Southwest Australia - the Odyssey

Well we have just returned from our first roadtrip. We decided to explore a little town called Port Lincoln - a town that is famous for tuna and great white sharks. They actually do offshore tours at this place where people pay money to get thrown in a shark cage for an up close and personal experience.
We visited Lincoln National Park, which surprised us by being so remote while only a few kilometres outside of town. Much of the park was inaccessible due to poor roads which was a bit shocking considering the state of the good roads. At one point, we were greeted by a sign that read "road ends in 500m", then "road ends in 250m". Needless to say, we were more than a little curious to find out why the road ended - was there a reason why it needed to end and if so what would it be? Well, as we came over a very small rise, we indeed came to the end of the road - literally and figuratively. We found ourselves upon the end of Australia and the start of the open Southern Ocean - with rugged rocks and crashing waves rivalling the roughest of BC's coastline. It was spectacular and the picture doesn't even come close to doing the scenery justice.

We then carried on to the other side of the park and found a secluded beach - we were the only ones on it. The girls were in their glory looking for shells.

The day we left ,we stopped at a wildlife park to feed some beasties. I must add in here that 5 weeks into this trip, we have yet to see a kangaroo outside of a park...except of course prone by the side of the road. The birds were amazing, flocking all around us and landing on our heads and in our laps, under our feet. Elise's experience with the magpie goose a few weeks back made her keep her distance from the birds - I don't blame her because they nipped when the food didn't come fast enough. Unfortunately, my camera batteries ran out before I could snap any more pictures and I missed capturing one of the funniest sights yet...a big wombat fast asleep on its back with its stubby little piggy legs straight up in the air. I thought is was dead until it scratched it's little wombat parts with its stubby piggy foot.

Til next time...

A quick update

Well it’s about time that I got around to updating this site with what has been happening since we arrived. It’s hard to believe that we have been here for a month already!

So where to start…the girls have started school and are loving it. Sophie is in a grade 2/3 split and has settled in to an English class no problem. She even got a perfect score on her second spelling test. “Bravo”…or shall I saw “well done” instead. Sophie has made lots of friends and is really enjoying taking recorder lessons. She starts gymnastics next week.

Elise is fully engrained in Kindy now – she goes to school Monday and Wednesday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday from 9 – 3. They serve snacks and hot lunches from the kitchen within the Kindy. When I asked Elise what she had for lunch last Thursday, she replied with “I had 3 cheese and soy sauce sandwiches”. Very puzzled, I asked the lady in the kitchen the next day, she cleared it up for us – they were cheese and vegemite!!

I have fully embraced gardening the Aussie way. This means trying to keep plants alive with no rain and very strict watering restrictions…like watering once a week. What this means is that we have to conserve all gray water from dishes, laundry and baths to then carry it bucket by bucket to the garden. I am starting to get a nice green lawn and I have bought tones of flowers and pots to add some colour to the yard. Just to keep them alive, I have to water twice a day when it’s really hot. But the good news is that I have lots of gazanias, hibiscus, oleanders, vincas (like impatiens), mandevillas and even a frangipani (plumeria).

The people that we have met here are fantastic. They are so warm and kind and have embraced “the foreigners” and all of our strange customs and words like we are family. They all want to share their homes, their dinner tables and fantastic bottles of wine. The incredible people more than make up for the unbelievable take your breath away 39 degree heat.

Well, have to sign off for now.

We made it!

Well, we have arrived and settled in. It was a long trip to get here, but the girls were troopers. For anyone looking to make your way to Australia, Singapore Airlines is definitely the way to fly - now if only they had flights from Victoria to PG!!

Singapore was a great place to stop over before the next leg of our journey...it's very beautiful and clean, but very humid. We spent the day at the zoo and the girls got to see animals that they have never seen in person before. The highlight was walking through the "biodome" and coming literally face-to-face with huge fruit bats and a troop of lemurs.

We arrived in Adelaide the next day to find it hot and dry...looking very similar to Kamloops in the middle of summer...of course with the exception of the gum trees and exotic birds. It took us a few days to unpack and get settled and then venture out to try to find our way around the city.

We visited a wildlife park on the weekend and the kids got to feed some Australian beasties - kangaroos, wallabies, potaroos (big pointy nosed rat-like marsupials) and emus. Take a look at http://livingtravel.com/australia/southaustralia/ClelandNationalPark/cleland_1.htm to see some pictures of strange animals that we got to see up close. So close in fact that Elise got chased and bitten by a very large Magpie Goose. The kangaroos were lovely, they were lounging all over the park, sometimes not even getting up to take food and accept a scratch. it was quite the day for all of us, experiencing face-to-face (literally) encounters with big red kangaroos and emus.

The girls have now had a week of school and are loving it. Elise has settled right into "Kindy" without a bit of concern and both girls have already made some friends. Dug is enjoying work and even got out for a sail this week. We have met some wonderful people who have made us feel very welcome.

Well, I'm off...Elise is asking for another "meat and mayomase" sandwich.

How far away is Australia?

I'm sure that you have all heard that we are leaving the cold and rainy shores of Victoria on Jan 19th for sun, sand and Vegemite in Adelaide. It's just for a year and I'm sure it will fly by, but now that it's so close, I think we are all a little nervous.

We are frantically trying to box up and store our personal belongings, purge what we can and pack all of our summer clothes into our luggage. I am only supposed to be taking 5 pairs of shoes, but I have managed to stow away a few more - I made extra room by taking out some of Dug's sailing gear. By the time he notices, we'll be there already.

The girls are very excited, but now have realized the enormity of leaving all of their friends and family. They are most excited to see the Australian wildlife - especially kangaroos and the elusive duck billed platypus.

I have been trying to work myself up to the 27 hr plane trip to get there. It's 11 hrs to Seoul, then another 8 to Singapore and a final leg of 8 hrs to Adelaide. We do get a 24 hr stopover in Singapore to stretch our legs and shake some of the jetlag, but I think it will take an entire year to get over the flight and prepare myself for the return home!

While we are going to miss our friends and families tremendously, it's going to be a huge adventure for all of us and a great opportunity to discover a part of the world that we may not have otherwise ever seen.