Welcome to our blog. I was very fortunate to be selected for the Australian Parks Victoria exchange program as one of six Parks Canada participants for the next round of the program and thus will be heading to the other side of the planet for two six month periods starting in early November this fall. Parks Victoria looks after national parks in the State of Victoria which is on the southern portion of Australia around the state capital of Melbourne.
I will be posted in the Grampians National Park, which is in the western part of the state about 3 hours from Melbourne, continuing the work of Jeff Weir from Prince Albert who was on the previous exchange. The job involves a project monitoring kangaroos and wallabies, and trying to manage their impact on the surrounding agricultural land. There are also many park ranger duties involved. The park is very much like Riding Mountain as it is an escarpment feature in the plains surrounded by agriculture. It is a popular park with around a million visitors per year. Halls Gap a seasonal tourist community just outside the park boundary is much like Wasagaming as the visitor focal point, and there are rural agricultural communities nearby.
Ruth and Aiden will be going on the exchange with me and of course we are all quite excited about this opportunity. Ruth is on a two year leave of absence from teaching. At any rate, we will do our best to keep this blog up to date, so that those of you who have identified the wish to live vicariously may do so.
Australian words of the day: ‘chook’ — ‘chicken’; ‘ute’ (utility) — ‘pickup’ (truck) (American, Canadian)
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