The Police of Penrith Australia

On the December 2nd weekend I flew solo to Sydney to visit Darren, Kelly, Aussie Dave, and Angela and left Nicole to her marking. They live in Penrith, close to Sydney.

The second day involved numerous beverages that the Aussies call 'beeh'. I didnt want to be rude by rejecting their hospitality, so I imbibed every one offered. Before I knew it, the world was swimming and normally silly ideas like riding a shopping cart home became strokes of genius

I don't remember much of what happened afterwards but Darren and Dave were nice enough to give me these photos of the events later that day to jog my memory.

From what I remember, the police were quite nice and helpful and sent me on my way once I had sufficiently recovered my cognitive and walking skills.

Mungo National Park

On the map, the lakes of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area show up as big blue expanses, a deception. In reality, they are dry, salty, scrubby plains and have been thus for most of the past 10 000 years. So we didn't come here for the swimming, but instead, the Wall of China, a 33 km long white sand dune. It was very beautiful and, of course, we visited it at sunset to capture the colours.





But the thing about this outback park is not so much what you see now but the stories in it. 40 000 years ago, these were permanent lakes with huge wombat creatures, 3 metre tall kangaroos, giant Tasmanian tigers, and the ancestors of the local Aborigine groups all living here. As the winds have sifted through the sands of the dune, bones of these extinct animals, the people and their artifacts have been uncovered. Two most famous discoveries are of Mungo Women (1969) and Mungo Man (1974), two people that were buried here around 40 000 years ago in a ritualized manner. They are, as the archaeologist who found them, Jim Bowler, says, 'the earliest evidence on earth of cultural sophistication.' It just make you ponder our human history--the immensity of time we're dealing with and how very little we really know of our collective past.

The Outback

I loved the outback. It was very flat, dusty and dry with scrubby bush and a few red rocky hills amidst the sandy soil. I admit, it does remind me of my home province Saskatchewan. It's different in a lot of ways but evokes that sense of spaciousness and the wind was ever constant.




This deisel drum is one of the outback mailboxes. Remote stations (i.e. big ranches) and national parks like this one get mail delivered weekly, as long as roads are passable.

Ohh laa laa, the view from our tent in the morning at Mungo National Park. While chilly, it was at least dry enough to sleep with the fly off and the screen open--divine! Look at the red red earth!





Scrub, scrub, scrub and one very long fence just out of Silverton. Some of the stations are millions of acres big.

Interesting but sad fact: it's so dry and dusty in the Outback that kids often get ear infections that, if untreated, cause them to go deaf. In a town near Uluru, a good chunk of the little kids have hearing aids. The solution? A community salt water pool like the one in Jigaloo (a town featured in Rabbit Proof Fence). See all the interesting things you learn as a Social Studies teacher watching the weekly news program with the kids?

Broken Hill

We completed a major road trip over the Easter weekend (about 2000 Kms round trip.) It's funny - when you're on vacation it seems like no distance is too far. At home, it's the opposite, any distance is too far.

Broken Hill is on the western edge of New South Wales and is actually closer to South Australia's capital of Adelaide. It's a city founded because of its enormous silver deposit. Since then they've developed a thriving artist community as well. We couldnt help but think Nat would love the place, except for the flies, and the heat, and the cold, and the barrenness. But other than that...ya.

Just outside of Broken Hill is Silverton whose population peaked in the ealry 1900's and then crashed. At its peak it had over 2000 homes. All that's left now are piles of bricks, a bar, and a few other buildings. The other buildings are, by and large, are local artist's galleries. In addtion to being a ghost town, Silverton is also where Mad Max II was filmed.

Can you tell which one's the REAL mad max??

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.

Are There Really Flies in Australia?

Yes. The annoying, swarm en mass and get in your face type flies. Flies that have no qualms about crawling in your nose, landing on your eyeball …or even worse…flying into your mouth just as you are breathing in so that you get a late afternoon meal. These two stunning photos demonstrate the phenomenon...in certain areas it's almost impossible to take a photo without a fly in it. I guess that flies, like humans, lust after recognition and fame.

Drowsy Drivers Die

It's been a long time! We FINALLY got internet hooked up in our new home and now can update re: our adventures so far.

In brief:

• Penrith for four days. Hung with Darren and Kelly who were nice to put us up. Saw some kangaroos suffering in the sweltering 45.5 degree heat. We comisserated with them.
• From Penrith to Sydney for two nights accomodation at the Four Points Sheriton hotel (free thanks to Nico's parents! gracias!). We saw a hell of a lot in a whirlwind tour that went from 9 am til 10 pm at night. We bought a 'See Sydney' card which let us into most attractions all for one low price as long as we saw them all on the same day...we really saw too much so that by the third museum it was more about saying we went there than actually absorbing anything useful.
• Rented a car in Sydney and drove down the coast swimming at numerous secluded beaches. Stopped in Ulladulla for two nights to enjoy wine and good company with Tony and Jo. We had our own suit in their house. Awfully nice of them.
• Onward to Melbourne and Geelong our new home.
• Puttered in Geelong and battled a massive hangover. The hangover won for a day.
• Took our new Suburu (it's David's but it's ours for the year) and headed out down the Great Ocean Road. It starts at Torquay - the home of Billabong, Ripcurl, and the 'best surf beaches' in the world...like Bell's Beach.
• The Great Ocean Road is the most stunning road trip I have ever done. Better even than the Redwood Forrest trip in California. The road is carved into the side of cliffs hovering above the ocean. It's only 300 KM but it took us over three days to do it as we stopped every KM or so for yet another stunning vista. We handfed a wild koala. No he didnt fall and just cause he was wild doesnt mean he was ravenous so no one lost any fingers.
• From the Great Ocean Road to Penola the gateway to the Coonawarra wine region known for its Shiraz and Cab Sav. I love the latter, Nico the former. We stopped briefly and hand fed wild possums. They are even cuter and less dangerous than koalas. We met Mark and Cathy who invited us to their house for a huge Ozzie feed that included Kangaroo sausage and steak. It was yummy despite how cute they look in life. Nico ate a cute and cuddly animal - someone please harrass her for it. Mark, funnily enough, is a Yank from Oregon and moved here in 73 to pursue teaching and to avoid the Vietnam war. Super great people. I battled a massive hangover yet again the next day. The hangover came in second.
• From Penola back to Geelong where Internet hookup became possible! Woo!!

That's the brief version, many more stories to come.

Some Ozzie Facts:

• Ozzie's do not pronounce the letter R and thus the word wierd sounds exactly like the word weed. This could lead to confusion back in Canada if I ask someone for a bee.
• Speeding is not tolerated in Australia. The speed limit IS THE SPEED LIMIT.
• Overstaying your welcome by 1/2 an hour at a parking spot is a serious offense and leads to a $75 fine.
• Driving drowsy is frowned upon. Some roadsigns "Drowsy Drivers Die" "Drooping eyes? Powernap now!"
• As anal as Aussies are about speeding, drunk driving, illegal parking, driving while drowsy, they are the opposite about bee's. The passengers can all have bee's in the car as long as the driver is under 0.05.

That's all I got for now!

The Damo.

hot rods and huntsmans

we're in ulladulla right now, a cute little beachside town south of sydney, sleeping in a real bed (hoorah!), thanks to damo's friends, tony and jo. tony is a wine buff so we drank lots of kick ass wine last night and celebrated the day after my birthday (happy birthday me!). after this contact with the world over via internet, we're going to hit the beach again in our attempt to get rid of our sun reflecting pale white skin!

the past weekend was spent in canberra, the nation's capital. it's this neat designed city so it's full of green spaces (in theory, but was bone dry so they were all brown spaces), random public art and beautiful or weird buildings.

highlight: war memorial--a big, thorough, interesting, spectacular museum covering all of australia's involvement in what seems to be every major conflict in the past two hundred years.

lowlight: we chose the one weekend that sees canberra host a souped up car festival. we ended up on a crowded tent field in a caravan park with rowdies, young and old, who partied and revved their engines ALL night long. by night three we were cranky with no sleep.

wildlife update: damo killed a big ass spider outside the tent--probably a non-venomous huntsman but we didn't know at the time. damo tried to shoo it away but it reared up and tried to attack the twig (!!) he was using so he smooshed it under his shoe. we're reading a book on aussie's most dangerous animals so are in a heighted state of paranoia right now with anything creeping, crawling or swimming. we've seen a white tip spider in the bathroom of a friend's house already.

lots more to write about--it was australia's hottest new year's day on record (45.5 degrees outside of sydney!)--but we'll update once we hit geelong.

the nico