Category: Australia

Antipodean Bricks

  • May 24, 2023

As you know, Australia is a land of ancient mystery and dark secrets. Often on my trips to this Great Southern Land I try to uncover some of these, but I wasn’t prepared for what I found yesterday.

I speak of an entire range of officially licensed and absolutely not bootleg LEGO kits based on popular brands. I was slack-jawed as I stumbled upon these; why aren’t these in the LEGO store in my local mall?

I speak of such things as Deformation Armor:

And Dinosaur Crossing:

And New Hero:

And even Marvelous Aengans:

Note that a couple of them are from a company called ‘666’, which must be some sort of southern-hemispherean LEGO shell company managed by Satan.

Anyway I was trying to decide which one to buy when I found this hidden at the back of the shelf:

Holy Moses it’s Ultraman! I purchased it faster than you can down a small frozen coke and scurried out of the store. This, I knew, was a find of the century!

Obviously this is an officially licensed and not at all bootleg LEGO Ultraman kit, and specifically one of four available:

But what’s the subtitle under the ultra logo?

Ah yes, it’s obviously based on the obviously nonexistent ‘Star Body Sucking’ series. This may explain why the included minifigure is a weird hybrid with the head and chestplate of Ultraman Taro, the body design of no existing ultra, and who wields the Sparklence from Ultraman Tiga!

But this is a trifling distraction since I absolutely love this little bugger! Surely he’s now risen to the very top of my collection of officially licensed and absolutely not bootleg LEGO minifigures 🙂

Oh and there was a ‘spaceship’ in the kit as well but it was absolute trash so I binned it immediately.

On The Beaten Track

  • May 24, 2023

I walked the full Fernleigh Track today. I’d wanted to do this for years, since I’d only done it once before (in 2012), but the logistics of getting home were always an obstacle. Thankfully, Sue came to the rescue!

She picked me up on her way to work and dropped me off at the Belmont end of the track. My plan was to walk the entire track home with a break at Charlestown for some lunch.

I started the track at 7:21 am. The first mile or so is heavily shaded by trees, which kept the temperature low. I was wearing shorts and it was quite chilly (8C/48F) but thankfully my rugged Australian constitution kept me going.

For the first third of the walk the birdsong was raucous and nonstop. There were no other walkers and a few cyclists so perhaps they were squawking at me? I loved it, especially the bellbirds, and occasionally found a sunny spot to pause and enjoy the sounds.

I was curious as to how long the walk would take so kept careful track of time (and steps) as I walked. The Belmont to Whitebridge leg is about two thirds of the track, and took me almost exactly two hours (and ~13000 steps). I wasn’t even tired yet, and it was time to divert and head to Charlestown Square for lunch.

This was no small side-trip either, since the walk to the mall from Whitebridge (and back) added 2.5 hours (and ~14000 steps) to the expedition! I ate some maccas, bought some magic cards and then had a nostalgic walk past old places we’d lived before rejoining the track in the early afternoon.

By this time the sun was high in the sky and I was in shirtsleeves, and maybe even getting a little sunburned? I’d done the Whitebridge-Adamstown leg many times and freshly refueled with frozen coke I knocked it out today in only one hour (and ~7000 steps). Once again I completed the entire track in one go, and I’m probably good for another decade or so! In total the track (alone) had taken me almost exactly three hours and a tad over 20,000 steps.

Of course I still had to walk back to mums, and it was this final leg of the trip – only a half hour or so after many hours of walking – where I started to feel the burn. But (of course) I made it, and when I finally reached mums I had been walking for 7.5 hours and 40,010 steps. My legs were spaghetti, but it had been a good day.

But I bet I’ll be feeling it tomorrow!

My UFO Sighting

  • September 8, 2022

Earlier this year when I was in Australia, I saw a UFO. Or perhaps three UFO’s. I didn’t write about it then because I had forgotten, so it’s time to remedy that.

It was late May or early June. I was walking along the Newcastle Harbour foreshore toward Nobby’s. It was bright and sunny, and there were lots of people walking and cycling. I was taking some photos of the ferry, so I was approaching the dock from the west. All of a sudden, three silver objects noiselessly flew quickly over me.

Here are my impressions:

  • They were moving fairly quickly in a roughly eastern direction out to sea, and there was no noise at all.
  • They were silver or at the least light gray or white. They seemed reflective, and while they seemed elongated it was difficult to determine their exact shape.
  • They seemed to twist and turn around their individual axes, and the trio of objects seemed to rotate together or at least turn in formation.
  • The more I watched them the more I wasn’t sure I was looking at multiple objects or one (possibly connected by parts I could not see).
  • I couldn’t determine their height. I couldn’t tell if they were small and closer to the ground or large and higher up.

The above photo shows their path as best I recall. I watched them for maybe 30 seconds, and even tried to take some photos (in which they weren’t visible). Due to the bright sun and the reflective nature of the objects they became difficult to see as they moved away from me, and I lost site of them probably around the time they left the harbour.

I wasn’t the only one who saw them, since I observed two men ahead of me pointing towards them and watching as well.

At the time, I had no idea what I was watching. In my mind I assumed they were simply something that I could not identify, but not for one instant did I consider they were something no-one could identify. For me therefore, they were literally UFOs, but I never considered that they were UFOs for everyone. I was certainly intrigued by them, and wished I had taken some video, but to be honest they left my mind quickly. I didn’t even write about them on a postcard, which seems unusual.

Before writing this post I did a bit of research, and confirmed that there was no scheduled fighter jet activity from Williamstown on or about Newcastle in late May or early June. Even though nothing about the objects suggested ‘jets’ to me, I wanted to consider the most obvious explanation. Thinking about the objects now, my guess would be drones, although I’m not aware of drones that can fly so fast and with such range, and as I said I couldn’t estimate the size when I saw them. I suppose other exotic explanations may exist: I did see a gyrocopter flying over Newcastle baths only a few days prior!

I was reminded of this incident after speaking with a colleague about UFOs. I was struck by the fact that this had happened to me, and I definitely saw physical things (or a thing) that I could not – and still can’t – identify flying over a major city, and it didn’t seem like a big deal and was forgotten by the end of the day. This gives me a new perspective on UFO sightings: how often do others see curious objects in the sky, wonder for a minute or so and then just go on with their lives?

To the Novocastrians reading: have you ever seen anything like this? If so, what was it?

  • Posted in Australia
  • Robert