Christmas Day

Christmas eve was spent quietly at home, baking gingerbread cookies and getting ready for Santa's visit. The stocking were hung by the fire place, milk, cookies and carrots were laid out for Santa and his reindeer or I should say boomers in this neck of the woods.

Our little elf was awake by 7:30 and anxious to see if Santa had visited. Low and behold he did find us down here and left us with a whole shwack of pressies. Aiden was very pleased with the guitar he received. He is very keen on taking lessons and has already serenaded anyone who will listen. He will also be returning to Canada with a bunch of tricks up his sleeve. He received a box of magic tricks that he is looking forward to learning.

After all the presents were opened and the wrappings cleaned up, we headed over to spend the rest of the day with the Buckman's. We had a lovely pork roast with all the fixing at mid-day and for a little taste of home, I made pumpkin pie for dessert. Most the afternoon was spent with the children playing and the adults visiting. Sandra and her youngest son Michael also spent the day there. Sandra's oldest son, Andrew had to work for most of the day but stopped in later to say hello.

Late afternoon we all went for a walk in hopes of wearing off some of the Christmas feast. We hiked up along one of the nearby trails that follows the creek. The weather was fine, not too hot, at least by Australian standards. The thermometer reached close to 28°.

We were home shortly after 7 pm and all ready to hit the hay. We all had a great Christmas day spending time with friends, eating great food and enjoying the great place we are lucky enough to have spent a second Christmas at.

We hope all are friends and family, wherever they may be, have/had a wonderful Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

Big Day Out 2008

Last day of school and no better way to spend it then out at the Halls Gap Zoo. Aiden's prep to year 2 class headed out there for this year's Big Day Out. The hands on activities were first - the kids were all allowed to touch a childrens python and feel the spikes on a dragon lizard. The spikes are not really sharp at all. Everyone was then allowed to hold a rabbit and a gerbil was also passed around.

After morning tea, one of the owners, Yvonne, gave us a personal tour of the park. They have done a lot of work on the place since Aiden and I were here last year. There are a number of new animals and they have plans to bring in even more. It was great to have Yvonne guide us around. She was able to scare up a number of the animals that were hiding and allowed us all to pet one of the wombats and brought out a couple of dingo pups for us to pet.

After we finished the tour we ate our lunch in the picnic area and then Frau Stoffel had some games for kids to play. The remainder of the afternoon went quickly and before we knew it we were packing up to go home.

All Things Christmas

Since I have been slacking and need to catch up, this entry will include a number of this and that.
Friday night, the 12th found us at the Parks Christmas party. It was a typical staff get-together... lots of socializing, eating a delicious meal, more socializing and drinking with a trivia quiz thrown in. Trivia quizzes are big here. The Sunday before Christmas, the Cricket club had a bit of a Christmas get-together with a sausage sizzle and a quiz night. We are thinking we will have to host a Canadian quiz night before we leave.

The second last day of school, Wednesday the 17th, was spent at the school helping Aiden's class do Christmas crafts. In the morning, the kids each made an angel ornament, a Santa decoration and a gingerbread house. It was great fun! The afternoon was spent at the local church where the Halls Gap school along with the Pomonal school did a Christmas service as part of their religion education class.

Thursday, the last day of school, Aiden's class had their big day out (see next blog). That evening I went out to Pomonal with the Roz, Daryl and kids to Carols by Candlelight. We were all hoping to go and take in this Aussie Christmas tradition but both Sean and Aiden were feeling under the weather with colds. Carols by Candlelight is a very community orientated event. The local choir was there to sing a number of carols and there were a few individuals that also preformed as well, and the Stawell brass band was there too. It was an enjoyable evening spent singing the traditional carols and some not so familiar ones.

On Friday night we toured Stawell searching for Christmas lights. They were far and few between. Definitely not the specky views and sites we see at home. Rather disappointing to say the least, although there were one or two that would rank high on Canadian standards. They even have house light competitions here but Stawell, a town of 6000 only had 19 entries.

Transportation Corridors

One of the noticeable differences between Australia and Canada is the amount of resources put into public and human powered transportation, particularly in rural areas. Where we are living in rural Victoria is quite comparable to the population density back in Manitoba with similar geographic distances to contend with. Public transportation in rural Australia, in our experience tends to be inexpensive and efficient compared to the costly and unreliable options we have in Canada. In addition it seems that even the smallest of communities have well integrated bicycle and walking paths. Granted, the climate here is more conducive to year round outdoor activities and they don’t have as many frost heaves to contend with, but the value of this infrastructure also seems to be more broadly recognized.

Paved roads in Manitoba generally have a bit of a shoulder, while those in Victoria generally don’t have shoulders. There seems to be added incentive to separate pedestrians and cyclists from the roads. Halls Gap for example has invested $732,000 over the past three years to build a 4 km multi-use path that is a 3 m wide hot-mix surface. Fortunately we live at one end of the path and my workplace is at the other end so it makes for an enjoyable ride through the gum trees before and after work. It is a bit different from the challenge of a winter ride along the edge of Highway 10.

Year-end School Concert

Thursday night was the school's year end/Christmas concert. Last year was a play, this year it was a combination of singing and dancing. What is there to say... The kids were excited, the parents a little apprehensive at the length of the program (16 items) and everyone in the Christmas spirit. It was a fabulous concert and the 16 items flew by quickly. All grades, prep through year 6 were involved. After the performance, school presentations were made. The Parents Club gave every child a book and then Santa showed up for a few moments and handed out gifts to the kids. All this was followed by supper (not a meal but a snack after the evening meal) and socializing.

Steaming through the Dandenongs!

Sean had a meeting with PV staff down in Melbourne on Friday so we all headed in on Thursday night and stayed with Rhonda and Valerie, two of the Canadian Exchangees who share a house on the east side of Melbourne.

Friday was a fairly quiet day. While Sean was at work, Aiden and I hung out at the house and ventured out and tackled the Christmas crowds to go shopping for awhile.



On the northeast corner of Melbourne is a little mountain range called the Dandenong Ranges, more commonly known as 'the Dandenongs'. Saturday we found ourselves heading in that direction to Belgrave to catch the Puffing Billy. Puffing Billy is a nostalgic ride of the rails. It is an old rail line that was rescued by retired rail workers and transformed into a multi-million dollar enterprise, run almost solely by volunteers. And they seem to love what they do. Who wouldn't, the scenery was fantastic, everyone on board was interested in trains or parenting someone who was, and aside from a layer of soot, it is a charming adventure for someone to do. It felt like another place, and certainly another era. All along the route, people stop what they are doing to wave at the Puffing Billy. The highlight of the ride was when we threw our legs over the side of the car and dangled them freely as the train traveled along its route. We were quite surprised that this was allowed to happen, it certainly would never happen with 'lawsuits everywhere' North America.

The train travels 24 km to the town of Gembrook with a number of interesting stops along the way. It is a 4-5 hour round trip so we decided to only go part way to Emerald Lake and spend time there enjoying the afternoon. Emerald Lake Park was quite impressive. It has a large playground, a cafe, paddle boats, swimming pool, model train display and even an outdoor gym. While there, Sean and Aiden enjoyed the lake by going on a paddle boat, we enjoyed an ice cream, and played on the playground before catching Puffing Billy back to Belgrave.

Sunday morning we headed into the CBD of Melbourne in hopes of catching the Myers Christmas windows but by the time we arrived there was a line-up of at least a block or more and moving at a snails pace. So much to my disappointment we headed off to the Aquarium. When Aiden and I were there last year, they were in the middle of renovations. They are complete and the aquarium is now the home to a number of penguins. The multi-million dollar Antarctica display was interesting and of course, where else are you likely to see penguins other then at a place like the aquarium but nevertheless it was sad to see the animals in captivity. The sharks were a hit again and we were able to time it right to see them feed. We missed the octopus the first time and it was important to Aiden to rectify that, although somewhat anticlimactic as the octopus was wedged into a crack.

Celebrating Canada

Today Aiden and I had the pleasure of sharing Canada with his class. It was a great day. Although it was a little rough, we had a good flight over with pilot Frau Stoffel. We landed in Winnipeg and spent the day learning about Canada. Aiden shared a scrapbook that we made for the school that focused on the four seasons and the activities we do and holidays we celebrate in each season. For a taste of Canada, the students prepared some puffed wheat squares, Nanaimo bars and Saskatoon pie to enjoy at morning tea. The students spent the day putting together a booklet of various Canadian information. One focus was on Groundhog day which is something that none of the students had heard of. It was a fantastic day and everyone enjoyed learning about life in Canada. Aiden and I had so much fun that we will have to see if we can have Aiden's Onanole class fly to Australia for a day.

Journey to Mildura and Sunraysia

You can tell when we have been too busy doing things to blog. This particular weekend we had decided to go some where camping but the weather was not cooperating and there was a weather warning out for most of Victoria in anticipation of heavy rains and flooding. The cool wet weather steered us north rather than toward the coast, up toward the Mallee on the edge of the Outback.

We started northwest through Horsham just as the rains began. Horsham could be any Canadian agricultural service town. Just imagine the pickup trucks replaced with utes, and the farmers in shorts more often than jeans. Trade a few poplars for gum trees and then add the familiar fields of grain and canola with combines/ harvesters, voila. You can even find some good ole country music on the radio. The one big difference in the Aussie version is that after 8 years of drought the land is drier than a popcorn fart.

As you go further north it just gets drier and drier until the only thing that grows is Mallee scrub: small trees and pockets of grass patched with barren red sand. It takes a while mind you, a few hours of driving across the emptiness, much like crossing Saskatchewan ;-). Then you make it up to the Murray River and the oasis of Mildura.

Interestingly, Mildura has a Canadian connection: it was designed by a couple of brothers who were engineers from Ontario. From Wikipedia: A major drought in Victoria from 1877 to 1884 prompted Alfred Deakin, then a minister in the State Government and chairman of a Royal Commission on water supply to visit the irrigation areas of California. There he met George and William Chaffey. In 1886 George Chaffey came to Australia and selected a derelict sheep station at Mildura as the site for his first irrigation settlement signing an agreement with the Victorian government to spend at least £300,000 on permanent improvements at Mildura in the next twenty years. William and George Chaffey developed what became the cities of Etiwanda, Ontario, and Upland in California, United States of America; and the city of Mildura, Victoria, Australia, as well as the town of Renmark, South Australia.

With the irrigation and warm climate, the area flourished and became well known for fruit and food production, especially oranges, grapes and avocados, and the region became known as Sunraysia. It was a good choice, as most of Victoria was wet and cool, the weather in Sunraysia was sunny and warm. We didn't end up camping but stayed in an onsite caravan and a cheap motel; for something different and to give Aiden a chance to shake a nasty cold he had picked up. The people running the motel were very nice and gave us a bag of oranges and avocados from their farm. We started to doubt our good fortune with the place after local police and a house mouse kept everyone but Aiden awake most of the night.


We explored the river, checked out a massive gem shop, did another neat maze with one way gates found a geocache or two and then meandered our way back south to Halls Gap.

The Dunkeld Cup

We were catching up with Aaron (Aussie who came over to Riding Mountain on exchange) the other day and he mentioned that he and Kat might be up our way for the Dunkeld Cup. He was rather gobsmacked that we hadn't taken in a country race to experience some Aussie culture. Sure we have horse races in Canada, I think, but we have never been to one and I am fairly certain they are not the to do that they are in rural Victoria.


On his recommendation we decided to take in the spectacle and were certainly not disappointed. There is nothing comparable to this type of thing in Canada. 10,000 people descend on a beautiful little town the size of Erickson, all dressed in suits and fancy dresses, park in a paddock and walk in high heels to the edge of a horse racing track. There they can go to a rented tent with their mates and cook up some BBQ and kick back with some cool ones to take in the action, or enter competitions for fashions on the field to determine who is best dressed, or place bets with local or national betting services on races across the nation. When races aren't happening live, races from other parts of Australia are shown on a large television on the field. There is food, fun and a general stage of drunkenness.

As we entered the grounds, two blokes dressed as Superman and Batman were being escorted away by police for stealing beer. Aiden was also impressed by the buck party (stag) who decided to dress in drag for the occasion. Mixed in the chaos were very civilized wealthy looking people having picnic lunches and a glass of bubbly while drinking in the excitement of the races.


There was also a great little spot set up for kids and Aiden headed straight for the tallest climbing thing he could find. Luckily ropes and safety gear were involved to keep grandmother anxiety to a minimum.


All in all, it was an excellent afternoon of entertainment, ice cream and unique culture. We may not become regulars to the country races but it was certainly an experience we savoured, so many thanks to Aaron for the recommendation. Now we will have some idea what all the talk is about when it comes to the weekend races.

Brush-tailed rock-wallabies return to the wild in the Grampians

Exciting milestones in ecological conservation in national parks have been few and far between in the past few decades, so we feel very privileged to have been involved in an amazing event in the Grampians. Ten critically endangered brush-tailed rock-wallabies were released into a remote part of the Grampians today. ABC news has a story and video of the event here.

Sean has been flat out like a lizard drinking the past couple of weeks helping to get ready for the big event and for the extensive monitoring program to track the animals in their new home. They will be tracked around the clock for the first few weeks to see how they settle in.

Aiden and his class were fortunate enough to be involved as well. They were able to get in to see the wallabies before they were released and talk with the project manager, Tony Corrigan and one of the charismatic vets, Shultzy who shared the wonder of the occasion with the future stewards of the park.

With all the challenges and amazing background work that was required to be able to bring the wallabies back into the wilds of the Grampians, Sean feels very proud to be part of the Parks Victoria team that was key to making it happen.

For more information about Brush-tailed rock-wallabies in Victoria here is the recovery team website.