Our Bluey and other critters
The critters around us seem much more exotic than those of Oregon, I guess because they are! A spider is a spider, unless you’re into arachnids, but here they are likely to be the size of a US quarter or bigger. You don’t so much walk into a web across a track as bounce off it. We met our resident bluey, a blue-tongued lizard, the other night in the garage. They are common all over Oz, growing to 16 cm or so. They’ve adapted to suburban gardens and eat lots of insects, their biggest predator being domestic cats. We see gulahs every evening at the nearby dog park. There are blooms and fruits in some of the big trees around us, so the cockatoos and parrots are busy tanking up, a noisy process. So far, no big fruit bats that we’ve spotted close by yet though.

Whose poo?
We spotted little guinea pig-like poos on the deck railing the other morning and the discovery led to a day-long poo safari. Nothing like the enthusiasm of a six-and eight-year-old for this task! After some field research, we decided it was probably from a brush-tailed possum, a common backyard denizen. We got a great book from the library, Tracks, Scat and Other Traces to help the research, and took some nature walks on the swamp trail at the bottom of our hill. We measured the scat we found with metric rulers (aha, what an easy way to switch to metrics!), drew field pictures and identified other scat in the garden. Jack and Abby’s journals are not your normal kid scribbles any longer.

Another Icon off the list
Australia’s icons are many: the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, Uluru (Ayres Rock), and Manly Beach among the most well-known. A short ferry ride from downtown Sydney, Manly is also just a few minutes away from Narrabeen. A sunny summer Sunday at Manly is on the must-do list. It is gorgeous, packed with families on Sundays. Lifeguards with their red/yellow hats patrol the beaches to keep swimmers and surfers safe, as the surf can be treacherous when rip tides sweep back out to sea. They keep folks BTF, between the flags which they plant in the safe areas.



Headland walks
Most of the east coast beaches are bounded by headlands and we went out for a bushwalk on the Turimetta Head track the other night. Great views north and south.



Shrimp and the new moon
A fisherman told Tracy that the fishing is great at river inlets on the new moon when the shrimp come into the river mouths and the fish follow. Flatties, we think the fish are called, but more research is needed here! Anyway, the fishermen were definitely out on the Narrabeen inlet last night, though I didn’t see many fish landed.

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Boxing Day Learning Curve

Beginning drivers sport a small P placard on their cars and after Boxing Day yesterday, I reckon there should be a B placard for those of us who don’t get all the intricacies of Boxing Day, which is the day after Christmas (Happy birthday to my sister, Seja!). We asked friends at our Christmas Day affair just what it was all about, and mostly we heard “shopping” and “the cricket”. So, imagine my surprise when I walked briskly down to our nearby neighborhood mall, prepared with my shopping bags and sharp elbows, to find the mall locked up tight! Kmart opened finally, but there were no rare bargains and no hordes of shoppers. Hmm. As for the cricket, I assure you we didn’t hunker down in front of the telly to watch the opening test. It was a glorious day, so for the Yanks, that means only one thing: Beach!

We went to a beach to the north of us and found the missing shoppers. The beaches all along the north coast were full of families enjoying a wonderful day. No wonder Aussies consistently rank so high in swimming competitions. They begin early in the water, even before they can hang onto a boogie board. I saw itty-bitties up and down the beach initiated into surfing by laughing parents. One mom had her two-year-old perched on the front of her surfboard as she rode in on some easy waves. Dan initiated his new surfboard while Jack and Abby boogied, jumped waves and tried to hold back the incoming tide with a sand wall. It was fabulous.

A Christmas to remember

I am forever in awe of Australian hospitality. There are few places I have been where the spirit of welcome is as pervasive and sincere as here downunder. We were included in an extended-family gathering on the south coast, and I mean included. With easy grace, people we had never met before made us feel as if we had been friends forever. The sister of one of Dan’s friends in the US engineered our invitation and the whole gang took us right in. They had even learned our names in advance and unerringly greeted us each by name. I am still trying to sort out the relationships, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. Great-grandmother to itty-bitty, friends, spouses, kids, and even us strangers, it’s all cherished family.

The setting is stunning, an Aussie-style beach house perched on a hill overlooking, of course, a sunlit cove. Planted with blooming agapanthas plus stuff we nurture endlessly in indoor pots, the garden frames the beach below. The address given us was Stanfield Park, so we assumed a park barbeque. Nope. The village is called Stanfield Park and so we were a little underdressed for a house party. No matter, no one cares, and by the time the pack of kids finished exploring the garden and under the house, they were so dirty, good clothes would have been a mess.

Wildlife spotting from the wide verandah included a big water dragon sprinting on his back legs for all he was worth, neck frilled out, while Preston the cat was in hot pursuit. With all the doors and windows open, Preston had made a usually-forbidden foray into the great outdoors. There were also some lovely red-headed parrots checking out the peach tree in the back garden. Wayne told the kids to find an ant lion nest, get some ants and see if they could see the ant lion pop up from his hole to grab the ant. They had not been too successful with ants, until the four-year-old stuck his hand in the cat’s dish and came up with an armful of ants. When I saw them last, Jessie was dashing by with his ants headed for an undisclosed location. They claim to have seen an ant lion, but who knows.

The spread was huge with all the promised delights: shrimp, oysters, salads, turkey, ham, and finished off by a truly amazing plum pudding with brandy custard sauce. We pulled crackers, called bon bons here, and wore the silly hats. Or some of us did; there may be a learning curve on this too. The kids became instant friends, and for Jack, that is pretty much out of his comfort zone. I am proud of him. Abby seems to have a knack for quick friendships; she’s missed her little chums at school so it was a relief for her to run with the pack.

After the meal, it was off to the beach with the new boogie boards Santa left for Jack and Abby. With three experienced surfer dads (Dan, Aaron and Wayne) there were plenty of adults to tutor the five kids, ages four to nine. Shelly, the oldest, is just about standing up on a board under Aaron’s expert guidance. I loved watching the kids playing so comfortably in the surf. Only one stinger (nasty jellyfish with a wollop) episode, too.

Homeward bound, the kids fell asleep in the car, a little sunburned, and definitely with sand in their pants. We tried getting them cleaned off in the lovely outdoor shower, but the sand is everywhere.




Truly a Christmas to remember.

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Christmas upside down
It’s hard to get in the Christmas mindframe when Santa is wearing shorts and Mrs Santa is garbed in a teeny red strapless number, but folks here soldier on with traditional carols and decorations. Snow is a big feature in shop windows and many towns have carol-by-candlelight events, though they’ll have to wait till late at night for dark. We’re just now celebrating the summer solstice here and I figure I’ve had the best of both worlds, with two summer solstices this year!

We are invited to a friend’s for Christmas day dinner, and the menu is truly frightening: lobster, prawns, oysters to begin, then salad, turkey, and ham, and of course, desserts. There will be swimming at the beach too. What a great celebration!

The sun’s in the wrong place
For someone from the west coast of the US, directions down here are confounding. The sun rises in an unexpected quarter and the ocean seems to have moved around. The other day, I walked almost a mile in the wrong direction before I realized my mistake, but the three people I asked for directions (all natives, by the accents), seemed just as muddled as I was. I didn’t realize how subtle and deeply inbedded is the sense of direction, but I could have checked in with the salmon. They get it.


Zoo with a view
One of Sydney’s must-see places is the Taronga Zoo, and with Funday Sunday discounts on Sydney’s buses, trains and ferries, we decided to make a day of it. Dan had researched the best bus route to take, and a good thing he did; we never would have figured it out otherwise. Sydney’s a sprawling city, but sadly, of the top 20 world cities, it ranks 20th in efficient public transport. Of course, if you look at the city from above, you can see how all the bays, lagoons, inlets, rivers and peninsulas make a huge challenge for transport design. The zoo is across the harbour from the opera house, spilling down a cliff. We came from the north, so we began at the top end; ferries come from Circular Quay and deposit visitors bay-side also. Since my first visit more than 10 years ago, the zoo has updated many exhibits and put more emphasis on environmental issues, as have most of the world’s leading zoos. It feels more like the San Francisco Zoo than the San Diego Zoo. Keeper talks at Taronga are excellent, informative yet casual. The kids really liked the spider talk and the keeper was very patient with them. My personal fave is the Keene house, a model of sound environmental house design for the Australian climate: the wide verandahs and airy interior capture the breezes and protect windows from direct sun. As we wandered around the zoo, surprise views across the harbour to the Sydney bridge and opera house delighted us. We learned baby platypi are called “puggles”, managed a glimpse of the endangered red panda, enjoyed the seal show, and envied the giraffes’ view of the harbour. It’s a great zoo, not to be missed.

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The kookaburra sings for me

As kids, my sisters and I loved going to Girl Scout camp and one of the memories I treasure is the singing: singing in the mess hall, on the trail, and around the campfire at night when our clear high voices mingled with the smoke of the fire, rising in the night to the stars. If you ever went to camp, you sang the kookaburra song too:

Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry, merry king of the bushes, he.
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh,
Glad your life must be.

 And I never dreamed I would ever hear a real kookaburra in the wild, yet here I am in Australia, waking every morning to a family of these birds yelling at each other at 5am! Who needs an alarm clock? They use their raucous cries to share information about their territory and the bug supply and to keep in touch with each other. It hasn’t taken me long to get used to my wake-up call, however, and after only a week I lie in bed waiting for it. It’s early summer in Sydney so as the morning sun gilds the tops of the tall eucalypts on the hill behind our house I can be sure the laughing will begin soon.

And it’s not just the kookaburra song I never dreamed I’d hear: near the house where we’re staying is a greenway belt which permits wildlife to move from the coast inland and to nearby national parks. So, without half trying, we’ve seen (and heard!) lorikeets, cockatoos, parrots, Indian mynahs and any number of smaller birds which I’ve yet to identify. And the insect life is so prolific as to boggle the mind. There’s been some rain after a seven-year drought, so the cicadas have really ramped up their racket and are so loud that at certain moments when talking out on the deck we have to turn up our volume also. I love the tropics.

In fact, my fascination with Australia has continued unabated for years. Apparently my children have taken that seriously. Craig and I own a holiday home in Cairns, in Tropical North Queensland, and Tracy and her family have emigrated to Australia to make it their permanent home. I have come Downunder with them as they search for jobs, housing and a school for Jack and Abby, but can only stay for three months on my tourist visa. Dan found a wonderful house for us to rent while they are getting settled and it couldn’t be more perfect. Located near Nerrabeen North beaches, it is a three-story house nestled in a breathtaking tropical garden that would top any gardener’s favorite list. Tree ferns, eucalypts, hibiscus, gardenia, jacaranda, ginger, and other as-yet-unidentified plants grow in profusion on the hillside; I even spotted an azalea or two peeking out along the shaded walks through the garden. I do love the tropics!

I am home schooling Jack and Abby because their new school term won’t begin until the end of January, so we have lessons in the morning while Tracy and Dan are out. Afternoons are for exploring and enjoying the glorious Northern Beaches. Last Sunday there were lifeboat competitions up and down the coast, where lifeguards wrestle their heavy rescue boats into the pounding surf and race out beyond the surf line and back to the beach. I felt as if I were in the midst of a National Geographic shoot! Most beaches have a rock-enclosed swimming pool or two at the south end of the beach; fed by the surf, they offer lap swimmers and little nippers alike a safe swimming experience.

Emigration to Australia is a long process, taking almost a year and entry for permanent residence is not assured even if all the paperwork is accepted. But Tracy and family made it and began the process of a permanent move in summer of 2008. It meant sorting through all their belongings, because the container going by ship is only 7’ x 7’ x 4’! They sold almost all the furniture, sold their house and one car. They still have a diesel-powered 2001 VW bug yet to sell. The container will arrive in March, so everything needed till then we checked or carried on the flight. And here’s the scary part: for the five of us, we checked 13 bags and carried on another eight, and even on the flights to Los Angeles, there were folks checking almost that many bags and I can tell you, they were not emigrating to Australia!

We stopped to visit Disneyland before heading Downunder, and that was a good way for the kids to make the transition. It’s a big move for little ones, seeing their lives turned upside down, but visiting the Mouse can take your mind off most anything. The park was all decked out, over the top actually, for Christmas. I still enjoy Indiana Jones.

It rained tropical fury last night, so cicadas are really in full voice, the sun is shining, and it’s going to be another fabulous day in paradise. No snow on the forecast, either.

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