Order Restored

When we moved here almost three years ago, it was shortly after Kevin Rudd, the then Prime Minister, had been replaced as leader by his party in a back room coup.  Julia Gillard was installed as party leader and, after a quick election campaign, was elected by Australians as Prime Minister (as in Canada, we do not vote for the leader, only the party...she was leader of the party that won).

For three years we all watched as Kevin Rudd was closely watched to see if and when he would make the move to reclaim the leadership.  About 18 months ago he held a press conference from an overseas trip to announce that he would return to Australia to challenge for the leadership.  Julia Gillard and her supporters met him head on and he lost.  After the election was called earlier this year, one of Kevin Rudd's supporters called for him to stand for leader of the party.  Kevin Rudd declined to stand for the leadership and everyone moved on.  Last week, after a great deal of speculation, Kevin Rudd challenged for the leadership of the Labor Party and won!  Three years later and he, according to his supporters, is right back where he should be!  The big problem now is that we are seven months into an election campaign and Kevin Rudd is not bound to hold the election.  We could have just gone through the torture of a seemingly endless election campaign, only to have it extended to last even longer.

Kevin Rudd getting mobbed at an AFL game we attended in 2011

Kevin Rudd is a Queenslander...a very popular Queenslander.  His successful coup happened on the same night as the second game in the State of Origin.  The State of Origin in an annual "best of three" series between the Rugby League players of Queensland and New South Wales.  Queensland has won the series for the last seven years in a row, but they actually lost the first game that was held at the beginning of June.  People were losing their minds over how such a travesty could occur but on Wednesday night the stars were aligned as they should be and Queensland beat NSW...handily.  It wasn't just a win it was an old-fashioned beat down.  So by Thursday morning Kevin Rudd was back as PM, the Queensland Rugby League players had shown total domination and once again Queensland was ruling Australia.  Order has indeed been restored.

Winter

Winter arrived in Australia on the first of June and once again we were reminded of just how lucky we are to be living here.  Other cities have some fairly miserable winter weather (not miserable by Canadian standards, but certainly not pleasant) but it is one of the nicest times of the year in Brisbane.  The weather is dry (humidity less than 85%, so plenty of good hair days!) and the highs are still in the 20s.  Depending on how tough you are, this can still be shorts weather.  It will get cooler as we hit mid-July, but it is still perfect for sitting in one of the many open-air lounges near our house and enjoying a glass or two of wine.

Bright blue sky for the first day of winter

View from our neighbourhood outdoor lounge

We have realized that we have one long weekend in June, then one in mid August and nothing in between.  We have decided to go to Melbourne in August for a weekend that is both sporty and artsy.  We will go to an AFL game at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds, the mecca of AFL in Australia) and then see a Monet exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria...something from each end of the spectrum!

The nice thing about winter this year is that it means we only have another 3 months left in the Federal Election campaign, which was announced in January.  Nine months is a very long time to listen to campaign speeches but someone has introduced the "Truth-o-meter", which is a dial display that is shown after a political speech.  So far almost every reading has been "Liar"!  As much as all of us have had it with campaign speeches, we are sure the politicians are getting pretty tired of it too...how many babies can one person kiss?

Greek Festival

This weekend we went to the Paniyiri Greek Festival, the largest Greek festival in Australia.  It was cool and windy when we were walking over, but once we were in the park it was absolutely perfect weather.  For us, this festival is all about the food.  Sure, there were rides for the kids, dancing demonstrations and live music, but our stomachs were in charge!  As soon as we walked into the grounds, the smells of charcoal cooking engulfed us.  We had different types of souvlaki, grilled haloumi and the very famous, and very sweet, loukoumades, or honey puffs.  The honey puffs are the star of the festival and people make plans around devouring plates of them!  Honey puffs are deep fried dough, coated in honey and sprinkled with icing sugar.  Anyone with a sweet tooth would go crazy over these!  We struggled to share a small plate but we saw lots of people packing away the large plate without any hesitation.

Honey Puffs

This is a great time of year in Brisbane, right before the start of winter.  The days are warm and the nights are cool.  It is lovely to get up in the morning and have the humidity less than 90% and be able to walk into work and arrive not looking like a sweaty ball of hot goo.  We seem to be much colder right now than we were this time last year, but we are in a tough position when it comes to complaining about the cold.  On one hand we need to be able to mock the Aussies who think that 18 degrees is nippy by claiming that we walk around in shorts and t-shirts in Canada when it’s -18 degrees, but on the other hand, because there isn’t any proper insulation in the houses, it really does feel cold and we need to be able to wear our jumpers with dignity. 

Festival Goers

Not a cloud in the sky

Mosman Trail

We just spent a beautiful 4 day weekend in Sydney, taking advantage of having Thursday off for Anzac Day.  The highlight of our trip was a 10km hike we took on the north shore, in the suburb of Mosman. 

We started by taking the ferry from Circular Quay to the Taronga Zoo.  We walked NE, past the zoo, and headed along a trail that took us to Bradleys Head and then Chowder Bay.  The walk is really well laid out, with stairs cut into the pathway and nicely cleared with no spider-infested branches hanging across the trail at face height!  The scenery along the pathway is beautiful, with views of the city, lots of little harbours and beaches and trees and flowers everywhere.

The Opera House on Anzac Day (note the planes in the upper left hand corner)

The city

 

On the loop back we cut through some fantastic parts of the suburbs of Clifton Gardens, Mosman and Cremorne, to get to the Cremorne Ferry terminal and back to the city.  These suburbs are quite stately and homes with ocean views are positively estate-line!  The strange part of the walk was that the official pathway actually involves walking more or less right up to a house and then veering off onto a hidden path.  We actually missed a couple of turns at the first pass because we thought we were being too cheeky about walking up to these houses.  Apparently, that is just how it is done.

Bay View along the pathway

Entrance to the Harbour

Chowder Bay

We enjoyed this trip and walk so much that we are already planning to walk from Manly to the Harbour Bridge and back into the city on our next visit, a hike that will take us at least 6 hours, and that is only if we walk on a straight a route as possible, with no wandering off the sea at any point.  This may take more than one visit to complete but luckily we are more than happy to spend as many weekends as possible in Sydney!

Footy galore

Australia is truly a sports-mad country.  It seems like everyone has a sport, or sports, they they play on a regular basis.  Not just kids but adults of all ages, swimming, cycling, running, playing tennis or netball and, the most popular sport, Australian Rules Football.  The part that gets confusing with the sports is that Aussie Rules Football, Rugby League, Rugby Union and soccer all referred to as "footy".

Of the 18 teams in the Australian Rules Football League (AFL), 10 are in Victoria.  Anyone from Victoria will mean AFL if they say "footy".  In Queensland, there are two AFL teams, but there are also both Rugby Union and Rugby League teams.  Rugby League is massive in Queensland and usually, but not always, someone from Queensland saying "footy" will mean Rugby League.  It also depends on the time of year because in June there is the first game of the 3 game State of Origin tournament, played between Queensland born players and New South Wales born players.  During this tournament, everyone calls it footy.

Watching the Lions play the Crows (Brisbane vs Adelaide)

The Lions came close to winning this one!

We really like going to the Brisbane Lions games in the AFL and the Reds games in the Rugby Untion League.  We may not always know what is going on, but it always a nice way to spend some time sitting outdoors and enjoying the weather.

A lovely sunset at the Reds match, played at Suncorp Stadium only 5 minutes from our house

The Warratahs (Sydney) warming up

The other complication with footy is that anyone from Europe or South America, and there is a large European influence here, will call soccer "footy".  Sometimes it is easier just to nod knowingly, rather than keep asking "What do you mean by footy?" 

The one sport that is never, ever called footy or football, is North American football, which here is referred to as "grid iron football' or just "grid iron".  Australians really seem to love watching grid iron, and it is hard to get a seat in a pub when they show NFL games.  They love the size of the players and the hard hits (which is why Aussies also seem to love hockey...referred to as "ice hockey" here, never just hockey) but they just can't get their heads around having offence and defence as different teams.  When we try to explain it, we get the same blank look back as when Aussies start talking about footy.  Sometimes it is easier just to cheer for the ball!

Long weekend

One of the many wonderful things about living in Australia is that we get four days off at Easter!  And since autumn in Brisbane is a lot like summer in Brisbane, it means we get four days to enjoy the sun and be outside.

As we have gone away for the past two years, we decided to spend the Easter weekend at home.  We used to spend most long weekends in the city when we lived in Calgary, as it was usually uncrowded and relaxed.  It was pretty much the same here.  Most people headed for the coast, leaving those of us who stayed with plenty of open spaces and lots of choice seats in restaurants!

Beautiful River View

Quiet Day on the Brisbane River

We spent part of Good Friday in the Southbank suburb, not in the pools but at a restaurant nearby with a nice view of the river.  It was pretty hot so we really needed a sit-down after the long walk.  We have been taking the train so much lately that we have forgotten how hot it can really feel in the sun at 30+C with humidity in the 85% range.  In other words, it was melting!  We had good walks on Saturday and Monday too, but, this being the subtropics, it was bucketing on Sunday and there were weather warnings going on all day.  We didn't get hit too badly, but the warnings made us pretty wary about going out on Sunday evening.

We watched this guy try to waterski for about 5 minutes and he never did stand up...still not a bad way to spend the day

A lovely bridge in West End

We probably wouldn't stick around every long weekend, but it was really nice not to worry about fighting traffic or rushing home late Monday to get to work on Tuesday.  The nicest part is that we are having a four day weekend in Sydney in just a couple of weeks, so we are getting away on our own terms!

Balmain

Balmain is a suburb on the west side of the Sydney CBD.  We explored the area when we were in Sydney for Christmas, but the suburb has been on our list of places to visit for a long time.  It is snuggled in a nice, quiet harbour.  To get there we took a ferry from Circular Quay but, perhaps because of the shape of the harbour, JB was convinced that we were on the north shore, not just west of the CBD.  There are so many inlets and small bays in the Sydney Harbour that it is very easy for people who aren't used to it to get VERY turned around!  Maybe we are just spoiled by having the mountains to the west for so many years that we just forgot how to gauge the direction!

Houses overlooking the harbour

Australia Post Office

High Street

One of many posh parts

We had a really lovely walk through the high street in Balmain, which was full of smart shops, cafes and tempting bakeries.  Just off the high street there are lots of cottages dating back to the founding of Balmain, which have been kept up in a very "English" fashion, giving the area a very genteel feel.  This area used to have a rough reputation, but it is now a very well looked after neighbourhood and is really quite charming. 

This area really showed us how little we know about Sydney and the surrounding suburbs.  We will definitely make more of an effort to explore the city.  Our next trip there is only 4 weeks away!