Out of Hibernation

Well it has been almost four months since my last posting, which nicely coincides with the Australian audit "busy season." At first I thought that I would love it, we don't work as late as we did in the states, but the four months here are much worse than the three months in the US...

Of course we have done a few things during busy season

• Enjoyed a weekend stay in the Barossa Vally during the Gourmet Food and Wine Festival
• Took a master hip-hop class with the current winners of America's Best Dance Crew - the Poreotics (not sure why they came to Adelaide, but hey I'm not complaining)
  
• Booked all of our other vacations that will be coming up including: home to Denver, vanning around New Zealand (where you rent a van and just drive), the St Paddy's day horse races in Broken Hill, and girls spa weekend in Dayelsford. Granted these aren't coming for awhile, but when you are stuck in busy season it is good to plan...

On a brighter note, Miss Anne Gabel came down under for a holiday recently. I was able to take some much needed time off and our adventure began. We first stuck around Adelaide for a few days to take in the sights and allow her a few days to get over the jet lag (which didn't take long). Our day trips included McClaren Vale for the red wine tastings and late lunch, Norlunga for a walk on the jetty, and Glenelg for some coffee and beach.

The next day we hopped on a jet headed for Sydney. Got in and out of our hotel room first thing in the morning and took a nice stroll around the Botanic Gardens. Quite a few nice plants and flowers, but the craziest part were the bats. Not sure why the place is full of them, but it is - and they just hang out in the trees making loud noises (unfortunately I didn't have my camera in Sydney so no photos of them...). Then it was around the Opera House and the Circle Quay before heading back for a nap before dinner.

Luckily, in Hyde Park close to our hotel, they were having an international food festival. This was advertised with banners showing pictures of different country flags made out of their local food. For example, America's flag was made of blueberries where the stars are and the red and white stripes were made from hot dogs in buns - Mexico's was made of green jalapenos on one side, white rice in the middle, red peppers on the right and some basil and small chili in the middle. There were lots of these and it was fun to guess which flag was which country - which I think we did alright with. But as I mentioned there was a Mexican flag, so I was thinking to myself this might prove to be the best dinner in Sydney yet...unfortunately there was no Mexican that night - just a lot of Asian dishes.

The rest of our dinners proved to be the highlight of Sydney for me (rained on us at Bondi Beach, Darling Harbour had quite a bit of construction, and our roof top hot tub was more like a roof top warm bathtub). Anne found great places to eat each night in Darlinghurst. One a Vietnamese hot spot called Phamish where we had to wait for 40 minutes and the hostess would continually walk around and ask people to leave once they were done with the meal. A second place (I forget its name) which served Spanish tapas and had great Sangria. Needless to say, we ate very well on the trip.

On Sunday we headed out - which was perfect as the weather was turning cold and rainy - and made it up to Cairns (said like "cans"). Oh Cairns, warm sunny Cairns. What a perfect way to spend a holiday. We lathered up with sunscreen and walked around the very touristy city centre. Once Mark joined us (he was coming from Adelaide), we booked a diving/snorkeling tour and the next day were off to Port Douglas to catch the Poseiden ship to the outer Barrier Reef. After an hour boat ride we were at the Agincourt Ribbon Reefs which are long narrow reefs located along the very Outer Edge of the Great Barrier Reef, flushed out at every tide by clear oceanic water welling up from the Coral Sea Trench nearby. Coral thrives in this clear water, creating spectacular gardens and a huge variety of marine life.



Mark and I did two dives on the boat and a third snorkeling with Anne. The dives were amazing - went down to 18 meters for 40 minutes each dive. Saw so many different and colourful fish from the Clown Fish (aka Nemo) to some whitetip reef sharks (not dangerous). Mark and I did get an underwater camera, but the film has to be developed, so not sure how the pictures will turn out...

The next day we rented a car and drove back up to Port Douglas to find some good swimming beaches. You can't swim in Cairns as the water is extremely muddy from building the port but Port Douglas has some great swimming beaches, so we picked one and stayed for the day. A very relaxing day which was needed after the dives.



On our final adventure day we jumped on a boat for Fitzroy Island about an hour out of Cairns. Upon our arrival there was a nice sea turtle swimming along in the lagoon by our boat, which we figured was a sign to the start of a great day. From there we hiked to a beach for some snorkeling. On our way we say quite a few geckos - one was in the middle of catch his mid-morning tea and eating a fly - really cool to watch. The beach we were at was gorgeous, with very few people there. Mark and I were able to walk out to the water and start snorkeling. There was still so many fish close to the beach it was a great adventure.



Sadly, we had to wake up early the next morning for our flight back to Adelaide. But once we were back, we still had a few days to show Anne around the town. We got here up to Gorge Wildlife park to cuddle the koalas and see the Kangaroos. Also, hit up Haundorf for some good German sausage and finally dinner with the friends (so she didn't think I just hung out with Mark all the time). All in all, a great way to get away from work for awhile. I have generated some major vitamin D which will hopefully last me until Adelaide starts to hit summer.

Next up - Thanksgiving!!!

June Travels

Well June has come and gone and we have made the most of it, not because it is the best weather to travel in, or has the best deals of the year, but mainly because with July comes busy season and I'm not sure how much day light I'll be seeing in the next three to four months. So yes, we made the most of June.


It started out with a trip to Perth - the most isolated big city in the World. Adelaide is the closest city to it and is still a four hour flight. In Perth we toured around the CBD and saw all the 'sights' thanks to the walking tour ap on iPhone. Its bigger than Adelaide but still not a big city by American definition. The second day we took a ferry out to a place called Rottnest Islands. Named after an explorer found the Quokas on the island and thought they were big rats. They are actually really cute and part of the marsupial family (same as kangaroos). They don't allow cars on the island, so to Mark's delight, we hired some bikes to get around.



We also visited Freemantel (Freo as they refer to it). It the port town of Western Australia, and known for its market. But to tell the truth the market was about 1/5 of the size of the one in Adelaide so I'm not sure what the fuss was about. The one place I did enjoy in Freo was the Little Creatures Brewery. Good beer, good food and good people. Great place to spend the afternoon.


After our trip to Perth we managed to get everything organized and headed into the centre of Australia. Which doesn't sound that adventurous, but it did take us 5 days to get there. We stopped at some interesting places along the way - which was the point of the trip. First stop was Clare Valley, one of the many wine regions in SA. Stopped for some lunch and a nice glass of wine before getting to Port Agusta for the night (luckily it was just the night and we headed out early in the morning).

After Port Agusta we drove a good 6 hours to Coober Peedy where the people are crazy. The only thing to do in Coober Peedy is mine - and mining for opals nonetheless. I don't particularly enjoy opals but it was the Americans for WWII who started buying them and creating the demand for the stone. So an entire town was built to mine opals and they love what they do. We had a few tours of the mines and took in a show of how the mining machines work (all home made in Coober Peedy). Due to the fact that Coober Peedy is one of the hottest places in Australia most dwellings are built underground. So like most other people who visit we got an underground hotel room. Which really didn't feel that different to any other hotel room that I've experienced in my days (except for all the rock around and the non-squareness of the room).



Along side Coober Peedy is the Dingo Fence. The longest man made thing ever build (longer than the Great Wall of China). The fence was built to keep the Dingos (wild dogs) on the north side where it is cattle country to protect the sheep on the south side. It runs from SA to NSW.

After a good time in Coober Peedy we headed to the Big Rock - known as Ayers Rock or Uluru.

It is a very sacred site to the Aboriginals, which is understandable considering how immense the rock is when compared to anything else around. Mark and I took the walk around the walk and 10k later (about 6 miles) we made it back to the beginning. The first night we watched the sun set and then got up early the next morning and headed out to see the sun rise. Unfortunately, mother nature was not in our favour and it was a bit cloudy to get a good sunrise.

That afternoon we headed to Kings Canyon which is a up and coming tourist attraction. There is only one place to stay for cabins, campers, vans and those of us with tents - so yeah, in other words a caravan park. But the park did have a bar with drinks and entertainment so I counted us lucky. In the morning we headed to the actual canyon and did the hike around. Like most of our camping vacations it rained almost the entire time we were at Kings Canyon - but didn't detour us at all.


On the fifth day we made it to Alice Spring, which was probably the most unexciting place to visit. We had a list of 5 restaurants and the first two didn't have any room so we were getting a bit nervous but luckily got in at the third. Which about sums up our time in Alice Springs - nothing was opened in the morning due to the town celebrating Territory Day (Alice Springs is in the Norther Territory so not an actual state of Australia), so we headed to the airport for our flight home.

All in all a great trip and worth taking the time to do it (because I'm not sure I'll be back there any time soon).

Mexiwhat?

Well its been a year and Mark and I have kept our minds and mouths open (when it comes to Mexican food). I mean really, is it that difficult? Well, by Aussie standards yes, yes it is.

There are only about five Mexican restaurants in Adelaide and we visited the last of them last night. I had my hopes up as co-workers were telling me this was the one...the one - the best one; the one that would make me say "Yeah, they know what Mexican food is all about." And the result...well, the result was disappointing. Not even disappointing, more than disappointing (which I don't know the word for that). It was (and I'm very sad to say this) worse than Casabonita.

To describe it would be torture that I would not want my fellow readers to endure - so I won't. Just know that if you come to Australia (Adelaide to be more specific) bring your own Mexican food. Better yet - if you know anyone who is in the market to open a new Mexican restaurant and really wants to find that untapped niche, please send them my way!

Now as I have only been able to taste-test the Adelaide "Mexican" I am not going to say that Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or any other large cities wouldn't have good Mexican. But I am going to say that one of the chefs on Master Chef (think Top Chef in the states) did say it and although you don't know him personally, I would take his word for it.

Another Holiday...

Well, not that I'm complaining about the amount of public holidays that Australia has, but last weekend was another one. This time for the Easter holiday - something that would never occur in the states. We were granted a day off of work for Good Friday and another day off that following Monday as Easter is on Sunday and we really should get a day off to celebrate Easter so "let's make it Monday."

Well Mark and I aren't ones to sit around and let an opportunity pass us by...so we were at the store Thursday night and out the door by 6 am the next morning. Off to the great Innes National Park for a weekend of camping. We had heard rumors that last year it took some over 10 hours to complete what is typically a 3.5 hour drive. Much to our amazement it only took us the expected 3.5 hours so we were hoping we had beaten everyone...

Then we go to the self-registration post and turned out that 6 out of the 7 or so sites were already full!?!? Yep, full by Thursday at 11:00 pm. Well I guess good for them - would not want to set up our tent in the dark, but I guess these people are pros. We still managed to get a good spot - about 10 meters from the sea. The only downside was that it was a bit further away from where the hiking started, but that didn't bother us - we were up to make the hikes a bit longer anyway.




The weekend was very relaxing (I mean very relaxing). There was still a fire ban so we couldn't have any fires, which made the nights a bit longer. So we went to bed rather early - and as as mindfully kept our tent in the shade were able to escape the morning sun and sleep in a bit longer. Then of course (since our hikes were a bit longer than the typical person would walk) we had to take a nap (or two). Add it all up and I'm pretty sure I slept more that weekend then the entire month of March.

Well a camping trip is not a real camping trip unless you see wild life (birds are excluded). Luckily we did. Saw a few kangaroos on one of our hikes and some emu just searching through the campsites for some food.



Well, all in all it was a great weekend. Next up a three day weekend for ANZAC Day (Australian New Zealand Army Corp Day)...hopefully we can find something to do...

End of Summer

Today it rained all day, which can only mean one thing...summer is ending soon. The Australian's told me to watch out, that I wouldn't be able to live without air conditioning, that I wouldn't be able to handle the summer - and I must say they were completely wrong. Maybe its because I did go through two winters before actually getting a summer and I had just been longing for the sun, but really I think its because CO has very similar summers. Whatever it was, I completely without a doubt enjoyed summer in OZ. Didn't matter that we didn't have a white Christmas, or that there were no snow days from work; we took full advantage of this summer.



I was fortunate enough to have a good friend ask me to join her in getting her scuba license. Which, really, did she even need to ask. It was great - two weekends and one picture later I'm a licensed scuba diver (granted I don't actually have the licenses yet but it will be coming in the mail shortly). Well after we passed (which taking my mask off in dive 4 was probably the most terrifying skill I had to do) Natalie and I took no time in getting in our first solo dive. Her husband, Quinton, escorted us down to Edithbugh and we jumped in! There was so much color around the jetty from the plants it was unbelievable. Can't wait to see what kind of underwater camera device I can get to share everything that we get to see.



Also at the end of summer is the Nissan Corporate Triathlon. The partners challenged us - and of course we're not going to say no...so we got together a few girls teams and a few for the fellas. Now since it is a Corporate triathlon and not an Ironman, we got a shorter version = 800 meter swim, 9 km cycle and 4 km run. Well our teams took off and proved to our partners that we might need a bit more time off (aka they work us too hard and we don't have adequate time to train). Well there is always next year. I reckon with a real road bike (not my commuter where we just took the basket off for more aerodynamics) and more swim practice (especially in salt water with waves) we'll be able to come back and make a better showing next year.

Ketchup

Wow its been a long time...Sorry to all of those who have been wondering what the heck I've been doing the past month and a half. Well here is the short version.

January started off with Schutzenfest. A true German beer drinking festival. Now I'm not one to turn down a festival (or a beer) so of course we headed to the parklands for a good night. We were a bit disappointed that there were no yodelers (as the program seemed to indicate) but ended up dancing to some live music (made me a bit home sick for the Kahuna Beach Party).



Next off was Australia Day - pretty much exactly like our 4th of July. Get together with friends and family have a huge BBQ, drink some beers and have a good time. We were fortunate enough to be invited to our good friend, Emma's place which comes inclusive of a nice swimming pool and tennis court. There was some pool volleyball, some tennis, lots of food (true Italian style) and good fun.



At the end of the month was the Tour Down Under. Man was Mark not paying attention to me this week. But I guess that is what happens when your other love comes into town. I'm pretty sure the entire week he thought good thoughts about meeting Lance. Well Lance ended up going into the cycling shop Mark works at and wouldn't you know, Mark is being the good sales man he is and is out back helping a family try out some new bikes and misses his big chance. Mark must be a really good kid, because not two days later he was riding with some friends and here comes Lance (and all the other pros) right behind them. Of course they slowed down enough to get caught in the group and enjoyed the ride back into town.

February started off with a bang. My good friend Natalie and I spent the first two weekends getting our PADI Open Water Diving License. Awesome time...it is quite a bit of hard work to carry the tanks all the way down the jetty to finally get into the water, but once we were in the ocean and doing our dives everything just felt normal. Maybe its because I'm a Pisces and am a fish symbol but there is something about being in the water that calms me and I feel very comfortable there. Glad that we did this early in our time here so we can explore another part of Australia.

The weekend after we completed our license Mark and I were in moving mode. We were asked by the owner of our old apartment if we wouldn't mind moving out early so that he could move back in...what move out of an overpriced, tiny apartment with no balcony early? Where do I sign up? Yep, didn't take too much convincing - although applying for other places and being rejected did take a toll on my confidence. I know we are American but people really shouldn't hold that against Mark and I until they meet us (then they are free to judge) - but it happens and we applied to over 6 different places before we found one that actually accepted our application. And I must say that in the end everything works out.

The place is amazing!!!!! It is a two bedroom townhouse (what I call my first big-girl place). Has a nice front courtyard just waiting for some patio funiture, an old school kitchen (like so old school the gas oven is lit by a spark), a nice family room and 1.5 baths. The best part is that there is a spiral staircase up to the second level. Did I mention it is cheaper than our old apartment??!! It is unfurnished (which means no washer - no refrigerator) but that was easily purchased from the Good Guys (who are actually pretty good guys). We also purchased a new bed as I couldn't imagine sleeping on one from say Salvos. The rest of it is coming in slowly. Have some great co-workers who are letting us take some old furniture off their hands. I can't wait till it is all set up and we'll be able to have a house warming party - its going to be good.



Now we are constantly working on getting Mark on my visa as a de facto relationship. Yeah this is more complicated than us getting married. We have had to prove to some government official that we are a bonifide couple...and how do you do that? Well we are still not sure, we have proven that we have been living together for awhile, sent in every document we can find that has both of our names on it, and sent past emails between us. So far that has not satisfied, what they refer to as, my case worker. Next step? Well that involves two people on my side and two people on Mark's side writing personal statements about why they believe our relationship is genuine. Additionally, we have to get two Australian's to fill out an official govt. document about our relationship and have it witnessed by an official signatory. Talk about complicated. We are really hoping that our case worker gets the drift and accepts that Mark and I are...well - Mark&Hillary and that its not going to be changing.

So that's the catch up (or Ketchup) however you want to spell it. Next up we try and survive the Adelaide Festival, Fringe Festival, French Film Festival, and all the other festivals I can't think of right now.

Its official...

I'm now one of them.

During the weekend Adelaide went through another heat wave. Ranging up to 107 for four days it was a hot one. So of course on day three we decided to head to the beach - and that is when it happened. We we just hanging out in the ocean and I felt it...something on my arm.




Yep a stinger jellyfish. Everyone immediately told me to pee on it (like that was ever going to happen). But as I'm not an expert in jellyfish we went and spoke to the life guards and they assured me I was going to live and that I just needed to ice it to stop the stinging.

Well, after that extravaganza I'm going to call myself a true Australian (even if no one else does).

Christmas and the New Year

Well we made it through our first Christmas down under. Started out going to the beach after opening presents. Once we got all the beach towels laid out the boys were ready for a swim.



And although it looks sunny and beautiful, it was actually cold and windy. The rest of us were holding down the fort and trying to keep the sand from getting into all of the food. We only lasted about an hour before packing up and heading back into town.

Headed to the parks by the Torrens River. The Torrens is the main river in Adelaide that splits it between the central business district and north adelaide. The park was nice and warm with no breeze, but also unfortunately with no ocean. We set up the disposable BBQs and started cooking. We even got to roast some marshmallows.



The next day Mark and I took off for Sydney. We went the long way around to see some more sights. The first town we stopped in was Deniliquin, which really didn't have any sights to see, but after 8 hours of driving we needed a break. We got up early (after I was bitten by all the mosquitoes in the town) and headed for Albury. Not a big town buy a big stop off for those traveling from Melbourne to Sydney. It is right on the Murry River and on one side is Victoria and the other side is New South Wales. We just had a quick lunch and continued on to the Snow Mountains.

After another long drive we made it to our campsite. There were quite a few people up against the river, but not many in the near by field. As such, we decided to take up a spot on the field as it looked exciting with 100s of wild kangaroos around. Soon after we learned why there weren't that many people there...really pretty logical (kangas=lots of poo=lots of flys). And I mean lots of flys. We were swating them away all night, but were a bit distracted by all the kangas coming to our camp site wanting some food.

Here is where I give a shout out to my fabulous cousin Kendra.

The next day we got up and drove to Thredbo, which is one of the countries ski resorts. As it is the middle of summer there was no skiing but we did manage to hike to the top of the tallest mountain in Australia (Mt Kosciuszko). We had to take a chair lift up to the top of the mountain and then hike the rest of the way. I was a bit out of breath at the beginning when Mark pointed out that after the chair lift we were just at about the elevation of Denver...

After the Snowy Mountains we made it to Canberra in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory). Canberra is the Capital of Australia. One of the only capitals that was built knowing that it would be the capital (b/c Melbourne and Sydney were fighting too much over which one should be the capital). So what is there to do in the capital....not a whole lot. Mainly government buildings and museums - which is what we did. The National Portrait Gallery which had paintings, drawings, photos and other artistic mediums portraying the influential Australians throughout history. It was actually pretty entertaining, although we didn't do the entire museum. We also hit up the National Gallery of Australia which was having an exhibition of the post-impressionism from Paris. I was excited b/c it was the first time I was able to see the real Starry Night from Van Gogh.

From Canberra we headed to Sydney for a few nights of sleeping in a hotel. Our hotel was about a ten minute walk down to Cogee Beach and a 20 minute bus ride to the city. We took full advantage of it all. In short we spent a few days at the beach, Cogee has these areas called baths which a like little swimming pools surrounded by huge rocks.

We also went down to the city and saw the opera house, the Sydney beach, the rocks (a suburb by the bridge), out to Manly (across the bay), and Darling Harbor (the place to be if you are a tourist). We were able to meet up with Sal, Keith, Becky and Rich for a nice (pricy) lunch at Cafe Sydney. Had great views of bridge and the opera house and some really nice food.



After bringing in the New Year at Cogee beach with a bottle of champagne and some true Australian shot glasses, we had a good rest and headed out for some more camping. Headed up the coast to Myall Lakes National Park. We stayed there for two nights where we were camped behind some sand dunes. Right on the other side was an amazing beach with and even better ocean. Did some hiking, some swimming, made a fire, played lots of cribbage and did some star gazing.

Once well rested, we packed up the car and started our long drive home. The first day we drove for 12 hours to a small town called Hay. Stayed at the caravan park and was ecstatic to take a shower. Woke up the next morning and another 6 hours to Adelaide. After 11 days and 3,334 km we have officially toured the south east region of Australia.