James' Journal

• Avatar: The Way of Water — An experience. The world building and sea creatures in this epic movie were breathtaking. Spirituality and connection to nature are strong themes and the execution was spot on.
• Knives Out — Murder mystery following the investigation of the murder of the patriarch of a wealthy and dysfunctional family, starring Daniel Craig. Really enjoyed with a few interesting plot twists.

• Dominion — Confronting and very difficult to watch. Very important though.
• Mad Max: Fury Road — Amazing visuals and entertaining characters.
• Book of Eli — Post apocalyptic journey with a big twist at the end.
• John Wick — Perfect balance of unrealistic action and fun.

• Wednesday — Adaptation of The Addams Family, focusing on the Daughter Wednesday. Good little who-done-it teen mystery. ★★★

• Inside Man — British drama/crime mystery focused on an ex-criminologist solving cases on death row and a vicar caught up in a rapidly devolving situation with increasing stakes. ★★★

• The Mandalorian — Nostalgic, yet new perspective to the Star Wars world. ★★★★★
• Avatar: The Last Airbender — Easy to watch and some nuggets of wisdom.
• The Witcher — Great universe and characters. ★★★★
• Formula 1: Drive to Survive — Got me into Formula 1. ★★★
• Middleditch & Schwartz — A series of improv comedies on Netflix; very funny. ★★★★
• Fleabag — Dark British humour with a very unique style, commonly breaking the fourth wall for exposition. ★★★★★

• Jono picked us up from the airport and we drove to Lauren and Scott's wedding in Maclaren Vale

• Stayed the night with Graham and Joanne and had brunch at the wedding venue the next day with Alex's cousins

• Caught the train back to Adelaide to our hotel at Adelaide Oval
• Scooted in to play a round of disc golf at Parklands, and ended up having to slip through the Adelaide 500 track to get there. Realised we'd just snuck into a concert area so played disc golf, went out to get food, then snuck back in and watched The Killers

• Caught train out to Glenelg for brunch with Lauren and Scott before meeting the Showels and walking The Boardwalk from Seacliff to Hallett Cove (not the whole way, but 7km return)
• Went to see Lauren and Scott's house then train back in

• Walked through Rundle Mall and ate a quick burger at Smiley Vegan
• Alex taught me how to improve photography with rule of thirds and we've been having photo competitions
• Had a walk around at night, vego yum cha place closed early so found a ramen place

• Next morning went into North Adelaide and had pie and sausage roll breaky at a bakery. Walked back to hotel through North Adelaide suburbs
• Checked out then went to botanic gardens and lunch at Two Bit Villans

• Ran out of time for another disc golf so ended up spending a bit of time wanting the mask and then bus to the airport
• Blue Emu bus back to carpark guy hoped on and started yelling at the driver because he had to wait 40min. His shirt said "Don't get angry, get even"

This was a trip organised by Mandy. We had 10 people (Myself, Alex, Gemma, Andy, Holly, Matt, Fletch, Audi, Mandy, Tom) on a double hull catamaran for 10 days.

• Wednesday, 25^th May 2022 — Train to Sydney and fly to Proserpine airport arriving in the afternoon. We caught a private bus to Shute Harbour to our catamaran. We spent the night on the boat at the pier.
• Thursday, 26^th May 2022 — The morning was spent getting an induction from Gil on boat operation and local navigation. Without any experience driving within the group, I ended up as the official captain. We were taught how to drive under engines and also with the head sail out, but not the main sail. After lunch we dropped Gil off and headed for our first anchorage at Happy Bay (after the moores were taken at Sandy Bay). Happy Bay had an abandoned resort which we explored on the Friday morning. Gil's catch phrase: End Of Holidays
• Friday, 27^th May 2022 — From Happy Bay we sailed across to Sawmill Bay. First time using the headsail and getting comfortable with it. Sawmill Bay had a short walk which took us around to another beach.

• Saturday, 28^th May 2022 — In the morning took the summit track up to Whitsunday Peak. Unparalleled views. Great place for an engagement. In the afternoon we did some snorkelling at False Nara and then moved on to Nara inlet for the night. No swimming there due to sharks, which we didn't get to see. Good calm location for the night.
• Sunday, 29^th May 2022 — The next day we took the track up to the Cairne while the girls visited another abandoned resort and found some coconuts. The walking track was deemed strenuous and bloke at the bottom told us we would perish. It wasn't too bad. Spent the night at Macaow Inlet.
• Monday, 30^th May 2022 — Drove to Hamilton Island (Hamo) and docked for the night. Afternoon we did a hike to Passage Peak. Picked up Mandy from her flight. Waiting for Tom to arrive on the Tuesday morning since he had Covid symptoms. In the afternoon we played some table tennis and had a swim in the resort pools.
• Tuesday, 31^th May 2022 — Sunrise at One Tree Hill, then the boys played putt putt. Did some sailing on the mini yaughts in the bay at Hamo and then Tom arrived. We set off and arrived at Whitehaven. Spent the afternoon at Whitehaven Beach.
• Wednesday, 1^st June 2022 — From Whitehave we crossed the channel to Chalkies for some snorkelling. Spent some time trawling for a moore. Snorkelling was good. In the afternoon we stopped at Hill Inlet for some awesome views. Stayed at Tongue Bay and saw heaps of turtles breaching for air.

• Thursday, 2^nd June 2022 — Andy's birthday and a few hungover passengers. We drove to Butterfly Bay and did some kayaking around the reefs. Great spot right in the end of the inlet where we saw stingrays, turtles, and small reef sharks. Definite highlight.

• Friday, 3^rd June 2022 — Travelled down to Sandy Beach via Langford Reef and Cockatoo Point. Snorkelling at Langford reef was awesome. Swum with a small turtle for a while and saw the stainless steel (Terry the) turtle. Cockatoo Point was even better. The reef there was amazing and was able to swim with an even larger turtle. Fish life was the best we'd seen here. At Sandy Beach (South Molle Island) we did an evening hike to Balancing Rock and abandoned (cyclone) resort. Saw a bunch of butterlies through the trees which was pretty magical. Lots of fish around the boat. Flying fish ran head first into boat.

• Saturday, 4^th June 2022 — The last drive back to Shute Harbour only took 30 minutes or so and we dropped off the boat and caught a maxi taxi to Airly Beach. We spent a couple of hours hanging out at the lagoon and then taxied to our flights back home.

• Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes — About an experiment used to increase the intelligence of a mentally challenged patient. Interesting style of writing and emotional story. ★★★
• The Poppy War, RF Kuang — Great story about a girl who gets into a military school and learns of her rare magical abilities. Didn't like the main character much and the writing wasn't the best, but entertaining read. ★★★
• To Be Taught, If Fortunate - Becky Chambers — A team of astronauts are sent to ethically research four different planets and their species. Thought provoking, interesting and very good ending. ★★★★
• I Am Legend, Richard Matheson — Great moral twist at the end of the book which isn't in the Will Smith film, coming from a post-apocalyptic vampire world. ★★★
• Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut — A bizarre story with a meandering plot, but jammed full of thought provoking ideas and very entertaining read. ★★★★★

• Ender's Game Novel Series, Orson Scott Card — Sci-fi that follows a child as he trains to defeat an alien civilisation. I particularly liked the Shadow Series that followed Bean, one of the side characters in Ender's Game. ★★★★
• Life of Pi, Yann Martel — Philosophical novel following a young boy lost at sea. ★★★★
• Wayfarers Series, Becky Chambers — Set in a multi-species universe full of nice characters. ★★★★
• Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari — Incredibly interesting. The second book, Homo Deus, is also a great read. ★★★★
• Wheel of Time Series, Robert Jordan — Read 3/14 so far, but I like it. ★★★

• Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
• Mort, Terry Pratchett — Discworld 4
• Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut
• The City and the Stars, Arthur C Clarke
• The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu