Gone Fishin'

Today we headed off for a week holiday with Ray. Thanks a million to Frank and Sylvia who loaned  us their SUV for the week.  The extra space is greatly appreciated.  Our first stop was Portland where we spent the afternoon fishing.  The ocean was fairly rough but not too bad since we took Gravol to quell the motion sickness.  It was lots of fun and we all caught a number of Red snappers.  None of them were very large but there were plenty of them.

We cooked up some fish for supper.  It was delicious.  We spent the night in Portland at a motel. In the morning we headed down the road to Cape Bridgewater to spend some time on the beach and playing in the surf.  Cape Bridgewater is a national park and the little town itself is set on the side of a steep hill overlooking a large bay.  Just over the hill is a wind farm with 29 generators dominating the landscape.  We checked out the 'petrified forest' and from the information there, learned of the fallacy that they were once trees, instead they are pipes of limestone and calcite. It’s a stunning piece of earth, with incredible views of the powerful ocean and unique land forms that make you feel like you’re visiting another planet.

Our next stop was Princess Margaret Rose Cave located in the lower Glenelg National Park. The cave features a good range of stalactite and mite formations, many of which are still actively (although slowly) growing. It is advertised as the most decorated cave per square metre in Australia. This marvelous cave was created by the constant slow drip of rainwater through limestone over thousands of years. River erosion and the trickle of rainwater have created some extraordinary caves in the region. This Caves’ varied hues of crystalline structures come from years of minerals and tannins washing down from soil above. It has some very impressive structures.

From there we headed to  Mt. Gambier for the night. 

Around the Grampians

The last couple of weeks have been spent close to home. The new school year started on Monday, Feb. 2 and swimming lessons the following Monday, Feb. 9th.  Aiden was happy to go back to school, mostly for the social aspect but is still keen on learning as well. So far the swimming lessons are going great.  The wet suit has came in handy once again.

We have been out and about the park with Ray.  

Boroka Lookout

We spent an afternoon traveling the loop through Pomonal, Ararat and back up to Stawell then home in search of some wineries.   We stopped at the Gap Vineyard and Best's Great Westren Winery and had a look around.

Ray, Sean, Aiden  and Joseph went out the Halls Gap Zoo for an afternoon to check out some wild life. 

Panning for Gold

The cool change arrived over night and brought more reasonable temperatures along with it. We decided to take advantage of this and head down to Ballarat to show Ray Sovereign Hill, which is a recreation of the Goldrush days that helped build Victoria. It was excellent, and recreated the life in the town in the mid 1800s, including the bank, the bakery, the bar and the bowling alley. According to one of the costumed interpreters, the river that runs through the town is seeded on an annual basis with a fair chunk of change's worth of gold flakes every year. It used to be small nuggets but with rising gold prices that is not practical any more. The four of us panned for quite a while and have a few flakes of gold at the bottom of a small vial to show for it. We had fun and it was awfully exciting when a piece of gold not even as big as a grain of rice was found in the bottom of the pan.

We took in the mine tours, watched the pouring of a $80,000 gold brick, watched some historical reenactments of activities typical of the time, stopped in at the lolly shop, and explored the rest of the place before heading across the street to the Gold museum. By the end of the day, we all had a bit of a gold fever and drove into the sunset back across the goldfields to Halls Gap.

Blow me down hot

Hot, hot, hot!

Someone can turn down the thermostat here anytime they like. Here are the current conditions courtesy of weatherzone.com.au and as you can see it is just a touch warm. Today is the hottest temperature we have ever experienced in our lives and combined with the strong winds and single digit humidity tensions are running very high. The last time conditions were like this was during the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983. The fire danger index is supposed to clear 110 today on a scale where 50 is considered extreme. People are being asked to stay home and not go into the bush at all and many parks in Victoria have been closed to the public for the day.

This is on the second week of warm temperatures which have had a record 6 days over 40 degrees when the average for this area is one or two days over 40 a year. Dad picked a good time to come over and experience some heat. So far he hasn't been suffering too bad, staying in range of air conditioning in the hottest part of the day and at least with the low humidity the temperature has been cooling to comfortable temperatures at night.

A cool change is scheduled to come through this afternoon and drop the temperatures up to 20 degrees with cool south ocean winds, and hopefully it does so without thunderstorms or major damaging winds. While Australians can't fathom a storm day in Canada where snow and ice close down everything, most Canadians who melt in 30 degree weather would have a difficult time comprehending the experience of hot devastating weather. With extreme weather becoming more common globally perhaps it won't be long until we all are forced to adapt.

On the plus side we are spending a lot of time at the wonderful Halls Gap swimming pool and Aiden has become a fish. Victoria has also learned the importance of information on days like today and have an impressive website where you can see what is going on with fire around the state.

Shoot down the Coast

Ray's first weekend here was the Australian Day long weekend so we thought we should make the most of it and do some sight seeing. Being a long weekend and having no accommodations booked we decided to shoot down the coast where we could stay at Scott's for a night (Thanks Scott) and then hopefully find something for Sunday night or if not, head back up to the Grampians.

Great Ocean Road is definitely a must see for visitors and even though we have travelled it a number of times, there were still a few places we hadn't stopped. We arrived at Anglesea in the late afternoon after stopping at Bell's beach – one of the world's top surfing beaches and Point Addis. We had a wonderful meal out and went for a walk down along the beach then crashed for the night at Scott's.

Sunday morning we met up with Aaron and Kat at Airey's inlet. We met at the lighthouse cafe and enjoyed a Devonshire tea. From there we headed down the coast and stopped at Lorne to pick up take away and headed to a picnic area for lunch. Australia is know for its fish and chip take away. Every small town has at least one of these shops. A floor space of no more then 100 sq feet and one can have a take away fish and chip shop. The tasty fair comes bundled in newspaper to soak up the delicious grease.

We stopped and took in the Otway Fly Tree Top walk. This was our third of this type but surprisingly enough they each had a unique feature. On average this one is 25 m above the ground and has a spiral tower that is reaches 47 m above the forest floor. There are only four steel canopy walks in the world, all located in Australian and we have now been to three. The only one we are missing is Illawarra Fly in New south Wales.

We stopped at the Twelve Apostles before stopping for the night in Port Campbell. Originally named "The Sow & Piglets", the Twelve Apostles are a series of off-shore limestone stacks. Wind and sea erosion continually batters them, with one of the monoliths collapsing in 2005, leaving now just 8 standing.

The next morning we back tracked a little and went to see the Loch Ard Gorge. Beautiful coastline!!! I could sit near the ocean for a long time just watching and listening to the waves. We then traveled on to London Bridge, and we carried on all the way to Port Fairy before heading north towards home. At Port Fairy, we went down to the park on the wharf at the mouth of the Moyne River. Docked at the pier was the Earthrace vessel.

In June 2008, the amazing Earthrace vessel set a new world record for a powerboat to circle the globe, and she did this with 100% renewable biodiesel fuel, and a net zero carbon footprint. The voyage was over 24,000 nautical miles, and took 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes, smashing the old record by over two weeks. Aiden is not convinced, he reckons it is Batman's boat!

Dad's here for a Visit

Ray arrived in Melbourne the same day we flew into Melbourne from Tasmania-Jan 18^th and is spending the next 6 weeks with us.  We didn't waste any time around Melbourne but headed straight for home, arriving late afternoon.  It is always good to come home after a holiday and sleep in your own bed.  

Ray has a good flight (s) although long.  It is great to have him out here to show around and experience some of the wonderful things that Australia has to offer. The first few days we spent close to home, touring around the Grampians.  We spent an afternoon going up at the Balconies Lookout and then making a loop north to Zumstein and Ngamadjidj shelter before heading home.  

Ray, Sean and Aiden went for a stroll down the lane and ended up across the paddock at the neighbour's yard.  They picked some lemons (with permission), that we turned into sweet lemonade as soon as they returned. A perfect treat to help beat the heat.

Huon Pines

The Aussies have a similar relationship to Tassy that mainland Canadians have to Newfoundland: an island off the coast that is quaint, with quirky charming people and magnificent scenery.

It was a bit surreal to travel to the island whose newspapers list the weather for the Antarctic, and what a wonderful week we have had. All of us really appreciated our time there. The word that came to my mind was sublime, but I would also add earthy, genuine, charming. It will definitely make our list of places to revisit.

The last 'must do' on our list was a skywalk that was recommended when we were in Western Australia.  We were told it was the best in Australia. Since we quite enjoyed our last sojourn in among the giant gum trees, we made sure to make it to this attraction even though it was a bit off the beaten track and up and over a winding road. The skywalk is also among the huon pine which was an important tree in the ship building days for its long familiar strength and grain that Europeans found to work well in ship construction. The highlight of the walk was a cantilevered portion which hangs up over the river and the clouds opened up just enough to show off the spectacular views.



On the way back we popped in at the Huon Apple and Heritage Museum featuring everything apple and I am now convinced to buy one of these handy devices when we get home. Aiden loves apple for snacks before bed and of course he needs it peeled and sliced. I am quite certain in the thousands that I have peeled and cut that I can't complete the task in under 5 seconds. We then arranged to get back to Melbourne to pick up Ray who is coming to visit for 6 weeks. All in all, Tasmania is one place in Australia we agreed we could live.