The Penultimate Post

It is Monday morning here and alas I will leave Wednesday afternoon. Of course given the time differences I will arrive in Calgary on Wednesday. On the weekend I went to the kids' baseball games. They play baseball rather than softball but with altered rules. There is no pitcher at Lian's level- rather the ball is thrown by a pitching machine. The next level up, at which Julius plays, there is a pitcher. But there are no walks. Instead if they walk a tee is used and they have a chance one chance to hit off it. The games are short so they are not bad to watch.

The first picture is just a shot I took as I walked out our door. Would that outside the door looked that way in Calgary. As you can see it is a bit cloudy. It has been cloudy and running about 25 for the last while.

As I had not gotten any souvenirs yet after the game Trina and I went to Paddys market in downtown Sydney. It is a building filled with stalls on the first floor selling inexpensive items, mostly clothes and gaudy things. I succeeded in my hunt as best I could.

Heading back from the market we passed a Mercedes dealer that of course reminded me of my imminent return. I guess there is a color scheme used worldwide by Mercedes. You might notice there seems virtually no parking- even less, amazingly enough, than at Hyatt. Perhaps there is more around back.

Then I went to a cricket match. Well it was sort of a match. It was a 20-20- a match disliked by purists- but one that is mercifully short. One team plays 20 overs and then there is a half time and the other plays 20 overs. An over is 6 pitches. So the game will come in in under 4 hours. This game was a benefit for the bush fire victims so the teams each had a couple of cricket players and people who were celebrities of some sort. The 20,000 or so there knew most of them as some were cheered and some booed. I gather those booed were sports figures viewed as arrogant or obnoxious. I now sort of understand cricket though and can see how it and baseball are similar. I still don't find either particularly exciting. Another similarity is that beer and hot dogs are served. I think the hot dog brand is Boss Hogg. I refrained from both.

Our group left a bit early so as to avoid the worst congestion.

On the way back Trina made a couple of wrong turns and expressed her views of Sydney signage. It is at its best utterly horrible. I have no idea as to how a newcomer can get anywhere. A map is only mildly helpful as many intersections have no street signs. And such signs as there are often pop up so late that one can't possibly get to the correct lane. So we missed the harbor tunnel turn and wandered around a bit downtown planning to use the bridge instead. But eventually we arrived after a trip which was rather noisy because Lian and Julius had gone a bit goofy.

Last of the Hunter Valley

This is a picture of our fourth and final winery, on the right is the main building. Our guide said he had seen a virtually identical building in the Medoc region in France. The inside of the building is very "modern" and metallic. I did not like this place at all. In part it was that it did not fit my image of the Hunter Valley. I might have ignored that but I also didn't like any of the wines we tasted. We tried, for example, a Zinfandel. While California wines- the ones I have had anyway- are virtually all inferior to the wines from most anywhere they can make Zinfandels. The Aussies should leave them to the Californians as the one we had was simply not very good.

This complex is also the home, as you can see if you examine the orange part of the sign, of the Smelly Cheese shop. We tried a few samples. I had a particularly wonderful creamed feta with garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. I wanted to get some but as I had spent a fair amount by this time I decided against the small jar for $15 even though that is only about $12 Canadian. I sort of regret that now.

The shop also has hand-made chocolates and an immense variety of gelatos. Wikipedia describes gelato as like high end ice cream in that it has less air in it and is generally quite rich and flavorful. I have had a bit and that description seems quite apt. I decided to have a cone and tried the dark chocolate. It was excellent and a well-filled cone was only $4. After I finished my cone (all had to wait as food and drink were not allowed on the bus) we boarded and headed back to Sydney. As the driver had predicted it rained fairly heavily fairly often on the way back. I leapt out of the bus at a stoplight by the rail station in Turramurra. I took the train to Hornsby and then a bus to Hornsby Heights.

The trip was only $95 and was well worth it. One can drive up and do tastings oneself. However individuals who go in generally taste only a couple of items. When one is in a group the sever presents, in an appropriate order, around 10 or so samples.

Next to Last of the Hunter Valley

The top picture is just a view from where we stopped to get lunch. I bravely decided to have a roast beef baguette which was actually quite good. Almost all Aussie sandwiches are loaded with various veggies and very little by way of condiments. One curious feature, to North Americans anyway, is that many sandwiches include beetroot (beets to us) slices. I don't think I would always have these on a sandwich but they are actually a tasty addition from time to time. There is a brewery attached to our lunch spot- for $12 one could get a paddle with 6 holes in it in which 6 small glasses of different beers were placed. I wanted to try them but decided it would just be too much. I hear they were very good though.

The next picture is from our tasting at Tintilla. The guy and girl at the bottom, both from Chicago, are the people I talked to most. She and I tended to agree about the various wines, and we both made fun of her boyfriend who liked sweet whites the most. We suggest that in a few years he would grow up and develop a taste for the reds which I find much better- at least much more complex.

The guy in blue was Garry- our driver and guide with bluetooth headset in ear. As you can see the grapes are ripe- indeed much harvesting was going on. The grapes are I think Shiraz and, as you can see, each vine is quite laden.

In the bottom you see what looks to be a lime tree, but what is more likely to be a lemon tree with green lemons. We have some here grown in our own little tree. The other trees are olive trees which are quite abundant in the Hunter Valley. So many olives are grown in Oz that olive oil is very popular. And indeed many of the soft margarines are olive oil based.

More of the Hunter Valley

The top picture is just another Hunter Valley vista with a bit too much of a parking lot. The next two are inside Iron Crest. Most of the wineries in the Hunter Valley are boutique ones. They sell to club members and from their cellar doors. They don't export though they will ship free to Sydney and at a modest cost elsewhere in Oz. Iron Crest is a bit different- it is a contract winery, making wine from grapes or juice brought in from elsewhere. We did more tasting here and I did get a bottle of Shiraz here.

There are as well some wineries of which you may have heard like Lindemanns, Rosemount and Wyndham Estates. These are large companies that have vineyards all over Oz. The Hunter Valley is as far north as you find vineyards in Oz- further North it is just too hot. I gather Shiraz grapes originated in Persia and evolved in heat. So they do well in the Hunter Valley.

Off to the Hunter Valley

I got up slightly earlier than usual. When I do, particularly if one puts out some seed, the two familiar (at least I think they are the usual ones) cockatoos swooped down. While they are gorgeous birds they make utterly obnoxious noise- basically just a very loud squawk. At any rate I got a ride with Les down to the Turramurra where I was to be picked up. We then headed northwest to the Hunter Valley, eventually joining National Highway 1. It is a good road but is I think only 20 some years old. The Sydney area is built on sandstone several hundred meters thick, and is very hilly and, even though the soil is very poor, lushly forested. To construct the highway huge gaps were blasted in the hills. Some of the cliffs were 100 feet or so high. As sandstone is not fragmented the faces of these are sheer. After an hour or so we stopped for a snack at a rest stop along the way. The blue Mercedes van is what I was in. It is actually a sprint modified to seat 14 passengers. There were 7 of us on this trip.

In the background you will see a MacDonalds. They are much the same as anywhere save that they have added a MacCafe with its own counter where coffees and pastries are sold. I have managed to avoid trying them.















The third picture is just a typical Hunter Valley scene. It has been very wet the last couple of weeks and as you can see it was an overcast day. But we managed to avoid anything save some sprinkles. Lucky I suppose as there were flood warnings for some of the valley around the Hunter River. About 10:30 we arrived at our first tasting where we sampled a small amount of about 10 different drinks- some whites, some reds, some fortifieds and some wine-based liqueurs. One only gets a small amount, but at this time of day one knows one has had a drink. At this place, Draytons family wines, I bought white chocolate and dark chocolate liqueurs. They will go well in coffee I think and the dark will make interesting strawberry concoctions.

This and That and Wacky Weather

Well Trina has her car back. However I have learned to use the local bus system which I ride to the school on to fetch the kids. We all then ride back though somehow today Lian did not get off. So I waited on the other side at the stop and Julius waited where we got off. Sure enough after a little bit the bus came back the other direction with Lian as the sole passenger.

Last week in Sydney it was 35 and we were hot. But I guess we were lucky. Up north near where we had traveled cyclones caused massive flooding. And in Victoria there were the worst fires on record. A number of people and countless animals died. As is always true when something like this happens there is extreme controversy about forest management.

The last few days Sydney have cooled to the low 20s. Lian often complains she is freezing. I wouldn't go that far but it is true that the habituation to heat makes mild temperatures feel very cool. Cool enough that I even wore the long pants that had languished in disuse.

Not much is planned for the last days save that I will go on a day trip to the Hunter Valley wine region. I hope I don't overtaste and pass out at some cellar door.
And I will be going to downtown Sydney again in hot pursuit of souvenirs of some sort.

I still have linguistic problems- I almost never understand what people say. Announcements is say a train station are a complete mystery. The a sound is particularly difficult- I can even misunderstand such a mundane word as "car" is virtually unintelligible. To me the a sounds like my a when I try to imitate a crow.

Baseball and Heat

This Saturday morning the kids played baseball. Both are on a team. The games started early as we are all suffering from the heat. It is currently 35 here with the humidity around 30%. I simply droop and drip. Everyone else hopped into the pool when we got back, but I didn't go in. While the pool is not actually cold when it is this hot here it feels utterly frigid to me. I guess we are lucky since the south coast- Melbourne among others- has been well into the 40s.

The other night I saw my first possum climbing in a tree outside. They are a bit smaller than the ones I have seen in North America- in the dark it looked a lot like a koala. Around here they are considered quite a pest so there are various companies that specialize in their removal. They are protected so one can't shoot them or anything like that. The one I saw, or perhaps a buddy, climbs on the roof and, if he can, comes into the house. Trina tells me that when they first came something in the kitchen was not sealed and she found a possum in the kitchen cabinets.

Other than the possums I see the usual birds and lizards a fair amount. Right now the birds are quiet but in the later afternoon they no doubt will start up again. The lizards come in various sizes, as small as a couple of inches up to around a meter. Yesterday I rescued a 6 inch one that had managed to fall into a water bucket- it was swimming but it could not of course continue indefinitely.

Next weekend we will probably go visit a Hunter Valley winery. I am not sure which as Trina is going to ask her brother for a suggestion. He is a bit of a connosieur.

A Day at the Carnival

The kids go to Hornsby Heights public school. The schools are divided into houses each one of which has its own colour and uniform of that colour. Julius and Lian are in Somerville which has yellow as its house colour-whence the yellow bathing caps. Each year there is a swimming carnival held at the Hornsby public pool. Entry to the pool as is true of the beaches is free. Julius entered the 25 meter breast stroke which he won. He is the one wearing the black and green top. He also entered the 25\ meter back stroke where he came in second. He would have won save that he can't swim straight and ran into the lane ropes twice. Lian, in the yellow cap and blue suit is quite good. She won a couple and got a huge lead for her team in the relay. But the anchor person had some trouble so the house came in second. The kids were good sports though.

At the Beach

On Sunday we went to DeeWhy, one of the many ocean front towns in the Sydney area. In the top picture you see the salt water pool- many of the beaches have them. I was in it for a while. The fourth picture is the street in front of the beach. It is utterly typical. Restaurants and small apartment buiildings front the beach. The red and yellow flag in the second marks an about 100 meter guarded stretch- the lifeguards are under the umbrella. You might notice how many people are wearing shirts. The sun is pretty intense and there is a considerable awareness of the risk of sunburn and skin cancer. Everyone also uses tons of sunscreen. Rather more is sold in Oz than in Calgary.

Another Car Disaster.

Well I managed to crunch Trina's car a few meters from the house. The car on the right belongs to the next door neighbor. I had had trouble with the Mazda gearshift and am lousy with my left hand. I had rolled out of the driveway and turned to face forward. I had trouble getting the car in gear and was looking down as it rolled forward a bit. It went into gear and the result is what you see. Sigh.

Visit to Hornsby

I finally decided to try driving again so on Sunday I drove to Hornsby with Trina. It went better in that I was mostly in my lane, only turned on the windshield wipers a couple of times and often though not invariably managed to use my left arm to shift. As far as I know the only police in Australia are the state police. Here that is of course the NSW police. If you click on the police car photo so as to see it full size you will see at the some of the kinds of vehicles they use including a peculiar little truck. There is a hatch on the side of these trucks which is very small and I can't see what they are used for. The brick building is the Hornsby police station. On the whole I think one sees police driving around with about the same frequency as one does in Calgary,

The other two shots are taken inside the mall to which we went. The Woolworths is a grocery store- Woolworths is one of the two main grocery chains. It is a part of the retail conglomerate for which Les works. In the other picture you see a seafood shop on the left with huge mounds of cooked shrimp in quite visible. In the Woolworth picture you can see the chicken shop in front ofit. Even though a grocery store like Woolworths carries everything these small shops still seem to thrive.

Some Brush Turkeys

In most of the coastal and mountain areas we visited we encountered these brush turkeys. They are relatively small and spend most of there time on the ground where they nest. Judging from behaviour I think the one in the top left picture had a nest. Like most of the birds we have encountered they were not too skittish, though they would not allow too close and approach. I don't know whether this is natural behaviour of the various birds or because the birds we encounter were all in areas where humans are around.

Australia Day and Utes

Today, Monday, is Australia day. So all are home and the cousins just came over for a visit. This will mean 4 kids of the same age fighting over the wii. Oh well, they are actually pretty good together. Work for Les and Trina starts tomorrow and the summer school holidays end on Wed.

As I mentioned the ute, truck-like but based on cars, have been for some time a popular Oz vehicle. I finally managed to get a couple of pics. One is comparatively new- the other is an older one based on a falcon.

Arrival at Lady Musgrave Island

After the over 90 minute quite nauseating to many ride we arrived at Lady Musgrave Island. In one the pictures of my hopeless attempt at snorkling you can see the island not too far away. The boat docks at a quite large pontoon raft from which these pictures were taken. Note that the water is comparatively calm, protected I guess by the barrier reef which is below where I am floundering. The raft is the base for the various activites. Some people sign up for scuba, some for reef fishing. But the core activities are snorkling, a trip in glass bottom boats to the island with a 40 minute or so walking tour, and rides around the reef in a semi-submersible. On these rides one of course looks at the reef and hunts for turtles. Actually I saw no turtles on this ride, but we had some nice encounters with some on the trip to the island. Everyone it seems is keen on the turtles. They nest on the islands but do not go ashore during the day. Due to the overcast day and the roiled water visibility and colors on the reef were not so good as they can be. Save for the comparative lack of color one could see places rather like those in Nemo.

The island was quite nice. Like most in the area it had been subject at some points to guano harvesting. But, or so we were told the island had been very fortunate. It was used somehow during the war, or perhaps it was not used but at any rate it was left alone for I think over 10 years. And some guano harvest had been skipped earlier because it was not quite rich enough to make it worthwhile. What was amazing was the number of nesting birds of various sorts, though predominantly terns. Each branch of virtually every tree was occupied by several nests. Unfortunately we neglected to bring the cameras so we have no pictures. There is a small campground on the island, but evidently camping is a bit expensive due to the boat trip and the need to bring everything- particularly water. The beaches are of course quite nice with wonderfully warm water.

On the trip one is supplied with morning and afternoon tea (cakes, cookies and tea or coffee) and a lunch. I ate lunch but, unsurprisingly enough, many did not. Trina for example, did a fair amount of snorkling but could not manage lunch or tea.

Around 3 we reboarded the boat. People were sort of supposed to take there original places but this rule was neither enforced nor obeyed. Each kid and Trina were in scattered seats on their own. Les and I ended up sitting on a sideways sort of bench. Unfortunately the sea was a bit rougher than when we came over. It did not seem quite as bad as we were on a diagonal with the wind. Fortunately the kids whom we could not see did not get sick. Trina however did not thrive. We could see her with head down over the bag. Les was on my left on the bench and someone (I am not sure why) sat down on my right. I didn' t like sitting sideways (no armrests or anything so it was hard not to side) so I stood up holding on to the galley. It was far too rough to walk around without considerable difficulty. Lucky I did as the person who had joined our bench started throwing up right after I left.

We did eventually get back though not til about 5. The weather prevented the boat from cruising at its normal speed.

Mal de Mer

The trip to 1770 had been almost uneventful save for one leg. We had decided to cut northeast from one main road to another that let directly to 1770 (if I have not mentioned it before 1770 is so named since Captain Cook arrived there then). The road we follow was supposedly a main improved road. But it narrowed and narrowed and had one point we reached a y intersection with no clear idea of where to go. Les chose what he thought was the most likely one, but we lost some confidence at some one lane and gravel section. We bravely proceeded on in what we took to be a NE direction. (It is hard to know the direction one is going- I never know at all and neither Les nor Trina are ever quite sure. The sun always seems to be in more or less the same place in the sky whichever way one goes.) But the theory was that we had to intersect the other road before plunging into the Pacific. And eventually we did. So we checked into our lodging which was very spacious including kitchen, washer, dryer, two bathrooms and so on. The next morning we were due to set out for Lady Musgrave Island and the barrier reef on the boat you see. The weather was cool with wind, cloud and some sprinkles. We were not sure the trip would be on. But we boarded the boat and said they would go, but mentioned that the swells were up to three meters or so and stated that anyone who was not up to that need not go. For stability reasons they did not want too many people on the upper deck though in fact it and the boat as a whole were quite full (100 or so people). No one decided not to go.

It was up and down with slides in various directions. Quite often the waves hit the sides and splashed quite a ways up on the windows. The crew- some twelve people or so (they have to serve both morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, have people to run the other boats after arrival, to supervise the scuba divers, to act as lifeguard for the snorklers and to perform on the boat some other tasks which I shall proceed to. But soon we hit the open sea (the trip takes more than 90 minutes at decent speed) and the passengers started to grab for the bags in backs of the seat in front of one. Les and I survived. But Trina who is as it turns out very prone to seasickness bit the dust first, followed by Lian. For a while Julius was okay, but he too succumbed. The crew was very busy collecting used bags, bringing ice and cold rags and providing suckers. Somehow all the rather green passengers did not respond with smiles to the rather cheerful and quite unaffected crew. And of course even if one is not affected it is still not a great deal of fun to bounce and roll along surrounded by vomiting people with bent necks so as to ensure the bags were in close proximity to the top of their bags. Quite a large supply of bags is needed for such a trip. Near the arrival a grinning crew member assured all that the return is always better. We shall see in the sequel.

But we did arrive though Trina in particular was not in stunning shape. This is one of the reasons we have no pictures of the island. But this saga will be continued in the next post.

Bugs and Bugs

One thing the climate here is good for is bugs. They abound and get into and onto almost everything. I have no pictures of the endless streams of ants of various shapes and sizes that abound most everywhere. And I also have no photos of the cockroaches that I have almost directly encountered barefooted and sleepy in many houses- particularly bathrooms. They are amazingly speedy critters. On our trip we saw many termite mounds which no doubt provided nice treats for the mammalian egg-laying echindas. These I saw in zoos but alas saw none munching on termites in the wild. While flies like me- in particular my nose and face, mozzies and ants do not. It took some effort to lure the one you see onto my foot from which it desired only escape. As you can see it is rather large, though not the largest I have seen.

Tonight Trina happened to notice what initially looked like a spot on some curtains in the house. On closer inspection it turned out to be a mother spider with numbers of young. The spiders here are all catholic and do not believe in birth control. None of us had ever seen this before so it was great luck to see this.

My friend Allen emailed me a while back and advised me to try Moreton Bay Bugs (it is a bay near Brisbane). Initially I was rather confused as bugs, save for the ones that fly into my mouth, are not the most common items in my diet. As I lean more and more toward vegetarianism I have tried to cut down on my bug consumption. But as it turns out Aussies call small crustaceans and lobsters "bugs". Not a bad term when you consider how they look. The one on the left is not a slipper lobster which is what the Moreton Bay ones are. It is rather a closeup of the freshwater stream crustacean which was barely visible in one of the Green Mountains pictures posted a while ago.

When in Noosa I think it was I did have a chance to try Moreton Bay Bugs at a Thai restaurant. Unfortunately I was a bit sick and didn't feel up to eating anything other than some soup. I do hope to try them here in Sydney. After all a lobster by any other name- namely "bug" would no doubt taste as sweet. I am not sure about smell.

Shorter is Better

Aussies, far more than Canadians, love to shorten words. There is of course the dreaded barbie that caused me such embarrassment. And who could fail to love the mozzies. Speaking of which they are rather bad in this comparatively wet summer. Or so I hear as they avoid me. Perhaps that is because my blood no longer reaches my skin or because it is no longer rich and delicious from the mozzie point of view. The kids sleep under a mosquito tent. And how can one do without brekkie- the way to begin a day in Oz. And there is the ute- the vehicle we don't have since the demise of the Ranchero. More of the ute later.

Aussie Lingo on the Highway

As I may soon attempt to drive again it seemed wise to learn the driving lingo. Lesson 1 is that passing is called overtaking. Road markings are similar in that on a two lane load one can overtake when the line on your side of the double center line is not solid. I finally got used to the frequent signs saying overtaking lane so many k ahead. Major two lane roads (there are not all that many four lane roads or limited access roads) will periodically change to three lanes. An additional lane on your side is an overtaking or passing lane. Even in four lane roads it is illegal to drive in the inner lane unless one is overtaking.

On some highways semis with more than one trailer are allowed. Such rigs are, not inappropriately, called "road trains". Road trains have plates on the back that say "road train".

The New Balzac

As Balzac is in the Alberta Outback a new look for the town is being developed- I call it the new improved Balzac. Who does not yearn to live in the Alberta Outback?

Some of the Outback

From 1770 at the south end of the great barrier reef we drove 1300 k mostly through the outback to the town of Lightning Ridge. Due to some 10 years of drought most of the outback is very dry, there has been rain recently but not enough to replenish it. The vegetation in these pictures is a bit lusher than in many areas. Though it is dry almost all the area we drove through is subject to flooding, though almost all the creek beds are currently dry. At many points along the road there are metersticks so that one can determine how deep the water is during the floods. Though I have put up a picture of some sheep cattle are actually more common. Since the land is so dry it will not support that many sheep or cattle. Consequently the stations (ranches I guess) are widely scattered. The kids have to go long distances to schools.




We did see some kangaroos and emus. Unfortunately as one might expect we saw almost as many run over as running around.

Back from the trip

It is friday evening and we just got back from our trip. I managed to avoid the temptation to become an opal miner in the outback town of Lightning Ridge. I am currently munching on a takeout roast chicken. dressing and some salads. Tomorrow I shall start updating the blog and as well start such exciting series as Aussie cars, Aussie signs, and various other Aussie matters. So more to come soon.

Leaving Kingscliff for the mountains.

We left Kingscliff on Tuesday morning to head inland for a visit to some Oz mountains in Lamington National Park. We were headed for a place named O'Reilly's in the Green Mountains. The mountains are only about 1000-1200 metres high, but the trip up was not one for those easily nauseated. The road up, though paved, is mostly one lane with not very wide two lane sections. There are more or less constant switchbacks- what I used to call horseshoe curves. The third picture is the view from our room. The other pictures are from some of the walks we went on. If you look closely in the water in the top right picture you may spot the lightly coloured crayfish I would call it in the water. I will say more about the area in another post. Some pictures seem still to be in the cameras.