, doing tedious, repetitive, painstaking, frustratingly detailed work. Our son was one of the captives. The result is The Lego Movie.

So it was a moving experience to sit in a dark, windowless cinema crowded with hundreds of those people, the staff of Australian production company Animal Logic that made the film, as for the first time they shared the show with their families.

The Lego Movie is already taking the world by storm, but it will be next month before it is publicly screened in Sydney where the work was done.

We loved it. No, really, we did.

MY NEW RUNNING TOY – road-tested on wheels

The Garmin Forerunner 110.

My son thoughtfully gave me a heart rate monitor for my last birthday.

I was touched that he was concerned about his old dad’s ticker, but wait, there’s more… In the package with the heart monitor was a Garmin Forerunner 110, a GPS device designed for runners. It was a generous present, which I’ve been putting to good use, hoping to keep my heart going for several more birthdays at least.

The Forerunner 110 is really intended to adorn the wrists of athletes who care about their personal bests, their lap times and indeed, their heart rates. I’ve been trying it out on my cycling expeditions, on most of which I’ve left the heart monitor at home.