we’re located in the eastern side of the building opposite the georg ludwig kindergarten. its the dark blue building that looks like an upside down C. the production offices where i work are located on the corner of hendrik witbooi and daniel tjongarero streets, just one block down. and if you zoom about a bit you can see we’re really close to the beach!

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we’re not sure exactly what happened – brenda was at the park with nayou but didn’t see the moment of impact – but from what nayou has said, he crashed or fell into this tree that is planted in the middle of swakopmund’s playground. i guess there was a knob or a branch or something that banged him pretty hard. he was understandably upset for the first few hours, but since then he has been his normal chipper self. we were worried about the bruising because of his haemophilia but it looks like its all good. just to be safe, we started him on a course of tranexamic acid to make sure that things don’t get worse. yowza!

we’ve were blessed with a full week of gorgeous days. when the sun is out, we mostly find ourselves close to the playground. its right across from the beach which is perfect.

mmm seaweed necklace! nayou ate a pretty big chunk of it…. and lived to tell the tale!

this weekend we got some speakers and a blender. the essentials. now not only do we have tunes, brenda can work her smoothie magic in the mornings as well. it is way harder being a vegetarian out here (i’m already sick of greek salads) and harder still to get organic stuff. we lugged about 15kgs of spirulina, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar and other goodies over from sydney and its turning out to have been a very good decision. the restaurant fare is heavy on meat, cheese and bread in that distinctly german sort of way. at least they have kikkoman soy sauce!

nayou sniffed out the toy shop within the first ten minutes of our first expedition out into town.

dmo (pronounced, dee-moh, short for david morris-oliveros) is the hardware wizard on our team. he builds all kinds of crazy machines and flies all of our drones and octocopters and stuff. it was his birthday on the 5th so we all went out to the mexican restaurant for a celebration. yes, they have a mexican joint in swakopmund. and the food isn’t half bad either!

nayou soldiered on until ~9pm and then passed out cold.

speaking of team members, i should mention bodie. bodie is nayou’s best friend. nayou *loves* bodie and bodie loves him back. he is actually amazing with kids and its a riot watching the two of them interact. you will be seeing a lot more of him on this blog

this morning we went out into the bay for a dolphin cruise. it was a short three hour jaunt around walvis bay to check out the sea animals that live in the region. we were treated to pelicans, a ton of seals and some dolphins!

a few of the smarter seals have figured out that they get fed if they can work the crowd. they come right up onto the boat and are not afraid of humans at all!

here is our band of merry pirates, minus aj (the visual effects supervisor) and alex (the vfx producer). from left to right its: dmo (on-set systems dude), nayou (child model), kaeko (dmo’s wife), jess (coordinator), bodie (cg artist), dan (on-set supervisor), brenda (plain awesome) and me (the pipeline guy).

and the obligatory silly shot:

around 5.30pm on weekdays i usually get a text message from brenda saying how gorgeous the sunsets are from our apartment. today was the first time i got to see it firsthand and it did not disappoint.

happy mothers day to all you amazing women out there! and a big big extra humungous hug to my mum who also turned 60! xoxoxox

we are currently staying at the hansa hotel, which is a beautiful colonial building from 1907 that has been restored and converted for guests. the accommodation crew was kind enough to get us a family room, which actually consists of two large rooms and even a balcony. the main room has a very comfy king size bed so we are back to sleeping all together but without getting kicked or punched all night long! plus there is underfloor heating which is just divine, and don’t even get me started on the breakfast – its like a dream come true!

the production office, where i will be working most of the time, is located just around the corner from our hotel. the building is another colonial structure from 1907. its perfect for a movie, even though its a bit labyrinthine inside. all of our gear arrived safely and we spent the better part of last week getting all of our computers, servers and other toys up and running.

now that we’ve been here for five days the “oh shit what have we done” feeling has worn off and we are starting to get into the groove of things. swakopmund is a small town – about 45,000 people – but it feels like less because you don’t see a lot of folks around. but its very comfortable and the weather is very pleasant. we get misty mornings which tend to dissipate when the sun comes up and then its really really nice.

we are sandwiched between the beach and the namib desert. both of them are spectacular environments. the beach is a bit rougher and the water a bit colder than say, bali or mexico, but being close the ocean is never a bad thing. and the desert is just awesome. its one thing to imagine sand dunes, and its a whole other thing to drive past them and see just how big some of them are! we haven’t taken many desert photos yet but we will post some as soon we have them. in the meantime here are some more snaps of our little tribe getting over jetlag during our first afternoon here.

brenda and nayou went to visit the swakopmund museum on thursday. its a small museum but it looks interesting! and the taxidermy doesn’t look too horrible…

there is a park right on the beach that is always full of kids. i haven’t seen too many adult groups of mixed races, but out in the playground its a big melting pot!

i’ve had one day out on location where we took our set up for a test drive. i’ll write more on the tech we are using later, but i will say that its the stuff geeks dream of. our kit includes an aerial drone, survey-grade gps equipment, a velocity box and an octocopter. hubba hubba. we took a look at a couple of locations where various scenes will be shot and i can see why they chose namibia for the movie. the landscape is a bit like being on the moon, but with a brown palette. lots of cliffs and rocky outcrops and very little plant life. i didn’t take my camera, but i will share some photos i got from bodie this morning. stay tuned though because we’ll be going back out there and i will be sure to take photos next time!

but the best shot of the day was taken by dan who captured the most amazing michael bay moment. and i wasn’t even trying! honest!

in other news, we have found a very cute place to stay right in the middle of town. its a stones throw from the beach, the playground and my office. we move in on monday. woot woot!

the buns were delicious and i had a good time getting some info on my australian family tree. i knew my great grandmother immigrated from india to australia, but i had no idea they were planning on going to new zealand instead. apparently she and her husband met a minister on the ship to new zealand and he convinced them to try their luck in australia! i was also surprised that our ties to india go back quite a way. quite weird to think that in the not-so-distant future perhaps we will pop up as a blip in some relative’s investigations!

uncle colin recorded a special video for nayou who went missing for a good hour while he watched it! aunty yanny even made him some snacks which he thoroughly enjoyed, julius caesar style:

the day was too gorgeous to resist visiting the beach in the evening. i’m finding it hard to go without seeing the ocean at least once a day! the moon was stunning tonight.

happy easter everyone! i hope you are spending it with your loved ones, physically or virtually. thanks to aunty yanny and uncle colin for hosting yet another super fun gathering

p.s. in case you haven’t had your fill of nayou today:

nayou in a set of brenda’s creations:

and some last snaps from our time in potts point. the family who we were housesitting for also own the rooftop garden of the building across the street. the garden is a stones throw from my office, so we took maximum advantage of our proximity and had lots of lunches up there.

i love the buildings around potts point. this one looks like it belongs on the coast of italy or something.

grandma also celebrated her birthday. happy birthday grandma!

we have now settled into this really cute apartment in bondi, about a seven minute walk from the beach.

we are living in cosy quarters, but it hardly matters because the weather has been amazing and we are at the beach every day. brenda and i were hesitant about bondi at first, mainly because of our concerns about living space, but we definitely made the right choice – being close to the ocean is awesome! especially since i am currently in the middle of a forced two week holiday not getting paid sucks, but getting some serious beach and family time more than makes up for it. its actually a blessing in disguise because i can tell that i’m going to be working a lot once we get to namibia. the first three weeks haven’t been really stressful, but there is a lot to do. its been fun getting back into work. i was glad to see that i still remember how to write code. hehe. going from chilling out every day to ten hours in front of a computer is tiring though. good thing i have mastered the art of falling asleep on couches.

the apartment we live in is part of a large house that is owned by the same guy, dave. he rents out most of it to various short termers like us, and lives in one of the rooms. he is big into sustainability and the house reflects that - lead free pain, beeswax treated furniture, worm farm, organic linens etc. there’s also a big terraced garden in the front yard with all kinds of things growing in it. he is in the process of getting his backyard ready for chickens. he just built a coop over the weekend and we have appropriated it as a cubby house until the real residents move in.

this is our backyard.

the house feels a bit like a commune, with lots of shared space but with privacy as well. for our first week there was a swiss (!) family from zurich living upstairs and we hung out with them a lot. dave comes over for dinner every now and then, and i am teaching the guests yoga twice a week. its the perfect place to spend our remaining three weeks in sydney.

here is what we spend the bulk of our day doing:

its not all beach all the time though. we did sneak in a visit to the hairdressers, where nayou got his hair cut really short. i asked nayou if he wanted to keep it longer or if he wanted it short, and he chose short. i think it was because he knew that a shorter haircut would take longer, which would mean that he got to sit and watch videos for longer!

so we got it all hacked off and he looks adorable. a bit older, maybe?

nayou’s beach steez has also been very. very hip. he’s been rocking his scooter all over the place, looking very dapper in his hat from grandma and shorts by brenda. nayou’s latest obsession is policemen and robbers, and sea creatures. they are separate, distinct obsessions, although i would rather like to see those two worlds intermingle to see what kinds of stories come out of his mouth. anyway, his black hat has a checkered band which kind of looks like a constable’s hat so he likes it.

this shot reminds me of lookbook:

we also had a visit from our housemate in bali, oksana! she was here shooting a documentary and we got a chance to catch up over dinner. i liked catching up on all the happenings from ubud, even though we’ve only been gone one month.

happy easter everyone!

our new friend this time around is sugar, the cat we are taking care of. in fact, sugar is the whole reason why we are house sitting for hugh and lissa in the first place. sugar was a bit shy for the first few days but now he loves to hang out with us. he is by far the fluffiest cat i have ever seen.

today it was rainy so i took nayou and his friend ollie to the australian museum. ollie is a super mellow, funny kid and nayou gets along tremendously with him. it was so funny watching them interact. being able to communicate in-depth allowed nayou to role play and organise/compromise/discuss a lot (as opposed to bali where verbal communication doesn’t work as well). i basically followed them around with a camera all day filming their antics.