Australian Spring

Ah September, the most wonderful time of the year, when children head back to school all bright-eyed and full of summer stories, there is a slight chill in the air heralding the arrival of Fall, glorious colours abound, gardens are being put to bed, we dream of hot apple-crisp with vanilla ice-cream, cozy sweaters, and... STOP THE PRESSES!

Down under in Melbourne, we are coming out of winter, such as it is in Australia.  Children have been in school for 8 months now and are anticipating Spring Break (ok we call it Spring half-term here).  There is warmth in the air heralding the arrival of Summer, trees are budding, our gardens are waking up, Spring flowers are blooming furiously, and we are delightedly shedding our cozy sweaters.

It feels so unnatural to think of Spring in September just as I imagine it will feel terribly odd to decorate our Christmas tree when it's 30c degrees outside and the air-conditioning is cranked up.  Aussies don't do Christmas turkey either, it's shrimp on the barbie all the way mate!

But I digress, back to Spring.  As a Canadian girl, I had never experienced the tropics except briefly on holiday.  The tropics are exotic, not-quite-real places to where us pathetic northerners occasionally hop a chartered Air Canada flight in order to temporarily escape the miseries of howling winds and freezing temperatures.  Real people don't actually live in the tropics do they?

They do now!  Despite the fact that, barring the island of Tasmania, Melbourne is the southernmost and therefore, coldest region in Australia, this is still a place where lemons, limes, and oranges grow madly in winter, olive groves and vineyards abound, there are palm trees, birds of paradise, bromeliads, jasmine, camelias, cacti, yuka, and azaleas pushing wildly on every corner.

I covet the lemon trees groaning with fruit the size of small footballs in the backgardens of all my friends who laugh sympathetically when I confess to having to buy lemons at the grocery store.  During my late evening walks with Murphy, I practically float into the air following the wafting fragrances of jasmine, frangiapane, citrus oil, boronia, and wild freesia.  It's an incredibly heady experience!

Well  hello there little Lorikeet, I see you under the Palm fronds!

I Love Love Love Neil Young - Who Knew?

My husband is a wirehead.  And I am forever thankful that he is!  I like to think that I am technically savvy, I mean, I use a MacBook, I try to remember to back it up regularly onto an external harddrive, I know how to navigate my remote control to access cable tv, Apple tv, Netflix, and can update my iPod but honestly that's about the breadth of my technical know-how.

C2, on the other hand, is always on the bleeding edge of everything.  I guess it helps that he engineers some of the most forward-thrusting technology in the resource sector but does that necessarily translate to the comforts of home?  I mean, my dad, bless his heart, was a senior electrical engineer with Hydro Quebec for years but never did our toilet flush properly or the entry door close without some jerry-rigged solution.

Meanwhile, our little Australian house is uber-wired.  We watch Madmen via iTunes on our iPad in bed, watch Harry Potter wirelessly from iTunes through our Apple tv onto our bigscreen tv, and Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live reruns courtesy of Netflix either on our iPad or our tv from our Apple tv.  For the most part, it all works beautifully, just don't ask me how, but C2 knows!

A couple of years ago, we bought a Bose docking station for our iPod to compensate for our stereo which didn't work so well in Switzerland thanks to differing frequency...something about a 50hz cycle C2 informed me.  Anyhow, the Bose allowed us to access our collection of CDs on our iPods with fantastic sound and fidelity.

But, frankly, all of this pales in comparison to the best thing C2 has introduced to our home entertainment suite EVER; a little app called Pandora.  Imagine creating a genius playlist based on a favorite song from your own iPod's musical library, but now imagine instead a genius playlist based on a favorite song from almost ALL music in the known universe.  Pandora allows us to legally access this music and therefore has offered us far-reaching exposure to amazing music that we might not otherwise have heard, invested in, or benefited from.

Now, I must admit, I love my Canadian music, nothing makes me happier than singing mightily along to Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, K.D. Lang, Tom Cochrane, Blue Rodeo, Jann Arden, Alanis Morissette, but I admit sheepishly, I've never been much of a Neil Young fan.  I had minimal knowledge of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and pretty much nothing outside of "Heart of Gold".  It all seemed kind of like 'boys drinking beer and toking in front of a bonfire' kind of music.

Well no more, my friend, thanks to Pandora, I have discovered the brilliance, the complexity, the story-weaving of "Ohio", "Long May You Run", "Old Man", "Helpless", "Southern Man", and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart".  Add in a little CSN&Y's "Just a Song Before I Go", and "Woodstock", and holy cow, have I been missing out on some fantastic music for the last 40-something years.

Now if you'll excuse me, C2 and I are about to watch Scorcese's "The Last Waltz" which we just found on iTunes.  By the way can anyone recommend any other artists about whom they are passionate, and no, Jeff, I don't mean Metallica!

Harry Potter, A Bad Cold, and a Travelling Husband

What do the above three things have in common you ask?  What is the common link here, think, think, think....

Well let's start with Harry Potter.  It was around 10 years, two international assignments, and several thousand kilometers ago, that my youngest nephew Jordan and I (OMG, he was like 7 at the time, younger than J is now), started going to see the Harry Potter movies.  It was a thing we did every 18 months or so, dinner at Eastside Mario's and Harry Potter.  The two of us, plus his older brother Justin, also devoured the books and shared them in turn. All three of us, addicts for 10 years.  I personally think that J.K. Rowling is a freaking genius with the most fertile of imaginations that I stand in utter in awe of, a Tolkien for a different generation...but I digress.  Good so far?

Over the course of the last six months or so, on the odd occasion that C2 is in town, he is reading the Harry Potter series to J whose fascination with all things Hogwarts is beginning to rival his cousins' and my own.  They've finished the first two and we watched the associated movies in rapid succession.

OK, next.  I don't fall sick very often, in fact, I don't think I have been downed by a cold since a nasty one morphed into an unhappy sinus infection about four years ago.  But 4 days ago? Whammo!  Add to this merry mixture, my currently continent-hopping husband whose frequent absences have at times occasioned casual dinners in front of the tv, and you have all the makings of a movie-watching marathon. Getting the picture yet?

OK, let me spell it out in more detail.  A week ago, I picked the final Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" out from my bookshelf.  Over the next three or so days, I reread it with fierce focus.  As my ill-health began to intensify, and I started resting more, I began re-watching the Harry Potter movies from where C2, J and I had left off; that is numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and the first half of 7.  It's so easy to buy movies on iTunes!!!  By the time, I had finished number 7, aka Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, I was in a sort of wizarding frenzy desperate to see the concluding chapter.

So yesterday, I packed my red-nosed and hacking self off to the movie theatre at mid-day alone to join a throng of similarly child-free adults with equally wild imaginations for the best two-and-a-half hours I've spent in a movie theatre in quite a while.

I've never been quite so grateful for a cold before...or a travelling husband but that's just between you and me!

Stream of Consciousness

I miss my mum.  She returned to Canada this week after spending 3 months with us.  It was great and now I'm bummed.  I'll get over it and life will return to the rhythm of just us but at the moment I'm sad.  Having her around was like having a sidekick who permanently saw the sunny side of life; she is an eternal optimist and the best Grandma I could have hoped for J.  He will miss her enormously.  We are very blessed with a close family who actually take great joy from being with each other.  Maybe if we didn't live so far apart we wouldn't.  Maybe distances are a disguised blessing which allow us to live in the moment with each other and really cherish it.  I'm sure there are many Grandmas who wouldn't spend the small fortune and 24+ hours on an airplane to come hang with us down under and sing "Would you like to swing on a star" every night to an 8-year old; we're really lucky.

A couple of days before her departure, we spent an afternoon walking on Brighton Beach, a Melbourne landmark because of its' charming multi-hued beach cabanas.  It being winter, Murphy hadn't been on a beach in quite a while.  She's paying the price of racing up and down the water's edge chasing balls, sticks, or anything that moved.  In the bigger scheme of things, I think it was worth the sore legs.

Speaking of Murphy and winter, you have presumably heard of Paunxsutawney Phil, who every February 2 emerges to predict more winter or early Spring?  Well, permit me to introduce you to Melbourne Murphy who in early August in Australia (more or less the equivalent of early February in the southern hemisphere) began to blow her coat to announce the imminent arrival of Spring.  She is shedding on every carpet and soft surface in the house, all over my car, and on every piece of clothing we own.  She even managed to shed on to C2's brand new suit while he was trying it on at the shop and she was at home - don't ask me how; she is talented that girl!

I walked her early Tuesday morning in the Hedgley Dean gardens adjacent to our house.  Usually in the early morning, I am running with all ambient noise drowned out by my iPod; today, however, I stopped and listened to the amazing amount of birdsong.  I've never really heard anything like the amount of birdsong we witness in Melbourne.  The Lorikeets, Parakeets, Cockatoos, Wattlebirds, Turtledoves, and Australian Magpies joined in a choral cacophony, a symphony of song which soared and swooped all around me.  It was a bewitching almost mystical moment.

J's French-side Grade 2 class had a school presentation this week.  They had been reading and learning about New Zealand and Maori culture, so each kid presented a small section about something they had learned.  They followed this up with a fair dinkum (old Aussie expression meaning 'genuine') demonstration of the Haka - how cool is that?  Even cooler was watching him up on stage singing the Australian national anthem "Advance Australia Fair".  Guess he's forgotten the words to "Cé qu'è l'ainô", the Genevois anthem whose haunting melody never failed to bring me to tears.  I really love watching him be culturally curious and think the gift of insight and empathy into other cultures is and will continue to be one of the greatest benefits of this expat experience of ours.

Chapters

Lately, I've been thinking about the lives I have lived.  Not, of course, in the metaphysical sense but rather the specific passages of my life.  In the early 1990's I was newly-graduated from University, forging a path in the non-profit sector in Montreal and living the life of a single footloose and fancy-free young woman flush with my own money, dating freely and joyfully with few real cares beyond my rent.

By the late 1990's I had met and married him, moved to Calgary, travelled extensively with my consulting business, explored the western Canadian great outdoors, and raised my dog.  The early 2000s brought late and beautifully unexpected  motherhood, amazing friendship, my family briefly united in the same place and then a leap of faith into expat life.

It has been both complicated and a privilege being a trailing spouse for the last six years.  Geneva was an incredible life experience, J was so little and for a few years, I  happily embraced a professional sabbatical to raise him in our tiny idyllic Swiss village.  I wrote, I read, I raised and I revelled.

No more snowstorms, no more -30, no more frigid 5:00am cab rides to the airport, no more waking alone in hotel rooms.  For us, the global financial crisis offered a surprising port in a storm.  C2's job with the mothership survived and his travel was greatly reduced.  Together, we explored Europe,  relished in family life, inhaled other cultures, and exhaled insight and elucidation, and have been enriched in ways I cannot even begin to quantify.

Last year, I began to experience something I can only describe as 'squirminess'.  Restlessness, a stirring in the back of my mind that I needed something more.  J didn't need me quite as much, he would be ok.   After several months of squirminess, I arrived at the conclusion in mid-July after our summer holiday that it was time to rediscover my professional self.  Two weeks later, C2 announced that we had been asked to relocate to Australia.

I have described the difficult wrestling we did before deciding to make the move and I don't regret it for a second.  I have loved discovering this part of the world, we have adapted extremely well to our adopted new home.  The climate is fantastic, the culture remarkable, and the lifestyle has much of the charm of Europe with the ease of North America.  Six months in, though, I'm squirmy again.

For the last five years, I have been principally defined by my roles as wife and mother.  While that role is within a 21st century context as I, thankfully, have a fully-engaged 21st century husband, I also have a husband who travels 80% of the time.  How then do I balance raising my son, ensuring his needs remain my priority,  child-management during the two-week school term breaks every 2.5 months, our travel and discovery ambitions, our return visits to Canada in order to ensure that J knows his family, my personal desire for professional fulfillment as well as wanting my son to recognize me holistically as more than just his mum?

Anyone got the answers?

Life's a Beach!

Australia is a BIG country!  Unlike our European experience where we explored largely by car, here one is required to fly to see just about anything outside our state of Victoria.  For J's July (winter) school holidays, we decided to tick a bucket item and head up to the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Queensland for a week of sun and snorkling.

We (me, C2, my mum and J) carefully researched and prepared for this trip by re-watching "Finding Nemo", and on a chilly Wednesday morning, we flew from Melbourne to Brisbane, then on to Cairns before driving another hour and a half north to the tropical town of Port Douglas.  We were greeted by soft fragrant salty air, lush tropical surroundings, and the most beautiful beach I have ever seen.

We quickly booked a pair of trips with the Quicksilver company who pioneered much of the snorkling adventures on the reef.  The first trip was on a huge catamaran which raced 70 km to the outer Great Barrier Reef where we moored on to a permanent platform.  From here, we donned "stinger" suits for protection against marine stingers, a particularly nasty type of jellyfish (again remember the jellyfish in "Nemo"?) and snorkled the reef for hours.  Mum took advantage of a helicopter tour of the surrounding reefs and was speechless upon her return.

I booked a long and farther snorkle with a marine biologist which was unforgettable.  From the crystal clear waters, we witnessed an amazing array of fish life, coral, and colours.  Amy, the marine biologist played with the giant clams (the size of an armchair), tickled anemones to encourage the anemone clown fish to come out, and instructed us on the differences between branch, brain, hard and soft corals.  We learned about the fragility of this eco-system, and as tourists, the importance of being respectful stewards of this magical place.

 Long-nosed Butterfly Fish

Angel Fish

At the end of the day, and after a hot lunch, we returned to the catamaran for the 90-minute journey back to Port Douglas, I was drunk on beauty, my brain as stimulated as it has ever been.  My body felt as if it oscillated in harmony with the sea.  Then my cup ran over when our pilot slowed the boat so that we could all witness the passage of a pair of playful Humpback whales who dove and surfaced, exhaled through their blowholes and waved their massive tails at us.

A couple of days later, we boarded Quicksilver's smaller "Wavedancer" catamaran and sailed to the inner reef islands called "Low Isles".  On Low Isles, one could be forgiven for feeling like the Tom Hanks character in "Castaway" but for the other snorklers around.  It was a pristine tropical island of palms, powder soft sand littered with coral, and surrounded on all sides by shallow coral.

From here, we waded into the clear shallow water and snorkled over coral that was mere inches below us and followed graceful sea turtles as they explored their underwater playground.  Reluctantantly, we returned to the boat late in the day for the sail home.  This time, we saw a large Hammerhead shark, and several flying fish on the journey.

In between these two extraordinary days, we indulged in some much-needed downtime.  We walked Four-Mile beach for hours, swam in its' warm waters, and let the sun and salt water rest and restore us.  We played cards with a glass of wine on our apartment balcony overlooking the salt-water pool, and watched for the 6:00pm flight of Rainbow Lorikeets.  Some dinners were out, some were in but every evening ended with a walk to the Gelateria for the best gelato this side of Levanto.  Mum took advantage of the great shops on Macrossan street, and J made a daily pilgrammage at the funky "Jungle Island" shop whose staff had great fun helping him spend his earnestly-saved pocket money.

Kangaroos, Koalas, and Kookaburras - Oh My

Penguins in Australia you say?  If you are anything like me,  I would've cocked a sceptical eye and pointed you in the direction of the nearest map.  But sure enough, the southern (and colder) part of Australia is home to several colonies of Little Penguins.  Little Penguins are so dubbed because of their tiny size, about 33cm.

The fam spent a few days on Phillip Island, about a 90 minute drive south of Melbourne (next stop Antarctica).  It's an amazing place that is home to many of the animals unique to Australia including the largest Little Penguin colony in the Southern Hemisphere, about 60,000.  The State Park has taken advantage of people's natural affinity for all things cute and waddly and figured a way to squeeze $150 out of us to partake in the nightly "Penguin Parade".   At least all the money goes into Penguin welfare.

Little Penguins are very industrious tiny tykes.  They emerge from their sandy burrows  along the Summerlands Peninsula before dawn and spend the day fishing the cold Southern Ocean before returning to their nests at sunset.  So just before sundown, thousands of us (365 nights a year) scurried to our beach-side benches and sceptically awaited signs of the penguins' return.  Sure enough right on-time, the first group emerged from the waves, looked around suspiciously for foxes, eagles or other predators, craned their little necks at us silly humans all agog, and waddled up the beach and far into dunes in all directions "huk huk'ing" at each other.  More and more groups followed.  It was in a word, magical!

We are not allowed to photograph the little fellas so as not to frighten them so I 'borrowed' the above pics from the official Phillip Island Penguin Parade web page.

And that was just our first night.

 

We spent the next couple of days at the Phillip Island Wildlife Park feeding free-range Kangaroos whose soft beautiful mouths and sweet little paws clutched our hands in search of the pellets we were carrying.  Many of the mamas had joeys in their pouches.  Did you know a group of Kangaroos were called "a mob"?  Me neither!

 A blue-winged Kookaburra

A large flock of emus stalked us searching for the food too. They were a little creepy with  wild eyes and sharp beaks that practically pecked a hole in your hand as they leaned in for food.  They also snuck up behind us quietly and peered over our shoulders in search of the treats making us jump in surprise more than once.

The free-range Wallabies were more shy that their larger brethren and appreared less social and 'mob'-like but were still happy to bashfully seek food from our eager hands.

There were some very unusual species at the Wildlife Park too:

 A lovely fat Wombat

A spikey Echidna

A Cassowary, Australia's heaviest flightless bird.  Looks like he has a rock formation growing on top of his head.

The Philip Island Koala Conservation Center is a natural habitat to 14 Koalas in 6 hectares of natural bushland.  It was shocking to learn that even 6 hectares of Eucalyptus were inadequate to provide sufficient sustenance for that Koala population.  The Center has to truck in additional supplies of Eucalyptus.  It made clear how the greatest threat to a thriving population of indiginous species is a loss of natural habitat.

Koala sleep 20 hours a day in the crux of two branches high high in the tree canopy.  This fellow was about 15 meters up a Gum tree.

Our hotel faced a pretty beach that even in the cooler winter temps beckoned us for walks, shell-collecting, rock-climbing, and opportunities to showcase C2s photography.

 J's imitation of a Cassowary in the early morning fog.

 The fog lifting off Cowes beach and Westernport Bay

We finished our mini holiday with a celebration birthday dinner for my mum at a beachside restaurant on the Island.  It was the cherry on top!