Catching Up

I haven't had time to update this blog as much as I would have liked because I've been busy, uh, washing my hair.  So, here is a little catch-up from the last couple of weeks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last week Zaren went on a school field trip to Rottnest Island.  It was an overnight camping trip with his class.  Rottnest is about a 45 minute boat ride away from Perth and is one of the major tourist attractions in the area.  We haven't had a chance to get out there yet so Zaren is the first of our family to go there.  They spent a lot of time snorkelling, biking, hiking and carousing.  He came back happy and a little sunburnt.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently the community of Carine put on their annual community fair.  The event had some carnival rides, a flea market, horse rides and a lot of milling about.  Nadia and I managed to last about an hour.  The kids, on the other hand, went with their friends and managed to stay there all day.

 Milling about.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This past weekend we took a 30 minute drive north to Yanchep National Park.  It's not quite wild like Jasper or huge like Banff.  Rather it's small but interesting.

 The kids near the main visitor center at Yanchep.

One of the primary attractions of Yanchep is the Koala paddock. There are 11 Koala's in the gated area. They sleep for 20 hours per day and when they are awake they're typically either eating, scratching or moving to a better spot to eat and/or scratch.  They are really cute even though they're not particularly exciting.  We managed to find all 11 Koala's eventually, which wasn't easy considering that they're up in the trees, they blend into the tree bark and they don't move often and when they do it's not very quickly.



 Presently this one is eating.  Shortly after this s/he found a nice spot to curl up and sleep.

Despite the semi-habituated Koala's the park is wild.  There are plenty of native animals like birds, snakes and kangaroos.  When we arrived we could see signs of the kangaroos all over the grass and had to be very careful not to step in it.  Eventually, we ran into them when wandering around the lake.



 A troop/herd(?) of Grey Kangaroos.  'Grey's' are common to the area.  The larger 'Red Kangaroos' are more common in other areas of the country.  These were wild Roos although they were clearly used to having people around as we managed to get very close without raising too much alarm among the flock/pride.

Perhaps the biggest attraction to the park is the cave system.  There are 3 caves in the park that are accesible to people, one by reservation only.  We went into what is known as a 'tourist cave': it's been thoroughly destroyed by people already so they figure people can't do much more harm to it.  It was pretty cool, nonetheless, and an interesting experience.



 Here are the boys in one of the open chambers of the cave.  It was very accesible and easy to get around.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cyrus and Zaren finally had their first hockey game in Australia.  Up until now they've only had practices or gone to 'training' as they say here.  They are on the "Lightning".  Zaren plays center and Cyrus right wing.  There are only 10 skaters on the team so there is plenty of ice time.  The boys are also on the first power play and, as you can imagine, 2 of the top 3 players on the team.  Oddly they are the only Canadians on their team.  Even though they are playing with Australians they are really enjoying it.  The hockey is not bad but the best part is the positive attitudes of both the players, coaches and parents.  There is zero pressure and everyone is just having fun.  The other team had a few more players so while their team played well but ultimately ran out of steam and blew a 3rd period lead to lose 4-3.



Zaren is #11 in dark blue getting ready to take the face-off. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This week is a busy week for the kids.  Keva is going camping with school to Dwelingup, just outside the city.  The boys are going on a river cruise with their class.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have booked our first vacation in Australia.   We were originally going to try to go north to Ningaloo Reef/Monkey Mia area.  Ningaloo is like a smaller Great Barrier Reef but untouched and you can go snorkelling right off the beach.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find any accomodation as it was all booked.  Then we tried to go south to the Margaret River/Albany area.  That is the vineyard area and very popular among the locals.  It was also booked up.  Then a friend of Nadia's from high school in Calgary, that now works in a resort near Surfer's Paradise on the east coast, suggested that we try that area.  He managed to finagle us a great room at a decent rate.  The area is like the Disneyland of Australia.  It has amusement parks, Sea World, a movie land thing, etc.  Should be fun.



The Letter of the Day

"H"

People in Perth and I presume Australia pronounce the letter 'h' much differently than in the civilized world.  For instance, if a Perthonian was saying "the letter h" if would sound like "the letter haych".  If a Perthite was saying "whip" it would sound like "hwooip".  If a Pertharian were saying the name of the actor that played Wesley Crusher on 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' it would sound like "Hwil Hweeton".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This weekend in Australia the AFL kicks off it's season.  AFL is the acronym for Australian Football League.  It is neither American Football (NFL) nor European Football (soccer) but rather Australian Football.  It is a hybrid of rugby and netball and it is very popular in most parts of Australia except for Sydney for some odd reason.  Melbourne seems to be the AFL 'mecca' although Perth has two teams and one of which is supposed to be good.  In Perth you either cheer for the West Coast Eagles or the Freemantle Dockers.  The Eagles are a good team, from what I'm told, and have a chance to win the Garadanalaloo Trophy (or whatever the real name is).  On the other hand, the Dockers are named after the heavily unionized port workers that occasionally like to shut down the city when they have a minor gripe with their employer.  I haven't decided my allegiance yet but I'm leaning towards the Eagles.  It'll be nice for a change to cheer for a team that makes the playoffs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of Sydney and Melbourne...the dynamic between Australia's two largest cities is pretty interesting.  Sydney is the largest city and is the financial capital of the country.  Melbourne is the second largest city, a very cosmopolitan place and is considered the cultural capital of Australia.  The similarities between Australias and Canadas major cities is really spooky.  For example:

Toronto/Sydney
Largest population, financial center of the country, not really sure that any other city actually exists in Austrlia and don't really care.

Montreal/Melbourne
Second largest city, cultural center of Australia, the most popular past-time is to complain bitterly whenever there is a perceived preferential treatment for the city above.

Ottawa/Canberra
Federal capital city, quiet family atmosphere, nobody would live there if the government was located elsewhere.

Edmonton/Adelaide
Lot's of summer festivals, large manufacturing center, leads the country in mullets per capita.

Vancouver/Brisbane
Very wet climate, 3rd largest city in the country, both cities suffer regularly anticipated damage and yet fail to prepare adequately: Brisbane when it floods and Vancouver when they lose in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Calgary/Perth
Economy largely based on resources boom/bust cycle, have strong feelings of 'western alienation', the last time they voted for a liberal was, well, never.

I'd Rather Be Fishin'

This weekend I was afforded the opportunity to go deep sea fishing through a work function.  There were about 20 people on the ship plus 4 crew. We departed at 7:30 am from the Hillary's Boat Harbour, which fortunately is very close to where we live.  This is the first time I've ever done anything like this, although, in grade 8 I went on a West Coast trip with school where we did a little bit of fishing.  This was significantly different.

 Here I am just after we left the harbour.  The water here is pretty flat.  At that particular moment I had no idea what to expect except that the cooler was filled with beer, the cabin filled with food and there was lots of bait on board.  You can see the fishing reel in the right of the picture.  I fished very close to this spot just out of sight to the right of the picture.   The hardest part was simply staying upright because the boat was rocking so much.  It took me some time to get my sea legs, arrrr.  We ended up using primarily squid for bait.  If you've ever handled squid you know that they are slippery and pretty gross.  My hands were covered in squid guts by the end of the trip. 

 Although you can't see it here the swell on this particular day was quite high.  At times it got to be around 10-15 feet.  That's fine except that you need two hands to hold on to the reel.  That means that you have to use all of your body muscles to keep yourself against the rail and not flailing around the ship, or worse, into the ocean.  We were fishing in 50 meters of water and as we changed spots every 30 minutes or so, we went to deeper and deeper water until we ended up at about 80 meters deep.  At our last stop we were probably 5-6 kilometers away from the city and once we could no longer see the skyscrapers in the distance I completly lost my bearings.  It took about 1 1/2 hours to get back to Perth from our further spot out.  In the picture above you can see a whole bunch of birds in the water.  This was our 4th out of 6 stops so we were very far out.  The birds are Grey Albatross and they basically followed us all day.  They were rewarded with scraps of squid and food that fell on the deck of the ship.  It was really remarkable seeing how deep some of them would diver to try to catch a little fish.

Speaking of catching fish, yes, I did.  Actually I caught three.  The first one was fairly small and not a good eating fish.  Just as I got it to the surface it got free, so that worked out well for both of us, but especially him.  The second fish wasn't so fortunate.  It felt really big shortly after I caught it but when it came up it was quite small.  Upon further inspection it had a huge gash through it's middle and it's guts were hanging out.  So, a much larger fish got a hold of it and then let go before it got to the surface.  The third fish is the one shown above.  It is normally called a Skip Jack Travalia but I called it dinner.  The crew on the boat gutted the fish but when I got it home I scaled it, skinned it, cut it, prepared it, cooked it and, of course, ate it.  I've never really been into fishing and I'm still not but this particular day was fun, although it was also exhausting.  We returned back to the harbour at about 2:30pm so all in all we were gone for about 7 hours.  Today and I pretty sore as a result.  However, there are worse ways to spend a few hours than in the sun, on the water, eating, drinking and fishing.

The Fading Light

Recently North America 'Sprang Ahead' with daylight savings.  All of Australia also adopted daylight savings...except the state of Western Australia.

In 2009 Western Australia held a referendum to decide if daylight savings should be adopted.  It was the fourth such proposal wich had been put to the WA voters and followed a three year trial period.  The referendum resulted in the proposal being rejected, with 45% in favour and 55% opposed.  The previous referendums in 1975, 1984 and 1992 were also rejected by the voters.

The main advocates for daylight savings were businesses.  They argued that it would make dealing with businesses from the east easier during the summer as it would reduce the time difference.  They also argued that families would be able to spend more time together outdoors after work while it was still light.  Because businesses are all about people spending the day light hours with their loved ones...

Opposition to daylight savings was strongest in rural areas of WA.  The farmers argued that it caused problems for them.  I'm unclear exactly what those problems are.  Others argued that daylight savings led to more deaths on the roads and that electricity consumption was increased, harming the environment.  A friend of ours here also mentions, anecdotely, that some argued that their peoples curtains faded more with daylight savings. 

The bottom line is that the referendum failed and as a result there is no daylight savings in Western Australia.  So, we are now 12 hours ahead of Canadian EST and 14 hours ahead of MST.  So 3pm in Perth is 3am in Toronto and 1am in Calgary.  In the process we are losing time in the day light.  Some of the people here are absolutely ridiculous.

None of this should come as a surprise.  Western Australia is the same place that is in the process now of passing legislation to allow shopping on Sundays.  It is also the place that only allowed the sale of Advil over the counter in 2003.

Killing Time

I haven't talked too much about work but there are a couple of things that I'd like to mention.  My biggest complaint with my job thus far is the actual building I work in.  It is old, small, dingy and falling apart.  This building has been around so long and has seen so many companies come and go that literally every person I've spoken to says that they worked in the building in one of the last 5 decades. Some more than once with a different company. The air conditioning doesn't work very well and in general it's kind of a depressing environment.  My biggest complaint, by far, has been the toilets.  They are dark, dirty and they smell.  To top it off they have a trough for a urinal.  In October we are moving to a new building (thank Spaghetti Monster!).  In the meantime, the building management has decided to do a few little upgrades to the place.  The most important is the toilets.  They are doing the toilet renovations one floor at a time and my floor just happened to be first.  It has been a vast improvement. Unfortunately, the rest of the building is still awful. How awful?  Well, this weekend they are working on removing the asbestos from the basement.  Asbestos.  I can't wait until October but until then I'll kill the time as best as I can.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Both Nadia and I have noticed that there is an unspoken, undercurrent of violence in Perth.  The local papers are filled with stories of assault and violence every day.  We thought that perhaps the violence was being overblown by the local media.  So, I decided to look into it a little more.  Because different countries classify 'assault' in different ways I decided to look at a statistic a little more black and white: homicide.

In 2010 the homicide rates for the following cities was:

City              Population          Homicides
Calgary        1.1 million              15                   
Perth            1.7 million              56                    
Vancouver   2.3 million              43

The numbers demonstrate that Perth has a much higher homicide rate than Calgary.  Understandable since it is a larger population in a more compressed area.  However, Perth's homicide rate is even higher than Vancouver which has a larger population and population density.

The violent undercurrent, it appears, is not just our imagination. We haven't had any issues but we can almost feel it in the air.

Labour Day

Today (March 5) is Labour Day in Australia.  Just like in Canada Labour Day is at the beginning of the Fall season.  Today in Perth it is 38 degrees.  It sure doesn't feel like Fall.

This morning Zaren and Cyrus went to an all day outdoor music festival called "Soundwave".  Before we even moved from Canada the boys were hoping to go to this festival as their two favorite bands are both playing.  On the way to drop off the boys we drove by a hotel where we saw several bands loading onto the buses for transportation to the event.  A couple of them gave us the "devils horns": the index finger and pinky finger sticking up.  It's basically means 'rock on'.

Keva also had big plans for today.  She and Nadia were going to a Jessie J concert tonight.  Jessie J is one of Keva's favorite artists right now and she was very much looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, this morning the show was cancelled and, as of now, not rescheduled.  She is VERY disappointed as is Nadia.  Jessie J is apparantly sick and had to cancel two shows in Perth, one yesterday and one today (and one in Aukland last week).  She still has a few concerts planned in some other cities so hopefully she can squeeze in a show in Perth at the end of the Australia leg.  Otherwise, she'll have to deal with the wrath of Keva!

Birds & Bikes

We've grown accustomed to a lot since we've moved to Perth.  We've adjusted to the weather, driving on the left, the accents, 'tea' time, the ridiculous cost of everything and even the spiders.  However, there are at least a couple things that still amaze us and leave us in awe.  The first is the birds.  

One of our early blog posts talked about the birds that are everywhere.  There are the ever-present crows which make a noise like a heat-stroked cat stuck in a burlap sack.  There are the magpies which are quiet and tend to keep to themselves. There are the beautiful lorikeets with their bright colours.  And then there are the cockatoos:  a very clever and social bird that is considered a pest by some Australians and a pet by some Canadians.  I personally love the birds.  Every day on my walk from the bus stop home I am serenaded by perhaps a dozen different species of birds including at least two types of Cockatoos.  Because we live beside a reserve there are a ton of birds in our neighbourhood.  Often at night we can hear the Cookaburra's laughing (sounds a little like a hyaena).

There is a park near our home.  Within this park is a large open space that is used for cricket and baseball.  Every evening the Goffin Cockatoos gather in the park by the hundreds before they go to the trees to settle in for the night. 

 While they're hard to see in this picture there are hundreds of Cockatoos milling about the field, socializing.

 Some of the birds socialize more than others.  I'm not 100% sure what these two were doing but if there was a soundtrack it would  probably sound something like this: *ahem* Bow-chicka-bow-wow.

 While we were at the park we took a picture of a common sight here.  There is no dirt in Perth.  Under the homes,  buildings, grass, trees and everything else that rests horizontally on the ground is the same substance:  sand.  And yet they don't seem to have any issues growing anything in the sand.

The other thing that still provides a feeling of awe are the sunsets.  Every night the sunset is a little different over the ocean.  Every night it is beautiful.  Here is a shot of the sunset away from the ocean.  Because of the flat land and ocean Perth, like parts of Alberta, has a a "big sky" feeling to it.  It's even more remarkable during the sunset.  We've seen beautiful sunsets before but here it is a daily occurence, and we haven't gotten bored of it yet.

 They don't call it the "Sunset Coast" for nothing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were quite a few non-essentials that we left/sold/junked back in Canada.  Fortunately, we brought the kids bikes since they are relatively new.  However, we ended up selling the adult bikes as they were both over 15 years old.  It was time to get some new bikes.  We've been looking around the bike stores for a couple of weeks now and we finally settled on some hybrid bikes.  Hybrids aren't mountain bikes but you can take them on trails.  The wheels are thinner for speed and ease of use but robust enough to go on a gravel path.  We also purchased a 4-bike carrier for our vehicle.  The 5-bike carrier was literally double in price so we'll throw one bike in the back of the car when all 5 of us are going biking.  Our first use was remarkable.  Nadia has been using a bike that she found here (a subject for another blog).  When she used the new bike she was amazed at the difference.  The models are 24 speed Giant Cyprus 2 (yes, we got the same bike but they look different enough when they're together).

YAY! (Yet Another York)

Last week we officially joined the ranks of Australian coffee drinkers:  we purchased an Espresso machine.  It seems that at home people here either drink instant coffee or espressos/lattes.  Everyone has an espresso maker.  Even in the offices, like mine, they don't have 'regular' coffee makers but instead espresso makers. We are used to having percolated, filtered "regular" coffee but when in Rome have a no foam, no fat, chai, double shot, cinammon latte.  Nadia and the boys are particularly keen on the device.  In my opinion it takes too much time to make a coffee with the machine.  I prefer a more effecient caffeine delivery system.  In addition to latte's, they are also enjoying Calm Tea Misto's and some other types of teas with steamed milk.  I think the main reason everyone is so excited about the machine is that Perth appears to be the only major city in Australia that doesn't have a Starbucks.  Let me put that into context: there are over 1.7 million people in the greater Perth area and not one Starbucks.  Yes, there are some other coffee shops but as we all know it's just not the same.  So, we have gone from having a Tim Horton's on every corner and a Starbucks on every second corner to neither.  It's a wonder that we have managed to keep ourselves going.

 Zaren is enjoying the new machine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last week Nadia and I ventured about 1 1/2 hours east of Perth to a small town called York.  If you're keeping track at home that makes several "York's" on the planet.  There is the original York in the UK.  There is (old) New York, which was once New Amsterdam.  A portion of old Toronto used to be known as York and the University there still bears it's name.  The only other remnant is the suburb of North York near the center of the universe.  Also, there is a York in Pennsylvania.  I'm sure if I were to look hard enough I'd find dozens of "York's" around the world.  Which leads to the question, if the citizens of York, UK loved their city so much that they named all of their new home's in it's honour, why did so many of them leave the original York?

In any case, Nadia and I recently travelled to York, the Western Australian edition.  In the tourist propoganda it was heralded as the "gem" of eastern towns outside of Perth.  It's claim to fame is that it was the first inland settlement in Western Australia, just a few years after Perth was originally settled (by Europeans).  As it turns out, if we drove at the posted speed limit of 50km/h we would have gone through York within about 1 1/2 minutes.  In other words, it was a bit of a let down.

 York has a historical district that is comprised of 4 oldish buildings on each side of the road.  Today, the municipality serves the local farming community and all of the tourists that are gullible enough to believe the official literature.  It's nice to see that "Baghdad Bob" the former Iraqi Minister of Information managed to find a job after the war.

"Baghdad Bob"

 Nadia in front of the old Town Hall building in York.  These people are responsible for the tourist trade and should be commended for doing a fantastic job without much to work with.  Be on the lookout for these folks as they are certainly qualified to take over the world.

 Besides a couple of buildings, York does have some local hand made furniture made of the wood that grows in the area that is quite nice.

 The oldest church in York.  It is still in use. 

 There are a few antique shops on the main street.  For the most part it's a lot of junk in the eye of this beholder.  However, this place claimed to have a drum kit used by Ringo Starr.  I'm not clear what he used it for since he certainly couldn't play the drums.

 A short suspension bridge over a bacteria-infested river.

 After our day in York, on the way home we stopped at one of the national parks for a picnic.  It was beautiful and peaceful and we were the only one's there.  Unfortunately, we had to rush home because Keva was home by herself and we were a little concerned about her.

If you're wondering how she occupied her time while we were out this is how we found her upon our return.  She is sitting on the couch, in front of the TV with two laptops and the iPad.  This is multi-tasking, Y-Generation style!

Falling

March 1 is the first day of Fall (or Autumn) in Australia.  What has changed?  Well, none of the leaves are turning yellow, red or brown.  All of the trees still have all of their foliage.  The grass is still green and growing.  So, not much has changed. 

We've really only experience two seasons so far in Australia.  We arrived at the end of spring and we lived through the entire summer.  This summer was the second hottest AND second wettest in the history of Perth.  If that is as bad as it gets then we can certainly handle the weather here.

It's difficult to know what to expect of winter.  The locals complain bitterly about the cold and rain in winter.  However, when you do a little digging you find it rains on average about 2 days per week, and the amount of rain is minimal.  You also find that the average high in winter is about 18C.  Yes, we'll need to wear a light jacket or sweater especially on windy days but otherwise it should be tolerable.  I'm reminded of when we were first considering moving to Perth.  It was summer in Calgary but winter here.   We checked the weather in Perth and it was rainy and 15C.  The weather for that summer day in Calgary was rainy and 15C.