Merry Chrissy

We wish you a ripper Christmas
A full-bore ripper Christmas
A dead-set ripper Christmas
And a snappy New Year
May the kids have a hoot
May the pressies be beaut
From the big-bellied fella
In the red and white suit
Send cards through the post
Have a big Christmas roast
Then hitch up the caravan
And shoot down the coast
Great pressies we bring
All wrapped up with string
They're not very expensive
But they're interesting.
~ Fair Dinkum Aussie Christmas, Bucko & Champs and Kilmeny Niland, 2007

That's a little sample of Australian seasonal celebrations, which we used to work into a feeling of Christmas. Not quite as easy as snow and mistletoe but we are making do with the help of the friendly locals. We have finally a spare moment to reflect on the year coming quickly to a close.

2007 was a great year for us, filled with lots of visits and time spent with family and friends. Both Sean and I are bad for keeping in touch, but for those of you we haven’t connected with or talked to lately, rest assured you are thought of often. Being down under this Christmas and away from all our family and friends has made us realize how special friends and family are. We have been thinking about all of you and miss being able to spend time with you over the holidays.

Christmas eve we treated ourselves to a pleasant dinner out at one of the local restaurants. The rest of the evening was spent quietly at home preparing for the arrival of Santa Claus. According to the NORAD site, Santa’s first stop is New Zealand as his worldwide journey begins. One benefit of being Down Under is we’re second! About 18 hours later, he makes it over Manitoba. Aiden hung the stockings with care, laid out a number of gingerbread cookies we cooked earlier on in the day and also added a couple of carrots for the 8 great boomers that would be pulling Santa’s sleigh.

Christmas morning Aiden was pretty excited and was still riding the wave days later. Christmas day was cool by Australian standards, + 25°. We had a nice day with a local family, Di and Graham Parkes, who invited us over to share in their celebrations and had fun seeing the Aussie side of Christmas.

An appetizer of prawns and bread with malt vinegar and oil dip followed by the main course of crisped pork and chicken, Mediterranean crepes, roasted potatoes, steamed veggies fresh from the garden and bonbons. To top it off dessert was a chocolate roll with whip cream and covered in strawberries, raspberries and boysenberries served with awesome homemade strawberry ice cream. Delicious!

A nice walk in the afternoon with kangaroos, a koala and echidna were also nice, but it is sure a different kind of Christmas. Roo did her best this year to keep scrooge Sean at a minimum and Aiden and her did a wonderful job of decorating the tree and baking gingerbread. She was a bit lost without chocolate making this year or working for that matter, but she has been keeping busy wowing the locals with her creative talents. Here's hoping that you and your family had a wonderful Christmas and year full of fun adventure in 2008.

Christmas Spirit

Wow, where has December gone? It just seems like yesterday I started this blog and here it is already December 21st. Christmas events are in full swing and the calendar is filling up.

We have had many discussions on how we are going to celebrate Christmas without family to celebrate with. This year was the year to be at my parents place. We will be having a much quieter Christmas here without 5 boys and 1 little girl all under the age of 8 running around. We will definitely miss all the commotion, excitement and company of family but will not be missing the drive. The plan is to keep it simple.

As December approached, we were trying to figure out where one goes to see Santa. Aiden expressed concern about Santa finding him and was hoping to sit on his lap and let him know where he is so that he doesn’t get missed. Also hoping for a photo or two. We searched the local paper to see if it gave Santa’s schedule for the weeks that lead up to Christmas but did not see anything. We decided to check with the locals to find out what the big guy is up to in the next little while.

It appears that around here, sitting on Santa’s lap is not that big of a deal. When I inquired with a few of the local mom’s, they said the closest one that they knew of was in Horsham, about an hour North. This could be partially due to the fact that there are not any malls around. The two closest towns have a downtown-shopping district.

So last weekend we were lucky enough to finally track down the big guy. It is amazing with his busy schedule and all that he will be at the mall in Horsham for a few days. We paid our $9, Aiden sat on his lap, told Santa what he wanted for Christmas and a picture was taken. Took all of about 5 minutes but Aiden left with a big grin on his face and was set for the rest of the day. Sean and Aiden checked out the Horsham pool while I frantically finished the Christmas shopping.

Christmas is in full swing in the stores. Christmas carols playing, Christmas wrap and cards everywhere, toys out front and centre and extended shopping hours. A couple of weeks ago, we went into Ararat and arrived about 12:30 and stopped for lunch, then headed out to do our shopping. Sean headed to the local bike shop and Aiden and I to the local department store. Sean was quick to return. It seems that most of the small shops that are family run close at noon. Makes sense – this way they are able to spend some of the weekend together as a family. We were fortunate enough to find a few larger stores that did not only rely solely on family members and bought the items on our list.

Aiden asked what we were going to do about a Christmas tree since there were no spruce trees around. We teased him that we would go and find a gum tree to bring into the house and decorate it. We don’t actually live right in the Park so there should be no worries cutting down one! Aiden thought maybe a cactus would do the trick, one like Grandma Kay decorated for our Christmas celebration before we left. Sean said he didn't really think we needed one. Both Aiden and I vetoed him so after splurging and spending $12, we are now the happy owners of a 120 cm fake Christmas tree.

Aiden and I have been busy making all sorts of decorations for our tree. Our tree is a mix of traditional and non-traditional decorations consisting of popcorn strung on a string, paper loop chains, paper trees and snowflakes, candy canes (paper and real), bows made from ribbon, smiley faces, flowers, animals, pretty much anything that Aiden has drawn or made in the past two weeks is now hanging on our tree. Aiden is insisting that it has to sparkle more, the glitter on the decorations don’t appear to be enough, so we broke down and bought a small string of lights. It is a very pretty tree. I must say perhaps the prettiest one we have ever had.

Since we made the journey up to Horsham to catch a glimpse of the big guy, we have found out that he is making an appearance in Halls Gap. Last night was Aiden’s end-of-year school concert and he showed up there after a stellar performance by all the kids. The concert was “Spiderella”, a musical bug play based on the classic story of Cinderella. Spiderella had four wicked ladybug stepsisters who tried to prevent her from going to the Christmas Beetle Princes’ ball. The fairy god moths came to her rescue and provided her with a lovely outfit and a carriage drawn by four flying ants, and off to the ball she went. After a special evening of dancing with the handsome cricket, the rolly polly bug and all the little dung beetles, Spiderella ran off at the stroke of midnight, loosing her 8 glass slippers in her haste. It was all good in the end with the prince tracking her down with the slippers and they all had a very merry Christmas. It was an excellent play; the teachers and students put a huge amount of time and effort into it and the kids put on a fantastic performance.

With the hustle and bustle, not to mention the 30-degree weather of late, it has felt more like mid summer than Christmas in many ways. But the spirit of Christmas has shone through with the smell of fresh gingerbread, Christmas carols, and the excitement running through the kids, and we have now all been infected. We hope that all our family and friends are sharing this feeling and the warmth of it is overpowering the winter storms we are reading about. Rain and wet weather has driven the temperature down here the last few days, but we can’t complain about low teen temperatures. The rain has allowed the cancellation of fire standby giving people here more freedom and time with their families, which is a luxury they haven’t had the last few years with the busy fire seasons.

Season’s greetings to all and may 2008 bring much happiness, adventure and fun to you and your family.

The Wild Side - Killer Koalas

Fierce sharks, ferocious lions, monstrous hippos, but the most terrifying was the killer koalas. The past few days we have seen it all.

Aiden and I were lucky enough (Aiden considered himself extremely lucky because he got to miss three days of school) to be able to accompany Sean into Melbourne for his Parks Victoria Ranger induction. Our plan was to take in some sightseeing around central Melbourne. Melbourne is built up around the Yarra River and a number of its tourist attractions are located around its central core. Aiden and I made a deal before going that as long as he gave me an hour or so of wandering through the Queen Victoria market, he could decide where we went the rest of the time.

On the top of Aiden’s list was the Aquarium, so that was the first thing we hit when we arrived. I must say it was a stressful adventure trying to figure out public transportation in an unfamiliar city, with a five year old in tow, but it was well worth the effort. The Melbourne Aquarium boasts that it has Australia’s largest fish bowl. On the lowest level there is an Oceanarium that is a vast underwater world, where huge Grey Nurse and  Sevengill Sharks along with a number of Stingrays and many other fish species swim around you. We were lucky enough to see the divers in the tank feeding the sharks and stingrays. Aiden was impressed although a little intimidated by the sharks and stingrays as they swam overhead in the tunnel sections. Besides the sharks his favourite part was looking at all the amazing and strange aquatic animals in the coral reef tank. He was thrilled to see clown fish.

The second day was lower key and we ended up walking to the Queen Victoria market in the morning and spending the afternoon at the hotel pool. Aiden did extremely well both days. The Queen Victoria market is a huge market that has been around for over a century and has almost 1000 traders selling everything from fruits and  vegetables, meat and gourmet food to hardware, clothing, jewelry and souvenirs.

Sean took the Friday off and we stayed in Melbourne Thursday night and met up with some friends, Joe and Tina, we made back in 1995 when we went to Europe. We picked up pizza and had a picnic in the Carlton Gardens where Aiden and their two boys, Joshua (9) and Anthony (6) had a great time kicking a ball around and playing on the playground.

Friday we went to the Werribee Open Range Zoo where we saw hippos, lions, giraffes, zebras and rhinos to name a few while on the safari tour. It was nice to be able to see the animals roaming out in the open rather then penned up in cages. The hippos were fabulous; there was a pair of them and they gave us quite a show.

After spending the afternoon at the zoo we headed to Anglesea, a town along the Great Ocean Road. Another one of the Canadian exchangees, Scott, lives there and we spent two nights at his place. We pretty much spent Saturday hanging out on one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen and Sunday we headed for home along the Great Ocean Road. On Sunday we actually saw koalas in the wild. That was pretty neat.

In 1993 when we were camping near Wilson’s Prom we had an interesting chat with the locals about Canadian and Australian stereotyping. Canadians are generalized as mushing their sled dogs to work and living in igloos and Australians ride kangaroos. To mix things up a bit they told us that it was a favourite Aussie pastime to tell tourists about the killer koalas. Their sharp dagger like claws were effective tools for shredding naïve people standing below them using their slow movements as a ploy to lure people in thinking that they are just cute cuddly animals. The drop bears then use their elevated position to their advantage when launching their attack. The truth of it being that koala bears really are just cute cuddly slow moving creatures with large claws to hang onto trees and the danger of standing beneath them relates more to raining fertilizer.

While we are exposing truth, perhaps we should fess up about the other dangerous wildlife in Australia. While Australians do suffer with some strange, exotic, dangerous creatures, they live longer on average than Canadians, only a couple of people a year die from snake bite (primarily drunken males), no one has died from a spider bite since the 70’s. Salt water crocodiles, sharks and box jelly fish kill way more people but combined it is a small fraction of the mortality due to bee sting, dog bite or any other less interesting risk in modern life. By far the most dangerous thing we will do here is drive.

Picking up your comfortable life and moving to a foreign country for this length of time creates a lot of unknowns and with that fear. It is pretty easy and seductive to slip into a safe life where nothing ever happens to us. Life is too short to squander that way. It was only when we realized that we were participating in this adventure and the fear set in, that we had been sliding down that slippery slope for a while. The healthy fear and excitement of this new world has already revitalized us in ways we couldn’t imagine. Our exploring spirit has been rekindled and life has more colour than ever before.



The meaning of life is simple really: make life meaningful. Or in scrapbooking terms, fill the pages with fun.

First Visitors

Last weekend, Nov. 24-25,  we had our first visitors from Canada. Lots of people have threatened to come visit but Jacques and Nathalie from Winnipeg were the first to deliver. We were actually a little surprised that they made it. We received an email on Monday saying that they would be arriving in Sydney on Wednesday morning and likely be at our place by late Friday afternoon. We thought that once they arrived in Australia they would realize how far away we were and decide to pare back their plans since they are only here for just over a week.

We should know better than to underestimate Jacques determination, low and behold, they were here for supper. We had an enjoyable meal and then took a short drive down towards the other end of town so they could get their first look at some kangaroos. We, like most of the people they had encountered, were flabbergasted that they hadn't spotted any yet in their travels. 40 or 50 roos later with a couple of emus to boot and they were kangaroo satiated. We also drove up to Boroka lookout to take in the view over Halls Gap.


They have set the bar high for visitors as they came bearing many gifts including hand made maple syrup, crab apple jelly and an assortment of treats they picked up along their travels. We had just been talking about missing good syrup, as all they seem to have here is corn syrup. We went to work on the syrup promptly the next morning over French toast before heading out for a day of exploring the Grampians. Since arriving, this has been Ruth and Aiden's first real chance to get out into the park. Our first stop was Reed Lookout. This gave us a magnificent view of the Victoria valley and in Aiden's top of the world pose you can see Wartook Lake and the Mt. Difficult Ranges. We walked up a little ways to the fire tower lookout and watched a police squad specializing in rescues, practice their climbing skills.

From there we headed to McKenzie falls. We walked to the lookout spot and had a nice view of the falls. When we arrived back at the Kiosk, Jacques and Natalie treated us to some lunch at the concession. We've found that mutton is more popular than beef in many products and Roo and Aiden have been trying to adapt to the new flavours. After a relaxing lunch we headed down the trail that took us to the base of the falls. It was quite a steep walk but was paved and had steps. The tough part was walking back up in the heat. The falls were quite pretty but not much water running over them. Aiden took off his socks and shoes and dipped is toes in the water while Sean, Jacques and Natalie searched for a geocache. Once it was found and signed, we made our journey back up to the top. Aiden made it most of the way on is own steam but had a meltdown about 100 m from the kiosk.


We next headed to the Wartook valley, where one of the park employees, Allan and his wife Victoria, run a wildlife rehabilitation centre. They had a baby tawny frogmouth there that Aiden was able to feed. We also saw

a kangaroo, named Peg, that we were able to pet. Also while we were there, Victoria brought in an 8 month old wallaby for feeding. We were able to watch the baby drink a bottle and then hop around the living room for a little bit before being tucked into a pillow case for a nap. We also learned a lot about kangaroos as Victoria had a video of a kangaroo being born and climbing up into her mother's pouch. They have three teats in their pouch and each joey has a specific teat they use. The joeys stay with their mom for 18 months so there is overlap between young of the year and young of last year and so the quality of milk is regulated to each teat based on the age of the young. Apparently from one mating, kangaroos can have three viable fertilized embryos with delayed implantation, and by regulating the temperature females can choose the sex of their young, often having a few females before bothering with any males. This of course explains why the big males are so protective of their harems as they don't necessarily get a lot of action.

Our next stop was Zumstein picnic area. We stopped and had a snack before going in search of Jacques 1600th geocache. It was up a hill on the other side of the road from the picnic site. Aiden was happy as there were toys to trade. There was a cool little lizard guarding the cache.


Sunday we headed out to see part of the Great Ocean Road. It was supposed to be a hotter day, a good day for the beach we thought, but once we reached the coast, there was cloud cover. We headed south through the Grampians to Dunkeld coming within a few metres of three black swamp wallabies (they are hard to see until you are right on top of them). Aiden had fallen asleep so we stopped at an old volcano called Rouse Mountain for a geocache. We had lunch by the ocean in Warrnambool. We took a picnic lunch and found a neat area near the breakwater. It was a fantastic lunch spot with the waves crashing over the
rocks. From there we carried on down to Great Ocean road. Stopped in at a number of the sites, including London Bridge. We finally found a beach at Port Campbell and ended up spending a good hour or two there playing in the sand and waves. Jacques and Aiden built a large sandcastle which they reinforced against the rising tide. None of us braved the cold water and went for a swim but Aiden might of well have since he was pretty much wet from head to toe. Some surfers were not put off by the temperature and were taking advantage of the the breaking surf out beyond the breakwater.

Walked across the street and had fish and chips for supper. After supper we said our goodbyes to Jacques and Nathalie. It was great to share the excitement of being in Australia with some other people and talk about all the similarities and differences in environment, culture and landscapes. They continued east along the Great Ocean road and we headed for home. It seemed like we took every little back road there was but in the end it was the shortest route home. Thanks Jacques and Nathalie for the adventures.