speedos on display

(photos carefully selected by Nico)

This is the action we saw this past weekend at Lorne for the surf rescue part of Rescue 06, the world lifesaving championships hosted this year by Geelong and area. As expected, Australia and New Zealand cleaned up in this portion!

These photos are from the flag race finals where one person is eliminated each round.



This is the ready position in the final round--between a Kiwi and a Japanese. The competitors have to jump up and turn around.









Then they race across the sand . . .






. . . and dive for the plastic stick thing. This photo is from the previous round where Australia got eliminated but it just shows you how brutal it can be at the end! The Kiwi triumphed and the Japanese second place finisher broke into tears (overcome by getting second place or losing first place, we're not sure).




Here we have the boys ready for the swim competition--the Team Canada competitor is the one with the solid red cap. There were lots of speedos on display but that's clearly not a fashion faux pas when dealing with world champion lifeguards.





And finally, the champion taplin relay (swim, board, kayak, race) team: the Kiwis perform a haka, derived from a traditional Maori celebration (or war) dance. This is the dance where they stick out their tongue.

Cape Otway & The Shipwreck Coast

On January 17, 2006 we hit the Shipwreck Coast along the Great Ocean road. The first part of the trip we did a major hike to access a couple of shipwrecks (Nico already mentioned earlier) at Moonlight Head - the Fiji (1891) and Marie Gabrielle (1880.) All that's left of either wreck are the anchors. The sign claims it's 366 steps but we counted and they lied. It's really 380. Because of the long hike and the inaccessibility of Moonlight Head (only accessible via a long dirt road) we only saw three other people our entire time on the beach. The beach is dotted with rocks and you have to be careful navigating the rock shelves.

To combat the phenomenon of wrecks a lighthouse was erected at the northern tip of the Eye of The Needle - an 84 KM gap between King Island and Cape Otway - in 1848 (nearly 50 years after the first ship entered the straight.) How can an 84 KM gap be called the eye of the needle? Well, if you think about it in nautical terms (1000's of KMs) 84 KM is a tiny space to fit a boat through without hitting something in the dead of night and without modern technology.

I can't imagine being the lighthouse keeper in that era...utlimate isolation...beyond that which even than the basement Damo would desire. The only contact with the outside world occurred every 6 to 12 months when supplies were delivered. It wasn't until the 1930's that it was accessible overland by road. The second lighthouse keeper

Even today it seems so isolated on the tip of the second most southern point in Australia with cliffs dropping away to trecherous ocean. Rock shelves and breaking waves even a kilometer out. One could see how shipwrecks happened a lot. The views from the lighthouse and the point itself were stunning and its well worth the admission fee of $11.50 Aus.

catching a wave or two

Surfing is SO much fun! We had our first lesson down in South Gippsland with the other exchange teachers. It started off with some on-the-sand practice of jumping up on our imaginary boards.





Here we are ready to hit the surf with our foam G-boards--these are study and somewhat soft, just for beginners like us. They were really slippery and a bit unstable though. (Or maybe that was just my lack of balance?) Later, Damo tried out our host's $1000 plus fibreglass board and said it was much better, like surfing on a tub. There we are, running eagerly to hit the waves! We're the little people on the right.


No action shots of us catching a wave but here's an action shot of Damo waiting to catch a wave! Quite exciting. He's a bit braver and, by the time our lesson was done, had made it out further than me to catch the good waves--good because you get to ride them for much longer. Even when we couldn't get up to standing position or squatting on the board, it was just exhilerating to speed along atop the water.

language lessons

So here, it's okay to ask for a rubber in class because you're just asking for an eraser. Pencil crayons don't exist ("Which one, Miss? Pencils or crayons?")--they're coloured pencils. Markers are also textas. Binders are known as folders. Quotation marks are inverted commas and periods are full stops (sounds like a telegraph!). Thongs for flip-flop sandals, bathers or cozzies for your swimming suit, jumper for sweater, tea is a whole meal.

Rs are ignored so bee, bear and beer sound the same, as does weed and weird. I live near Melbin not Melbourne, and hope to go to Cans, not Cairns.

Everything is lovely, I reckon.

Tears over Spilt Milk

Today, at recess, a little Year Seven boy (12 or 13 years of age) couldn't get his lock open. He was so upset, he was crying! Poor kid! Some of my 'integrated" kids (aka 'coded' or learning disabled) almost cried today as well because we were looking up words in the dictionary and they 'hated it!' and just couldn't do it until I came to help them both with each and every word. "Miss, miss, I can't find environment! It's not on this page!" "Well, this is the ent page so we have to turn over to the next page . . . yes, there it is! Good work!" In the same class, I discovered a student with anger management issues after he hurled markers at his group--kicked him out, found him bawling when I went to chat with him.

I am so not used to this age group! Tears everywhere! Immature behaviour! Lack of basic skills! They tell on each other! I think I will be developing my nuturing side a lot more this year, along with my patience. However, these little guys can be cute too. The students all have to wear uniforms--adorable! The girls all love my accent ("That's Ms. Cameron. Isn't her accent lovely!?!") and all the students ask lots of questions about Canada, including whether I speak Canadian! I spoke a few words of my awfully accented French and they just thought that was SO exotic!

The Year 9s are okay, even though they all hate Australian history, the subject matter of this course. There's one pisshead (pardon my language, Mom!) who's an exception--he's notorious so I have much sympathy from the other teachers. As the Aussies would say, he's feral.

Eden Home of the Prettiest Cemetary

Welcome to Eden where the prime real estate is occupied by a cemetary!

Eden is a small fishing town on the south eastern tip of Australia midway between Sydney and Melbourne, it has yet to acquire the look and feel of a tourist town. It almost seems lost in time with open beaches unoccupied by houses, beautiful cliffs right in the town center with wooden walkways along their precipice. We stayed the night here on January 10th 2006 and still wonder why it was named 'Eden' - as beautiful as the town is that seems a bit of a stretch.

The main attraction is the cemetary itself . It's a lonely place that overlooks the ocean, its loneliness amplified by the overcast skies. Many of the graves bear only a bronze plaque 'unknown' the original inscriptions worn by the salt laden wind and time.

The other thing of note, besides the quaintness of the town, is the Killer Whale Museum. It was in Eden that a most unusual partnership developed between man and killer whale. Tom, the leader of a pack of killer whales, learned to herd larger blue, sperm, and beluga whales into the bay so that the fishermen could row out to sea and kill them. Tom would actually swim into the bay to signal the fishermen that they were about to lure a whale into the bay so that they could prepare their boats. Once the whale was slayed, the pack of killer whales would feast on the lips and tongue, then head back out to sea. This unusual partnership lasted for over a decade until Tom died. His skeleton is the focal point of the museum.