Two Years

The beautiful Brisbane River

Not as scary as they used to be

On Friday, 24 August, we celebrated our two year anniversary of moving to Australia.  It is amazing when we look back at what we have experienced since moving here: an entire new way of life, moving from the arctic (practically!) to the subtropics, experiencing a massive flood event, seeing the Great Barrier Reef, visiting Melbourne and Sydney and, of course, living in an entirely new city!  We really have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone who makes the move to a new country...no matter how prepared you are, there are alway surprises.

Sunshine Beach a Noosa, a favourite place

The Daintree River in far north Queensland

The thing that we appreciate the most is being able to travel around Australia.  We are planning a trip to Broome and Darwin in three weeks, which is a big trip even though we aren't leaving the country, but the little trips that we have taken have been so wonderful.  We absoulutely LOVE Sydney and take as many trips there as we possibly can each year.  We love Melbourne for being a little taste of Aussie/Europe and, of course, we are very fortunate to live in beautiful Brisbane.  The subtropics certainly have their own flavour, and Brisbane does not disappoint.  The best thing about Brisbane is the attitude of the citizens.  No matter what happens, there is a real sense of "mateship" here.

Sunset in Port Douglas

Below the lighthouse in Byron Bay, NSW

 The time here has flown past and in some ways it still feels like we just got here.  Everything is still so new and we are constantly finding new things that are less than half an hour walk from our house.  We love learning Aussie sayings and have developed a true appreciation for what it must have taken to settle a country with such hostile weather (just the other day we heard on the news that the winter we have just had, with a wet cool beginning and a dry end, is prime "snake weather"!...how is that possible?).  On the other hand, we now feel like we truly belong here and we know when and how to queue for things, and when to just start making demands.  We love the food and wine appreciation here and the spirit that everything is worth celebrating.  We weren't sure what to expect when we got here, but we certainly have no regrets.  We don't know if we will stay here forever, but right now it is exactly where we want to be.  We will always be Canadians at heart, but it's nice to think that we have a little Aussie in our souls now.

Ekka - 2

As we mentioned before, the Ekka is really about showing the country way of life.  There are vegetable and fruit displays, Girl Guides and Boy Scout booths, and all kinds of different associations, such as the Country Women's Association and Junior Farmers groups that display different animals (like the 4H clubs in Canada).

Little Lamb

One big wooly sheep...the rest of them know what he has coming!

Big goat

They really make a huge effort to show city kids a little bit of farming life and they really do a good job of showing animals.  There are dog and cat displays and we watched a cat judge from the US talk about what she looks for in grading certain types of cat, then watched a dog show that was a parade for a certain breed.  The cat display was quite small but we saw 10s of different breeds of dogs, including a booth for retired greyhounds that was very well attended.  If those dogs were ignored while they were working, they certainly can't complain of that now.  There were line-ups more than 10 deep just to pet the dogs!

Little baby goat

The part that we liked was walking through and seeing the sheep and goats.  The sheep were being shown in a couple of ways, including as a part of shearing demonstrations.  We wondered what kind of discussions were going on between the sheep...all in the pen had been shorn and only one sheep, very nervous looking, still had the long wool.  He knew his days of being wooly were numbered!

The part that we liked best was walking through the goat pens and seeing all the different types of goats.  They had goats with long ears that hung down, perky eared goats, big goats little goats and just about every goat in between.  Who knew goats had so much going on?

Ekka

Every year in late winter in Australia, there is an agricultural exhibition in Brisbane, commonly known as "Ekka".  Ekka has been around since the 1870s and is a combination of agricultural, cookery, arts, crafts and a midway.  It is a lot like the Stampede in Calgary, but without the rodeo.

This is the first time that we have gone to the Ekka.  It is held at the RNA (Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland...you can see why they just call it RNA) showgrounds, the same place that it has been held since the first Ekka in 1876.  It has a permanent stables for all the livestock, plenty of room for rides and sideshows, a couple of good size pavillions for the arts & crafts and food fairs, and a cricket pitch that is used for showing livestock. 

Midway with rides

We lucked out with our first visit to the showgrounds, as we had beautiful weather and small crowds.  Every pavillion was full but we were still able to walk around and see all the displays.  We saw lots of handy-crafts and food displays, but our favourites were the livestock barns.  We saw lots of farm animals and the smells in the barns certainly brought back memories for JB of visiting her grandparents' farm in central Alberta when she was a little girl!

We certainly didn't understand everything that we saw, even though we have now been living here for almost two years.  Once again we saw a game with horrifying clown faces and there seemed to be a show that featured a man in long underwear and what appeared to be a walking water tower...or potentially some sort of animated barrel with spigot...we didn't ask.

Horrifying clowns!

Not a clue about this one

Ekka is pretty much what we expected: it is a county fair that blends city and country and seems to make everyone happy.  We will all have Wednesday off so that we can visit the fairgrounds if we wish, and the city gets a nice economical boost from all the tourism.  It gave us a nice glimpse of a different way of life (country) and we got see some animals.  What more could we want?

Adelaide

We just got back from a few days in Adelaide.  We were there for a three day course through work, and had part of the weekend to ourselves and to explore the city.

River valley near the Conference Centre

Adelaide is very different from the other Australian cities that we have visited.  The CBD is very small (1 square mile) and almost exclusively businesses.  There are very few residences and residents in the CBD, so it was incredibly quiet on the weekend (except for the 12,000 Anime and Video Game fans at the Conference Centre!)  It has a very pretty CBD, bordered on one side by the river and surrounded by hills. 

Adelaide Hills at sunset

Although we realize that we are a couple of years out of Canada and so have lost our appreciation for the cold by living in sub-tropical Brisbane, we still found Adelaide to be almost unbearably cold.  We spent about 90 minutes on Sunday, wandering the city, desparately searching for a place for lunch.  First we had a couple of things in mind: a cozy pub or bistro, then, as the realization sunk in that very few places were open, we decided we would go anywhere that wasn't gross...then finally lowered our standards to anywhere that was open.  We finally settled into a pub that was quite nice, but it took us almost all afternoon to find.  We have been assured that the suburbs are alive and vibrant all weekend but it was too cold to take the chance on a long walk to nothing.

Statue of Charles Sturt...perhaps looking for some warmer weather

It was a good way to spend the weekend but the next time we go we will definitely try to hit the Barossa or some other wine area.  The food and restaurants in Adelaide are fantastic and eating out was definitely the highlight. 

Horatio the Piggy

As much as we enjoyed Adelaide it was so nice to come home and walk out of the airport without needing a jacket.  Brisbane might have floods and 100% humidity with 35ºC in the summer, but you really can't beat the winter here!

Opera House

On our trip to Sydney a few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to see a show at the Opera House.  It was an afternoon concert by the Sydney Philharmonic, and it was a fantastic chance to see the Opera House from the inside, and to get a little bit of culture in our lives. 

Mini-concert

It was really fun to see a show in the afternoon.  We felt like young retirees!  There were a number of other, young(ish) tourists like us, but the theatre was full of seniors who were having a great time!  The wine was flowing and lots of people were really dressed up.  It was great at the intermission to look out over Sydney Harbour and then look around the mezzanine see everyone enjoying themselves.  We even saw a future musician practicing on the steps!

Inside the Opera House

The theatre we were in was nice, but it was more impressive just to be there than by anything in the theatre.  It was really nice and the acousitcs were great, but once the lights go down and the musician start, a person could be anywhere.  Still, we really felt the energy from the artists and from the crowd, that we were in a world class place.

Inside the theatre...apparently photos aren't allowed.  Oops.

We have seen a number of shows here in Brisbane.  We are constantly going to live jazz sesions at the Powerhouse, Era Bistro and, this past Saturday, at the Jazz Club.  We have been to numerous musicals at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) and we recently saw The Mikado at a smaller stage within Griffith University.  For all those great events and the fantastic acoustics and setting of each theatre, there is just something really special about seeing a show at the Opera House.  We will definitely try it again.

French Festival

Brisbane is a great city for festivals.  It seems like there is something going on almost every weekend and we try to get out and sample whatever is happening, as often as possible.  This weekend, nicely coinciding with Bastille Day, was the French Festival.  It advertised French music, cuisine and a celebration of French culture.  We really enjoyed the Greek Festival in May and decided that we needed to give this one a try, too.  It turns out that we aren't really "festival people".

It had rained almost all day on Thursday and Friday, so the grounds at the festival site were soaking wet and mucky.  No one could easily walk or stand on the grass, so almost everyone was stuck on the concrete area around the sales tents.  The few tables on the grass were taken and we think people had to get there at 10 am to secure a seat.  We stopped for a glass of champagne, walked the food tent lines and decided to cut our losses and go to a real restaurant.  All was not lost for our Bastille Day celebration however, we did go to a French cafe and follow it up with some late afternoon jazz.

French Festival

Food line-up at French Festival

The wine tent...we liked it here

We're not done with festivals but we really need to look a bit harder at where the festivities are and what else is going on that weekend.  If it was a sunny day and there were lots of other things going on, this would have been okay but, with the crowds the way they were, we just couldn't enjoy it.  We can't win them all!

Winter Mornings

There is something just so refreshing about needing to wear a jacket to walk in to work in the morning.  We have had the coldest weather in Brisbane in four years and we are really feeling like it is winter.  It takes us about 10 mintues to walk to the pathway along the river.  The first 5 or so minutes after we leave our house are all in the shade and we walk quickly until we warm up.  By the time we get to the pathway we are nice and warm and the first stretch is all in the sun.  In the summer this is way too hot for us but now that it is only around 10ºC when we are walking, the sun is very welcome.

Beautiful morning on the Brisbane River

The William Jolly Bridge and City Cats

We find that most restaurants have heaters outside but very few have any kind of heater on the inside, so it is actually warmer to eat outside, under the heater, than it is to eat inside.  If we ate indoors we would need our jackets and toques, but outside we are fine in our shirts if we are right under the heaters.  We have used this colder weather as a good learning experience in the Aussie language.  After gales of laughter about what we were saying, we found out the Aussies call toques "beanies".  Now that is funny!