brodie.mcculloch
adventures of a rogue thinker.
I live and work in the most isolated city in the world. I am passionate about social innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing, travel, technology, government 2.0, sustainability, design, photography and have been known to have entrepreneurial tendencies.
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DSLR Photography course in Fremantle
I purchased my DSLR camera over two years ago in the Caribbean and to be honest it has had very little use except in Africa but other than that it has remained in its case. I was using the auto settings so I may as well have just been using a normal point and shoot.
Hunting down a basic DSLR course in Perth has proven more difficult than I would have thought but finally it looks like I may have something.
The Fremantle Arts Centre is running basic and advanced courses, I just missed this round but the next one will be in July so better book in to learn how to use this thing on its manual settings (how it is meant to be used).
Click here to download:
Photography – Introduction to Creative Photography with Susan Hill (6 weeks) BEG .pdf (148 KB)
Freiberg with Matt for the weekend
We got up at about 12 noon and it was scorching hot in Freiburg, this was a good thing because after the moral crippling weather of Belgium it was great to have sun.
Riding around Freiburg
We went for a swim at a lake near Matt and had a look through some vineyards. Freiberg and the surrounding area is really nice, as was the day before riding through the black forest.
Beer time
After a swim and seeing a lot of naked Germany people everywhere we drove into France for a look, it is crazy how quickly you can be in another country, by car anyway, by bike it takes a bit longer. At this point we started to try out the local beer and have some lunch that we threw together on Matts car (I hope that olive oil has come off).
Black Forest cake in the Black Forest
That night we rode our bikes around town, Freiberg is really bike friendly as it is a student town. There was a lot of activity because it was a Saturday night.
Bikes at the Pool
The next day we got up at noon and rode to the public swimming pools as it was another scorcher. The pools were packed but it was a nice day to lay on grass next to the pool. We also got Black Forrest Cake which was really nice, there were only a few places that had it in town so that was lucky.
somewhere in France
That night we watched the Euro 08 Spain V Italy. Spain won and Matt let the Italian restaurant down the rode know about it.
Spain Wins
Other than that it was a bit of a quieter night as the next day we had to get a train to Munich.
Bye Matt
It was good to “recover” at Matts from the Amsterdam and is defiantly somewhere I would like to go back to.
Riding around Freiburg
We went for a swim at a lake near Matt and had a look through some vineyards. Freiberg and the surrounding area is really nice, as was the day before riding through the black forest.
Beer time
After a swim and seeing a lot of naked Germany people everywhere we drove into France for a look, it is crazy how quickly you can be in another country, by car anyway, by bike it takes a bit longer. At this point we started to try out the local beer and have some lunch that we threw together on Matts car (I hope that olive oil has come off).
Black Forest cake in the Black Forest
That night we rode our bikes around town, Freiberg is really bike friendly as it is a student town. There was a lot of activity because it was a Saturday night.
Bikes at the Pool
The next day we got up at noon and rode to the public swimming pools as it was another scorcher. The pools were packed but it was a nice day to lay on grass next to the pool. We also got Black Forrest Cake which was really nice, there were only a few places that had it in town so that was lucky.
somewhere in France
That night we watched the Euro 08 Spain V Italy. Spain won and Matt let the Italian restaurant down the rode know about it.
Spain Wins
Other than that it was a bit of a quieter night as the next day we had to get a train to Munich.
Bye Matt
It was good to “recover” at Matts from the Amsterdam and is defiantly somewhere I would like to go back to.
The Black Forest
4 nights in Amsterdam was more than enough and I think we were happy to be on our way to see Matt in Freiberg, Germany and have what I would have thought would be a quite weekend…..not the case.
We caught an overnight train from Amsterdam to Stuttgart, then from there trained to frauidenstratt. Until this point there had not been many (any) hills, this was about to change. Getting off the train we could see that there were hills everywhere, not to mention the fact that we had not really slept much the night before.
The Black Forest (hills)
So we started out and after a few false starts we made our way in the right direction. And hit some hills but then had some awesome down hill slopes to go down. We soon learned that the area we were riding through was ski fields during the winter.
Drink Break
On the map it turned out that we would have to ride 97km from frauidenstratt to Freiberg, which is ok because we had already done that on a few legs…..but there were no mountains. This made me angry. We continued to ride and had a few more wrong turns, then stopped for lunch as a small shop. After lunch we headed towards a mountain that had a sign saying 4km 20% gradient (trucks use low gear). There were no cycle paths anymore so we were on the road riding up this hill. After a short amount of time it was quicker to get off and push, so we did.
real dumb
We rode into Freiberg at about 5:30 that evening, it had taken about 11 hours to ride the distance. But we quickly found Matts house by that stage and I was ready to hurt him, but composed myself and greeted him without the use of pain.
Freiburg
I slept that night and they all went out, sleep was a good choice.
The Black Forest (hills)
So we started out and after a few false starts we made our way in the right direction. And hit some hills but then had some awesome down hill slopes to go down. We soon learned that the area we were riding through was ski fields during the winter.
Drink Break
On the map it turned out that we would have to ride 97km from frauidenstratt to Freiberg, which is ok because we had already done that on a few legs…..but there were no mountains. This made me angry. We continued to ride and had a few more wrong turns, then stopped for lunch as a small shop. After lunch we headed towards a mountain that had a sign saying 4km 20% gradient (trucks use low gear). There were no cycle paths anymore so we were on the road riding up this hill. After a short amount of time it was quicker to get off and push, so we did.
real dumb
We rode into Freiberg at about 5:30 that evening, it had taken about 11 hours to ride the distance. But we quickly found Matts house by that stage and I was ready to hurt him, but composed myself and greeted him without the use of pain.
Freiburg
I slept that night and they all went out, sleep was a good choice.
Breda to Rotterdam and Hello to the Netherlands
Lucky for us there was no backpackers in Breda and we got a cheap hotel for less than what a hostel would cost us, this was needed after the moral crushing day we had prior.
strange dutch people.....
The ride from Breda to Rotterdam was one of the more interesting we have done. As we left Breda there was a lot of unexplained stuff on the GPS such as river crossings and routs that needed to be taken.
Go Team
We set off and had a very scenic ride; it was cold but not raining and had some sun patches that were nice. We went through many small towns (it was the southern end of the Netherlands) and then went far into the country side.
more good weather.......awsome
We asked in one of the towns if there was a river crossing ahead as there was a blue line on the GPS which I hadn’t seen before. They said it was a ferry across the river (caal really) so we headed in that direction. The ferry was only 90c which was nice, and it cut about 1 hour of the alternate route time.
booyah....this just saved us 2 hours of riding
Once across the signes to Rotterdam got much clearer and we could follow them almost into the city (they disappeared a few times but it didn’t delay us for to long). The weather got a bit worse but what can you do. Once entering Rotterdam we headed for the Hostel ROOM (name of hostel), we had two nights there before we headed for Amsterdam so it should be a good chance to rest after the two days of riding.
downtown riders in rotterdam
photos are on Flickr.
Good bye Belgium you wet cold bastard!
Today was a bad day, even though I had the flu I had a couple of beers last night, the problem is that the Belgium beers are about 2-3 times stronger than English or Aus beers. This in-turn led to an escalated night that ended late, real late.
The plan was to get up about 9-10 am, have breakfast and ride out, it was a shorter ride (50k or so) and we new it would be fine. Instead we came out of a deep sleep at 12 noon as the guys were cleaning our room for the next people, in the frantic dash to get out of there we threw everything into our bags and onto the bikes. To make things better a cold front had come in over night and after leaving our riding shoes outside for 2 days to dry the were saturated by the rain.
finally
We then went in circles around Antwerp for about 1.5 hours until we found our way out of town we headed towards Breda in the Netherlands.
thank you kind choc people
To cut the post short we rode in the rain all day, the best part was when we knocked on a chocolate factories door and asked for chocolate, they were nice and gave us some (so we got to visit a Belgium chocolate factory, tick that off the list).
YEAH NETHERLANDS
Another lucky thing was that Breda was a direct line from Antwerp and required very little navigation.
Why are we in France?
Riding in the rain did do wonders for my flu……… if you want to laugh at us riding in the rain you can see it all at flickr.having a look around Antwerp
Antwerp had a good vibe to it, it was the same sort of vibe that we got from Gent but the city looked like it was newer. We went for a walk up to see a castle that we had seen the day before when we rode in, unfortunately it had been turned into a boat museum but you get that.
Storming the castle
We then walked down the shopping area (Antwerp is the capital for shopping), nothing was bought but there were a lot of shops and many people walking around.
It was only a quick walk around but we got to see much of the city. After getting back to the hostel I had a lay down because I got the flu and it is really annoying me, It is hard to get rid of because we are riding every couple of days but what can you do.
one of the big ones, cycle from Brugge to Antwerp
This was going to be one of the bigger rides this trip was going to be between Brugge to Antwerp. This had a straight line distance of 100k, so more with getting lost in small towns.
Cycle Brugge to Antwerp (good weather!!) at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging
The goal was to set off at eight......so we left at 9ish and headed out of town. Brugge was a smaller town so it was not to hard to get out, but then ryans handle bars twisted (they just needed to be tightened) so we stopped at a servo thingo and borrowed a wrench and got it done.
Welcome to Antwerp
We then went direct along the highway towards Antwerp. We got a little lost when the cycle lane ended and we needed to go into a small town and onwards to a tunnel for bikes (yeah I know), once through this tunnel it was a quick left to our hostel. very nice.
You can check out all the photos from this trip at -
the berries behind
Unfortunately on this run there was no canal, but there was a major road which went direct from Brugge to Antwerp, the goal was to follow this all the way there. This worked most of the time, there were some towns which we strayed into but got out of.
the highway to Antwerp
We then continued down the A11 had lunch at the 50k mark in a small town called Zelzate where we had a great lunch of ham, cheese and mayo. Here is a tip for all young players, leave your lunchbox just under the surface of your black bag on a sunny day so when you go to eat lunch the cheese has melted.....mmmmmm.
Tourist day out in Brugge
After a big night out on the town in Brugge we went looking for fries (their known for it) and waffles, not beer.
Big Church, the bells don't stop ringing
Brugge is very much a tourist town, there are many shops there and like most the other cities in Belgium that we have come across there are plenty of canals.
one of the many canal boats
This day we decided to do a canal tour, which was a mature thing to do (from the looks of the other clientele.
very nice
We needed to have a quiet night though as the next day we had about a 100k ride from Brugge to Antwerp, this was going to be one of the bigger rides of the trip.
All without a viewfinder
Will let you know how that goes.
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