ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

The Basin

Last weekend was my birthday and I had a great time! I went with some friends to a campground called "The Basin" which is about an hours drive away, plus a twenty minute boat trip. You head up to Palm Beach, and then hop across the bay to a secluded resort with soft grass, warm water, sandy beaches, cold showers, barbecues, and the usual funny-shaped Australian wildlife.

 
I was thrilled that such a good group came together - including two babies! Babies are always good for a laugh. You can watch them roll around knocking things over. It was halloween and we didn't escape the trick-or-treating, even whilst camping. Packs of mini ghosts and pumpkins roamed the area with their parents. Some were actually  handing out sweets, which was a welcome twist on the tradition.

 

One tough aussie girl turned up with only a plastic sheet and a sleeping bag for shelter. She lay down on the ground and was lucky she didn't get her face eaten off by possums in the night. At the other extreme, one camping-phobic friend emerged from her tent in the morning and, after observing breakfast conversation, wondered aloud if camping was the only situation when you didn't ask "how did you sleep?", rather, "did you sleep?"

Boat-bridge-helicopter

See that little sailing boat, on the left, just going under the bridge? I'm on it! Actually I was at the helm! Coordinating the intersection of boat-bridge-helicopter took some doing, I can tell you ...

Australian snowchain crisis

I forgot I hadn't written about this. A month or so ago I went for the weekend down to Albury, on the New South Wales / Victoria border to see what Australian snow was like. Albury is about two thirds of the way from Sydney to Melbourne. A long way. I went with my friend Nathan to stay with our friend Skekeeb and his wife Sadiya. My mission was also to show them snow, since neither of them had ever seen it. Ever.

Unfortunately this is what they got.

Turns out that snowboarding in Australia is very much like snowboarding in Scotland. It is an exercise in survival and route finding. I have never been so wet on a mountain before, indeed I have never been on slopes that remained open only until lighting hit one of the lift pylons.

We hired snowchains. Yes! But I wasn't allowed to fit them - the hire guy insisted on doing it. That is my defense, because when I had to take them off myself I got into a complete muddy, oily, frustrated tangle because I hadn't seen how they went on. I eventually declared in a huff that there was nothing for it, we would have to take the wheels off. But I figured it out eventually.

Minus two-hundrend points though. Being generous. But despite the cold and the wet and the dramas, Skekeeb and Sadiya seemed to enjoy themselves. At least now they have a healthy respect for snow.

Jervis bay

I was camping at Jervis bay last week, it was the annual boys-from-work trip. Lot's of barbecues and solar powered things. We snorkeled, fished and watched the whales jumping out of the water in the distance.

I can see my house from here!

Chocolate pudding and other things including secret tunnels

It was a busy week this week. First there was an internationally recognised dust storm, which even made the news in Canada (Canada!) and has totally changed the colour of my washing machine. Then there was a great early morning flight over the harbour (it's the quickest way back to base, honest).

Then there was night time secret abandoned tunnel exploration in the hill behind my house. It was just like an Enid Blyton adventure (After bedtime! Dark and spooky! Abandoned tunnels! Risk of smugglers!) apart from the bit where the tunnel went steeply downhill and ended up at the back of a restaurant where they were playing the BeeGees really loudly.

Finally there was the best pudding I have ever had. In a small tapas restaurant near the harbour I ordered Eton Mess (strawberries, cream and meringue all smashed up together) and my friend ordered Chocolate Fontant with Dulce de Leche. If you took a bit of the Eton Mess on your spoon and added some of the warm sticky fondant with the toffee sauce and then slowly inserted it into your mouth ... and let the deep rich chocolately flavour mingle with the chilled fresh fruit and then take into account the crunchy meringue texture and the general toffeeness ... you'd understand why I was too raptured to take a photo ...

Dust

I have a visitor from the UK staying with me at the moment. She opened the blinds at 6am, snapped this shot then went back to sleep thinking it was just a very impressive sunrise.

I awoke an hour later to the radio playing "It's the end of the world as we know it" and scenes of Armageddon outside. I assured her that this was not usual. We turned on the telly and discovered that a fierce wind had taken a thin layer of soil off the middle of Australia and dumped it on Sydney. Needless to say everyone went hysterical.

The ABC news website was full of classic comments: "In Sydney's south-western suburbs I've just woken up to a glowing red window! Thought it was Armageddon! Either that or South Korea had nuked us!"

South Korea! It must be bad. They don't even have nuclear weapons.

Another ABC contributor wrote: "Red. Dusty. Making hard to breath... There are baby birds dead in our backyard. And our cat's gone missing."

Maybe it's like the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, except instead of the dolphins running off when the earth gets destroyed, it's the cats who decide to escape? I wandered outside to see for myself. Spooky ...

And I saw a bandicoot too ...

It's called poi - fire twirling. My friend is very good at it, and it's mesmerising to watch. I was allowed to try with bean bags on string, and even then I kept hitting myself in the crotch, so it was just as well they weren't alight. It was a magical evening. There was a mist over the water, and some divers were in the ocean near the shore; you could see the light from their torches as they swam around. And on the way home I saw a bandicoot! Just need an enchidna and I have my full-house of cute Australian mammals.

Getting up early

Australians get up really early. If I leave my flat at 6am for work, the beach is already busy with swimmers, walkers, joggers and kayakers. Some of the joggers have small dogs, or large off-road baby buggies. Some have a small dog AND a baby buggy. You get extra points for spotting those combinations. This morning I saw a guy with his kayak balanced on a baby buggy. If he had had a small dog with him that would have been a full-house.

The un-Haka

After a week of leaving the house everyday for work at six am (see photo above), it's great to have the whole weekend off. Yesterday I went to see the All Blacks play Australia at the Olympic stadium.

I really didn't care who won, but the lead changed hands three times in the last few minutes, which is always exciting! When the All Blacks were two points behind, a very drunk Australian behind me shouted out "Have you got a haka for looooooosing? Is it called ... (he clearly hadn't thought this through) ... um ... the un-haka? Show us your un-haka!" At which point the All Blacks kicked a penalty and sealed the match.

In the face of an increasingly grubby flat I have decided to get in a cleaner to help with the chores. The child labour laws are pretty relaxed in Australia. Small hands can clean in all the tight spaces between the cupboards.