A Night Off: Wildcats vs Tigers at Perth Arena

Last night, Kate and I headed to the new Perth Arena to watch the Perth Wildcats take on the Melbourne Tigers. This was our first time at the new Arena, and watching the Wildcats run out a 20 point win was a good way to check out the new venue.


Canon PowerShot G1 X - 1/250s @ f/2.8, 15.1 mm


A little unusual for me, was sitting in the stands watching, with only the Canon G1X in my hand, and it did have me wishing that I had a little more time on my hands to chase down some work at a few other sporting venues around Perth.


Canon PowerShot G1 X - 1/125s @ f/5.8, 60.4 mm


Once again, I was really impressed by the little G1X's ability to handle low light and higher ISO's without producing a lot of noise. Not that a basketball stadium under TV lighting is really low light, but shooting from almost the top row of the stands does push things a little.



Canon PowerShot G1 X - 1/160s @ f/5.8, 60.4 mm


This is the G1X at maximum zoom, not too bad for a little camera.



Canon PowerShot G1 X - 1/200s @ f/4.5, 25.893 mm


For all the flack the Perth Arena has copped over its looks from the outside, inside it's a nicely polished deal. Although there was one thing I noticed, but didn't get a photo of, 3 well placed water coolers right next to one of the bars, with no power points to plug them into and decidedly warm water.



Canon PowerShot G1 X - 1/400s @ f/2.8, 15.1 mm


And of course, being this far up in the stands, I just had to do some faux tilt shift.  This was done in Photoshop, although the G1X does have the ability to do this sort of stuff in camera.

Pick Ten: 2013 Night of Fire

Here's a few of my favourite shots from last nights Night of Fire event at the Perth Motorplex.

Antony Begley has been driving Nitro Funny cars lately, but is back in this Alcohol powered FC for the rest of our local season.

1/2500s @ f/6.3, 400 mm

Clive Hudson has recently made a return to the Motorplex quarter mile, and is returning to his trademark big burnouts.

1/800s @ f/3.2, 70 mm

Marty Mirco took out the win in Super Sedan in his awesome Camaro.

1/400s @ f/2.8, 100 mm

Nigel Benson was back in the Aussie Bandit wheelstander and flamethrower.

1/4000s @ f/2.8, 108 mm

Clint Urban took a win in Mod Bike on his Suzuki GSX-R.

1/250s @ f/3.2, 140 mm

South African born Pieter DeWit, now living here in Perth, was driving the Gravity Storm Jet Dragster, and after 2 successful passes, Pieter had a chute failure in the final round, sending him into the sand trap.  More details can be found on the Motorplex website

1/320s @ f/3.2, 200 mm

Chuck Haynes piloting the other jet dragster, Volcano.

1/250s @ f/3.5, 130 mm

Andrew Katavatis took out yet another Super Comp win, taking him to four wins in a row.

1/160s @ f/3.2, 100 mm

Rob Pilkington took home a win in the Top Comp 'A' final.

1/160s @ f/4, 50 mm

Neil Anderson held out Daniel Natalotto in a heads up Comp Bike final.

1/160s @ f/4, 47 mm

Twilight Hawker Markets in Forrest Place

Perth's Forrest Place is home to the Twilight Hawker Markets, a weekly event for some of Perth's food vendors to gather together and showcase their menu's to a rather diverse audience, from city office workers on their way home, to dedicated food travellers looking for a fix before their next overseas journey.



Kate, Mikah and myself headed to Forrest Place on Friday night to see what all the fuss was about. Kate and I have tried a few different foods on our journeys in the past, including deep fried insects and catfish cooked on a stick on our recent journey to Thailand, so we thought we'd head in to see if we could find something a little out of the ordinary to get us through until our next adventure.



We ended up choosing 3 market stalls to visit, starting with a chicken and seafood paella, followed by a serve of satay sticks and then topped off with some asado (or beef ribs).



While in many countries, the appeal of the Hawker stalls is in the price and the variety of foods on offer, the usual Perth price and serving creep has hit here too, with slightly smaller than usual portions for slightly higher than usual prices. One of the things Kate was looking forward to at these markets were the spiral spuds she'd tried in Thailand, but at $6 for a serve, as opposed to $1 for the same serve in Thailand, they got skipped over.



I've included a few photos of the asado, as the were probably the food I was most looking forward to while waiting in the queues (and they were all that I took photos of). While overall I was very happy with the asado, I was a little disappointed with the toughness of the meat. I don't know if this is the standard for beef ribs, but with the delicious selection of spices and some very tasty and meat juice soaked fat, if the meat had been more tender it would have made it perfect. I don't feel I can lay all the blame at the chef though, as the space and time available at these markets must make these one of the hardest meals to get just right. I have a feeling that if they'd cooked these ribs low and slow enough to have the meat falling apart tender, there would have only been a handful of ribs actually available to sell, and even at the $10 a serve price, they wouldn't have been able to sell enough to make it worth while turning up.



If you want to see some photos of some of the food we ate and the markets we visited in Thailand, check out the album on flickr

Pick Ten: Perth Motorplex 2012 Season Opener

The Perth Motorplex's 2012/13 Drag Racing season kicked off in style on the 27th of October. Here are a selection of 10 of my favourite photos from the night.

Pick Ten: Perth Motorplex Pre-Season Test and Tune

This season's pre-season Test and Tunes at the Perth Motorplex were scheduled as a Saturday - Sunday affair, however rain over the course of the weekend ended up giving us a much reduced session, with Saturday cancelled and Sunday shortened by a couple of hours.

Here are 10 of my favourite shots of the day, in chronological order.



Rhiannon Allison was licensing in her dads dragster. At this stage, Craig will be back in the car for the regular season, but this is definitely not the last time we'll see Rhiannon in a race car.



The name Pete Veersma is well known to Western Australian drag racers, Pete made a return to the sport last season to help out Jeff Clarke in his final season, and is now running a car for his son, Luke Veersma.





Another car from the Hort racing stable, I believe this is Ethan's girlfriend Jayme behind the wheel of the teams third car.



Sam Treasure had a very busy couple of weeks getting the Cleveland Express back together with a new motor. The work paid off when the team ran their first ever 7 second pass on their first full track pass with the combo.





Kyle Putland has a new car this season, and had brought a tuner from the USA to help out for the weekend. In his first hit out with the new AMA deal, Kyle ran under the national record with a 6.85 second pass.



Simon 'Gonzo' Travaglini was out testing 'BA Baracus' and laid down a 6.44 second pass during the afternoon. With a previous best of 6.41 seconds, Gonzo was happy with the way the track and car performed in testing.



Supercharged Outlaw racer Ian Foster has a new Funny Car on track.



Mosman Park racers the Champan Brothers have a new Saratoga Doorslammer on track this season. This will also be a car to watch this season.

Pick Ten: FIL'n'K8 Do Phuket

My wife, Kate, and I have recently returned from a short holiday in Phuket. This was our first time in Thailand, and also our first holiday since both our wedding and the birth of our daugher, Mikah. There were so many enjoyable moments while we were there, that picking out 10 photos was a bit of a challenge. There are many more photos from the trip in my flickr account here. In the mean time, these are 10 of my favourite shots from the trip.



After landing at Phuket airport, we caught a taxi down to the first of two hotels, the Paragon, at the northern end of Patong Beach. We quickly headed for the pool, checked out the pool bar, then got ready to hit town for dinner.



No sooner had we left the hotel, than it started to rain. Thinking this was just going to be a quick tropical blast, we decided to keep walking. By the time we found shelter, we were absolutely drenched and were questioning our own sanity. However, once we did find shelter, we also found a nice little food hall where we had dinner. By the time we were finished dinner, we'd dried off enough to keep on walking and ended up making it to the Jungeylon shops where we did a spot of shopping, picked up a few supplies we hadn't bothered bringing on the plane and then caught a tuk tuk back to the Paragon.

Phuket is definitely alive with building activity at the moment. From small sets of villas to apartment buildings like this one. wherever you head, you'll pass several construction projects along the way. As you can see here, scaffolding methods, or more precisely, materials, are a little different here to those in Australia.










The outdoor bars in the OTOP Markets are a relaxing place for a cold drink or three during an afternoon exploring Patong. The markets are a short walk south of the popular Jungceylon shopping complex in the middle of Patong, and the market stalls here are a lot cheaper than those in the Junceylon basement, although the night markets in Phuket Town seem to be where the real bargains can be found.







We headed a little out of Patong, down to the Kok Chang elephant park, where Kate and I took the time to get up close and personal with an elephant.

The Wat Chalong temples in Phuket Town are an impressive sight, and of course, crowded with tourists. The Wat Chalong temple is considered the most important of the 29 Buddhist temples in Phuket. This photo is not of the main temple, but of a smaller temple in the complex.











One of my favourite meals of the trip was also the cheapest. 440 baht for barbecued catfish, chicken and pork, with a side of salad and some fried rice, two cokes and a king brown of Chang beer.



That night we headed to the weekend night markets in Phuket town, where I couldn't resists sampling some of the local delicacies, in particular, the deep fried insects on offer.



This is why we were there, highschool friends of my wife Kate, Marcus and Danelle, had chosen Thailand as the place they wanted to get married. Danelle was one of Kate's bridesmaids at our wedding, and we were honoured to be invited to join them in Phuket for their wedding.



Not that there's really room for error when you're landing jet aircraft anyway, but Phuket international airport really stresses the point.



Now we're back in Australia, back to our respective day jobs, with the usual sides of a lot of motorsport coming up, and a busy family life as well. Much like our previous USA trips, discussions on the next trip started before we'd even landed, although, again, much like the previous USA trips, it's entirely possible that the next trip will be nothing like we thought it would be either.