Day 181- Sunday, June 24- Halfway to Home

Day 181- Sunday, June 24- Halfway to Home

Today happens to be, "I reckon", the halfway mark of our 1 year minus 2 days adventure down under. Although we don't feel as though it is downhill from here, we do feel a sense of urgency for the people we have not yet visited and places we have not yet seen.
Today, Colleen and I went to the city and explored various art galleries around the National Gallery of Victoria. The Ian Potter Centre has a permanent as well as special exhibit of aboriginal art. We spent a few hours exploring the artworks and we were able to take pictures (without a flash of course) and get a record of our visit.

Click here for our Aboriginal Art Photo Page

In a moment of silliness, we went next door to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and attended the last day of their animation festival. Can you guess what was on? If you grew up in the 60's watching Commander Tom on WKBW from Buffalo, New York, then you would remember the awful animation but clever scripts in "Roger Ramjet!" Watching 15 episodes in a row, each time with the theme song and closing credits playing over and over, each episode the villain "Noodles Romanoff" getting whacked, we determined that the animation was awful and the scripts were clever, but we could not have understood them at all way back then!


To top off our less than serious day, we walked across the street to St. Paul's Cathedral and attended Choral Evensong. How peaceful it was.

Day 178- June 21-We're back!

Day 178- Thursday, June 21- The Blog Returns

After 2 months back and forth with the folks at Apple, we have had to give up our Oz Blog on dot Mac and start over using Blogger. This was a huge disappointment as we had come to love the quick and simple way we could post our photos and stories using dot Mac. In the end, the Apple support people could not diagnose and repair the iWeb problem and we have chosen to start over this way.
The content and photos etc. will not be as rich as before, but we will try to arrange photo pages for you to see at some point.
We will work backwards in time so you ca read the highlights of our last 2 months adventures so check back often.

Enjoy.

Day 178- June 21- Synchronicity

Photo- An Synchronicity Moment in the Grampians

Have you ever heard of synchronicity?
It is a number of coinciding events or circumstances that are just too coincidental...Let me explain.

We reach our half way mark in Australia tomorrow, Saturday. It just happens to be the shortest day of the Austral winter today. Yesterday, we said goodbye to Mary Ellen, Colleen's sister and Sean, who returned to visit us for a week before heading back to Sydney and home to Canada. They left home last August, travelled around Australia and New Zealand, ending their time with an 18 day tour of the outback. Did we mention that we, concidentally, met them in the Grampian Mountains, 3 hours west of Melbourne a few weeks ago? It was sad to see them go, as we know that we will not be seeing family for another 6 months. We had so much fun while they were here and Matheson and Kevin enjoyed having "Aunt Moppers and Uncle Sean" to tease.

In just over a week we begin our next big adventure...north to the tropics. We arrive in Cairns on July 2nd, and spend time at Palm Cove, the Daintree and back to cairns for a few nights.

Day 173- June 16- Stanley Cup Party

We invited all the exchange teachers from around Melbourne to our house for a Stanley Cup Party. Even though the season has been over for a week, we decided to host a pot luck dinner and street hockey get together.
Most of the Canadian exchange teachers and their families attended, along with a few others from the UK and USA. Mary Ellen and Sean were here too, and they were extremely helpful with getting set up and cleaned up afterwards.
Cathy and Cam, from Toronto (coincidentally, Cam went to school with my friend Tom Lewis at Jarvis C.I. in Toronto!), brought decorations. Their son Josh, made a Stanley Cup which was presented to the winning street hockey team. In case you were wondering, the buds beat the Habs in overtime, 5-4. Kathy and John, from Elora, brought a Sittler #27 jersey. Their boys shared the wearing of it. John and Lori, and their daughters, from Tilsonburg, also wore Canada themed shirts, as did Joe and Leslie and children, from Woodstock. Joe was a significant contributor to the Leaf's win. Susan and her children Josie and Callum, from Barrhead, Alberta came too. Blair, Susan's husband was unable to attend, but is a die hard Habs fan! Heather and Wayne, from Winnipeg, along with teens Meagan and Jordan were the first to arrive and helped get the party started with Australian wine and Labatt's Blue! June and grandaughter Stef, from Mississauga came later, as did Kirsty, a Scot living in the Netherlands and Julie, from Washington state. It was a great party!
We played street hockey for a few hours and then retired to the dining room for a wonderful smorgasbord of delights that people contributed. Finally, we had the cup presentation and we watched the Stanley Cup Final highlight reel, that Matheson made from video off the Internet.
Many of the party goers who had come in from out of town had arranged to stay over at each others' places so that they could run in the "Run to the G" cancer fundraiser the next morning.

See the slideshow of our Party photos by clicking here!

Where will the party be next June?

Day 166- June 9- The Grampians "Queen's Birthday" Weekend

Day 166- Saturday, June 9- The Grampians

A group of exchange teachers sent an email around suggesting a rendezvous in the Grampians, a mountain range 3 hours west of Melbourne past the city of Ballarat. Most of us booked into the Brambuck Backpackers Hostel, which, as you shall see, is significant later on.
Late Friday, the night before we left, we received an email from Mary Ellen, Colleen's sister, and Sean, her partner, saying that they would be returning to Melbourne on Tuesday after an 18 day adventure tour of the centre of Australia. It occurred to me immediately that they would probably be passing through the Grampians over the next few days, so I emailed back telling them to look out for us.
We headed off early Saturday morning, as the long weekend traffic had discouraged us from attempting a Friday night departure. Once past Ballarat, the drizzle changed to sunny skies and pleasant temperatures. We arrived at the hostel just after noon and checked in, and immediately met Blair and Susan, from Alberta. We all headed off to the Balconies walking track together. The scenery was breathtaking, the crowds on the trail heavy.
We also walked to Mackenzie Falls, which actually had water flowing and was quite spectacular. The Grampians National Park was mostly decimated by a bush fire in early 2006 and the regeneration that has occurred since then was astounding.
We met up with all the other exchange teachers and families in Halls Gap, at a lovely restaurant, and enjoyed celebrating June Potts 65th birthday! June is from Mississauga, Ontario and brought her grandaughter, Stef, on this her second exchange (Stef had secretly spread the word of the birthday using the Exchange Teacher's website I set up).
Sunday morning, Colleen and I walked to town along the trails back of main street. The village was hosting a craft fair and we bought egg and bacon on buns from the Primary School. One of the ironies of being in this country for almost 6 months is that we had not ever seen a LIVE wild kangaroo! We saw pademelons and wallabies (small cousins) in Tasmania, but none of the larger varieties. In Hall's Gap, kangaroos are prolific and we saw them everywhere! Huge ones!
Later, we walked the Pinnacle track, a challenging climb to the edge of the mountain top overlooking Hall's Gap. The view was worth every hard step along the two and a half hour climb. The boys explored every cave and crevice on the way up, and on the descent.

We returned to the Hostel where we had all planned to meet for supper. Sarah and Leon Baker (UK), who were staying in a motel in town joined the Michaud family (Alberta), Winser family (Manitoba), Jeannie Whitehead (UK) and ourselves for a BBQ at the hostel. We had been told a backpacker tour was going to be arriving by bus, and wondered if this was going to be Mary Ellen and Sean's group. Colleen confirmed with the staff that the group were on a 3 day tour from Melbourne and sadly, we concluded that we would not meet up with them. We spoke with the driver as he was preparing the dinner so we could work out which group would use the dining area first. He said he had to pick up a couple in town who had "upgraded" and would be back in a few minutes and then have his group finish dinner, then we could have the area to ourselves.
Our rowdy group was sitting in the common room enjoying snacks when the bus driver returned, this time with a huge bald guy and a woman following him. Yes, it was none other Mary Ellen and Sean! After introductions, we spent the evening catching up, and towards 11 pm, Colleen drove Mary Ellen and Sean, along with Leon and Sarah, back to their respective hotels in town.

Monday's holiday was in celebration of the Queen's Birthday. We headed back to the city early to avoid the traffic.
It was a great weekend, and the weather was perfect for walking, sunny with light breezes and +12-15 °C temperatures. The Grampians are worth a return trip!


Click here for the Grampians Slideshow

Day 159- June 2- AFL at the "G"

Day 159-Saturday, June 2- AFL at the "G"

We went to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (simply known as the "G") to see our very first Australian Rules Football game! It was a lot of action, a lot of rules we did not understand and a lot of fun. The ITA (International Teacher's Association) arranged for the tickets but we arrived late. So we wandered around the outside looking for the group, then convinced a ticket supervisor that our group had become split up and went in looking for them. The "G" seats over 70,000, so we did not find them. We sat and watched the game and met up with the group later at a restaurant in Chinatown!