Our First Christmas in Oz

 

  John and I just moved to Australia 4 months ago. Despite the ever cleverly masked hints from our families that they would miss us dearly on Christmas, we decided to stay in Australia for the holidays.

    Secretly, I wonder if our families weren't thrilled to have a holiday off from our demands to carry on traditions from childhood.  Some of which include making way too many cookies, candies, and cake rolls. John's family has hot chocolate in Santa mugs on Christmas eve. His parents have done a wonderful job of having enough mugs for the growing family. This means, however, that through out the year, a good number of their daily mugs are Christmas related. My mom made each one of us kids appliquéd stockings, which I have recently learned consume your free time. We tried our best to keep some of these traditions alive to preserve the Christmas spirit and embrace the other's family which we have been invited into.

    It was decided that the best way to enjoy our holiday and try to embrace the warm weather in December was to take a trip. We left on Saturday, December 22nd, and came back on Sunday, December 29th. This adventure included rock climbing over the ocean at Point Perpendicular, hanging out on the beach in Jervis Bay, seeing kangaroos, museum visits, eating, driving, hiking, staying at two hotels and a bed & breakfast... There may have been a partridge in a pair tree in there somewhere.

    The photos from the trip are fantastic and so I decided to let this post be a broad overview of the trip highlights. I will leave the specifics of each days adventures for another post. Enjoy!

We started our trip with a stop at the Royal National Park just south of Sydney:

We continued on leisurely making our way south to Nowra, where we spent our first night in a hotel. This way we could have an early start on Sunday for climbing at Point Perpendicular.

Point Perpendicular is used by the Australian Navy as a weapons range. These signs were every few feet along the road. 

My first Kangaroo caught on camera!! If he didn't pay attention to all of the signs, why should we?

John is checking out the cliff side for our first climb.

Here we are taking a look at our first climb for the day.

The view at Point Perpendicular.

 Climbing at Point Perpendicular was spectacular! Although, it was torture to hear the waves crash beneath us when we couldn't jump in the water. We decided to take the afternoon off, check into our bed & breakfast and hit the beach. Unfortunately, the camera got left at home because I am terrified of getting sand in it.
   Christmas eve, we went to the beach once again and tried a little boogie boarding. We had great weather all morning. By the time we got back to the hotel for some relaxation time, it was pouring rain. The cold front made it possible for us to enjoy hot chocolate on the porch.

We pretended that the mugs were Santa mugs.

    Pretty soon, it was Christmas morning! Despite my constant pleas, John made me wait until Christmas to open presents. We had gotten a big box from his parents and had a few things for each other too.

We are incredibly privileged to live in a time where packages can be sent from our families in the US and make it to us in Oz. We definitely felt the love of our families this Christmas.

This is John's new stocking and my attempt to keep my family's traditions alive.  I have no idea how my Mom made five of these! 

Woo! Climbing backpack.

Yay! Yarn for a new sweater.

As soon as we finished opening presents, John was ready to climb again! However, we hadn't yet had breakfast. Yes, we woke up around 6:30am to open Christmas presents, without an alarm. How old are we? We relaxed for a while. I'm glad we did because the B&B owners made a wonderful breakfast complete with crackers (an English tradition) and a dressed up dog!

This is Sundae, the resident dog of the B&B

   After a quick breakfast, we headed out once more to Point Perpendicular for an afternoon of climbing. It was a bit windy for my taste, so John mainly climbed and I belayed.

We brought all of John's new toys. He had so much fun with his new GoPro Hero.

John got to climb the first established climb at Point Perpendicular. We then headed out to the beach to enjoy a picnic of fruit, cheese and crackers.

We spotted another kangaroo! We were able to get a few feet away before he hopped off. 

One more night was spent at the B&B and then we made our way to Canberra. We made it to one more beach on the way, the famous Pebbly Beach.

Finally, we had our fill of beaches and made our way to Canberra. The next few days were spent seeing museums and capitol buildings.

John is standing near the current capitol building with the old capitol building in the background of this photo.

John was gracious enough to spend a few hours with me sitting in an installation by James Turrell at the National Art Gallery.

A view of the skyspace and reflection of the sun on the interior of the dome.

Ernie Gold's bicycle is at the National Museum. He became famous in the 1950's for his cross country rides. By the way, he was in his 70's when he began his adventures.

This is a Tasmanian Bark Canoe. Made from tree bark, this modern rendition of a 19th century aboriginal boat could hold up to 6 men. 

 After seven days, we were all tuckered out and ready to go home. The three hour ride was smooth and uneventful. Somehow, I forgot that you can still get sunburn from the car! My left arm is a little red. At home, we were greeted by boxes that were delivered while we were gone. Our second Christmas soon began.

With all his new gear, John set our early this morning to go climbing. Let me remind you, we got back yesterday!! Then again, I can't blame him. I stayed home to do school work. This included painting with my new Guerrilla Painter Box, knitting, and opening my sewing machine. We couldn't have planned a better holiday in Australia. However, we are looking forward to the day when we can share our new home with our family and friends in person. One last thing that I must mention is how fun it is to receive holiday cards from our friends and family in the mail (via both traditional post and e-mail). Thanks for thinking of us.

Happy Holidays! 

Cheers,
Carrie

IMPORTANT! Movies Are Different in Australia

This is a courtesy for those who don't want to be blind-sided by change. 

 John and I were channel surfing the other day and saw that a classic was on, Airplane! We settled right in and decided to watch it. Only, something was odd. The TV guide seemed to want to tell us we were watching a movie called Flying High. We didn't pay much attention to it, sometimes the guide is wrong. It wasn't until a commercial break that we got worried. One of the channel advertisements said something about how Flying High would be right back. No way folks!

For the record, Flying High is a terrible title for this movie. It is and always will be Airplane. Flying High doesn't even fit on the cover design.



Another disappointment came when I sat down for the time-honored tradition of watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. John gave me the DVD as an early Christmas present. It was wonderful. One thing was wrong though, one of the songs was cut out of the movie. You know the annoying one. The one we all fast-forwarded through. Let me refresh your memory:

I'm not sure if I want to thank Australians for this one or be mad, because it's not exactly the same as it was when I was a kid.


The final and most damaging movie moment was last night. My roommate let me take some movies off of his hard drive. The Lion King was one of those movies, cool roommate points for him. So, I put it on while I was falling asleep. Then this happened:

'The Morning Report'! Really, that was a bad idea. Now I know this particular addition isn't Australians fault. The song was performed in the live version and included in the 2002 IMAX production. Either which way, the moral of the story is that classics shouldn't be messed with. These movies are full of flaws (I know this now), but they evoke a child-like nostalgia for a time when things weren't so complicated. I suppose I can adjust. I just hope this helps you get through similar traumatic experiences. I'm here for you.

Today I Cannot Complain

      Why you ask? Because, I got to eat a bagel and cream cheese! As if that's not enough good news, we also had a visit from the delivery man with our new furniture. You will all tell me that bagels are not a big deal and that you could do with out them. I would disagree. A bagel and cream cheese, and sometimes other toppings, is a wonderful morning hiatus from the usual granola and yogurt. So wonderful in fact that I have scoured grocery stores and bakeries in the greater Windsor/Richmond area. I have heard rumors from other expats about their successful bagel hunting excursions. However like any true treasure hunters, these people have politely excluded information regarding their treasure map when sharing such stories. 

Alas, I have beaten the system... Or perhaps the system has beaten me. I spent the better part of today making my own bagels.

I am not one for uniformity and perfection.

After a number of hours slaving over a hot stove, a.k.a doing schoolwork while the dough rose, I sat down to enjoy one of my creations. Better still, I had a new (to us) lounge set to relax on.

Yes, I think my mother and father might have owned a similarly patterned something in the 70's. Also, I'm not sure whether John actually likes the color or if he was just humoring me because I was so excited in the resale shop that I could barely sit down long enough to see if the couch was comfy. I hope he really does like the new addition to our house/room because these three babies are moving with us wherever we go!

Aren't they spectacular?

     Now upward and onward. I want to eat bagels for dinner, supper, dessert, midnight snack, breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, and afternoon tea. What happened to my self control? I don't have enough bagels for this. 

     No matter what time it is, you have my permission to go enjoy a bagel. 

 Unrelated Side Note: 

Take a look at the recipe I made for Thanksgiving dinner. It was such a tasty salad. Thanks 101Cookbooks.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/hazelnut-chard-ravioli-salad-recipe.html

Carrie takes the sharp end

I am happy to say that Carrie has caught the rock climbing bug! She doesn't exactly lust after new gear or stay up late researching new routes on internet forums like some people (ahem), but she was keen to climb on Saturday, and even more keen to lead.

Climbers normally work in pairs. One person leads the pair, installs gear in cracks for protection against a fall, does all of the route finding, and makes all of the decisions. The second climber just follows the leader and enjoys the climbing. Leading is harder, considerably more dangerous, but also more rewarding. Carrie wanted to lead. In climbing parlance, she wanted to take the sharp end of the rope.


The approach hike

So we woke up early on Saturday morning and made for Mount Hay- a climbing area in the Blue Mountains. We planned to climb Tom Thumb, which is a grade 13, 6-pitch, 150 m tall, moderate climb. With a 1.5 hour approach and return hike, this would make for a long adventurous day out with easy climbing.


After gearing up, we hiked through some beautiful dry forest and mallee scrub. Hiking 1.5 hours to get to a climb isn't too bad when you have such beautiful country all to yourself.

We weren't completely alone. We stumbled upon this red-bellied black snake sunning itself on the trail. Red-bellied blacks are pretty tame by Aussie standards (i.e. a bite isn't immediately fatal), but you still don't want to mess with them.

 This was Carrie's first snake sighting down under, so she was appropriately scared.

Down

You may have heard that some things are backwards in Australia, like the seasons and flushing of toilets. Well, rock climbing here is also a bit backwards, in that you often start at the top of the climb, rappel down to the base of the climb, and then climb out. Every time we climb this way it feels strange to me. I'd much prefer to look up at a distant peak for my goal and motivation, rather than start at the top, rappel to the bottom, and climb back up to the starting place. Oh well- "when in Oz".

At the top- ready to go

Carrie- mid rappel

We had a bit of a scare between the first and second rappel, as we managed to get our rope stuck in the anchor of the first rappel station. While I contemplated climbing the rope using friction hitches, Carrie just pulled hard, and freed the rope.

After three long rappels, we were at the base of our climb. This had the true feeling of an adventure; we were now in a secluded valley of the Blue Mountains National Park, with no man-made structures in sight, and there was no way out other than to climb.

Up

We found the small cairn marking the bottom of Tom Thumb, and prepared our equipment. As Carrie would lead the first pitch, she took all of the protection gear, while I took the backpack with our sandwiches, the water, and our spare rope.

"Hey Carrie- show me your rack!"

Carrie lead the first pitch, clipping bolts and placing gear with ease.  I was impressed. She finished the pitch, established a solid anchor, put me on belay, and I climbed up to join her.


The second pitch was a different story. It started with a particularly burly grunt of a move with no possible protection- a nightmare scenario for a beginning leader- so I lead the pitch. I didn't exactly show off my leading skills, as I managed to get lost for half an hour trying to find the non-existent bolts for the next belay station. I found a ledge that would do, built an anchor with gear, and belayed Carrie up.

Carrie took the lead for the next pitch, which finished in a cave with a nice view. It was a hot sunny day, so we enjoyed the short reprieve.

Shady caves are nice on hot sunny days

After a few more pitches of climbing, we made it to the top, collected our cache of shoes and water, and hiked back to the car.

It was a fun and fulfilling day the mountains. There's nothing quite like the feeling of standing at the top of a long climb, hands on your hips, and surveying what you've done.

Science, suspended from a crane

I keep a mental list of the unexpected and memorable experiences that I've had as a biologist, mostly as a tool to survive the boring tedium that is a part of science. I've netted bats at night in a tropical rain forest, accidentally set expensive electronics on fire, blasted tree leaves out of a forest canopy with a shotgun, been held at gunpoint by the police for shooting trees with a shotgun, given presentations to hundreds of people at international conferences, and traveled to places of incredible beauty.

I added to my list last week.

I had the opportunity to cruise around a forest canopy, suspended 20-30 meters off the ground in a crane bucket, and measure the photosynthetic rates of some Eucalyptus trees.

There are three scientists in the yellow bucket suspended from the crane.

We are exposing plots of a eucalypt forest to elevated concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in an attempt to understand how these forests will respond to the continuing increase in global CO2 concentrations caused by human activities. The large pipe structures are the infrastructure used to deliver the additional CO2 into the forest canopy. You can read more about the experiment here.




These are tall and mature trees, so it's challenging to actually get to the leaves. Here's how we do it:

First, one of the site engineers uses a remote control to drive the crane and sets up a bucket to hold the scientists.

Then, we harness up, load the bucket with instruments and sampling equipment, and get inside. the engineer gets inside with us and moves the crane by remote control. The crane picks up the bucket and takes us for a ride into the canopy.

Top-down view of the relatively sparse Eucalypt canopy.
The central structure is a walk-up tower- an alternative way to get into the canopy.

There are six experimental rings, each with its own crane.

We go up and over the ring infrastructure, and then down into the canopy to find some leaves to measure.

Vinod and Kristine

Once we arrived at our target tree, I had to put my camera away to do some actual work. Crane time is expensive and limited, so we had to make the most of it. 

Measuring leaf  photosynthesis from a canopy crane

Science is awesome.