Fast Approaching

It is amazing how fast the time has gone since arriving back in Halls Gap. It is hard to believe that we are down to our last three weeks here. Today was the start of Aiden's last week of school... his last Monday morning assembly. Every Monday the students, teachers and a number of parents gather by the flag pole at the start of the day. The flag is raised and the national anthem 'Advance Australia Fair' is sang. As long as there are others singing, Aiden and I can comfortably sing or at least hum all of it. Assembly is great, the students have a chance to share news from the weekend and announcements for the week are made. It is a nice way to start a Monday.


This past weekend began mid-week last week, when we arrived in Melbourne. Sean had a Canadian exchangee meetings to attend on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, a debrief-day, when all the PV/PC exchangees discussed the two years and how it had all gone. Thursday night Parks Victoria hosted a celebratory dinner for both PC and PV exchangees. It was a wonderful evening of fine dinning and a great opportunity to visit. And it was sad saying good-bye to all the faces that we have come to consider familiar here in our home away from home. The Aussies are now 6 months home and back into the swing of their lives; it was interesting to hear what their challenges were. A new set of Aussies have been chosen for the next rotation. Parks Victoria has been a very gracious host and has made us all feel very welcome. As a family member it was nice to be included in the things that PV organized. They were even generous enough to give Aiden and I a farewell gift. All the PC exchangees, along with Aiden and I received Akubra hats. They are a true blue symbol of Australia.




While in the city, we did as the city-folk did. On Thursday, Aiden and I took a ferry down the Yarra river, out to ScienceWorks, where we spent the day exploring all the great hands-on exhibits. Aiden was the 'star' of the lightening show. As he was the only youngster in the crowd, he was chosen to be the assistant. We also went to the Planetarium. I think I dozed off for a few minutes about midway through the show 'The Problem with Pluto' but Aiden assures me it was quite good. Money well spent, no?

An hour Friday morning was spent at the Queen Victoria market while Sean and the others met the PV board of directors. From there Rhonda, Valerie, Art and us caught a tram down to Albert Park to take in some of the 2009 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix. Rhonda was able to wrangle us day passes.

The Grand Prix was interesting. It is something we would of never done on our own. It was loud and fast. Even with ear protection, Aiden found it uncomfortable. As we were checking out behind the scenes, we were treated to a show of the Australian Air Force's acrobatic team "The Roulettes", very similar to our snowbirds but propeller driven.

Making more Aussies

One of the surprising things about Australia is that for a country that is 77% the size of Canada and with a much more appealing climate (albeit a bit on the warm dry side) the population of Australia (20 million) is only 60% of that in Canada (33 million). While 90% of Canadians live within 100 km of the US border the same could be said about Australians and the coastline.

The population and growth rate is such a concern among economists here that they even have a baby bonus of $5000 given to happy parents for each new bundle of joy. Staff here at the Grampians are doing their part with two members both expecting twins in the next few months with their respective partners. Economic stimulus packages have focused as well on per child packages so there are plenty of incentives.

Given that Australia is the driest inhabited continent on the globe and water is already a major issue (too much in some areas and not enough in others lately) perhaps the reason Australia doesn't have more people is obvious. With the low rainfall and high evaporation rates one might think that Australians are very conservative with water but apparently Australia has one of the highest per capita consumption rates of water in the world. Perhaps those limitations don't factor well into economics, but it just seems a bit self defeating somehow.

The Hollow Mt, Stapylton traverse loop

Frank and Sylvia mentioned a hike that they had done years before and things fell into place for an adventure. Ruth and Aiden ended up not coming along at the last minute and that was probably fortunate given that the terrain was a little more rugged than initially thought. Darryl came along for the adventure and geocaching. Frank also pointed out this neat site called EveryTrail which lets you upload your GPS track and then associate pictures so that they can be automatically geolocated along the track.

Hollow Mountain to Stapylton to Flat Rock at EveryTrail

Fire

Well anyone following this blog might think that we have fallen off the face of the earth since Black Saturday. Little did I know a few weeks ago that the day I posted the hot blog would be the start of the largest bush fire disaster in Australian history: 210 fatalities, 2498 farm buildings, 31 state infrastructure, 2029 houses, 10,287 livestock, 21,320 hectares of timber plantations and thousands of km of fencing with four of the largest fires still burning today. Two of the big fires are within national parks including the flagship Wilson's Prom Catherdral fire which has taken out over half the park so far. Both of the Canadian exchangees posted there have been busy working on backburns to protect Tidal River the main visitor site. Fortunately we haven't been directly impacted yet in the Grampians, touch wood, as most of the fires were in the south and eastern parts of Victoria so far this season. There was a lightning strike in the park that was quickly controlled and a predominately grassland fire near the town of Horsham around 70 km away which burned some houses and a golf course. Average rainfall for this area by this date is 85 mm and this year we have had a whooping 1.6 mm. The good news is that there is a 90% chance of several mm of rain forecast for this week. Hopefully it comes without much wind and lightning.

Yesterday we popped into Melbourne to send Dad off on the plane and take in the zoo. He certainly picked an interesting time to visit and we all have had a very authentic Australian summer experience this time around. At any rate we did manage to tour around a bit and now that work and life seem to be settling down a bit we can get around to a few more blog updates, no no, stop laughing, we really mean it this time :-).

The Melbourne Zoo

The Buckman's came in to Melbourne with us to drop Dad off at the airport and say farewell. It was sad to see him go.  We had a wonderful time showing him a little bit of Australia and were glad he was able to make it down here and be part of our Australia adventure. 

We then headed off to the Melbourne Zoo.  Melbourne Zoo is Australia's oldest zoo, opening in 1862. For a zoo, it was fairly impressive.  There were a large number of exhibits and lots of animals from warmer climates that we had  not seen at the Calgary Zoo. We took a walk through the Butterfly house and Flight Aviary.  Viewed the Orangutans and Mandrills along with apes and a variety of monkeys.  The lion exhibit was well done: you could walk over a bridge through their enclosure and see them up close. We had a fabulous day with the Buckmans