Quick Trip

We have just returned from an emergency trip to Canada.  We had a phone call early morning on March 19 and flew out two days later, returning on Friday March 30.  We certainly noticed the difficulty of the time difference and distance between Australia and Canada when we were in a hurry to get to Calgary.  It was a 29 hour trip door to door from Brisbane to Calgary, a longer trip than normal because we had a couple of long layovers once we go to the US.  We were lucky to get seats on the same flights however, so we really can't complain.  On the way back we moved a couple of flights and spent one night and a day in San Franciso, rather than having a 9 hour layover.  It was a much better trip back.
This was our first trip time back in Calgary since moving to Australia.  We were assured by everyone that they were having the nicest winter in years, and what did we get?  Six days of snow and freezing weather, and not a hint of blue sky the entire time!   It was good to have the comfort of familiarity at such a tough time and it was nice to see that the Bow Building is now done, although we missed the opening of the Peace Bridge.  We'll check it out on our next trip back.

Finish Bow Building (and grey sky) in Calgary

Our stop in San Francisco was our fourth visit to the city.  We always like San Franciso and this trip reinforced that, although we actually had a hobo throw rocks at us and another couple!   We have never seen anything like that on our previous trips and hopefully we never see it again.

Coit Tower (and lightly less grey sky) in San Francisco

Tomorrow is back to work and normal routine.  JB's radio interview with the CBC aired while we were in Calgary, so she basked in the short-lived celebrity status (not even 15 minutes of fame for her!) for as long as possible.

The Manly Harbour (with a pretty blue sky) east of Brisbane

History Lesson

One of Australia's more controversial figures from the past is Ned Kelly.  He is considered to be either a folk hero or a cold-blooded killer, depending on your interpretation.  Regardless of one's feelings about Ned Kelly's activities he is an enduring image in Australia today, with numerous portraits and portrayals of him in his home-made armour.

Sidney Nolan Painting of Ned Kelly, Melbourne NGV

Ned Kelly was arrested on several occasions for a variety of crimes and was associated with gangs and bush rangers who committed robberies in Victoria.  His real problems with the law began in 1878, at the age of 23, when he assaulted a police officer who had come out to the Kelly farm to question Ned.  This same police officer was also there to woo Ned's sister Kate, who was only 13 or 14 years old at the time.  It is unclear about what happened between Ned, the police officer, Kate and Ned's mother Ellen, but the police officer was wounded by either an ax or a gun, or both, and Ned Kelly was on the run from the law for the rest of his short life.  He formed a gang with his brother and two friends, all of whom were killed in 1880.

In his final shoot out with police the members of the Kelly gang wore armour to protect their bodies.   We had thought the armour was no more than a couple of glorified metal buckets, but it was actually real armour.  It was strong enough to repel bullets but it only covered the men's heads and torsos, leaving their legs completely exposed.  The shots that brought down Ned Kelly were to his legs.  His armour was dented but hadn't been shot through.

Ned Kelly's armour, Melbourne State Library

After his capture Ned Kelly was quickly tried, found guilty and hung for his crimes.  His dramatic final shoot out with police and the ingenuity of the armour has over shadowed the crimes that he committed and he is remembered as someone who fought for the poor.  During one of his bank robberies, Ned burned the bank books so that any records of loans and mortgages were erased, and those people with the mortgages were then debt free.

Our excitement this week (not quite as dramatic as a shoot out in homemade armour) came about because Santos, where we both work, is going to be in Calgary on a recruitment drive in June and have started to advertise in the Calgary Herald.  Santos was contacted by CBC radio in Calgary and JB recorded an interview with them about her experience as a Canadian moving to Australia.  It was a short interview and focused on how transferable skill sets are between the Calgary industry and the industry in Brisbane.  We'll post a link once it airs.

Melbourne (Part 3)

St. Kilda is a suburb south of the Melbourne city centre.  St Kilda is well known now as a hot bed for restaurants and, like much of Melbourne, is crazy about sports.  We did a self-guided tour from one of our guidebooks and walked from the suburb edge all the way to the ocean front and boardwalk, which took about an hour. 

Melbourne CBD skyline from St. Kilda

St. Kilda has a great feel in the area around the waterfront (the only area we really explored) and there is definitely a look of a beach resort town from another era.  Most of the part that we were in was built between 1880 and 1920 and we found it quite charming.  Melbourne is given credt for revolutionizing the way that Australian drink coffee and JB had the best cappuccino in St. Kilda.  Here in Australia they drink espresso based coffees, just like in Europe.  Those looking for drip coffee find much woe instead.  (Why would anyone pick drip over espresso?!)  

Sidewalk Marker

To the south east of Melbourne, on Phillip Island, there is a huge colony of Fairy Penguins, a small, blue penguin that lives in Australia and New Zealand.  It is a very popular destination for tourists, who pay to be driven out in the evening and spend a couple of hours watching the penguins wander in and get into their little rock caves.  It was highly recommended, and sounds quite cute, but we didn't think that it would suit us as an outing, so we thought we would miss out on seeing the little guys. 

St. Kilda Pavillion

We walked out to the St. Kilda Pavillion at the end of the boardwalk and noticed that there was a little path that lead to a rough seawall.  Once we got there we noticed signs up that we were not to disturb the fairy penguins or the water rats (as if we would go near anything called a "water rat"!).  We could hear little peeping and chirping noises coming from under the boulders and then a lady called us over to see what was making the noise.  It was a cute little fairy penguin!  We don't know why he was there during the day but we very very glad to see him, and now we can understand why people stay up all night to watch these little blue birds wander home from the sea.

Fairy Penguin

Melbourne - Part 2

During our week in Melbourne we decided that we wanted to visit some of the wine country.  Rather than drive ourselves or get on a big coach tour, we bucked up for a private vehicle to take us to the Mornington Peninsula.  This was definitely the best choice for us and we had a fantastic day.  The major wine region near Melbourne is the Yarra Valley, to the northwest of the city.  We chose to go to the Mornington Peninsula, which is about 90 minutes south of Melbourne.

One thing that made us choose the Mornington Peninsula over the Yarra Valley is that there are fewer big wineries and more boutique vintners.  We didn't see any big coaches, and only a few mini van tour groups.  We were also interested in sampling Pinot Noir, and the Mornington Peninsula is definitely the place in Victoria for that.

Vines covered in nets to keep away the pesky birds

The climate is somewhat "mediterranean" with warm sunny days and cooler nights, and cool humidity from the ocean breezes.  It is also somewhat hilly so, much like in the Napa Valley, there is a wide range of elevations.

View of the coast line from Franklin's Point

The area is really pretty, with the ocean to the south and all green hills.  It would have been easy to spend our entire week here, visiting wineries and relaxing on the beaches.  A one day trip from Melbourne was a great way to spend a day and we would happily do it again.  We visited four vineyards in one day: Yabby Lake, Stonier, T'Gallant and Main Ridge Estate.  They were all impressive and the people running the tasting rooms seem to have the best jobs in the world!  Although we were focussed on Pinots, we tried a number of Chardonnays and even a Shiraz or two.  By the end of the day we were tired and ready to relax...over another glass of wine, of course!

Melbourne (Part 1)

We have just returned from a one week trip to Melbourne, the first time either of us have been there.  We had really high expectations of Melbourne before going as everyone told us that we would really love the city with its great culture and dining, and its uniqueness from any other major Australian city.  Melbourne is Australia's second largest city with a population of about 4 million people.  It was the first capital city of Australia and is the capital of the state of Victoria.  It is the home of the annual Australian Open Tennis tournament, a Formula 1 car race, and numerous other sporting and cultural events.  To the north and south are world class wine regions (Yarra Valley and Morningside Peninsula), and to the west is the iconic Great Ocean Road.

Clock Tower at the Flinders Street Train Station

Our thoughts are Melbourne really does have a different, more "European" feel than the other Australian cities that we have visited.  It is a very walkable city and has the most amazing art gallery that we have seen outside of Europe (the National Gallery of Victoria, International).  The food scene is incredibly rich and diverse and there is a real appreciation for both atmosphere and service in restaurants.  It took us a couple of days to get ourselves sorted out while finding our way through all the laneways.  After a week, the one thing that we were sure of is that we were lucky if we even found 1% of the laneways and there was no way that we could cover off a sample of every major restaurant type in a week.  Chinatown in massive, as is the long Little Italy, Melbourne is home to the largest urban Greek population outside of Athens, and there are culinary representations for practically every other European, Asian, South American and North American restaurant you can think of (although no Canadian restaurants we found...these people are missing out on the magic that is Bison...maybe we'll give up our day jobs and move there to open a Canadian Bistro...or maybe not!)

St. Patrick's Cathedral and a very wide street

Melbourne has a very user-friendly grid system for the streets, and very wide streets with two lanes of traffic and two tram lines running down the middle of most major streets in the CBD.  We learned that the Melbourne city planners wanted to ensure that no citizen would be more than a 15 minute walk from a park (hence the many large and wonderful parks) and all streets should be wide enough for a carriage to execute a U turn without unhitching the horses.  This led to the very wide streets and, possibly, to a very quirky driving law.  When driving on a CBD street (or possibly any street) in order to make a turn across traffic, the driver pulls into the outside lane, waits for all of the traffic on the inside lane and oncoming traffic to clear, and then turns.  It is sort of like going around an invisible round-about, but more confusing.  Good thing we were only walking!

Random

Almost every time we go out for a walk or to any significant place, we take a camera.  We have literally hundreds of photos that we have taken over the last 18 months.  Some of them are scenic, some are historic and some are just plain weird.  We don't really have a story that stitches all of the strangest photos together, but they certainly warrant publication.

We really enjoy going to Sydney and everytime we go, we try to visit the Art Gallery of NSW.  It is full of classic paintings, art from indigenous people, art from the Orient and modern art.  No matter how much time we have we always go to the modern section.  We have seen some of the most disturbing art there.  Not grotesque, not shocking, just disturbing, as it seems to speak to our inner frightened children.

Hairy Child, cuddling a dolly that is actually a giant hand with a mouth in the middle

The Hairy Child fascinates both of us.  It is incredibly realistic and, in it's own unsettling way, quite sweet.  But it is a girl covered in hair, cuddling a doll that is a hand with a mouth in the middle.

This, however, isn't what keeps us up at night...it is the clown.  The clown of nightmares, with his big belly and hairy chest.  Everytime we see him we expect him to open his eyes and ask for a beer!

The Clown!

We only wish that we could have the self satisfaction of the Satyr in Sydney's Botanic Gardens.  Every once in a while, when everything goes right, we think of this guy and know how he feels.

Satyr

 
And finally, when we are done walking around, we look up.  And what do we see?  Blue sky?  Clouds?  Birds?  Nope.  Bats!  Hundreds of them in the trees, all day long, just thinking their bat-thoughts.  We were happier when we thought they slept in caves during the day.
 

Basts, hanging like fruit

Lazy Weekend

We are only a couple of weeks away from our trip to Melbourne and we are both feeling like the vacation needs to start RIGHT NOW.  It might be the weather, as it is either raining and hot, or dry and hot...both with high humidity.  Both situations make it very easy to stay inside or just sit in a cafe all day, so we have had to really push ourselves to get out and about on the weekend.

When we first moved here we took the City Cat (the public transit service that runs along the river) all the way down the line.  We passed the Portside area, where cruise ships dock, but have never gone back.  We decided to walk through the neighbourhoods that are close to Portside and see a new part of Brisbane.  The neighbourhoods were lovely but most impressive part of the day was seeing the ferry terminal.  The ships that dock here are enormous!  We have no idea how big the ship is, where it was going or from where it came, but there seemed to be literally a couple thousand people milling about.  If we ever need to catch an ocean liner, now we know where to go.

Passenger ferry docked at Portside

We also try to visit the weekend markets whenever we can.  These markets pop up all over the CBD and suburbs and they are incredibly popular.  It is pretty easy on a sunny Sunday to wander through the markets and browse the day away, and clearly there were quite a few people with the same thing in mind.

Sunday Market

The most interesting part of the weekend was a lucky educational moment that we had while cutting through the Science Centre (it's shady, air-conditioned and right on the way home...what more could we ask for?)  We learned that the gender of turtles is determined not when the egg is fertilized but by the temperature the egg is at while buried in the sand.  For eggs up to 28.6ºC, the turtles will be born males, for eggs in nests that are at temperatures over 33ºC, the turtles will be born female and for the temperature range in between, anything goes (maybe little turtles with alternative lifestyles).  There are upper and lower limits to the temperatures, of course.  It pays to take short cuts through museums!