Room with a view

Two things I love about Australia:

1. Cheap wine. In Ontario, a cheap decent bottle of wine would run us about $10, and you couldn't get much cheaper than that. And, since liquor stores are run through a crown corporation, there is no such thing as sales on liquor. When it comes to wine, the situation couldn't be more different in Sydney. There are often sales on wine, including 2 for 1 sales and 20% off when you buy 6 or more bottles. But, the best deals, by far, are "Cleanskins", which are basically a "no name" brand of wine. My understanding is that the wine comes from a variety of sources, including excess from big winemakers who don't want to sell their brands cheap. This means that buying cleanskins are a bit of a gamble and you can never be too sure what you're going to get. Yesterday, we spent a lazy afternoon with some new friends, drinking their $2 Chardonnay, which was truly a decent wine to start with that got better and better with each glass. (sidenote: surprisinly beer is a lot more expensive here than it was in Canada - much to Vic's dismay)

2. The views from our apartment. We live in a tiny little apartment, but one of its saving graces are the trees just outside our windows that provide us with fantastic views, especially on bright sunny days like today.

Road Trip!

The school year here starts in late January and is made up of four 10-week terms, each separated by two weeks of holidays. The first term of school ended right before Easter and we all decided to take a week off for a little road trip. We drove up the coast to an area called Port Stephens, and spent a few nights at the local YHA. Before we got there, I was worried that we might be kept awake by partying backpackers, but it was really great. We stayed in a little cabin, there was a pool and shared outdoor kitchen facilities. The outdoor kitchen was one of our favorite parts of the hostel. It was surrounded by huge trees and plants and felt very tropical. Here's a pic:

The funny part was that the first two nights there were backpackers in the cabin attached to ours and we didn't hear a peep out of them. The third night, a family of five arrived and they were up at around 6am, loud as anything, (which I know can't be helped when you have a kid under 4, but man - were we ever happy that we had the backpackers beside us the first couple of nights!)

The YHA advertised that they were located in a "koala corridor" and we, and most especially Vic, were determined to spot a koala out in the wild. Every afternoon and evening we would head out to the most likely koala viewing spot, and try to find them in the trees. No luck. But, we did find this guy right outside our cabin door (look above Gus' head in the pic below).

Possum, up close.


We also spent some time surfing in the sand dunes. The sand dunes stretch about one km wide and 30 km long, all the way from Newcastle to Port Stephens. They were quite spectacular. There were a few moments when all you could see was sand, think desert scenes from Lawrence of Arabia or The English Patient.


Wipe-out!!!

The hard part (just like tobogganing in snow) was walking back up the hill, ugh!


We also found a really great snorkeling spot, and went on a short hike in a nearby national park.

While we were in the sand dunes, we spotted a group of tourists who were jumping up and down while someone was taking pictures of them. It was hilarious to watch, and after that Vic and I kept trying to take pictures of each other jumping in the air. Here's one of the funnier ones taken on our hike.

The views on the hike were something else. Take a look at the background in this picture below. And no leeches - yay!

It was such a nice break. I read a non-thesis-related book, and caught up on some of the lighter podcasts that I subscribe to, like Q from CBC radio, which reminds me...have you heard/watched that interview between Jian and Billy Bob Thornton? Wow - (in the words of a friend and former co-worker) Billy Bob is a real douchebag!

Back to school and work tomorrow. I feel refreshed and ready to get back at it.

Bush turkeys, leeches and goannas

We just got back from our first camping trip in Australia. I was pretty nervous about it, likely because of a story my sister told me years ago involving a large bug that crawled into her ear while she was sleeping in a tent in Australia. The bugs here FREAK ME OUT, and I just can't seem to get used to the sheer size and quantity of them. And, based on the size of the cockroaches and spiders that we've seen in our apartment, the thought of what they must be like in the outdoors creeped me out.

It turns out I was needlessly worried. Camping in Australia is similar to camping in Canada, and it felt almost comforting to do something so familiar...sit in camping chairs by the fire, tell stories, let the kids run around like a bunch of crazies. We went with Gus' classmate's family, which was great because Gus was kept entertained the whole time by his school friend and her sister.

There were a couple of differences, no picnic tables on the sites (standard issue in Canadian campsites), an absence of marshmallows and hotdogs for roasting (both are hard to come by in Sydney, and when you do find them, they just don't taste the same), and the campground is self-serve - no rangers in sight. You book ahead of time by phone, then when you get there, you pay by putting your money in an envelope and sliding it into a sort of mailbox-type thing. They also had big gas barbeques every few sites, very handy for cooking up snags for supper.

We went to Dharug National Park, just 1.5 hours northwest of here. The park was beautiful, with a large escarpment as a backdrop. If you look really hard at the bottom of this picture, you'll see Gus with his friend and one of the grown-ups checking out the Hawkesbury river, which ran close to our campsite.

Here's Gus, as we head out on a bushwalk on the first morning we were there.


When we finished our bushwalk, we realized we all had leeches burrowing through our shoes and socks and spent about 10 minutes flicking them off our ankles, feet and shoes. ewwwwww. As luck would have it, I was one of only two of our group of eight that got bitten (is that what it's called?) by a leech. I'm just thankful it wasn't Gus, cause that would have spelled the end of bushwalks for the next few years.



LEECH!!! Ewwww!


We had really hoped to see some wallabies or wombats out in the wild. Vic below, looking for possums in the trees.


Instead, we saw a whole bunch of bush turkeys walking around the campsites and this goanna by the outhouses. This thing was about 3-4 feet long. No kidding! We stayed a good distance away, because our travelling companions informed us that they sometimes mistake people for trees and have been known to try to claw their way up people. They said that you should quickly lie down if you see one running towards you. I'm not sure if they were messing with us, but I'm hoping I'll never have the opportunity to test it out.

D-A-N-A

Capping off a week of high productivity on my thesis (have I mentioned that my mood is contingent on how productive my day/week has been?), we've just finished a really nice weekend. Friday night, I went out to a Canadian-Australian club function. Ah, the comforting sounds of Canadian accents. I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to have people pronounce my name right the first time I tell them. Here's a typical conversation with an aussie:

random aussie: What's your name again?

me: Dana

random aussie: oh, Deena.

me: no, DANA (in a slow, loud voice)

random aussie: How do you spell that?

me: D-A-N-A

random aussie: so your name is Donna

me: sigh, yes, you can call me Donna.

At the beginning, I kept trying to get them to make that hard 'a' sound in my name, but they often became completely flustered, and would mutter "I'll never get it right". So, I've given up, and I'm now known as Donna by many of my aussie coworkers and acquaintances.

Also this weekend, Gus had a friend sleep over. So we had an exciting Saturday night of pop, chips and kid movies. And Sunday, we did a little prep work for our upcoming camping trip. We are now better equiped than we ever were in Canada after buying up a ton of camping supplies from an Irish couple who just finished a cross-country tour. We've also gotten our big ol' car serviced and picked up a NRMA membership (like CAA) for extra piece of mind, in case our car decides to give up while we're on some remote mountain road. We're all set and very excited for our first camping trip in Australia planned for Easter weekend.

Pics from the weekend:

Chips and jelly beans for the sleepover. Is there a better combination?


This weekend, we also did a little tour of Bare Island Fort, which is in a suburb called La Perouse, and was one of the sites used in Mission Impossible.

The tour was a nice way to spend a sunny afternoon, despite being a little spooky with all these crazy little rooms that soldiers and others lived in thoughout the past two centuries. Here's Vic walking through one of creepy hallways.

For some reason, all our outings seem to involve ice cream?!? Funny how that happens. I'm not sure if you can tell from this badly taken picture (really I should find the manual for this camera), but Gus has the funniest expression in this picture. The kid cracks me up.

Smelling the roses and hugging the trees

Fall is the only season we haven't lived through in Sydney yet, and since it's absolutely my favourite season in Ottawa, I've been curious to see whether the same will be true in Sydney. So far, I can't complain. The heat has settled down, and the blistering 30C+ days are only a memory. These days, the temperatures range anywhere from about 20C to 27C and the nights are nice and cool. But, the leaves are staying bright green and there are some beautiful flowers in bloom right now, making it very hard to remember that it's fall here and winter is coming.

Yesterday, after a lazy morning hanging around the house playing lego (Vic and Gus) and reading the newspaper (me), we drove out to the Botanic Gardens for some ice cream and a little exploring. Every time I go to the gardens, I am in awe of the beauty...hence the picture-heavy posting this week.

The entrance to the Botanic Gardens. Don't you love this sign and its message?

Really tall palm trees.


Gus, exploring the roots of the a huge gum tree.


A warratah, the state's official flower. (a little factoid I just learned today). It's also the name of the local Rugby League team, or is it Rugby Union team....Vic will be so disappointed that I don't know this yet.


Me and Gus and a couple of ice cream cones. Chocolate coconut and caramel macademia. mmmm.


Vic and Gus, goofing around in a cave. (just in case you don't get it - they're pretending to hold the roof up)


Vic and Gus, goofing around in some bamboo.


And lastly, there were a whole bunch of weddings going on while we were there. At this one, there was a polynesian band playing. It was soooo nice. I told Vic that if we ever have a real wedding, I'd like that band to play at our ceremony. If you're reading this, and you're not yet married, and you're looking for a good venue...Sydney in the Botanic Gardens is a beautiful setting, just think about it (you know who you are).


On a completely unrelated note, in the past week I've seen several women wearing harem pants. Really? Harem pants? Is this really a fad we want to bring back? And, is this unique to Sydney, or is this a worldwide phenomenon?

Things that make us laugh

One of our favourite pastimes is making fun of Australians, more specifically the words they use. Yes, I know, completely culturally insensitive. But it hasn't gotten old yet and every week there's something new to amuse us. The other day Gus and I ran out to "Big W" (aussie equivalent of our Zellers or Wal-Mart) with the goal of picking up some craft supplies (we decided we needed to make a sock monkey). Once in Big W, we were wandering around in circles trying to find what we needed until we finally found a staff person and asked where we could find thread and buttons and her reply was: "in the haberdashery section". Haberdashery??? The last time I heard this term was in a Charles Dickens novel. This story later made for a good belly laugh shared with Vic. Vic suggested I should have replied "Yes, govnah", or "Please sir, may I have some more".... please remember we don't get out much and share a small apartment with a 7-year-old.

Some random pictures from this past week:

We've encouraged Gus to try a lot of different extra-curricular activities since we've been here (soccer, swimming, aussie football, rock band, to name a few), but by far his favourite is an art class we recently enrolled him in. Here's a pic of him showing off his latest creations.


Gus was at a sleepover last night so Vic and I enjoyed a night out. We went to "The Spot" (the closest trendy area) and ate tapas at "Spanish Fly" and later went to see the Watchmen (guess whose pick that was).

Vic was totally embarassed that I was snapping pictures of our food in the restaurant, but after lotsa red wine and some port to finish up the meal...he didn't seem to mind so much. Here's us enjoying our dessert: churros with choc dipping sauce accompanied by the nicest tawny port. mmmmm, I'm drooling a bit just thinking about it.


Close-up of the churros and tawny port.

Biscuits for the boys

I made ANZAC biscuits for the first time this past week. They were some of the best cookies I've ever made. The origins of these cookies are a subject of debate but the version that I like best is that the mothers, wives and girlfriends made them for Australian soldiers during the first world war. I think there's something very retro-romantic about a whole bunch of Australian women baking up piles of biscuits for their boys overseas.

There are a ton of different recipes out there. You can find the recipe I followed at this site. (FYI: I used only 1/2 cup of brown sugar and it didn't seem to affect the recipe, and in a separate attempt I tried using less butter, but this version came out a little dry and crumbly.)

Below is a pic of the first batch I made. You'll notice some of them have chocolate on top...that was Gus' brainchild. We called those CANZAC biscuits to reflect the Canadian influence. Shhhh, don't tell any aussies, 'cause they take their ANZAC biscuits seriously (see 'legal issues' in this wikipedia entry). And don't call them cookies either, as this is also a cause for grief (I've been corrected more than once!).