Australia Day

We have had a very rainy couple of weeks.  After last year's torrential downpours that seemed to happen everyday, all day, for three months, we were starting to think that we would get a dry summer.  Not to be!  We have had slightly more rain this January than we did last year, with at least 168mm on Wednesday.  This kind of weather makes it hard to plan any outdoor activities.

Rainfall in Brisbane, 25 - 29 Jan 2012

It would have been nice to be able to plan something, because on Thursday January 26 we celebrated Australia Day.  Australia Day marks both the anniversary of the signing of the constitution that created the nation of Australia, it also marks the date of the arrival of the "First Fleet", which are the first ships that left England with the intention of settling Australia. 

As most people know, the first fleets into Australia for settlement were full of convicts.  It is even promoted by the ancestry.com.au website, which is giving Australians free access this weekend in order that everyone can find the convict in his or her past.  Don't be fooled by the "convict" part, these were not major criminals.  The really bad guys, murderers, rapists and anyone involved with treason, were put to death.  Most criminals were petty, one-time theives, generally guilty of stealing cloth or food (these were very valuable in the 1700s, so the crimes were still considered serious...it's not like there were factories everywhere churning out denim or loaves of bread!) 

There are some very interesting points about the convicts on the First Fleet.  The sentence was 7 years, but there were no "reveserse transport" ships.  The convicts would need to find their own way back to England!  Many of the convicts had already served their sentences by the time the ships actually left England, but they were stuck on the ships and had no way to get off.  The governor would need to get a letter of "sentence served" from England before the prisoner could be released and, with the mail service being what it was then, the convict was probably better off not getting his (or her) hope up about leaving Australia anytime soon!

But  224 years later here we were, looking for something to do on a rainy Australia Day.  We looked at outdoor activities and decided to take a pass, but didn't want to be stuck indoors all day either.  We ended up doing the obvious thing by going to Piglet Races at the local pub.  These little piggies raced all day, raising money for charity and for the pub, since the heats take place about 1 hour apart (the little piggies need their rest.)  We watched one race, had a drink and left, but we think there were quite a few people calling in a sickie the next day...one of the great Australian traditions!

Tuckered piglets

Australia Day piggies

Maritime Museum

We try to see things that are a little off most people's radars and one of the things we like to do is "discover" museums.  It is easy to go to the big galleries and art museums, but we like trying to find the different things.  Recently we went to the Brisbane Museum, which is a very small museum with two levels, each one no more than about 25m2 (~ 230ft2).  One level was paintings of Brisbane from the past, with the upper level consisting of around 30 small "curiosity" exhibits, ranging from footage of the Russian ballerina Ana Pavlova dancing "The Dying Swan" in Brisbane in the early 1900s, to a taxidermied dog that was used in a court case.

The other great, but quiet museum that we have recently been to is the Maritime Museum.  This comes to mind because Jessica Watson, the girl who sailed solo and unsupported around the world a couple of years ago, has just lost her record to the young Dutch sailor Laura Dekker.  Regardless of the age of these girls, and it is overwhelming to think of a 16 year old handling a yacht on the open ocean by herself considering that most 16 year olds are just learning ot drive cars, it is a huge acheivement for anyone of any age.  The boats used in these solo trips are really amazing.  They are designed so that the sailor can close all the hatches in rough weather and take refuge inside the boat, which stays completely sealed and can roll over in the seas.  The mast might be lost, but the sailor inside stays safe (many apologies for using the wrong terms for boat and sailing in general!)

The tiny yacht sailed by Jessica Watson for 210 days on her circumnavigation

As impressive as the story is of the two young girls sailing around the world in their tiny yachts, we were much more impressed by a story about a Canadian sailor who travelled from Nova Scotia to Australia in a 9 foot boat.  That's right, 9 feet long!  This is a tiny, tiny boat.  We have no real idea about the person who sailed it, as the details on the plaque were a little vague.  It seems that the ship, Hope II, was held up by customs and the owner couldn't raise the funds to get it out of hock.  (We wonder if he was trying to make it a round trip in the worl's smallest boat?)  Whatever happened, the ship was eventually donated to the Museum and is now on display. 

Happy II...yes, someone sailed this across the Oceans!



Anniversary

This week marked the one year anniversary since the massive floods that devastated Southeast Queensland.  The initial clean-up happened very quickly and, for home owners with insurance, the recovery has gone moderately well.  There is a still an issue for those who had "flood insurance" but had water damage caused by sewers backing up or by run-off.  Like anywhere, the type of water that causes the damage is extremely important in the claim.

One story that we have been following is that of The Drift, a restaurant that was built on a dock that floated on the Brisbane River.  The story that we have heard is that the owners of the restaurant were inside the building, trying to save as much as possible from being swept away by the river.  The authorities ordered the owners to open the windows and doors of the restaurant, get out, and let the water flow through.  This makes sense because if the restaurant broke loose from the moorings it would have been a huge missle that would have destroyed major bridges.  The owners, however, believe they had a plan in place to save the restaurant from being swept away.  Now, one year later, there is an outstanding insurance claim, thousands of dollars in outstanding debt to suppliers and a restaurant owner who is now getting death threats.  There is no easy answer to what should have been done but it is really sad to see the state of the restaurant now, covered in graffiti and looking like a dump.

The Drift, January 2011

The Drift, January 2012

This summer has been extremely dry so far, but we are starting to see the rainy season now.  Last week we hit 37C and today we had a high of 22C and it rained 44mm.  How can anyone get used to those kinds of swings in the weather!

Open

Kim Clijsters serving

Daniela Hantuchova

This is the second year that we have attended the Brisbane Open Tennis Tournament, one of the warm-up tournaments before the Australian Open.  Back in October they started announcing the line-up.  One the ladies' side one of the first players to commit was Sam Stosur, then Maria Sharapova.  As soon as those two committed, we bought tickets for the Friday night semi-finals.  Then Kim Clijsters committed, followed by Francesca Schiavone, Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic and Serena Williams!  We were so certain that we would see a re-match of the US Open Final between Stosur and Williams.  Just before the tourney began Sharapova had to cancel due to injury, then in the second round Stosur lost and Williams had a very bad ankle sprain.  Jankovic and Ivanovic were both beat.  The semis were looking like they would be walk-overs for both Clijsters and Schiavone. 

Kaia Kanepi serving

Francesa Schiavone

What we ended up seeing were two incredibly exciting matches!  The Clijsters - Daniela Hantuchova match went to a tie-break in the first set before Clijsters retired and we were lucky enough to see a big-hitting Estonian, Kaia Kanepi, beat Schiavone in straight sets.  The matches were so much more entertaining than we expected.  It's too bad that we didn't get to see the Williams-Stosur match that we were after, but we are in no way disappointed with the matches that we watched.

These girls hit the ball HARD, especially Kanepi.  It is hard to get a sense on TV of just how hard and fast they are playing.  The fastest serve we saw was about 185km/h from Kanepi.  The ball moves so fast it is hard to even follow it as a spectator.  Even more amazing is how often a serve that fast gets returned!

The crowd was really fun.  We have never seen so many painted faces at a tennis match...all of them painted as the Estonian flag.  The Estonian fans were just so infectious and happy that the crowd ended up being completely behind Kanepi.  She ended up winning the entire tournament the next day and she was so happy we think she hugged every one of those Estonians in the stands!

This was our first week back at work after a very relaxing ten day break.  Like most people, we come back from one vacation only to start thinking about the next one.  We are now booked for a week in Melbourne in February!

Happy 2012!

We can't believe how quickly 2011 went by.  It was our first calendar year in Australia, so we may have lost a little bit of time in trying to adjust to a new way of life.  Luckily for us our new life is based very close to Sydney, and that is where we went on Boxing Day.

This was our third trip to Sydney and was our best trip so far.  We try to do new things and see new areas on every trip, so this time we went to a Picasso exhibit at the NSW Art Gallery (the pieces were on loan from the Picasso Museum in Paris), visited new suburbs, went to Bondi Beach, saw the Botanic Gardens and walked across the Harbour Bridge to the Kirribilli side of the harbour and saw Luna Park.  It was a hectic four days!

Bondi Beach

We went on a beautiful coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Clovelly Beach, about 4 kilometres along the coast line.  We started at Bondi Beach, a well known and very popular beach on the south east (more or less...the harbour has lots of inlets) side of Sydney, about 20 minutes by train and bus from the city centre.  It is a good surfing beach and we happened to be there the day after the beaches were reopened after being closed due to high waves and winds that were the tail end of a tropical storm.  We can't imagine how big the waves would have been the day before when the beach was closed because neither one of us would have considered sticking a toe in the water with the kind of wave action we saw.  The waves were easily more than a metre high and were crashing in on the beach very fast, at a rate of about 1 every 5 seconds.  There were also waves that were more than 2 metres high and the surfers were all over them.  There are a number of areas were there are proper swimming pools along the beach and people would stand on the pool edge to try to stand up when the big waves washed over the sides.  It was quite hilarious to watch all the people get thrown into the pool, then scramble back out to take on the next one.

Waves washing over pool

From Bondi we passed the tiny Tamarama Beach, only about 250m long and then Bronte Beach, where life saving got started back in 1903.  From there we passed through a cemetary (Waverly, probably the most scenic cemetary in the world) then reached Clovelly Beach.  It was one of the most beautiful coastal walks we have ever been on (the debate still rages about whether we liked it better than Cap-de-Ferrat in France) and we will definitely do this walk again.

Waverly Cemetary (upper right hand side of picture)

We finally made it to the Botanic Gardens this trip, after having rainy weather on the designated day on our previous trips.  The gardens are beautiful and full of indigenous and imported plants.  It is a huge park with formally laid out gardens and natural looking wooded areas, gigantic lawns that were once used for bowling and cricket, and benches everywhere to take in the views.

View from the Botanic Gardens

Fantastic entrace to Luna Park

On our final day we decided to walk across the Harbour Bridge.  We didn't want to book a formal tour and go on the Bridge Climb (it seemed too hot for the boiler suits that everyone on the tour has to wear) so we walked across the bridge to the Kirribilli side and checked out Luna Park.  Luna Park was amazing!  It is free to enter and is a fairly small area but is absolutely packed with rides and carnival games.  It is really charming and has a feel of a kid's fantasy world, with clowns, characters in costumes and lots of noise.   We were completely impressed by it and ended up poking around in the park for more than half an hour.

Whimsical (and maybe a little unsettling) carnival gam

The trip to Sydney was a great way to end the year.  We were back in Brisbane for a dinner on New Year's Eve and have a day off before going back to work.  2011 started out on a low (floods!) but certianly ended on a high.  Happy New Year!