Lazing by the beach in Newcastle provided a great opportunity for me to play around with hipstamatic on my iPhone 4.  It’s got some really cool new features and the iPhone 4 camera is a huge improvement on the previous generation’s ( flash for a start and reverse cam too).  The resolution of photos taken with hipsta can be changed between low, intermediate and high resolution.  The high res photos do take more time to ‘develop’ (in the way a ‘photo’ only can on an iPhone app) though.

I was toying with the idea of getting more lomgoraphy lenses and mucking around with colour filters but just using my iPhone is so much easier.

These photos were taken around Bar Beach in Newcastle.

At Nobby’s Beach, H and I decided to have some breakfast at Liquid Gold after splashing about in the water.  It was pretty rough surf so most of the people there were surfing, waiting for good waves (with a cup of coffee in Liquid Gold) or on the beach.  I went running on the beach and now realize why I was the only one doing this.  My back is killing me today….

Solid Gold is just across the road form the beach and has some lovely wooden furniture in front of the counter.

We sat facing the beach and watched some very skilled surfers catch some scary looking waves.

As requested, a modelling shot of the new Bayswater.

I had the best muesli and yoghurt ever.  The fresh fruit on top went perfectly.

We also had cinnamon toast with ricotta and honey.

Service was friendly and the coffees were good too.

We took a side trip to Taree which is another 2 hours north.  H is going to be there for work for  few months so we found his share house and stocked up his section of the fridge and pantry.  True confession time: I’ve never lived in a share house before.  Don’t know how that happened but it’s true.  Which explains my ignorance of share house kitchen etiquette.  I spread out H’s stuff across multiple areas of the fridge, set out things near the stove and left the Tim Tams in a very visible spot.  Epic fail.  Apparently ‘you need to set the rules early and stick to them otherwise it’s all going to go very wrong, very quickly’.

All too soon, it was time to head back on the road again to Sydney.

There was the obligatory pit stop at Maccas.

Where I discovered that Krispy Kreme are now official business partners with McDonalds.  A very strategic move on the part of KK as they have significantly trimmed back their retail presence in NSW.  I kind of miss seeing Krispy Kreme outlets when I walk around Sydney.  I always feel hypnotized in the manner of Homer Simpson when I see the rows of glossily iced donuts in their clear glass cabinets.

Once again, the roads unfurled in front of us as we negotiated the Pacific Highway through rock faces and over water ways in an air conditioned bubble hurtling along at 110 with triple J blaring.  We hit Sydney quite suddenly.  We lost the trees and gained high rises and city lights.

I’m now back to earth with a thud.  Survived the first day of work at my new job and I have the battle scars to prove it (a booster vaccine in each arm).

Miss Kitty-Cat and Blighty, thank you both for your awards.  I will get to them as soon as I can.  Things are a bit hectic with work at the moment but I hope to resume normal blogging asap.