 View of the field from sitting in the gods. (Smartphone) | Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 On Sunday (7 June 2026), I experienced my first ever AFL game with a group of friends at the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground). Not that I really understood any of it, to be honest. But I will say that seeing it in real life is far superior to watching it all flattened out on a giant flatscreen TV. As for the match itself, well, that was hardly the (ahem) introduction I was expecting. St Kilda trouncing Sydney Swans in the first quarter and it then taking the Swans the whole of the match up until the very end of the last quarter to finally get out in front on the leaderboard. Calling it tense would be an understatement. Not that I had any “skin” in the game, mind you. I have never followed any team or sporting code in my life, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. Also, the ferocious passion of multiple stands full of grieved Swans supporters making known their disagreement with referee decisions over player actions is not something I would ever want to be one the receiving end of.  A clouded dawn over Nobbys Head. (Nikon D5300) | Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 And then on Wednesday (10 June 2026), I got up at 4:00 AM to catch the train to Newcastle to photograph the sunrise around both the foreshore of the Hunter River and Nobbys Beach with my old DSLR. I’m amazed that I actually did it. The kernel of the idea for doing it got stuck in my head sometime last year and I would have preferred to have done it earlier in 2026 when we were still in the summer months here down under, but that was a stretch too far for me in that prior moment for varying reasons.  Port of Newcastle Pilot heading out to meet the bulk carrier in the Hunter River. (Nikon D5300) | Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 The main reason I had for taking my DSLR—apart from better dynamic range than a smartphone—was an intention to give it a ‘one last hurrah’ before parting ways with it. Something that I am still no closer to doing after taking it out with me on Wednesday, which my shooting wrist was haranguing me over continuously the following day with accompanying pains and twinges. Most of my focus that day ended up being funnelled into making most of the morning’s golden hour light and pushing myself to try and beat a bulk carrier on its way out to sea before it reached Nobbys Head, which of course I did not accomplish. I am not Superman. Nor was I set up for jogging and, believe me, those bulk carriers can move!  What I did catch was carrier's stern before it passed behind Nobbys Head. (Nikon D5300) | Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 I think I haven’t exerted myself so much since WYD Lisbon, and after what I put myself through on Wednesday I could not in good conscience kid myself into thinking I could do a World Youth Day again. My spring doesn’t spring back like it did 3 years ago and I don’t think it likely that I’d have anyone with me to call me out pull me back from the brink of burning out.
WYD is a youngster’s game and I’m not that young anymore. Or should that be: foolish anymore? Vincent Cavanagh 14 June 2026  15 March 2026 sketchbook (detail) ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026 First-quarter Blog Digest for 2026. What’s been happening. Website-wise, there are now ‘next-post, last-post’ buttons at the bottom of each World Youth Day Lisbon blog post for ease of navigation through that series. It just took a lot of time, repetition, and wrangling with the Weebly website editor to get it done. Hooray!  Current versus possible future CavanaghArt logo mascots ~ Vincent Cavanagh © 2026. Art-wise, I did have a day spent doodling out ideas for Bishop Stumbers cartoons, which was a positive. Most of them were about what said bishop might get involved in on a WYD pilgrimage. We shall see if some of them might get developed beyond their initial ballpoint drafts. Rattling about my brain at the moment is a possibility of re-drawing the CavanaghArt bird logos to better reflect my current style of art. The original set of birdies are well and truly about a decade old at this point, in 2026, and I’m certainly not the same artist I was back then. Whether anything actually happens on this idea, or it just keep rattling around my head, is another matter. Also, after the suggestion of a friend, I have been down the rabbit hole of investigating what it would take to self-produce stickers from my art and my conclusion was that, for me, it would be far more effort than it was worth. The shear amount of equipment, testing of cutting depths, sticker paper stocks, lamination, and software quirks is, to my mind, on a par with near-professional, home coffee-brewing: metric scales, correct dosage of coffee beans, the right grind size, purified water, puck preparation, flow rate, etcetera. I already have enough furores of my own with trying to convince the home printer to print on the paper-card stock I want it to. The last thing I want is to increase the number of machines throwing hissy fits in my face because it’s the wrong phase of the moon when I’m at my wits end racing to print something off for a special occasion the following morning. I’m not ruling out that stickers might happen, just that doing-it-myself is not for me. On the personal front, after 2025, I’m still recovering from burnout. Though it’s not helpful when one continues to get sucked into the temporal blackholes of YouTube (the “new” smoking), be overwhelmed by dehumanising discourse around ‘Artificially Intelligent’ generation of images online, and catching oneself interrogating any creative idea for art that pops up with whether, or not, it passes cost-benefit analysis. Talk about being brain-rinsed into mechanistic thinking, oi vey! It’s all indicative of the fact that there’s been a distinct lack of humour in my life of late. All fret and no play makes for a crabby, frustrated artist. The sensible thing would be to just say, “stuff the lot of it (AI generation) and do it (Art) anyway!” without expectation for it to — ahem — “perform well.”  2026 Lunar New Year celebrations. (Photo: Vincent Cavanagh © 2026) Thankfully, there have been some diversions in the form of meeting up with WYD friends at a Lunar New Year’s celebration, birthday party invites, wandering around the odd bookshop or two, colouring projects for others, and the odd heritage train ride here and there. A main issue for me is a lack of motivation and sufficient reason for me to overcome lethargy and get outside, physically and mentally. ■ Seoul Issues South Korean flag waving on the evening of the WYD Lisbon Vigil. (Vincent Cavanagh © 2023) I know that one should “never say never”, but with where I’m at right now I don’t see myself going to Korea in 2027 for World Youth Day Seoul. Don’t get me wrong, I do have strong emotions towards the next WYD, and more so the friendships born of the last one, but that doesn’t out-weigh knowing first-hand what the shear toll a WYD pilgrimage can be on a person and how much it truly demands of them. Which isn’t anything I’m willing to put myself through again—especially if it’s not what God intends me to do. At the end of the day, it’s all in His hands, not mine. ■ 2026 Q1 Blog posts8 Jan 2026 – Year in Review: 2025. 18 Feb 2026 – First new bit of art that I have made in a long while. 27 Feb 2026 – Back to Loftus for the annual Tramway Festival. 3 Mar 2026 – Finally posting about the farewell V Set trip to Kiama last year. ■ Parting NotesOn a more positive note, I’ll leave you readers with this Part 2 video by Daniel Folta detailing his process of depicting the Nativity in oil paint. For myself, it is a calm and meditative experience watch him bring his painting to life. On Sunday my father and I rode on the heritage train service operated by NSW ‘S’ set S28 from North Sydney Station, crossing Sydney Harbour Bridge, to Loftus for the annual Vintage Tramway Festival at the Sydney Tramway Museum. The heritage service was organised by Transport Heritage NSW for ticketed passengers only. Below are a few of the photographs that I took on our day out to ride both light and heavy rails 😉
Vincent Cavanagh
27 February 2026 *Orders are Now Closed*
Vincent Cavanagh
1 December 2025 Trains, trams and automobiles.  1) F1 arriving into Platform 1 at Sydney Central station with car C 3426 leading. It was the leading car on the official “first train” to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge on opening day in 1932. (Vincent Cavanagh) My father and I were in attendance on Sunday (25 February 2024) for our first Sydney Tramway Festival, which is held annually in Loftus, NSW. We had booked tickets for the Sydney Tramway Festival Express from Sydney Central to Loftus, and back, aboard the Sydney Single Deck Suburban F1, a.k.a. “the Red Lady”, which is operated under partnership between Transport Heritage NSW, Historic Electric Traction and Sydney Trains.  2) F1 readying to depart Central, Platform 1. Motor car C 7396 is on the Loftus end of the train. (Vincent Cavanagh)  3) Passing through Oatley station, where the first electric train ran from here to St James on 16 August 1926. (Vincent Cavanagh) We departed Sydney Central at 9:28am, travelling on the Eastern Suburbs Line to Redfern before continuing on down the Illawarra/South Coast Line proper towards Loftus railway station. We arrived at Loftus two minutes ahead of our scheduled arrival at 10:20am. Upon leaving F1 we were greeted on the platform and issued our tickets to the Sydney Tramway Museum by museum staff. The price of the entry tickets was included in the booking for travelling on F1.  4) Two kinds of heritage transport greeting us at the entrance to the Sydney Tramway Museum: a penny-farthing bicycle and Brisbane ‘Dropcentre’ #295. (Vincent Cavanagh)  5) 1975 Holden FC ‘Yellow Cab Co.’ taxi, Sydney Bus Museum. (Vincent Cavanagh)  6) Model A Ford in resplendent red paintwork among the line of members’ vehicles from the Model A Ford Club of NSW. (Vincent Cavanagh) We had only about an hour-and-a-half or so to look around the museum before we had to return to the station for our return journey to Sydney Central at approximately 12:05pm. Thankfully when we got to the museum gates, we found out that the museum had reserved the coupled Sydney O-Class trams (#1111 and Powerhouse Museum #805) for the passengers arrived from F1. We promptly took our seats as the tram set was about to head off on its shuttle along the rails to the Sutherland railway substation and back again, passing Loftus TAFE, University of Wollongong’s Sutherland campus and the Sutherland Army Depot.  7) 1920s P-Class #1497 ‘Toastrack’ tram returning from Sutherland railway substation, as viewed from Powerhouse Museum #805. (Vincent Cavanagh)  8) Powerhouse Museum O-Class #805 coupled behind Sydney Tramway Museum #1111 awaiting their next run up the line to the substation. (Vincent Cavanagh)
The Tramway Festival itself was not solely concerned with trams. The museum was host to classic automobile clubs, model ship builders and other modellers who were set up inside of Sutherland substation—sadly, we didn’t have any time to go in look ourselves—and the Sydney Bus Museum, which had brought along a heritage Sydney double-decker bus and Yellow Cab Co. taxi for visitors to ride in for the price of a gold coin donation—yet again, too little time.  9) Ballarat ‘Dropcentre’ #37 queued behind R1-Class #2001, both awaiting their next journeys. (Vincent Cavanagh)
After grabbing lunch from the 1st Sutherland Sea Scouts BBQ set up under the awnings of the Railway Square waiting shed (1907–1973) and a transference of monies inside the Museum Bookshop we made our way back to Loftus station to await the return of F1 from a siding in Waterfall station.
 13) State Rail Authority (SRA) map of Sydney System network, circa mid-1980s, above the doorway in C 3426. (Vincent Cavanagh)  14) F1 in Sydney Central Platform 1 at the end of the morning Sydney Tramway Festival Express shuttle. (Vincent Cavanagh)  15) F1 awaiting the start of the evening shuttle. Motor car C 7396 on the Loftus end of the train. (Vincent Cavanagh) We returned to Sydney Central at 12:55pm and made our farewells with F1. The second, and last, shuttle of the day would be leaving at 1:30pm. All in all, it was a very full day out indeed. Vincent Cavanagh 27 Feb 2024. A day out on Sydney rails.  42105 'Chumsayer' waiting to depart with the Goods Road Tour on Platform 3, Central | Vincent Cavanagh ©2024 On 28 January 2024, my father and I partook in the East Coast Heritage Rail: Goods Road* Tour from Sydney Central Station. We were on the second of the two tours for the day: 11am and 1pm AEDT, respectively. The tour departed and arrived on Central Station Platform 3. It was a heritage consist of various Department of Railways New South Wales railway carriages and hauled for the day by a 421 Class diesel locomotive, 42105 ‘Chumsayer’, owned and operated by private owner Chumrail. We were booked in an N type carriage at the front of the train next to 42105.  Interior of the N type carriage at the start of boarding the train | Vincent Cavanagh ©2024 Our train departed Central at 1pm on its balloon loop route encompassing the Inner West and Canterbury Bankstown regions. We headed out on the Western Line (T1) towards Lidcombe where we turned south briefly onto the Bankstown Line (T3) before turning back eastwards, just after Regents Park Station, onto the Sefton Goods Line. We passed through Chullora Rail Yard on the southern boundary of Rookwood Cemetery and then turned south once more heading through Enfield Marshalling Yards, one of the more major and visible reminders of the original extent of Enfield suburb before boundary redistributions by government.  Sydney Electric Train Society 8649 in State Rail Authority 'Candy' livery in Enfield Marshalling Yard | Vincent Cavanagh ©2024 After Enfield we re-joined the Bankstown Line proper at Campsie, passing through Dulwich Hill and having a gander** at the unopened Sydney Metro conversions of half of the Bankstown Line at Sydenham as part of the Metro South rail project.  Passing Dulwich Hill Tram line terminus | Vincent Cavanagh ©2024  Fleet of Sydney Metro 'Metropolis' rolling stock standing in Sydenham Yard | Vincent Cavanagh ©2024 We returned to Central Station an approximate hour-and-twenty-minutes after our departure. All in all, it was a good day out on the rails, but I think it’s only helped crystalize my preference for journeys that have set destinations more so than just “wandering about”, but that’s just me. Vincent Cavanagh 21 Feb 2024 * An unfortunate Americanization of railway terminology in the past few decades in NSW. Railways in NSW (at least from their inception) used the British railway vernacular (railway, lines, carriages). Whereas South Australia has actively used the United States vernacular (railroad, roads, cars) ever since the appointment of American William Webb as Chief Commissioner in 1922.
** Gander : to have/take a quick look. * 2024 Calendars are now Out of Stock *Showcasing various photos from my 2023 WYD pilgrimage to Lisbon.  Just a brief post to say that my 2024 Calendar containing a selection of my photographs from my WYD Lisbon 2023 pilgrimage are now available to order for the new year.
— Cost for the 2024 Calendars is $30 AUD, plus postage (within Australia). — For International postal orders we will arrange Air Mail costs appropriately, on an order by order basis. You can place your order through the form found under the Contact page or by messaging me via Facebook, or via LinkedIn (though I am hardly ever on that, at all). Vincent Cavanagh 29 Sept 2023  Vincent Cavanagh © 2023 The reason that there hasn’t been much news from me as late is because I have been sick at home for the best part of a week after having done a crazy 5-and-a-half-day round journey with my father from Sydney to Melbourne, to Adelaide, and back to Sydney again, all by rail. I hope to be in a fit state to attend the 3rd WYD Formation Session this coming Tuesday (20 June), God willing. Until then, I have put together this collection of relevant YouTube Travel Videos for my fellow diocesan pilgrims and for anyone else planning on travelling to Italy or Portugal.  Our Diocesan Itinerary for WYD Lisbon 2023 I do admit that most of these videos are from Mark Wolters and his Wolters World YouTube channel. This is because he and his family are inveterate travellers with a wealth of lived experience and, in comparison to other travel advice channels, he aims to be helpful rather than fear-mongering (case in point: the Scam City tv series, widely available on YouTube).
I would highly recommend checking out Wolters World for further travel advice that I can't share due to how long this post is already getting 😉 Yippee! It's done.  ©VincentCavanagh 2022 That's right folks! After a month's worth of inking and going cross-eyed at various reference photographs, my 2023 Calendar: WYD Lisbon Fundraising edition is now available to buy. Contact can be made via Email or Facebook Messenger.
Pricings for the calendar are as follows: |
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