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!

And Now He is Eight

J was born and celebrated his first two birthdays in Canada.  He celebrated the next five in Europe.  This past weekend he turned eight in Australia.  This is one well-travelled kid who has been nothing short of heroic in his adaptation skills, his sense of adventure, and his glass-half-full perspective on life.

The Number 8 birthday cake

As an only child,  J doesn't have another with whom to share new school fears, or to kick a footy around with after school, or to share bunkbeds with.  He has learned to be self-sufficient, curious, and has developed a confidence that I never had.  He embraces friends as brothers and sisters, and thankfully, has been socially brilliantly successful.

The "J" club - Josh, J, and Jules

J's favorite gift was a Geelong Cats Footy jersey.  The team he barracks for.

J loves his extended family, enjoys hanging out with his parents, spends a lot of time in the company of adults, and never forgets a friend.  He is a cool kid who has spent loooooong hours travelling on airplanes without complaint, is learning a love of reading, and speaks French beautifully.

He is strong-willed (not surprising, as my sista reminds me "two goats don't make a sheep"), opinionated, hard-headed, argumentative, occasionally mouthy, funny as hell, and adores his Grandma and dog.  I am very proud of this kid, love his heart, and am privileged to be his mother.

He LOVED the birthday party we threw him this past Friday night at a local adventure venue.  All the kids he invited showed up and had a ball; there was much laughing and hollering and some very odd Haka thing that followed the 'Happy Birthday' song.  I cannot believe J is eight but also cannot wait to live the next year in his company as we embark more fully on our Australian journey.

A Decorating Challenge

We are four months in our Melbourne house now.  We are loving our neighbourhood and enjoying the amazing local parks and colour.  As experienced intercontinental travellers, we now recognize that moving presents a wonderful occasion to shed the 'stuff' from our life that hadn't yet been regifted or recycled.  It's a chance to pare down to the essentials, the furniture and bits that matter, that represent a life lived thus far.  It's an opportunity to recreate new living spaces that reflect our newer and matured experience and taste.

Both C2 and I are passionate about interior design.  We love great textures, shapes, lines and materials.  I am no Sarah Richardson (my style and decorating icon) but we have tried to infuse every room in our home with elegance and design appeal but have also kept in mind comfort and use by an active family with a sofa-loving Labrador.  Most items in our house have a story.  A place it was discovered, a meaning behind it, a reason it belongs. We eliminated a lot of flotsam on this last move from Geneva.   However, once we had placed everything in our new house to our satisfaction, we were left with a challenge.

We had two items left to occupy our near-empty family room.   A large red painting I have never liked (but C2 loved) bought in Calgary for a song to temporarily occupy a large wall in that house.  Somehow it is still with us.  The second item was a chair purchased impulsively many years ago which I love but is ugly and PINK.  Therein was our challenge: to economically create an inviting living space around an inexpensive red painting that I hated, and an ugly pink chair that I loved.

My mum and I scoured design magazines in vain looking for inspiration but nothing suggested how to reconcile red and pink.  I couldn't imagine creating a pink space - blech!  After hours of debate and reflection, I decided that red would be the focal colour supported by other bright colours against a neutral background hoping to have that incipid pink recede in the process.   The other focus would be squares.  The red painting was based on a series of squares, and squares would be reflected throughout the space.  I also decided to include things I love like mirrors, wool rugs, and books - lots and lots of books!

Squares in the mirror, squares in the magazine rack and squares in the sofa pillow - score!   Do you see the square Sid Dickens tiles reflected in the mirror?  An old and beloved Hudson's Bay blanket helped to anchor the red.  I originally wanted to find a red throw but my wise mum advised that two much solid red would "argue" with each other - wise woman.

 

My library corner, where I can curl up for a read embraced on all sides by my books both classics and classic mysteries.

Here is the end result.  I still want to add a couple more large orchid plants; the natural light in this space should help them thrive.  Also perhaps a corner lamp and a candle lantern or two.  Otherwise, I think I managed to make the pink work?  What do you think?

Il faut profiter!

Il faut profiter is a French expression and one of several that just works better in French than in English.  A direct translation means "to take advantage", but its' nuances are much broader and romantic; more like "savor, luxuriate, revel or as one of my favorite bloggers puts it 'suck the marrow from the experience'".  And that, my friends, is just what we did this past weekend!

Saturday dawned a sunny and warm Fall day.  I bustled everyone, including Murphy, out the door mid-morning, and in spite of a garage door that wouldn't open, misplaced keys, and a forgotten jacket, we made it to St. Kilda beach by 11:00.   There, we walked the beach looking for shells and starfish, stopping for lunch at The Beachcomber and for coffee on St. Kilda pier.  While on the pier, we spotted a pair of Fairy Penguins nesting in the breakwater; a treat for my visiting mum.  Murphy chased sticks and ambled happily in the surf.

After a couple of hours, my mum and I deposited ourselves and Murph on a bench with a view and a scent of the sea while C2 and J spent an hour on the rides at Luna Park.

Counting Starfish

 

That evening, C2 and I made ourselves beautiful and headed out on a date night.  Our destination was the Cafe Provincial on Brunswick St. in the funky and fantastic Fitzroy section of Melbourne.  An epic Boeuf Bourgignon later, we made our way to the Cinema Nova for a late viewing of the Canadian film "Incendies"; it was searing, brilliant, and calamitous; all in all, a terrific date night.

Sunday, again, we all piled into my car (minus Murphy this time) and drove into the Yarra Valley to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary.  In spite of a steady downpour, we had a great time visiting and learning about the animals native to this land. 

J and C2 had some special one-on-one time with a lovely pair of Dingos; while mum got up close and personal with a sleepy Koala  named Benny.  We learned of the medical crisis threatening the iconic Tasmanian Devil.  Healesville acts as one of 4 "Arks" keeping pairs of the Devils to safeguard the future of the species.

 One of the gorgeous pairs of Dingos.  They clearly thought C2 was delish!

We witnessed a magestic flight show of native Australian predatory birds like Wedge-tailed Eagles, and Black-breasted Buzzards, as well as amazing parrots such as Sulfur-crested Cockatoos, and the endangered Major Mitchell's Cockatoo.  We laughed at the indignant stare of the Emu, and the bored air of the Kangaroos.  Florence the Wombat indulged in her usual thrilling deep sleep while Storm the Tasmanian Devil posed for pictures puffed with self-importance.

 Bored Kangaroos

A Tasmanian Devil - looks meek and charming but ferociously hilarious

We ended the weekend with a late dinner of crepe completes, crepes with lemon and sugar, and crepes with Canadian maple syrup; a perfect ending to a perfect weekend.