Kangaroos

On our way home on Sunday from a walk in the state forest around Durras, we were treated to some kangaroos right at the side of our road. These roos have been around all year, we've seen them most days until the last couple of months when we've seen them every day. They are usually in this one field halfway down to the highway from us (the highway is 1.1 km down the road), but lately they have been closer to the road (sometimes on the road), but this group were just hanging around on this grassy verge. I love kangaroos, and will never get tired of seeing them.

Batemans Bay Bushwalkers

I've joined a group called the Batemans Bay Bushwalkers (http://www.baybushwalkers.org.au/), a club that goes on long walks (what we would refer to as hikes) around the area, twice a week, mostly in the state parks that are prolific here. I've gone out four times so far, with distances ranging from 12 to 20 km, and group numbers ranging from 12 to 24. There are about 200 members, and the walks range from easy to hard, all depending on the distance and terrain. I am willing to go on any level walk, as long as I am free to go, I don't mind. It gives me a chance to see the area we are living in , going on trails that I would never have found on my own. They are a very nice bunch of people, mostly retired, and never lacking in conversation. There is one Canadian among them, a gentleman from Winnipeg who has been in Australia for over 20 years, but has not lost any of his accent! It's a nice bit of home having a chat with him, but the Canadian accent does sound a bit strange, I'm so used to the Aussie accent.

I've seen a bit of wildlife on the walks, but I was on a walk in the Kiola State Forest last Wednesday and, along with the kangaroos that we see almost everytime, there were a couple of snakes and leeches. Here, leeches are on dry land, well, where the ground is moist, and on this one track, whenever we would stop the leeches would creep towards our shoes and climb up to try to get at our ankles. Apparently they can sense the heat of our bodies. So we tried not to stop, but also kept an eye on our shoes and flicked off any intruders. That didn't stop one from attaching to me, although I didn't notice until we had stopped for lunch, and we were talking about the leeches and someone said that often they would get home, take off their shoes and there would be a patch of blood on their sock. I just had a quick glance at my ankles, and there was the telltale bloody spot! The leech had had its fill and was gone, so I just cleaned it up and put a band-aid on. I had never heard of leeches being on land like that before, and it was creepy watching them creep towards us; the only leeches I've encountered have been in water. Anyway, the snakes were interesting. There was one red-bellied black snake (saw one last time I was on a walk, too) and a diamond python. Here's the red-bellied black:


At our lunch spot, we were near the top of Durras Mountain, overlooking the ocean. It was just beautiful, and we saw a humpback whale slowly making its way north. I'd never seen a whale before, so it was great. We couldn't really see too much, we were high up, but we saw the splash it was making, the spray from its blowhole, and one white fin a couple of times. There are a few places along the coast here that are good for whale watching, so one of these days I'm going to take myself to one of these places with a lawn chair, binoculars, and a picnic lunch. I'll let you know if I see anything! The spring (October and November here) is supposed to be better for whale watching, because that is when the females are heading back south with their calves. We'll keep you posted.

Sydney (again)

We spent last weekend in Sydney. On Saturday, John took the girls into the city and they went to Sydney Wildlife World. They saw lots of animals, like spiders, ants, lizards, koalas, kangaroos and wallabies. They had lots of fun. (this portion courtesy of Natalie). Afterwards, they went to their favourite place in Sydney - Dymock's bookstore on George Street. John's sister and myself, however, took ourselves out to Manley and up past the northern beaches to Palm Beach. At Manley, on the North Head, we got out and had a look across the mouth of the harbour to the South Head. The entrance to Sydney Harbour is not very wide, you can see why Captain Cook thought is was a great harb our, because there are spectacular cliffs at the entrance to the harbour, and once you are in, it is very big.

Palm Beach is just beautiful - I felt like if someone just dropped me there I would be happy for the rest of my days! It was a cool, windy day, so the surf and waves were awesome to look at, and I'm still amazed at the amount of waterfront in Sydney and area - there are little inlets and marinas all over the place, and because it is so hilly, there is a view from many places.
We met John and the girls downtown, and drove over to the Sydney Cricket Groud where we took in an AFL (Australian Football League) game, in celebration of John's big birthday! The Sydney Swans played St. Kilda, and we had seats on the first deck, right behind the goal posts. During warm-up, there was a large net keeping most of the balls within the field, but many were kicked beyond the net and sailed up into the stands - so we really had to watch ourselves. We had a good laugh just before the game started, when these nets were removed; we were picturing balls flying at us from everywhere, but of course, there is only one ball in play (not dozens like in warm-up) and depending on the teams, not many balls may get even near the goal posts. It was a good game, we had to bundle up to keep warm (this is winter after all), and the Swans beat St. Kilda's 102-67.















We took a detour on our way home past the Sea Cliff Bridge just north of Wollongong. We've done this drive before, from south to north (going to Sydney), but it was far better in the opposite direction, and with the weather, the coastal drive was spectacular.














Most beaches in the Sydney area have a man-made rock pool at one end of the beach, and it's just a concrete swimming pool at the edge of the beach, and it fills with sea water. Inside the Sydney Harbour itself, there are a few. Here is one at Stanwell:


The Sea Cliff Bridge was built in 2005 and replaced a road that simply wound around the cliff, but was in the habit of crumbling away in spots, and was subject to rock falls from above. In August 2003, a large 'embankment slip' caused complete road closure. The road remained closed for 2 1/2 years to avoid more rock falls and slippage and while the new bridge was being built. The Sea Cliff Bridge is built out from the cliff face away from the risks of rock falls and slippages. The road was reopened in December 2005.

Holmes Lookout

This is the view from Holmes Lookout, about 3 km from where we are living (we're off to the left a bit, north of the bridge) - that's the Clyde River Bridge, and the towns of Batemans Bay, Catalina and Batehaven down along the coast.

Spiders: Part II

The Sydney Funnel-web Spider is one of the most deadly of the Australian spiders. We have not seen a live one, but had the chance to see some real preserved ones. On our trip up to Brisbane back in April we stayed with our exchangee's sister in Coff's Harbour, and they have seen a few of these spiders. They live in a rural area about 20 km from the town, on a large acerage, and have many animals, both domesticated and otherwise, on their property. They have been able to catch some of the funnel-webs they have seen and have preserved them in jars, and they kindly let us have a look:





























Their distringuishing characteristisc are the white stripes at the base of the legs, and their robustness!
Here are some links to learn more:
http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/dangerous/funnelweb/
http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/funnelweb.htm

Possum!

On Friday, 9 May, we saw a possum on our front yard! We've heard these creatures at night, and they are nocturnal, so we were very surprised to see one at 7:30 in the morning. We all ran out to have a look, and it didn't seem to mind us being there; it didn't scamper off, and it let me take a few pictures and a movie. It looked like a large rat, with a really long tail, a very cute face and interesting hands; the fingers/claws looked like they were slightly webbed. We'll never know what it was doing around at that hour,but it was fun to see one.

Wagga Wagga

We had another ETL gathering this past weekend, and we went to Wagga Wagga (pronounced wogga wogga, not wahhgga wahhgga (with a short 'a' sound) - I'm pronouncing most things wrong around here, if it has an alternate pronunciation, that is usually the one to go with!). We actually left the two girls in Batemans Bay for the weekend, and had a time away, just the two of us! We were planning on taking them, but Natalie was invited to a birthday party, and she had just missed one the previous weekend (we were away), and we figured that they didn't really need to see Wagga Wagga, so Rachel also stayed with our neighbours and kept her company.

It was a 4 1/2 hour drive inland, past Canberra, to get to Wagga Wagga, and we got a bit of a taste of what the dry interior of Australia is like (we get to see it up close and personal in July when we drive to Alice Springs); the grass was all brown, the soil had a reddish tinge, but the leaves on the trees (those that didn't change colour and fall) were green. On the weekend, we met up with people we've been seeing at other similar weekends since we've been here, and it's always nice to hear what they have been doing on weekends and school holidays. It's also nice meeting more former exchangees and hearing of their experiences in Canada and the US.

On Saturday, we wandered around the city (population 70,000), going to the market and checking out the high street. Downtown Wagga has crosswalks the like of which I've never seen or even heard of: all directions of traffic stop for a short period of time, and pedestrians, as well as crossing in the normal directions, can also cross diagonally. When I first saw it, I was wondering why all these people were walking across the middle of the road, but on closer inspection, we noticed that there were pedestrian crossing lights set at an angle to the road, and little white signs with three arrows indicating the directions in which to cross. It was amazing, and every intersection (there were about 4 big ones in a row on this one main street) had people using the diagonal crossing.













We drove up to the town of Junee, where there is a licorice factory in an old flour mill. They make organic licorice here, and chocolate covered cherries, stem ginger, coffee beans etc. We had a lovely organic lunch here, then a tour of the factory and the chance to buy some of the goods. I tried to prevent John from buying any of the black licorice (my shopping included a bag each of the chocolate covered cherries and coffee beans), but he managed to come out with a whole box full of black licorice ropes! http://www.greengroveorganics.com/

We had a quick tour and tasting at the Charles Sturt Winery, back in Wagga Wagga, then it was off to a former exchangee's house for dinner.

Sunday morning saw us meeting up at the Botanic Gardens, which were just beautiful, set onto a large sloping area in the centre of the city. There was a free zoo in there, so John and I had a wander around (we were early) and saw big Red Kangaroos, emus, donkeys (they had chewed up the wooden sign in their pen, but we knew what they were - we could hear them from the entrance to the zoo!), lots of birds, and guinea pigs with their own castle. We had a nice morning tea on a lovely grassy area, and the guys practised their boomerang throwing.






















We headed out around noon, and took a detour around to Cootamundra, a little ways to the north east of Wagga, to have lunch with some exchangees from England who are stationed there. We got home just after six to a warm welcome from the girls, who had had a wonderful weekend, and to a nice dinner prepared by our neighbours, who had been taking care of the girls. Our exchangee's mother-in-law lives next door but one, and she also came over for dinner, so we had a really wonderful Mothers' Day - happy day all!

Murrumbidgee River, Wagga Wagga