Category: Australia – Perth & Mandurah

This past weekend we hosted a party for the Pinjarra staff as a thanks for all they have done for us. My co-workers will be happy to know that my project management skills continue to get a work out between planning parties and our trips! So I spent the week cooking and baking and cleaning and shopping to prep for the party – a week where I actually was kept busy!!!

After everyone had eaten their share of chili with the fixings, we set them to work. The theme of the evening was Canada naturally. In keeping with the Aussie tradition of Quiz Nights, we had created a Canadiana trivia quiz. Expecting some real history, sports and trivia geeks in the crowd, Mike had created some challenging questions. But the ‘ringers’ didn’t make it and as a result many of the questions were a tad difficult – which made for some creative answers!

As expected, many Aussies are up on Canadian music and movie stars, but they are perhaps a little less knowledged in the French and Inuit Canadiana. There were some interesting definitions for Metis, tuque, mukluks. Metis is neither a wine nor a venereal disease, poutine is not a pillow nor a toilet and mukluks are not a moose. I certainly had fun marking the score sheets though!
In the end, they all got to learn a little more about Canada – perhaps more than they wanted to!

In the end the ‘Double Up Ya Bums’ won the contest. The ‘Strip Club’ team managed to sink to a convincing last place – so they got to wear their Aussie tattoos to advertise their true Aussie colours.

In keeping with the theme, everyone had to bring something Canadian. There was a wide variety of content. We had several Canadian music CDs as well as comedy routines. There were several Canadian clothing items including hats, ski goggles, t-shirts and sweaters. On the consumable theme we had maple syrup and Canadian Club. We even had a custom Canadian Power Point presentation! And finally, we had a live rendition of ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ which we all joined in with having been supplied with the lyrics. Even Gordon Lightfoot would have been impressed.

People also brought appetizers and the makings for B52s – both which were a big success and much appreciated. And in keeping with the Australian tradition of consuming substantial volumes of beer and wine per capita, we managed to overload our recycle bin (which is substantially larger than the Canadian version I might add) with empty bottles (they don’t return them for refund down here).

Kyle also had his social activities this weekend – out most of Saturday (to avoid the party of course) and Sunday with friends. And so another week passes!

We are now in the last week of the 3rd term. Once again, we’ll be off on a two week break starting this weekend. We are off to Bali on Saturday. Mike & Kyle are very much ready for some real R&R having been at school for 13 straight months at this point (every time they get a 2 week break I keep them very busy). I’ll try to do a post before we head off with some details.

ZERO comments none ziltch …. really? We know you are reading this – we can see the hits… We miss you folks and just a little comment would let us know who you are. Come on…. just leave a short comment….. please 🙂

We went up north of Perth this past weekend and had a great time – and I’ll post shortly but first we want to hear from you. Bribery at it’s fullest.

Hi folks.

Well no real post this week as I had a cold most of the weekend so I stuck close to home. Mike & Kyle spent the time socializing with their friends. Mike had footie get togethers as the playoffs are under way, and Kyle was back to gaming with his crowd. I read and snoozed and drank lots of liquids.

So we think it’s time for a reversal. Perhaps those reading this blog could post a comment to entertain us! So go ahead, click the comment and leave us a note to help us get over the transition into spring hump. Hope to hear from you!

Friday night had us once again sharing time with friends from Pinjarra High School. The annual fund raiser for the chaplaincy was lots of fun. They held a trivia night at the local church in Pinjarra. So Mike & I headed out with Richard and Phillipa for dinner at the hotel in Pinnie and then spent a mentally stimulating evening where we managed to beat out the other teams from the school. However we still failed to score high enough to place in the top 3! But the real highlight of the evening was the many treats brought for sharing – we had a very fattening evening of chips, candies – including the best licorice I have ever tasted, nuts, chocolates, wings, trifle and more. We hardly had to eat for the rest of the weekend!
With September 1st, we are now officially experiencing Spring in WA. Anyone who has done research on Western Australia is probably aware that the area is renowned for its wildflowers. I’ll leave it the wildflower website to give you all the details, but we’ll try to include some visual display here thanks to Michael. We will likely make a trip into the country to experience them in the wild, but to start with we decided to check out the full variety at King’s Park.

The Red and Green Kangaroo’s Paw is the official flower emblem of Western Australia, so naturally I need to include them. Also at right above is the Black Kangaroo’s Paw. It is a bit rarer and less ‘flash’ but still delicate and unique.

One of the most spectacular displays of mass colour comes from the everlastings. These are the ones I want to see in their natural state! They are a carpet of colour in a range of shades from whites, pinks and mauves and also yellows. The bees are everywhere and seem to be quite content in their garden of Eden!

And not only the bees enjoy the wildflower season, but the birds are also thrilled with the new selection of treats. The Red Wattle Bird (at right) is very aggressive in claiming it’s territory and can be quite vocal in keeping other birds away. This however is one of my favourite birds for another reason. We have a few around the house in Mandurah since Theresa has several bushes that attract them. But these birds also like the occasional insect to eat. They routinely make the rounds of the house snatching up all the insects in the corners – primarily spiders. They are amazing to watch as they hover deep in the corners to snatch their prey. The best pest control going!

There were many more native WA wildflowers, but also in bloom at this time are the South African flowers. Since we won’t see them in the wild, we’ve included them here also. The wattle bird above is resting on an Aloe Vera plant. One of the most familiar is the Bird of Paradise. It is impressive to see the large displays which grow year round here. This flower at left is also from South Africa, and unfortunately I cannot remember the name – any one who knows please comment!

And once again, although we have now been to King’s Park several times, we found a new trail to follow and this is one of the path side plants in the bush we encountered. I believe this one is one of the many orchids which are found native here, although I am not positive.

Sunday brought Father’s Day (finally!), and the weather this weekend was much nicer. Kyle and Mike were able to visit the local field to kick around the footie, and we were able to take a nice stroll along the beach. And even though he had Father’s Day last weekend, we tried to make the day relaxing for Mike and didn’t make him do anything too strenuous.

We had a proper lazy winter weekend. Friday evening was our only activity as Mike & I joined the Pinjarra staff for a social evening of bowling and dinner – lots of fun despite the fact that I still have not beaten Mike in a game.

We spent the rest of the weekend lounging around as the weather was rainy and very windy, and Mike was feeling a bit under the weather. And somehow in the laid back atmosphere I managed to mix up my dates…..

As mentioned back in June, Fathers Day is not celebrated on the same date here – it is on September 2 this year. I managed to get my weekends out of sync, and we ended up celebrating Father’s Day this past Sunday. Kyle made Mike a very respectable Western Sandwich a la Montgomery style along with Irish Coffee. It wasn’t till into the evening after we had catered to Mike for the day that I realized I was a week off on my dates. So despite the attempt to ensure Mike only got one Fathers Day to match my one Mothers Day, it looks like he may have lucked out in the end!!!

And on a semi-related topic, we are as mentioned earlier, one son down now here in Oz. So it’s time to update the family photo again. And no, it’s not just an optical illusion – Kyle really is taller than Mike now, even without the giant mop on top of his head.

For those who know the Monty Clan, you will know that Mike’s father and brother share their birthday. Many years ago (47 to be precise), Derek joined his brother Michael on this earth on this day. And many more years prior to that (in 1934), George Larry joined his parents Ralph Pat and Madelaine May on this same day. So Happy Birthday to both the Monty Men from this branch of the clan – missing you both!

Well it appears that Michael has network access at Country Week – he sent me the missing Canada Day photos for posting – so here is a sample of our Canada Day celebrations. We started with a rather wet drive to our hosts home near Perth. There was yet another torrential downpour which left the streets flooded for our drive – this was part of our drive in.

Our Canada Day celebration was actually two fold – it was also a farewell to Cindy who had her exchange from July to July. Cindy is from Barrie also – she lives right around the corner from St. Joe’s!!! (You may remember her name from our April trip to Exmouth – we met up with her and her cousin there.) It will be fun to connect back in Canada and share some of our Aussie memories.

As is normal with such celebrations, we had LOTS of good food to share. Despite my fitness spare time activities, I have yet to lose any weight due to such events – that along with the most superb wine!

As part of the now annual event, the Canadians were required to join in a resounding rendition of ‘Oh Canada’. And to be honest, I was quite surprised to find that it brought a tear to my eye..

We then in turn requested the Australians to serenade us in return with their anthem, which they quite enthusiastically provided. We ended with an all in rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’, of which we all managed one successful verse. (On closer inspection of the photos, neither team seem to be very thrilled singers 🙂

As Cindy’s departing gift, she received (as apparently we all will), a souvenir from Kalgoorlie (we go there in August). It is a ‘betting stick’ (sorry, don’t know the real name yet) with spaces for 2 pennies. They are tossed in the air – in a very special motion as being learned/demonstrated here. Bets are placed on the heads/tails landing. I suspect we will find out in August just how much money can pass hands with this simple tool!

Back at home we stopped by the beach to check out the local waterfront with the high winds and high tides. This is an area of the beach we have walked along many times – the tides are definitely higher now. Not being an ‘ocean’ person, I am quite enthralled by the whole concept of the tides and their variations.

And finally – we will be heading off to the ‘Red Centre’ and ‘Top End’ this Saturday for our next two week break. I’m not sure what network access we will have for the break, but stay tuned on our return at the end of July for a flurry of postings with all our outback activities. I’ll try to post a map of our planned route before we go.

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Since Patrick has not experienced the reef life here, and he will not get a chance to go snorkeling, we took a trip to the Aquarium of Western Australia just north of Perth on Sunday. It was also great for us to see the same fishes up close and personal, but safely. We did not have to worry about the jelly fish swimming around us, or whether the reef sharks were getting too numerous, or whether we were drifting too far and at risk of being pulled out by the rip. So although a bit more sterile, it was much more relaxed. 

Michael was able to use his ‘good’ camera this time since everything was behind glass. You will likely notice the colours are more vivid also since the lighting was much better. 

The highlight of the aquarium is ‘the shipwreck coast’ aquarium. It is 40 metres long, 20 metres wide and 4.5 metres deep and holds 3 million litres of seawater. You can walk or stand on the conveyor belt through 100 metres of tunnel which wraps through the tank and the sealife is all around you. There are several species of sharks (nurse shark here), rays (including some gigantic manta rays), hundreds of fishes as well as turtles and eels. The tank is so large, that it was quite dark however and it was difficult for Mike to photograph.

Having swum over top of the rays up at Coral Bay, it was quite spectacular to be underneath as they swam directly over you in the tunnel. And being so close to the animals, you get a much greater respect for their size. The turtles are massive – you could ride on their backs – and their necks would even impress the Godfather!

Outside we caught the sealion training session. While they do not train them to do tricks for display purposes, they do train them. The keepers need to be able to handle the seals, and they also try to mimic some of the wild behaviours. The seals here were both born in captivity, so they also try to teach them what would be learned actions in the wild. One example is teaching the male to ‘bark’. This is not a trait they would do if not trained since they are not exposed to the normal activities which would induce it. Similarly, they teach them to jump which mimics the natural behaviour of avoiding predators (such as killer whales). Not quite the same motivation, but uses all the same muscle groups – kind of like us going to fitness classes!

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Michael and I celebrated 24 years of marriage this past week. He brought some lovely flowers home, and we went out for a very nice dinner to mark the actual day. Notice my tricky method of getting Mike into the photo (his school photos were delivered 🙂

The weather has certainly turned to ‘winter’ with rain and clouds along with the cooler temperatures. However, we are getting nothing like the weather on the east coast of Australia. Had we succeeded in our original exchange match, we would likely be living in a shelter at this point. There has been extensive flooding, road washouts and closures, ocean transports beached, and billions of dollars in damage – all right near where we were originally assigned. We definitely lucked out exchanging to W.A. with Theresa in many ways.

When the weekend came about, both boys had their own plans for the start of the weekend. Patrick stayed behind for Friday evening with the Gravity folks. Some of the team went rock climbing then out to a bar on Friday night, and Pat joined them, not returning here till late Saturday. They have quite the international contingent up there – there is mix of levels from Patrick up to Ph.D. candidates, male and female, from all over the world – from India, some Chinese, a French, 3 Americans, Patrick from Canada as well as Aussies. They eat on their own for lunches, but have communal dinners when they tend to cook mostly Indian dishes as they all enjoy their curries.

Kyle had plans to go mini-putt on Saturday, but the weather was not co-operative and they had to switch to bowling – which worked out fine also. So since both boys had their own plans, Mike and I took advantage and did a one night get-away on Friday night to Perth (anniversary was a good excuse).

We got a good last minute deal which included brunch at a nice hotel (views from the hotel photoed here). And the rain held off enough on Saturday morning for us to be able to walk around Perth (some more of the photos) to do some shopping without getting soaked. Mike managed to find a good pair of sunglasses (when the sun shines, you really need them!) thanks to birthday monies from his parents, and we bought some other stuff including A&W Rootbeer. Rootbeer is not available here, and it is one of the things Kyle has been missing. I splurged and bought enough for him to share with some friends, so we’ll see what they think of it!

By Saturday evening, we were all back home as a family for a night of cards, and then Sunday was off to the Aquarium of WA (tomorrows posting!).

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Well we are actually here for Michael to work, so we had a weekend at home here in Seascapes (our subdivision) as Michael marked assignments for the upcoming report cards. While teachers do have to put in lots of extra hours planning and marking, at least it is generally predictable – as was this weekend.

During the week Michael took some of the yearbook staff photos.  In the gallery below are the school principal and guidance counsellor.  Beth Aitken won Western Australian Principal of the Year in 2006.  Rob McLarty is the school guidance counsellor.  His family are well established in the region and in fact in WA – his grandfather was the first premier of WA and knighted, and many of the area establishments are named after the McLarty family including the local dog race track.

We’ve known for a while that this would be a weekend for Mike to work, so the rest of us were all set with our own leisure activities to keep us occupied. The library here loans out puzzles as well as books – great concept!   And Kyle is quite content with his computer companion.

Patrick has been missing his guitars immensely, and we have been looking for a solution almost since he arrived. We’ve tried renting, buying used, and even buying cheap all with no luck. Any guitar we could consider, he really did not like playing.

Our last chance was to check out the store near Perth where the school music teacher buys their guitars. We were extremely lucky and found that they rent guitars, and Patrick immediately found one that he liked. So I drove home serenaded as Patrick played in the back seat of the car, and he has hardly stopped since. His fingers are raw and his hand muscles are sore, but he’s loving every minute of it. We even managed to get a hard case so he is trekking it back and forth to Gingin on the bus with him!

We still managed to fit some R&R into the weekend for Michael – We were back to the dog races on Friday evening for a Pinjarra H.S. staff social. A fun way to spend some cash – or gain some cash as a couple of lucky folks managed. It turns out that betting on dog #1 in every race will make you some decent cash! There seems to be some secret at the gates it looks like.

On Sunday the boys headed over to a local computer gaming outlet (you play on their computers) with a bunch of Kyle’s school friends. Mike & I took a nice long walk along the local beach as a break from his marking. The local limestone formations all quite spectacular, and with winter approaching, there seems to be less sand on the beach (maybe it was just since the tide was out, but it does seem more rocky).

So Michael was still able to get his photography fix for the weekend despite the lack of travelling 🙂

And last but certainly not least….

to our Dad’s. Although Mother’s Day is shared with Canada, Father’s Day down under is on the first Sunday in September. Now since I only get one Mother’s Day, we (or at least I) decided that it is only fair that Michael also only get one day – so we will celebrate locally here on September 1. But for both of our Dads, and all our other Fatherly friends and family members back in Canada (and Argentina) – Hope you had a Fully Fantastic Father’s Day. Love you all.

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