One year in Australia!

Time flies- it's such a cliché, but it's true. One year ago today, we made landfall in Australia.

What a year!


Niall waves an Aussie flag from the deck of M/V Further on Australia Day- January 2010

Aussie snapshots: beach culture

A few weeks ago, we had use of a friend's car (thank you Jennifer!) while they were on vacation in Hawaii. It was really fun to stretch our wings beyond our usual public-tranportation circumpherence and see a few new corners of Sydney.

Here's local phenomenon. It seems like every beach has it's own Surf Life Saving Club. Also known as men in budgie smugglers (that's Aussie for Speedo), charging into the surf, for entertainment and perhaps sometimes even for lifesaving.

Bert's reign over the marina

When I mentioned recently that our neighbor cat, Bert, considers the marina his domain- I wasn't kidding. We had a hysterical event recently that illustrates it perfectly.

Witness Bert, hanging out in one of his favorite places: the middle of the dock.



See that little orange fluff waaayyyyy down towards the other end of the dock? That's Whistler, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (yep that's a breed) that belongs to marina neighbors.

Note that Bert is not even bothering to look at him. Such a cat.

He's scared of Bert. He will NOT pass him on the dock. He did get closer, but they remained in a standoff here for about five minutes.



Eventually, Whistler turned around and went back to his boat... Bert's dominance unquestioned.

Halloween in Sydney

2008 - Malibu, California
2009 - Santa Rosalia , Mexico
2010 - Noumea, New Caledonia

...and now, 2011: Sydney, Australia.

It feels a little odd to be in warm and sunny weather for Halloween

Four years, four different countries for our family on Halloween. Every place we've been does it a little differently. Here in Australia, the holiday is just catching on (retailers finding another way to sell stuff I'm sure). From a trick-or-treaters point of view: the trick, it turns out, is to find out which houses are actually giving out candy! They are in the vast minority.

There's a kind of secret handshake: homes that are "in" on the Halloween gig put a balloon outside.


Creepy accessories a bonus.

Most participants go in for the direct distribution model.


The tell-tale balloon


Our neighbor, Elise (next to the door in her fabulous black velvet cape) scoped out a good street near the primary school that had a higher concentration of in-the-know homes. Steve, the marina caretaker and much loved friend of the children came along too- getting the hang of the American family and their crazy holiday. He brought a bag of Halloween goodies to give to the other children we passed: little skeletons, yoyos, and treats.

But a surprising number just put out the "honor bowl."


Just one!

It wasn't easy to find a proper Halloween pumpkin. There is a LOT of pumpkin consumed in Australia, but they're not the big orange jack-o-lanterns of the holiday- they are usually green, or gray, and very tasty. I saw only one meager display of carving pumpkins for sale in last week of October. Perhaps not surprising then that there were some clever twists on the tradition.


ghoulish apples


scary squash

Our creepy characters had a ball putting their costumes together. There was a near disaster. Mairen had been planning to be a witch (again), and bought a proper hat to go with the dress she made for our Mexican Halloween. Minutes before we were to depart on our trick-or-treating adventure, a gust of wind lifted it off her head and out into the bay. Pursuit by boat hook, and dinghy, ensued but her hat sank below the murky surface before it could be retrieved.

She took it completely in stride: accessorized now with a cape and vampire teeth, she was a hybrid Witch-Pire. Creepy!



We also had a zombie: Niall practiced just the right jaw-dragging expression. Our neighbor Elise found the fabulous fake zombie wound-skin.



Siobhan... our little drama queen, decided to be a Syren. She described her costume essentials as: pretty hair, a pallid blue tail, and fangs. I don't know where she came up with pallid, and I'm not sure the scarves shot through with silver lurex I found at a thrift shop exactly qualify, but she was happy.



Happy Halloween!

Belonging to a cat

Meet Bert.



Bert (short for Bert Sugar Ray Reynolds) patrolls the docks here at the Cammeray Marina. His home is the boat next door to us, but Bert has claimed us as his own. He's especially fond of the children.

I'm pretty sure he considers the dock to be his domain.


He defies you to go around him.

For a cat, he has his very sociable moments. He'll run alongside, on the deck of "his" boat, when you walk down the finger. He'll come up to the bow to intercept passers by.


Really, it's too cute

In the morning, he comes an peeks in our hatches (peeping tom?). He loves to get rain from them, dragging his paw through the collected dew, then licking it.


Mostly, it just looks really funny to have him up there

The saga of the marina geese

When we arrived last spring, there were two resident geese in the marina- the children named them Peter and Paul.

I couldn't tell them apart, but they knew exactly which was which.

The office manager told us they'd been living around the marina for at least two decades- the shipyard crew feed them, and they forage around the bay. We learned not to feed them from the boat, because they'd come tapping on your hull for more... very persistently, and not always easy on the boat!

The ganders were inseparable- you really never saw one without the other.


Dawn departure from the marina

Until recently, that is.

In late September, Paul died. He'd been looking unwell for a couple of weeks- not keeping himself clean, not eating. One morning, he was found floating legs-up with his partner circling around. Peter honked pitifully. At all times of day (and many hours at night), he could be found be swimming around the bay, calling out for his companion. I would not have credited geese with so much feeling, but it was plain that he was looking for him and suffering.

After a week, he stopped honking, but he still seemed to be mourning. He developed the habit of swimming very close to a well-polished powerboat and staring at his reflection. His reflection, which looked (as far as I can tell) nearly identical to his lost partner, Paul. Instead of cruising the bay, he spends hours obsessively staring at his reflection.


He needs help.

The marina decided the solution was to bring Peter a few new friends. The children were trundled along on a mission to a farm outside Sydney, and came home with four geese. Niall has written about it in his blog.  They're being slowly introduced, to try and ease the transition for all involved and set it up for success. We've got our fingers crossed for him.

Community garden counterpoint

Here's another reason I'm so grateful for our commuity garden.The organic produce available in our area looks like this:



Hello, masses of unnecessary plastic packaging. You too, shrink-wrapped food. Not too pleased to see you, styrofoam trays. Whoa, $6.50 for a l'il bunch of green beans? or TWO heads of garlic? For friends at home, Aussie and US currency is about 1:1. Food here is more expensive, but those prices are almost criminal.

Yeah. Not so appealing. There are some CSAs, but they don't deliver- not really an option for us carless folks. There are a few delivery services for organic food, so we gave that a try. Here's what a $60 box (plus  $8.50 delivery) of mixed fruit/veggies looks like:


One ear of corn? One bitty avocado? ugh.  Taste was not up to standard.


The costs are crazy. I don't mind paying more- quite a bit more!- for organic- but on a per-kilogram basis, I benchmarked the delivery services at three times the cost of the grocery store. That's too rich for us.

So yes- thank goodness we have the garden! Check out this cauliflower. It is BIGGER THAN HIS HEAD. Oh, it was tasty...