Cassowary Tales

The perfect day

2011-08-03T19:12:00.002+10:00

Will and Robin - Today was the perfect day in many many ways. One way is that we went blow carting. Americans call it sand yatching, which sounds fancier. And it was really really fun. There is a cart with a sail and you steer and tighten or loosen the sail to make it go faster or slower and there are handles to make it turn. It has three wheels. We went really fast up and down the beach and in the water a little bit. Also I had Pavlova for snack. And twice today we went swimming in the ocean. It was really fun since the waves are big - there is lots of wind and no barrier island. When a big wave comes I jump up and they are pretty high. Also I had really really good dinner at a restaurant and I tried octopus. It turns out that I like it. And I had really really good ice cream for dessert. This afternoon I learned how to play Spades, which is a really fun card game.

6 months after cyclone Yasi

2011-08-02T16:39:00.008+10:00

Michele - In a few hours it will be exactly 6 months since cyclone Yasi hit Mission Beach in far north Queensland. When it made landfall, Yasi was a category 5 cyclone with sustained windspeeds of 215 km/hr and gusts of 285 km/hr. It hit just after midnight so our friends spent a sleepless night in their homes and in area shelters. The storm affected inland areas as far as Mt. Isa. While I was out there, we noted that everything was unusually green – they had far more rain the past summer than usual. Yasi is estimated to have caused 800 million in damages. This is far less than if the storm had tracked to the north and hit Cairns or to the south and hit Townsville but here in Mission Beach and nearby Tully the devastation is intense and vast.

One of the most eerie difference between pre- and post-Yasi Mission Beach is the lack of bird songs in the morning. Instead of waking to the lorikeets and cockatoos, we wake to the sound of drills and hammers repairing the neighboring structures. The trees have not recovered enough to provide enough food for the birds. Uncle Larry reports that in Babinda, which is ~100 km north of Mission Beach, he is seeing many more birds than usual this year. As the trees recover, the birds will return. The flightless Cassowary is really struggling with the loss of habitat. The rangers are putting out fruit in feeding stations to help the population get by but there are reports of more deaths on the road as Cassowaries are coming out of the rainforest to look for food.

Damage to houses ranges from blown out windows, to ripped off roofs and walls. The house between our old place and the beach had their roof ripped off. The Elandra (fancy resort up the road from our old place) has part of their roof ripped off. Several of our old neighbors went up the Elandra for shelter during the cyclone. One caravan park is closed and many rental places are undergoing work. Because of the construction and because locals are renting holiday units while their homes are fixed, it is a bit tricky to find holiday rentals in Mission Beach. Well, the affordable ones at least.

The damage to the rainforest and area trees is truly heart wrenching. The Shrubbery restaurant in Mission Beach no longer has any. Without any canopy in the rainforest, the sun is drying out the floor and forcing changes to the fauna. Robin’s former teacher reported that her property now has mahogany gliders where it was too wet for them pre-Yasi. The trees are now leafing out and recovering. Because the trees were often stripped of all limbs, many of them look like the curly ends of toothpicks with the leaves sprouting right from the trunk. All the trees look quite Dr. Seuss-like in their tortured shapes.

Townsville is better than Paris

2011-08-01T21:57:00.004+10:00

Robin and Will – We think that Townsville, Queensland is a lot better than Paris, France for many reasons. One is that Paris has some really bad smells and Townsville doesn’t. Another reason is Townsville has a lot more trees and it has a beautiful beach and a cool hill. Paris is much more crowded. Overall, Townsville is more relaxing whereas Paris feels very busy.

Michele - While our views may not be in the world-wide majority, Gavin, G'ma Lorna and I agree with the kids!

Passing through Moria... I mean Mt Isa Mines

2011-07-31T09:23:00.011+10:00

Michele - It is a structural geologist's dream, to stand in the middle of a fault zone. I've stood on many outcrops of faults and I've stood next to many cliff exposures of faults before. What I'm talking about here is the ultimate 3D experience not matched in any cinema show with uncomfortable glasses; standing inside a fault zone with fresh exposures under you, to both sides and above your head. How lucky can a girl get to have such an opportunity?

Through Tom Blenkinsop's wonderful connections and Steve Micklethwaite's willingness to give a talk to the Mt Isa Mines (MIM) exploration geologists, Steve and I got an underground tour from Brad Miller, an amazing underground geologist at MIM. Until about 8 am you can descend to the mine in a cage that holds 92 people. Because we had to go through training and get suited up we missed this and drove a spiralled network of roads down to 1.8 km below the surface. The drive to the ore body took 1 hour. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Training: We had to watch two induction videos and pass a safety test. As you can imagine mine safety is huge priority. We would be under Brad's watchful eye but we also needed to know some basics before they would let us underground.

Equipment: The red suit indicates that I am a visitor. On right side of my waist belt is the battery to my head lamp. I never asked how long those batteries last between chargings but judging from the weight, I'm going to say 4.3 years. On the left side of my hip is the "self-rescuer". If needed you pop open the lid and strap a plastic bag to your face for breathing. The disk in the bag produces oxygen that should last ~1 hour as long as you breathe normally. Yeah right, breathe normally... I'm also holding eye protection, which I wore the whole time. On my feet I'm wearing standard issue steeltoed boots.

The trip: We rode in an extended cab diesel pickup through the active lead-zinc pit to the portal to the deeper copper mine. My first thought through the portal was "Ooo cool, rock bolts!". I've always had a fascination with rock bolts - but if you know me you are not surprised by this. I didn't realize in those first moment that I would get to see thousands and thousands of rock bolts in the next few hours. Forget being impressed by bolted roadsides along the Mass Pike west of Springfield, at MIM I was in the land of rock bolts. I rode in the back seat, which meant that I couldn't lipread Steve and Brad but it also meant that I was free to gawk like a kid at the surroundings without them mocking me. Although the mine tunnel snakes around, the host rock for the ore is a west-dipping shale so you can use the rock dip to get your bearings... well kind of. It was still pretty disorienting.

After an hour of driving we got out of the truck to see a faulted exposure at 1.6 km below the surface. Getting out of the truck, my first impression was "Jeesh this equipment is heavy" and my second impression was "They weren't kidding about that geothermal gradient.". I tell my GEO101 students that due to radioactive decay and residual heat of our planet's formation, the temperature increases ~25 degrees C for every km into the Earth. Sure, it makes sense but it is WAY more convincing to experience this first hand than to just talk about it. At 1.8 km, the deepest we went that day, the temperature of the rocks was probably about 45 C or 115 F. We sweated through our overalls and we kept drinking water regularly.

Because of the drilling and the passing vehicles a lot of the walls of the mine get dust covered. When the mine geologists map parts of the mine they pipe water so that they can clean off the walls. This mine is dry (no ground water) but in the active parts of the mine there is water everywhere from the drilling operations. We trudged though several pools that we nearly as deep as my boots and drove through many more pools. Near the drill it was noisy so I took out my hearing aids. The combination of dust, heat and humidity would be a perfect conditions for corrosion. I can imagine my audiologist cleaning out my hearing aids and saying "What did you do with them?!" She probably wouldn't believe the answer.

We drove around to exposures revealing a wide range of fault textures and conditions. Some of the faults were amazingly well-exposed on the walls and ceiling. I saw lots of veins in various states of deformation. We also got to visit regions of high ore grade. I picked up very warm samples of graphite, talc, quartz and chalopyrite, from which the copper is smelted. The rocks were amazingly fresh. No weathering on these rocks!

After several hours of amazing rocks, we drove the spiraled path back to the surface. At one point underground our truck died (dead battery) and I was really wanting to be back on the surface. However, once I was back in the sunlight, I appreciated how wonderful the inside of the Earth looks and wanted to go back. I may not get the chance to go underground again, but if I do, I will certainly say yes.

Yungaburra: Platypus

2011-07-30T11:59:00.001+10:00

Gavin: When we were in Australia two years ago we stayed in Yungaburra for one night before piling back into the minivan and visiting the Undara lava tubes.

My secret super-power is forgetting names, so of course I had no idea I'd ever been in Yungaburra before when I booked two nights at Bushland Cottages. I managed to drive all around town and still not realize I'd ever been there before (in my defense, we did most of the driving around in the dark, and my mum didn't realize she'd been there before, either; maybe that particular cluelessness is genetic). It wasn't until we'd spent the night and were walking to the grocery store that I recognized the house we'd spent the night in two years ago.

Bushland Cottages was a very nice place to stay; clean, comfortable, with a wood-burning stove that we actually used because the nights were a little chilly. Their best feature is a walking path that connects to the public walking track along Peterson Creek, which is home to several platypus (Platipi? Platypuses?). Walking along the creek in the morning or evening we always saw at least one, and usually saw more than one. Like movie stars, they're smaller when you see them in person.

Mt Isa (the town) and Mt Isa Mines (the mine)

2011-07-30T11:45:00.009+10:00

Michele -- Mt Isa. I’d heard about this place for years. Urbanites shun Mt Isa’s remoteness. It is in western Queensland, near the border with the Northern Territories and closer to Alice Springs than the east coast. Mining geologists praise Mt Isa’s richness of resources. The area has a vast array of zinc, lead, silver and copper deposits that make the Mt Isa Mines (MIM) one of the richest single mines in the world. Prosperity from this and other mines are a large reason why Australia, unlike much of the rest of the world, is enjoying a strong economy. The Mt. Isa mine and smelting operations are huge and tower over the town from the hills to the west of the river. Environmentalists criticize Mt Isa’s impact on the area. The area has naturally high lead levels but the smelting operations must contribute to the conditions. The smelting process also releases SO2 into the atmosphere. Employees appreciate Mt Isa’s prosperity. Positions go unfilled here as there are more jobs than qualified people. Many people work two weeks on and one week off and fly out to homes in Cairns or Brisbane for their weeks off. Because companies pay for the air tickets, it is expensive to fly to Mt Isa. Rooms there are hard to book. Geologists rave about Mt Isa’s great outcrops that reveal orogenic events from over a billion years ago and provide insights into the mechanisms of faulting at depth. The isolation of the town leads to high turnover but some people stay for a long time and love the opportunities and lifestyle.

Steve reported seeing a t-shirt that read “Happiness is Mt Isa in the rearview mirror.” Of course, it was worn by someone who chose to leave.

Evil Aussie Bush grass

2011-07-24T21:46:00.010+10:00

Michele -- The rocks in Cloncurry and Mt. Isa (western Queensland) are really amazing but we’ve encountered a drawback even more ubiquitous than the poisonous snakes out here -- evil Aussie bush grass with spikes of death. Sure it looks innocuous enough in this picture. Just a pleasant clump of grass waving in the breeze. Don’t be deceived! Those ‘blades’ of grass are truly blades of grass. The blades are rigid and extremely sharp tipped. As I walked by I swear I heard them whispering “Ha! Your tough canvas trousers present no challenge to us. Take that!”. Of course the grasses have Aussie accents. I now appreciate why Kangaroos hop across the outback and did my best to leap over the grass clumps.

So far I haven’t seen any of the famous Aussie snakes even though yesterday’s rocks were part of the Snake Creek Anticline. This is just fine with me.

Addendum: My field partner, Steve Micklethwaite, has pointed out that I erroneously ascribed Gallic inflections to the Evil Aussie Bush Grass. What Steve heard as he passed was "I'll cut ya down t' size, ya bloody tall poppies!". I stand corrected.

Tasmania, more than just a penal colony

2011-07-20T22:13:00.007+10:00

Michele -- Tasmanians are subject to many jokes among Aussies. Sort of like New Jersey in the US. Since I grew up in New Jersey, I felt an instant camaraderie with the Hobartians. We are misjudged and our homelands maligned. Together we can fight against the comedians jokes told at our expense and end this oppression! At the same time, I was curious if all the inbreeding stories were true and examined my Hobartian neighbors closely. Maybe. No obvious signs of second head removal surgery.

It seems that everyone has heard the stories of the Tasmanian penal colony. In the 18th and 19th centuries, after England couldn’t ship her convicts to the US anymore, she shipped them to Australia. The badly behaved of those convicts were then sent to the ends of the Earth -- Hobart. More specifically, to Port Arthur at the southern tip of the Tasman Peninsula and 90 km from Hobart. The transportation of convicts ended in 1853.

It may surprise some that these days some people voluntarily travel to Hobart. I’ve met graduate students and post-docs at the University of Tasmania who have come from all around the world. Hmm.. Is graduate school a modern-day penal system?

I've been working very hard since arriving in Hobart. After giving a public lecture and running a 2.5 day workshop I'm pretty worn out. Now that I've served my time, tomorrow I get to leave for Queensland. I will miss the old stone buildings in the Battery Park neighborhood where we are staying and the exquisite views of Mt Wellington when it isn't raining. Who knows, if I behave badly, maybe I will get to come back.

Down... there...

2011-07-20T17:33:00.000+10:00

Gavin -- "Map of Tasmania" is Australian slang for part of the female anatomy. Amanda Palmer (Massachusetts resident) made a "Map of Tasmania" video earlier this year, and since we're in Tasmania I can't resist sharing. Don't watch if you're easily offended or don't like loud, noisy music:

Food glorious food

2011-07-17T21:56:00.007+10:00

We've been down under for a bit over a week and we've been really enjoying some foods that we just can't find at home. Here is our list so far:

passionfruit yogurt
Vegemite
meat pies (Yes, that is Robin enjoying her first pie of the trip at the Toranga Zoo)
lemon squash
fish and chips
passion fruit on ice cream
Carlton Draught (Yes it is a kiwi beer but you can get it in Australia and not in the US)
Tim Tams
licorice straps. Not just cherry and anise, these are straps 2.5 feet long and thick. The aussies do licorice like nobody's business. One of our favorites is sour lime. I've only seen licorice strap vendors at the weekly markets.
sausage rolls
lemon slice
passionfruit
lamb snags
tasmanian cheese <-- this is a new favorite
smoked mutton sausage
Tasmanian pinot noir <- discovered this evening

I'm probably forgetting some... We haven't hit the bakeries much yet and they have lots of yummies. Getting hungry just thinking about it.

It isn't the cold, it is the humidity

2011-07-13T17:48:00.007+10:00

Michele - Yes, that is snow on Mt. Wellington viewed from the house we are staying at in Hobart. A few days before we arrived, it was snowing at sea level, a remarkable event even for Hobart. Hobart, at the southern side of Tasmania, gets its weather straight from the southern Ocean. Yeah, that same ocean that swirls around Antarctica. The high today was 6˚ Celsius, which in New England units is partway between wicked cold and pretty cold. But it isn’t really the cold or the humidity, it is the lack of insulation. I’ve heard Tim way up in Brisbane lament the lack of insulation but I was very surprised that even houses here in Hobart, at 43˚ south latitude, lack insulation. The temperature outside is pretty much the temperature inside most buildings. Furthermore, in a country rich in petroleum resources, I’m surprised that nearly all the heating in Tasmania is electric. No insulation + high electric costs = buildings remain cold.

The coldest room I’ve been in so far is the ladies toilet (restroom) at work (University of Tasmania Center of Excellence in Ore Deposits). There is no heat in the room but also the windows of the toilet do not close so the temperature inside is indeed the SAME as the temperature outside. Talk about leaving the ladies vulnerable! Needless to say, everyone is very quick with their business and there isn’t any chit chat in that room.

Eurotrash

2011-07-12T21:18:00.004+10:00

Michele: This picture at the left shows the variety of Euro coins I was given in just two transactions on my first day in Australia. Apparently, I had ‘jet-lagged dumb tourist’ stamped on my forehead that day. Actually, since we couldn’t check into our hotel until 3pm that first day, I probably did. It was frustrating to get these coins. Euro coins are pretty useless in Australia. In fact, you really couldn’t get much farther away from Euro trading countries than Australia.

I could take some solace in the fact that since the Australian economy is so strong, the Euro equals the Australian dollar. So I might have been given the same value of Euro currency as Australian currency. However I was not. The photo at right reveals the evil intent of those Aussie change makers. The 2 dollar Australian coin (center) looks very similar to the 20 cent and 10 center Euro coins. So while I should have pocketed several Aussie $2 coins, I ended up with a pocket of eurotrash. Since that first day I’ve check my change more carefully but no one has slipped me anymore eurotrash. I’m glad that the ‘dumb tourist’ stamp washes off .

The sun is in the not-south

2011-07-12T18:41:00.004+10:00

Michele - In mid-winter here, days are short and the sun hangs low in the northern sky. When we exit from a Sydney subway station we have to think carefully. OK the sun is there… so that must be the not-south (my fellow nerds know that !south =north). Lots of things are the opposite of what we expect so that whenever you feel an urge to do something, chances are you should do the opposite. When crossing the street, first look in the not-left direction. When driving, stay to the not-right. When going through airport security, keep your shoes not-off and go ahead and put your diet coke on the conveyor belt. She’ll be right.

Oh those crazy Aussie birds!

2011-07-09T06:13:00.007+10:00

First day in Sydney.
After some luggage adventures and >30 hours of travel we arrive at our hotel at 10:00 am but our room isn't ready until 3:00 pm. So cruel - but we take this opportunity to avoid sleep and explore the city a bit. They say that staying in the sun helps your body adjust to time changes so it is probably good for us to wander around. It won't surprise you that we, well-documented city-non-appreciators (see trend in earlier blog entries), ended up spending the day in the Royal Botanical Gardens.

Michele: The gardens are awesome! Until today, the Hampstead Heath in London was my favorite city gardens. You feel like you are far from the city in the Heath's meandering paths and undulating topography. The Hampstead Heath is now officially demoted. In the Royal Botanical gardens, the skyscrapers poke above the trees so you still feel close to the city BUT the Royal Botanical Gardens has something Hampstead Heath will never have.... crazy Australian birds.

There are many signs declaring not to feed the birds. The ibises have found work arounds for this by poking through picnic baskets and the remains of peoples lunches. The sulphur-crested cockatoos however, use their charm to solicit food. Some rule-breakers brought peanuts for the cockies and became quite popular. While we didn't have any food for them, the cockies needed to check us out to be quite certain. I'm amazed that the birds are able to stand securely on people's heads without digging their claws too much.

We also saw curlews of the famous tortured children call. Fortunately, they weren't calling today. The park also houses loads of fruit bats. I know that fruit bats are mammals but they fly so I'm including them in this blog on birds. I was surprised to see so many bats in Sydney in mid-winter because I think of them as a feature of tropical Queensland. Many trees are bare. The weather reminds me of Palo Alto's winter. Chilly in the morning (45 degrees) but warm at mid-day in the sunshine.

going back

2011-07-06T13:05:00.003+10:00

Tomorrow we leave again for Australia, only a month this time and the itinerary is crazy: Sydney, Hobart, Townsville, Cairns, Yungaburra, Mt Isa and Mission Beach. We will have different stories this time in part because of the different places and in part because of all the changes since we left Mission Beach. In addition to the normal changes that occur in two years, cyclone Yasi went right over our old town, stripping trees and destroying buildings.

A whole new round of adventures wait for us this time around and we can't wait to share them with you.

Transitions

2009-12-14T04:45:00.004+10:00

After many hours of travel, we are back in Amherst, Massachusetts. When we woke our first morning we were greeted by 6 inches of new snow. Wow! The kids were besides themselves with joy. This photo shows all our suitcases in the snow. About half of the stuff was clothes, the other half was toys, bedsheets, towels, snorkel gear etc. You know, we didn't really have that much stuff in Mission Beach, yet it didn't matter -- we really didn't need much to be happy. The kids have enjoyed revisiting all their toys and so we won't buy a lot of stuff this year for Christmas. Good thing too since we are busy moving back into the house.

Things we miss about Mission Beach:

Waking up to raucous birdsong
She'll be right (e.g. the gardeners mowing the grass in thongs (flipflops))
the beach right outside our door
Robin: my friends
Will: the pool
The rainforest (Michele: I visited the UMass greenhouse the other day and was overwhelmed at the sense of being HOME when I entered the tropical room. I wanted to stay there for hours.)
the view of Dunk Island
effortless outdoor gear (e.g. kids going to school barefoot)
geckos all over the house
yummy fish and chips
hanging clothes outside to dry
scanning the countryside for Cassowaries
Uncle Larry, Aunt Coreen, Melissa, Jim, Kristen and Cindy

Things that we are excited about in Amherst

seeing friends and family
SNOW! (it is snowing as we type this; the kids are playing outside with their sleds)
a nice kitchen with gas burners and dishwasher that doesn't tip over
our cats
Christmas tree
not being 14 time zones away from friends and colleagues
functional washing machine
Trader Joe's
Robin and Will: all our toys
good, inexpensive restaurants
Nana and Poppy
feeling part of the community

We won't be posting to this blog regularly now that our Australian adventure is over, but there are lots of stories that we didn't have a chance to share. Lots more Australian good ideas. We look forward to filling you in over Carlton Draught/YellowTail next time we see you. We'll bring the vegemite toast.

We all feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to live in Mission Beach for 5 months and enjoyed sharing our adventures with friends and family through this blog. We figured a blog posting was better than a postcard (no word limits, no postage, no delay and everyone gets to read it). Our wonderful experience in Australia could not have happened without the amazing help and support of Uncle Larry and Aunt Coreen -- they even loaned us their car! Thank you Uncle Larry and Aunt Coreen. We love you and can't wait to get back!

Big. Really big!

2009-12-06T08:05:00.007+10:00

Gavin: The first leg of our trip home tomorrow is a two-hour flight from Cairns to Brisbane. Two hours in the air and we won't even make it out of Queensland!

I think most Americans think of Australia as an over-sized island at the bottom of the world, but have no idea how big it really is.

It's big! We've been living in "Far North Queensland" -- the pointy bit in the upper right of Australia. Far North Queensland is about as big as New England, but has a population of just 250,000 people-- much less than the Springfield Metropolitan Area. Or, if you've travelled out West, you can think of Far North Queensland as being kind of like Wyoming-- it's about the same size, but has half as many people.

We're already thinking we'll come back in a few years. We might spend a couple of months seeing some other bits of Australia; my uncle lived in Western Australia (which is even bigger and emptier than Queensland) and knows some fantastic spots over on that coast. And I think I'll have to drag the family around Melbourne WAY down in the other corner of the country, to see where I spent the first five years of my life.

xmas season

2009-12-06T06:10:00.005+10:00

Michele: It still doesn't feel like Christmas here even though there are decorations up, the kids exchanged x-mas cards with their friends, Santa-featured ads are on TV and we hear carols here and there. Something about sleigh bells jingling doesn't match with the hot humid rainforest background. I find it startling how many cards and decorations in Australia feature snowmen, snow scenes and Santa in a big parka. Not that I want to see Santa in a budgy smuggler -- shorts would work fine. Notes for Americans: Budgies = parakeets and a Budgy smuggler is Aussie for a speedo but a speedo in Aussie is a speedometer. On the road to Cairns yesterday we saw a sign that said "speedo check". Both Gavin and Will failed the speedo check.

Anyways, as you can imagine Christmas here involves pool parties and BBQ rather than roaring fires and ham. I thought that the combination of watermelon and five-corner fruit looked Christmasy. The five-corner fruit are from Uncle Larry's amazing garden. Delicious.

Another reason it doesn't yet feel like Christmas is that we spent the past week purging, cleaning, packing, saying good-bye and shutting down the house. The kids in Robin and Will's classes gave them wonderful goodbyes with cards and gifts. Friends and family found homes for a lot of our household items that we bought to supplement the furnished house. The lovely couch got sold to the second hand shop. It has been an exhausting week. The next few days in Cairns will be refreshingly relaxing.

upside down world

2009-12-02T20:36:00.004+10:00

Michele: Tonight is a full moon. Watching the moon rise over the sea and Dunk Island is a really nice exclamation point to our last days in Mission Beach. When we first arrived a couple things took me a long time to get used too. One was that the north side of the house is the sunny side. The south wind brings cool air from Antartica but these days are getting lots of hot northeast winds. Something I really didn't expect down under is the upside down moon.

Jim Frazier pointed out to me that down under the moon looks to have a rabbit and not a man. This image from the web has far more detail than you can see in the sky so to see the rabbit you will need to unfocus your eyes a bit -- a couple Carlton Draughts can facilitate this. All the images on the web show the moon from a different perspective than shown here - they are probably from the northern hemisphere. I had to rotate the image 90˚ counter clockwise to get it to look like what I see outside right now.

The difference between the rabbit and the man is all about point of view. Over the past 5 months I've really enjoyed learning about, understanding and appreciating the Australian point of view on life, cultures, world politics, health care and even the moon.

MBSS hosts the shire's best school grounds!

2009-12-01T21:49:00.008+10:00

Michele: These last few days in Mission Beach it has been on my agenda to take photos of the school that Robin and Will attend. I need to document the grounds because otherwise you would not believe me. Image a school grounds with clustered plantings between walkways, The plantings use bromeliad as ground cover and include vanilla orchids climbing up the palms, mauve ginger flowers, huge purple orchids and fern epiphytes the size of four year 2 students (see photo of the door to Will's year 2 classroom). You just wouldn't take this for a primary school!

As I was taken photos with the kids after school today I came across Mr. Sheppard, the school gardener. I had a wonderful chat with him about the beauty of the school, the various plants and his job. He doesn't have to produce such lovely grounds, he just loves gardening. When I asked, he confessed that his garden has every year won best school grounds in the whole shire (shire = county) -- except for one year he didn't win when they applied chlorine to the school walls. I suspect it was the crew from Tully Primary that did that. ;-)

This photo shows Mr. Sheppard with one of the vanilla orchids. He is one of the people that make Mission Beach an incredibly special place.

Australian Good Ideas #7: meat pies and lamb snags

2009-12-01T20:36:00.006+10:00

Michele: Meat pie is just what it sounds like - a pie filled with meat (mostly beef as far as I can tell) and sauce. Every town has at least one bakery that sells these pies. Some bakeries offer fancy varieties with vegetables like peas or onions. The one in the photo is a frozen meat pie heated in the microwave for my lunch... yum. You are supposed to eat meat pie with tomato (to - mah' to) sauce but I like mine naked.

One of our favorite dinners is lamb snag (sausage). The butcher sells them with rosemary seasoning and they are really yummy and inexpensive. We have thoroughly taken advantage of the opportunity to eat Australia lamb while we've been here. It is awesome. Definitely something we will miss back in the US.

I realize that quite of few of my vegetarian friends my be reading this and not convinced. If you are the type of vegetarian you can wiggle your boundaries around a bit I highly recommend you try a little bit of lamb snag and meat pie when you are in Australia.

Dangerous Roads

2009-11-29T13:10:00.006+10:00

Michele: Last week a Cassowary was struck by a car and killed on the road in Wongaling Beach (the next town). Cars and dogs are the leading dangers for the less than 3000 or so Cassowaries left in far north Queensland. We feel very lucky to have seen 4 Cassowaries since we've been here and hope that they will be around for a long time.

Signs are posted along the road to remind motorists to slow down as they pass through the rainforest. Some signage, such as "Cassowaries utilize this area" seem a little wordy to my ear. The sign pictured here gets to the point with the graphics even if the text is a little passive-aggressive. There is another passive-aggressive one that says "Are you Speeding?". Why don't they just make it an imperative "slow down". When I first saw these signs I hadn't yet seen a Cassowary and thought that the scale of the bird was a little off in the graphics. It is not! The Cassowaries are large and could seriously damage a car. Never the less, few people drive at the posted speeds.

We've seen a fair bit of road kill here but the most unusual that I've seen was a wild pig this morning in Wongaling. It was huge and I'm sure that whoever hit it has some body damage to their vehicle. Most of the road kill are Wallabies. Wallabies fill the same ecological niche as deer back in North America. They graze on grass in herds, inspire paintings, invade vegetable gardens, take over some communities and they are just as dumb. You know that phrase 'like a deer in the headlights'? Well it works for Wallabies too. One evening I came down a hill towards a Wallaby, slowing down the whole way and the critter just stared at me. Just before I came to a complete stop 10 meters from the marsupial did it realize that it should probably hop away.

An Ausmerican Thanksgiving flaws and all

2009-11-27T15:46:00.007+10:00

Michele: Thanksgiving was just another day in Australia so we tried to make it special. No turkey dinner here, no cranberry sauce or apple pie. It is hot and humid these days so even the thought of cooking such a meal is unappealing. But we did have a turkey - just not the poultry kind.

It turns out that if you make your own Pavlova you can make it into a shapes other than the circles available at the supermarket. So with the help of a recipe from Mariel, I set out to make a Turkey shaped Pav. It wasn't too hard. Robin drew a turkey shape on paper and then I put the paper on top of some aluminum foil with something soft underneath and traced the shape with a blunt knife. This made a groove in the aluminum foil in the shape of a turkey that I could use as a guide for when I arranged the meringe. For something soft under the aluminum foil I used Robin's homework book - more on that in a bit.

When the Pav was done baking and cooling the kids and I had great fun decorating it to look like a Turkey with food coloring, lollies and strawberries. It was great and tasted just like the ones from Woolies. I took a picture of the awesome turkey-shaped Pavlova but unfortunately, Will was playing with the camera later last night and deleted that photo. He also put the camera into some weird mode that will probably take me months to get out of. Anyways, today I took this photo above of the left-overs. It isn't the same....

Well that wasn't the only thing that went wrong last night with the Pav. Remember I said that I used Robin's homework book as something soft to transfer the turkey shape to the aluminum foil? Well, I forgot to take the book out from under the foil before I baked the Pav - I cooked her homework book. Yes, the Pav had an interesting burnt paper smell as it cooked but since I hadn't made Pav before I didn't recognize this as amiss. You've seen a cookbook but have you seen a cooked book?

Of course Robin's teacher thought this was great fun and told the other teachers and even had Robin tell the story to the whole class for show and tell. There goes any credibility I had built up after I visited school a few weeks ago to talk to Robin's class about planetary geology.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T20:53:00.003+10:00

Australian Brush Turkey, image by petrichor via flickr.

Will Wins Best Behaved Religion Student

2009-11-25T21:44:00.005+10:00

Michele: I didn't have a picture of Will in religion class so I posted this picture of Will with uber-goofy hair on the ride to the Eddy Reef.

The school year here in Australia is winding to a close and today was the last day of Religion class. The Religion teacher gave bags of lollies (candy) to each student and then gave beautiful fish-shaped kitchen magnets to the best behaved girl and boy students. And guess what?

Will was the awarded the best behaved protestant grades 1 & 2 boy.

I am proud of Will. Not only is he recognized among his peers, but how cool is it to say that he won an award for the best behaved grades 1 & 2 boy in protestant religion class at Mission Beach State School? C'mon! In 10 years, I guarantee that this is one story that his friends will never believe!

Metallic Starlings

2009-11-25T09:07:00.006+10:00

Michele: Around the corner form our house is a tall Eucalyptus Tree with... no kidding... hundreds of Metallic Starlings. Here is a picture from back in August when they first arrived and starting building their nests.

I was not familiar with starlings at all and was struck by a couple things. Firstly, the birds are as strange as all the stories and youTube videos document. They swarm and swoop around in seemingly random patterns. Sometimes, when we go down the street every single bird from the tree is sitting along electric wires across the road. Maybe there was a tree snake near their nests or something? Then, as we walk by one bird decides it is time to go back and the entire flock immediately follows.

Watching them build their nests (hanging pouch-like nests) was interesting. Groups of 10-20 birds would leave the tree as a group and return with bark, twigs etc. While the group was gone the remaining birds would chirp a bit but when a group of starlings returns to the tree, Oh the Ruckus! Really loud chirpings for about 15 seconds whenever any bird returned. This is the conversation I imagined translated from Starling language:

Mabel the Metallic Starling: "Is that really you Stan? I thought you were gone forever. Thank GOD you've returned!"
Stan replies: "Yes I'm back from my epic 5 minute journey across the vast skies to the neighboring tree and look at the bounty that I've brought back from distant lands!"
Mabel: "A twig!!! For me? Aren't you a dear! I know just where to put it too. Now if I only had another few more twigs...."

The nest building lasted for a couple weeks and was really entertaining to watch. It was very noisy. The property around the tree is for sale and I imagine that the realtor has a difficult time showing this property while the starlings are nesting. These birds come back to the same tree each year and they really like the tallest gum trees around. There are plenty of nice gum trees in our neighborhood but instead of spreading out, the starlings all like to sit - hundreds of them - in this one tree. Odd birds.

Billabong Sanctuary

2009-11-22T07:52:00.005+10:00

Robin: We went to the Billabong Sanctuary. I had a really fun time! This picture is of me hand feeding some very people friendly kangaroos. First, I thought that they would bite me but then Daddy fed them so I gave it a try. At this zoo they had a lot of crocodiles. The people who work at the zoo even have a crocodile show! We got to see some of that crocodile show! They made the crocs jump into the air! Watching it was scary but it was really cool.

The funny thing about having lots of crocs was that lots of ducks live at the zoo and they could go wherever they like including in the croc ponds. I thought that once the ducks went in the croc's pond they would be gone for good. But the crocs didn't seem to mind at all. My favorite part of the zoo was...umm...uh I don't think I have a favorite part, all of the zoo was good!

Will: I held a wombat. It's fur was more like straw then fur. The wombat was a lot bigger and heavier then I thought it would be. It was silent but it wriggled a lot. But the wombat wasn't wriggling like it was trying to get out of my lap. If I was catching it from the wild it would definitely run away.

BTW: Robin and Will each composed and typed their own blog entries this time. Great job!

Michele: After 4.5 months in Australia, this was our first visit to a zoo. For some animals, like black cockatoos, it was much more satisfying to see them in the wild. The zoo did provide the awesome experience of petting, feeding and holding some amazing animals as well as the opportunity to see some animals that we haven't had the chance to see yet, like crocodiles. There are plenty of crocs in Mission Beach but needless to say, we haven't gone looking for them. All in all I'm very glad that we waited till near the end of our stay to visit a zoo that way we could see critters in the wild first.

End of our stay. It is true. If you've figured out the Aussie style dates on our blog header (day/month/yr) then you've deduced that we are returning to the states on December 8th. Over the next two weeks we will shut down do some traveling north of Cairns and say goodbye. I don't think any of us are ready to leave.

Australian Good Ideas #6: luv

2009-11-18T18:34:00.005+10:00

Michele: No, not the kind that you can't buy with money. Nor the kind that makes the world go round. I'm talking about an affectionate term used among strangers engaged in a business transaction. Huh? OK, I had better explain.

In the US, well the northern US anyways, if a woman over the age of 30 goes to a sales counter, she is likely to be asked

"Can I help you ma'am?"

Now if you are over 30 and female like me you might also cringe slightly when you hear this. I find nothing pleasant sounding in the word ma'am. If you lip read an American saying ma'am you will notice a fleeting grimace in the word ma'am as if the person were in pain. I like nothing about this word.

Now in Australia, if a woman of any age goes to a sales counter, she is likely to be asked.

"What can I do for ya luv?"

It doesn't matter if the sales person, bar tender, butcher etc is male or female, young or old, familiar or stranger, they will still call you 'luv'. luv luv luv Doesn't that sound wonderful!

A few months ago I had the opportunity to work the plant stall at the primary school fundraiser festival. Working the plant stall seemed like a helpful thing to do and a good idea at the time but it turns out that I could answer absolutely none of the customers' questions about the plants. I couldn't tell a Ginger plant from a Bromeliad (ok, well I could tell that one but you get the idea). I did my best. One part of working the stall stood out in my mind. One of the customers called me 'luv' as we were negotiating how to pack her plants into the boxes. Ah ha! Luv goes both ways!

I haven't yet been able to call strangers 'luv' here in Australia. I say "No worries" instead of "You're welcome". I can greet folks with a passable "G'day". After months of blundering I now have emphasis on the correct syllable in "Good on ya!". I can stumble through "How are ya going?" with only a slight pause before 'going'. I even occasionally declare that "She'll be right!". But calling strangers 'luv' is a bit harder.

I will work on this though because we all could use more "luv" in our lives.

Another trip to the reef

2009-11-15T17:47:00.003+10:00

Michele: Sunny skies, relatively low wind and a low tide in the early afternoon yesterday were near perfect conditions for another trip to the Eddy reef. This time I took pictures above water and we didn't even bother with the underwater camera. In this picture Will is proudly sporting the hairdo that he was given by the salt spray and wind on the way out to the reef. The kids really enjoyed sitting on the bow with legs dangling over the edge. If you sit on the correct side, you really get sprayed with water!

Our time on the reef went by amazingly fast. Robin and Will did great -- they got to take advantage of their improved swimming skills. We saw many of the same amazing critters and plants as last time with some new critters like a Cuttlefish and more attention to the details.

A highlight for me was swimming alongside a sea turtle for several minutes. I was about 2 meters to the side of it and I got to swim along while it glided over the coral and came up for air twice. Amazing to watch! With each effortless wave of its front flippers, I was using my fins with moderate vigor. How do they do that? I'm sure the turtle could see me; yet, it didn't seem afraid and didn't swim away from me. Eventually, I was concerned about swimming so far from the boat so I bid goodbye to the turtle... for now.

Gavin: while Michele was swimming with the turtle, I was swimming with a shark! A small, shy white-tipped reef shark that the Calypso folks told us was born at Eddy Reef a few years ago and has lived there ever since. I know we had a great time because we were all really tired but happy when we finally got back home.

Robin:I saw the turtle too! I saw it and pointed it out to daddy he swam after it. I wasn't fast enough because I was not wearing my fins. I also saw sea stars that were feathery. It was very fun to go to the reef again. Even if my wet suit gave me a blister.

Signs that we've been here a while...

2009-11-14T20:29:00.002+10:00

We are starting to bleed Aussie.

Ah ha! This is why this is a rainforest

2009-11-11T20:48:00.006+10:00

Michele: Our first 4 months here in the wet tropics weren't very wet. We had two months of virtually no rainfall and this was the driest winter on record. However, when I asked uncle Larry and other if they were worried for the trees with the lack of rain they all laughed at my concern. "It'll come. Just wait till the Wet starts." It seems that they were right. In the past few weeks, we've been moving into summer weather and with it lots of wind and rain.

Spring rain here is unlike the steady rain of a New England spring. The rain comes up all of a sudden with a strong wind and with a torrential downpour that may be over anywhere from 2-20 minutes. The wind blows the rain sideways and everything on our covered terrace gets wet. I have a new appreciation for the word squall.

Until today we've had a shower or two a day but today was a whole new ball game. Squall after squall has been blowing in from the sea. 5.5cm in 24 hours. The happy frogs are croaking. Unfortunately, someone anchored their boat on the beach last night and they were not so happy this morning. The high winds actually turned their boat over (see pic). The great barrier reef and Dunk Island shelter our beach from high waves so the turning over of this boat is particularly impressive.

If this isn't the start of the Wet, I wonder what we are in for.

Sea Patrol!

2009-11-10T08:44:00.004+10:00

Channel 9: The Hammersley patrols Australia's tropical waters, from the idyllic coral atolls of the Great Barrier Reef to massive oil rigs on the North West Shelf. Amid the action and excitement of their patrols the crew of the Hammersley finds time for rest, romance and relaxation, often in exotic foreign ports. But their camaraderie, loyalty and integrity will be tested.

Michele: I haven't yet seen the show but for the past 8 weeks Mission Beach has been abuzz with Sea Patrol activity. Every spring (Sept-Oct) the cast and crew of Sea Patrol come to Mission Beach to film the TV show. They lease out local shops for sets but the main set of this show is the Hammersley, the navy ship that the crew serve aboard.

Every year, the Royal Australian Navy leases out one of its most advanced ships for 8 weeks to be used for... you guessed it! As a set for a TV drama series. Isn't that an awesome business model for the military! Can't you just see all the military divisions switching to revenue generating systems involving the entertainment industry. It is brilliant!

It has also been fun having a navel ship off our beach for the past two months.

"Hey, look over there a sea turtle!"
"Where?"
"Just to the left of the Armidale class patrol boat, near where the water changes hue."

The kids of the cast and crew of Sea Patrol have been attending Mission Beach State School for the past two months and Robin and Will have enjoyed not being the newest kids in their classes. However, the crew finished up filming last week so the new kids have left, the equipment is packed up and the ship is gone.

What will happen to Mission Beach now that the RAN patrol boat is gone? Who will protect us from boats of immigrants from Dunk Island? Stay tuned for the next installment of ... Cassowary Tales!

Australian Good Ideas: #5 Swim Class in Public School

2009-11-09T18:11:00.007+10:00

Michele: It is Term 4 at Mission Beach State School and that means it is time for swim classes. I can't say if every school in Australia has swim classes, but many primary schools in far north Queensland have swim classes for all students. What a great idea!

Australians are pretty serious about the sport of swimming. This is manifest in the number of Olympic medals Aussies have earned. The Aussies have earned more Olympic medals per capita than any other country. This reflects both their athleticism and their savvy. While sports like gymnastics only have a handful of medals available, the crafty Aussies figured out that swimming has an insane variety of events each of which gets a medal. There is the 100m back stroke, the 200 m individual medley and the 50m hold yer nose and dog paddle. Having figured this out, Aussies have invested wisely in teaching Aussie children to swim. It also comes in handy because most of the population lives near the sea.

At Mission Beach State School grades 4-7 take a bus to the big pool in Tully (25 km away) while the lower grades walk to the pool at the Tropical Hibiscus Caravan Park around the corner form the school. The walk is not long but it does have a very significant effect on the children. Shoes are required on swimming days. At our house on Tuesdays gleeful shouts of "Yay, swimming today!" are quickly followed by groans "Oh man! We gotta wear shoes." This is how life's lessons are learned.

We are lucky to have a swimming pool at our house, so Robin and Will have had lots and lots of swimming practice over the past 4 months. It has been awesome to watch their swimming skills grow. In July they were both very unconfident dog paddlers and now they swim and cavort in deep water with ease. This alone has made our Aussie adventure worthwhile.

Religion in school

2009-11-04T18:35:00.003+10:00

Michele: Public school here in Australia is very different than in Amherst in a lot of ways. One feature of school here is Religion class every Wednesday morning. The school in our town offers three flavors of religion, Catholic, Protestant and none of the above. After some discussion, we opted for protestant-flavored religion for our kids. Robin and Will were pretty skeptical of the whole religion class thing. Kids who don't opt for either Catholic or Protestant get to go to the undercover area and color during Religion class. Coloring is a pretty big draw for the 7 to 9 year old set.

Gavin and I both did time in Sunday school classes growing up and I clocked in 6 years of Catholic schooling so we gently encouraged the kids to try out Religion class. It is good for them! Robin was the first to forgo coloring and try Religion and reported that it wasn't so bad. They learned some old testament stories that all have the same 'believe or be damned' theme. A few weeks later Will followed suit and now the coloring group has two fewer followers than it used to have.

Religion in school is very normal here and people are surprised (to some degree) that religion is not taught in American schools. I've been told several times that American children grow up much faster than Australian children. Many Australians may believe that America would be a better place and that we could have avoided the whole global financial crisis if we did teach religion in schools. I don't know about that, but a little fire and brimstone can't hurt and makes for great drama.

Red Tailed Black Cockatoos

2009-11-02T20:02:00.005+10:00

Michele: Yesterday Robin and I went for a walk on the Kennedy track near our house. On the way back, we saw a flock of 6 red-tailed black cockatoos on the beach. These birds are amazing to watch on the ground or in the air. They are large and black all over, even their crests. The one bit that isn't black is a spot under their tail, which is bright red (see pic of cocky in the tree). In the air near the beach, they catch updrafts and just hang still in the air.

The sulphur-crested cockatoos are pretty impressive but these guys, the red-tailed black cockies, steal the show. I keep being surprised by birds in Australia. I swear, I'm really not that into birds, it is just that the Aussie birds are pretty spectacular.

An Ausmerican Halloween

2009-10-31T16:40:00.003+10:00

Robin: For Halloween we made a Pavlova. Not an ordinary Pavlova, it was a Halloween Pavlova. We put food colouring in the cream to make it orange and we put fudge squeezy-stuff on the cake to make a spider's web and a spider. We put the gummy snakes on it because snakes are bit spooky, aren't they? I also thought that getting the food colouring to make the cream orange was a good idea because it was a good excuse to buy food colouring for my celery, water and food colouring project.

We did the Halloween Pavlova because kids here don't do trick or treating. The only big way that they celebrate Halloween is for the Halloween disco that was last night. The Halloween disco happens at our school and about everyone in the whole school goes there in costume. We didn't go because we had to pick up mommy from the airport. I wasn't sad that we didn't go to the Halloween disco because my friend's mum said that the people would be running around screaming and when they turn the lights off, they would scream even louder. Also the music was up as loud as it could get.

iSnack 2.0 is now CheesyBite!

2009-10-29T14:09:00.004+10:00

Gavin: I know it's hard for Americans to believe, but Aussies really do eat, and enjoy, vegemite. In fact, they enjoy it so much Kraft Foods decided to produce a sequel, so they mixed vegemite with cream cheese stuck it in a jar and then held a contest asking Australians to name the new concoction.

What name did Kraft like best?

iSnack 2.0

Now, that's either the dumbest product name ever, or brilliant rope-a-dope marketing. Or maybe both. They got loads of free press over the new name, all of it saying basically the same thing: huh? iSnack 2.0? Are you serious?

So a few weeks ago they've caved to public ridicule and dropped the iSnack 2.0 name, deciding instead on "CheesyBite." I've gotta say, they've nailed it; according to the Urban Dictionary, "cheesy" means:

Trying too hard, unsubtle, and inauthentic.

The 7PM project TV show had some really good alternative name suggestions, including "your-mum-mite" and my personal favorite, "VoldeMite."

Anyway, when I saw jars of iSnack 2.0 on the grocery store store shelf today, I had to buy some. Now I'll always know what to answer when somebody asks "what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?"

Eucalyptus

2009-10-29T14:02:00.003+10:00

Michele (from SFO airport): I've just finished a busy and fantastic 1.5 weeks in Portland and northern California. Great visits with friends and incredible discussions with colleagues made this trip well worth the very long travel. Portland is a fabulous city to visit and the Bay area charmed me once again.

After landing in SFO airport last Thursday I picked up my rental car and headed down highway 280 with a big grin on my face. Why the smile? Yes, I was looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues but also highway 280 travels right alongside the San Andreas fault. For a earthquake scientist, few sites are as inspirational than a fault valley. The other reason for my grin was the strong smell of Eucalyptus blowing through the open windows of my car.

After 8 years of living the SF Bay area I have strong association of the smell of Eucalyptus trees with bike rides and hikes in northern California. Ironic then that all these sweet smelly trees are actually from Australia where the rest of my family is right now. Because Eucalyptus trees are some of the largest and oldest trees in some communities of California, I had forgotten that these trees were brought to California by Australian miners during the gold rush. It is hard to imagine California without Eucalyptus trees. The Aussie trees like the Aussie people have made impacts all over the world.

In 14 hours I will be back in the homeland of Eucalytpus - I can't wait!

Regatta

2009-10-25T11:46:00.006+10:00

Gavin: The Mission Beach Sailing Club is holding a regatta this weekend; there are fifty or so sailboats racing around buoys and around Dunk Island.

One day I'd like to learn how to sail, but I don't think I'll bother until I'm retired and have to opportunity to sail more than twice a year. Sailing out to the Reef and then dropping anchor and doing some snorkeling sounds to me like an ideal retirement activity.

Rainbow lorikeets are as common here as robins are back home. This one was eating flowers in the trees next the the beach. Lorikeets are easy to find; they are really noisy. Too bad their song (more of a SCREECH, really) isn't as pretty as their feathers.

Naturelover's paradise

2009-10-22T11:49:00.003+10:00

Gavin: that's a picture the kids took of a white-lipped treefrog, enjoying the rain in the gutter in front of the house. According to our guidebook, it's "Australia's largest and most spectacular tree frog."

We saw a bunch of cane toads walking after dark the other night; the white-lipped frogs are much cuter.

Skyrail

2009-10-18T09:20:00.009+10:00

Image by paulafunnell via flickr.
(I forgot the camera!)

Gavin: We spent Thursday in Cairns because Michele had to be at the airport early the next morning (she's in Portland and San Francisco for the next two weeks).

So we picked up Larry in Babinda and headed for the Skyrail-- a ten-mile-long gondola ride from Cairns to Kuranda and back. I was worried that the kids would get bored sitting in a tiny little gondola for over an hour, and we'd have to deal with fidgety, whiny kids, but we all had a great time; as Will said shortly after the trip began, "this is AWESOME!" We may do it again just before we leave in December; it'll be the rainy season, so the waterfall and rainforest will be very different.

Kuranda is tourist-central; both the Skyrail and the Kuranda scenic railway end up there. It's a pretty little town, but too full of shops designed to extract the maximum amount of money from tourists for my taste.

When we got back to Cairns we had time to check into Michele's hotel and then go for a very nice walk along the Esplanade. She had picked an inexpensive, large hotel near the airport pretty much at random, and was just lucky that it also happens to be the home of Uncle Larry's favorite restaurant in Cairns! It is an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, and we'll definitely eat there again before we leave. Mmmm, prawns...

More than just bugs

2009-10-14T19:32:00.003+10:00

Michele: Just a reminder that there is more to far north Queensland than bugs.

During the school term break our beach was pretty crowded. Along this stretch that you see in the photo there might have been twenty people - Acch! Now that the school term has started, the numbers are back down to fewer than 5 - ahhhh. Belmar NJ this ain't!

Did I mention that we saw lots of sea turtles when we went kayaking last week? So there, bug-ophobes!

There is still time to visit us while we are here. I'm actually headed back to the states (OR and CA) for two weeks (conference and some talks). I will miss the family and the beach and even the bugs.

Rhinoceros Beetle

2009-10-13T18:27:00.004+10:00

Robin: I found a dead Rhinoceros Beetle at the beach. First, I thought that it was a black nut thingy. But then I flipped it over with my foot and saw that it has a horn. It was clinging to a bunch of sea weed and Daddy had to get a bunch of sea weed off of it. The beetle that it is next to in the picture is a normal sized beetle that you would usually find. In the picture the beetles are life-sized. The Rhinoceros Beetle's eyes are below the top pinchy thing.They are where the bottom pincher comes up.

Those Dumb Americans!

2009-10-12T09:28:00.002+10:00

Gavin: Our Tivo is in Massachusetts, so we've been exposed to lots of Australian TV ads since we've been here.

It's interesting; there are lots of American shows of all sorts (CSI, Glee, So You Think You Can Dance, etc.), but all of the ads are 100% Australian, even if they're advertising US companies like Pizza Hut, McDonald's or Ford.

People worry that giant international mega-corporations are destroying local culture, but it seems to me that the mega-corporations bend over backwards to fit in.

For example, the aussie word for McDonald's is "maccas" (pronounced "mack-ahs"). I woulda thunk that the McDonald's corporation would be protective of their brand name, but no! Some of their ads begin with "come on in to maccas!"

There's a whole sub-genre of "stupid American" advertisements. For example, there's an ad for KFC that goes something like this:

Scene: family eating outside at a park.
Closeup: dad biting into a chicken burger
Cut to: American tourists (overweight, in Bermuda shorts, holding a camera)
American tourist: Excuse me, could you take our picture?
Australian dad: Sorry mate, I don't speak English.
American tourist: Oh, sorry (wanders off).

I especially like the ad that has some Americans trying to sell the entire island of New Zealand as a vacation spot to some aussies; makes fun of BOTH Americans and New Zealand!

Narcho's anyone?

2009-10-10T19:02:00.007+10:00

Michele: Today we rode our bikes to the Beachcomber, the caravan park at the other end of South Mission Beach. It is a lovely caravan park - right on the beach, a pool with water slide and fountain. The Beachcomber is part of the BIG 4 group of caravan parks, equivalent to KOA in the states. Since we've been here, the Beachcomber's vacancy signs have consistently read NO cottage vacancies, NO power site vacancies, NO unpowered site vacancies etc. You get the picture - it is a very nice and very popular caravan park. Locals like the cafe at the Beachcomber because it is the only food establishment in South Mission Beach. Fish and Chips take away, pizza take away, toasted cheese for lunch and afternoon ice cream are all popular choices of locals, including ourselves. However, we don't recommend the Nachos er... Narcho's er....

This sign really brings home several points.

The first point is that since Australians drop their Rs they really have no idea what each other are saying. I recently read through one of Robin's Aussie fiction books - a very well-written novel called Dragon Keeper. At the back, it has a pronunciation guide for some of the Chinese words in the book. I know some Chinese (Yay, Wildwood Chinese language program!) and was confused that the pronunciation for Hua is broken down in the book as 'Hw-ar' (rhymes with far). Huh? Hw-ar? OH, right in Aussie speak, Far = Fah. Do Aussies realize that this lack of R pronunciation is truly hampering communication? I mean, Narcho's?

The second point is the obfuscation of the advertising message by the completely inappropriate possessive apostrophe. I will refrain from ranting for long here. WTF?! Why do people, Aussie and American, keep doing this?

The third point is also a short one. When in far north Queensland stay away from the Mexican food!

Australian Good Ideas: #4 Carlton Draught

2009-10-09T18:23:00.004+10:00

Michele: Carlton Draft is a beer brewed in Victoria and sold all over Eastern Australia. While Gavin is true to our Queensland neighbors and drinks FourEx (XXXX), a Queensland beer, I prefer Carlton Draught. As beers go it is OK --I much prefer the taste of a microbrew amber ale over Calrton Draught. BUT Carlton Draught won my heart several years and I am absolutely delighted to be living where I can drink the beer regularly. How did it win my heart? By making what is outright the best beer commercial ever.

The commercial is called Big Ad. If you have seen this advertisement before then you are at this moment nodding and affirming my love of Carlton Draught. If you have never seen this advertisement before then STOP reading. Watch this young grasshopper and learn the power of viral marketing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3GH7Pn_eA (you tube search: Big Ad).

Brilliant, eh?
I fell in love with this commercial several years ago. Imagine my delight a few months back when I saw Carlton Draught on the shelves of our bottle shop. Happy, happy, joy joy! Yes, I'm a sucker for clever advertising.

Country mice enjoy the BIG city

2009-10-08T18:07:00.007+10:00

Michele: We had an awesome time in Townsville towards the end of the school term break. The hotel right on the strand by the rock pool just had one room left for two nights - karma. Now most folks don't think of Townsville as a BIG city. With a population of about 160,000 it is smaller than Madison, Wisconsin, where Gavin and I lived for 3 years. We never felt that Madison was a BIG city. Certainly not a city worth capitalizing the adjective BIG. But after several months of living in in Mission Beach, population 3,000 we were ready for a visit to a town that has the marvels of traffic lights. We traveled 230 km to Townsville passing through a whomping total of 4 traffic lights between our house and the edge of downtown Townsville -- and the whole way was on 2 lane road, not a freeway.

We had a busy couple days. Townsville is a little farther from Mission Beach than Cairns but we enjoy that Townsville isn't so packed with tourists. Also Townsville is in the dry tropics and has very different flora than Mission Beach and Cairns, which are in the wet tropics.

Robin: We finally found a Japanese restaurant and the food was great. And for dessert we had a banana flambe! A banana flambe is bananas that they light on fire. And we had it with ice cream. It was very good.

We went to the Museum of Tropical Queensland and my favourite part about it was a room full of interactive science things. This picture was taken there. I liked the part where you had to trace a star while looking in a mirror that was reflecting the star and your finger. It was HARD. I also liked the IMAX movie next door. We saw Under the Sea but it made me a little dizzy. At some points the fish would go jerk and eat something and that made me jump.

On the last night after we went to the Greek restaurant, the sky was filled with fruit bats. And there was one in a tree and it climbed into where the light was shining on it and we could see it and it was cool. It looked just like Stella Luna, who is a bat character in a book that I like. We walked along the strand and watched bats all the way to an ice cream place. At that ice cream place they smooshed up the ice cream that you chose along with the toppings that you chose on a really really cold table. I had mango ice cream with M&M that had peanuts in them. And the M&Ms instead of leaving them whole in the ice cream, they squished them. While we were eating our ice cream outside, we saw some bush stone curlews. One of them even walked into where the street light was shining so you could see it real well.

Wallaroo?

2009-10-05T10:53:00.004+10:00

Michele: Our guide pointed out some Wallaroos from the bus that took us around for our 4 hour walk through the Undara lava tubes. Wallaroos?

This guide had very typical Aussie sense of humor. Their humor is a little dry and very clever like the British but more brash and direct than even American humor. It reminds me a fair bit of Deaf humor. For example, just as we were about to leave our first of several lava tubes the guide flashed us a large geologic map of the region. Knowing perfectly well that I am a geologist he said "Here is the geologic map, it has heaps of information. But if we let you look at it we will be here all day so off we go!" Cruel guide!

So when this same guide pointed out Wallaroos on the right side of the bus, we didn't know if we should believe him. Was he not sure if this marsupial was a Wallaby or its larger cousin the Kangeroo so he just mashed the names together?

After prodding him on the issue we learned that there is indeed species called Wallaroo that is, no kidding, larger than a Wallaby and smaller than a Kangaroo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallaroo

Crazy Aussies!

Who is this man?

2009-10-03T18:03:00.003+10:00

Michele: This guy showed up just before we left for Townsville. He looks remarkably like the Gavin of 20 years ago. Could it be the same guy?

Amazing how strange someone can look when you are used to seeing them with a goatee for 17 years!

When some folks have a mid-life crisis they buy toys, change careers or change their lifestyles. Changing careers is old hat for Gavin and it seems a 5 month adventure in Australia wasn't enough of a life style change for him.

I wonder if I'm going to find a motorcycle in the garage someday soon....

Australian Good Ideas: #3 Longer holidays shorter summer break

2009-09-29T18:50:00.007+10:00

Michele: All public schools in the state of Queensland follow the same school year schedule. Just as in the US the exact schedule varies by state but the general formula is the same. There are four terms that each last 10 or 11 weeks separated by two week holidays. Term 1 starts in mid- to end January and Term 4 ends in mid Dec. Term 2 has the most public holidays with the Queen's birthday and the like. Additionally, each term has 1 or 2 student-free days equivalent to curriculum days. The schedule is much like the schedule in the US with several major differences.

Two weeks between terms: This is a civilized length to a holiday! Two weeks give you enough to get somewhere and relax as well as have some time after you return to decompress from the holiday. I am a strong proponent of two week holidays between terms.

The school year is longer: Rather than 180 days of school, the Aussie kids attend about 200 days of school. I really see nothing wrong with this. More days can mean more learning or more time to explore topics of interest.

Shorter summer break: Aussie kids get 6 weeks summer break over Christmas and New Years. I may be in the minority but I think that 6 weeks is plenty of time for a kid to get sufficiently bored that they are ready to head back to school. We no longer live in a predominantly agrarian society where kids are needed on the farm for 10 weeks of harvesting etc. Don't get me wrong, I like summer and lazy days. But it seems to me that 6 is plenty. With 6 weeks I won't be scrambling so much to get my kids into camps to keep them occupied.

We are currently in the second week of holiday between terms 3 and 4. We've been doing everything we can to get the kids as bored as possible and it looks to have worked.

Doubtful Spring

2009-09-28T12:26:00.004+10:00

Michele: We are in Spring here in northern Queensland. Even though I rationally know that it is spring, my system truly believes that it is Fall. The Frangipani tree is going gang-busters but this and bird nests are the only tangible evidence of Spring.

One reason that I expect temperatures to start cooling off is that we did not have an abrupt season change when we arrived. Back in early July the temperature of Mission Beach was pretty close to the temperature back in Amherst. Everything was green and warm in Amherst and everything here was green and warm. So it really never did seem like winter. Consequently, my system is confused that temperatures are getting warming rather than cooler now that October is on our door step.

Another reason for my confusion is that it has been very dry here. I spent many years in California and I know that in winter it rains and in summer it is dry. You can immediately tell in California if it is winter or summer by whether the grass is green or yellow. Well everything, even the seasons, are different in Australia. In these tropics, the winters are dry(er) and the summers are wet. In fact the summer season here is called 'The Wet'. The Wet is when meters of rain fall within a couple weeks. The winter is dryer than summer here in the far north but still usually gets rain regularly. This year, we've had very very little rain. The grass here is all dried up and yellow so my California-honed sensibilities tell me that it must indeed be summer.

I'm told that the long dry spell that we are having is very unusual. We are even on water restrictions. Water restrictions in the rain forest! Several times now we've heard Cassowary calls at night around our house. I wonder if the birds are coming into neighborhood because of the dryness of the forests. The birds, like the rest of us, could really use a rain shower. In addition to helping the forest, the rain would wash some of the lingering dust out of the air (from the recent dust storms) and help convince me that it really is spring.

Australian Good Ideas #2: Aussie Rules

2009-09-26T08:29:00.006+10:00

Gavin: The Saint Kilda Saints take on the Geelong Cats in the Australian Football League Grand Final today at 2:00pm.

Translation for the Americans in the audience: it's Superbowl Saturday down under.

Aussie rules is the #1 spectator sport in Australia (although rugby is more popular here in Queensland), and I can see why. Everything in the game is designed to make it fast-paced and exciting, from the funky backwards throw-in the side judges perform when the ball goes out of bounds to the rules on holding the ball (players must try to pass the ball when they're being tackled or the other side gets a free kick).

The pre-game shows started an hour ago, at 8am. I'm not a big enough fan to sit through 6 hours of pre-game hype, but I will have a XXXX-gold in my hand (another Australian Good Idea; pronounced "four-ex", and rumored to be named so because Queenslanders don't know how to spell "BEER") and my eyes glued to the telly from two till five this afternoon.

Michele: Aussie rules is definitely an Australian good idea and I can provide some additional insight into why it is the #1 spectator sport in Australia. The outfits! Form-fitting sleeveless v-neck shirts and short shorts are a very good idea. Some players opt for long socks, but I don't recommend this.

We saw a sea snake

2009-09-24T09:55:00.008+10:00

Gavin: Barbara (Michele's mom) doesn't like snakes. Just a picture of a snake gives her the willies.

I'm very proud of her for not fainting when she found this sea snake washed up on the beach a few weeks ago. Instead she came back to the house and told the rest of us about it. Lorna (my mum) and the kids and I immediately high-tailed it down the beach so we could check it out.

It made an odd loopy trail as it tried to get itself back into the water; it would stay very still for several minutes and then kind of flop around on the sand. We don't know why it let itself get washed up on the beach in the first place-- maybe it ate something bad that confused it.

Sea snakes can be highly venomous, and my mum always told me not to mess with snakes, so we all kept our distance. Well, we kept our distance until my mum decided we should rescue it: "in case a child comes along, decides it's dead, pokes it, and gets bitten."

I reminded her that my mum always told me not to mess with snakes, but she found a couple of sturdy sticks and proceeded to try to pick it up and carry it down to the water.

You can't tell from the picture, but this was a pretty big snake-- about 4 feet long-- so picking it up turned out to be a two-person job. I took a stick from my mum and the two of us picked it up and carried it down to the water while it did it's best to kill mum's stick, repeatedly biting it. Very exciting!

And the story has a happy ending-- after a minute or so in the water, it gracefully swam of into the deep.

The Queensland Museum has a great web site that helped us later identify this as a Beaked Sea Snake which is, actually, potentially quite deadly (three times as toxic as a cobra, ~30 times as venomous as a rattlesnake), although not normally aggressive.

Unless you go and start poking it with sticks...

Dust storm reaches far north

2009-09-24T08:40:00.005+10:00

Michele: We woke up this morning to the smell of smoke. The dust and smoke from New South Wales dust storm has reached us way up here in northern Queensland. Fortunately for us, we are getting much more mild version than they did in Sydney. We have a haze (see photo) and not the horrible thick orange dust that they were hit with in the south. Humidity levels are low and the haze in the photo is just smoke and dust. We can't see Dunk Island just 6km away.

The dust is from dry conditions in the outback down south. The top soil was blown away by storm winds that carry the dust to the coast where most of Australia's population lives. While the accumulated dust in Sydney is a real nuisance, the long lasting harm is the stripping of top soil from farms. Large dust storms occur periodically (every ~6 years) and folks are debating whether climate change has made them more severe. Certainly drought conditions increase the liklihood that soil can be eroded by wind.

In Mission Beach this morning we have canceled our planned hike for today. The acrid smoke (also brought with the westerly winds) and haze in the region are acerbating asthma in many folks. Robin's asthma only kicks up when she is sick, but we are not going to risk it. The smoke is a bit nauseating and takes me back to when Megan Maxwell and I were trapped by a forest fire in Yosemite. Actually the smoke in the valley wasn't bad that time, but I remember lots of nauseating smoke when we were evacuated and had to drive around the fire to get the borrowed tent that was pitched at the pass near Mono Lake. Ask Megan sometime about her love of camping. The smoke here may be from some wildfires but also many of the regional farmers burn the stubble in the sugar cane fields after the harvest.

The forecast is that a southeast wind will pick up this afternoon and clear the air. Meanwhile we are going to hang out in the pool and take it easy - maybe turn on the air conditioning. Yeah, no need to feel sorry for us.

BTW: The 1-story yellow house on the right in the photo is the actual 38 Mitchell Street. You can see that it isn't even next door to us.

In Australia, even the birds ain't shy

2009-09-22T20:12:00.008+10:00

Michele: It is spring here in Australia and that means nesting time. Over the past few weeks, birds' nests have been showing up the darnedest places. The Sunbird nest pictured here is in the carport at Uncle Larry's house. He has some netting to keep birds from roosting over the car and the Subirds have used the netting to hang their incredible nest. The nest is like a pouch with a hole in the side. This photo doesn't show it but there is even a little 'awning' over the hole. The nest at Uncle Larry's house is at eye level just feet from his front door, a pretty active place, but the Sun Bird doesn't mind. Yesterday, I saw a Sunbird nest hanging from a store awning in downtown Mission Beach. People probably walk right by the nest all day long yet the birds don't mind.

The Sunbird family includes the species Spiderhunters, which might be my favorite bird name. Not that I don't like spiders, I really do. Just when I hear Spiderhunter, I imagine a bird in a camouflage outfit stealth-fully stalking a spider. Rumor is that Spiderhunters can eat tarantulas -- gutsy birds

I like this photo because I caught the Sunbird in the nest. If you go right up the nest, the bird takes off but they come back to the nest after a bit. This nest is just about done and ready for eggs. We've been able to watch the building of the nest over the past few week when we've visited uncle Larry. It is really cool to see how they start with anchoring the nest to the webbing and then build the pouch. Impressive engineering when you consider that the whole structure is also swaying in the breeze the whole time.

Birds nests in Amherst are also impressive but the birds are much much more shy about their nest building. Nests are usually up high and hard to see. These crazy Australian Sunbirds are quite the exhibitionists!

Great Barrier Reef

2009-09-21T12:30:00.007+10:00

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef at Eddy Reef. The experience of a lifetime and one that we will never forget! So for this blog each of us will contribute.

Michele: Although we took an underwater camera, the film hasn't been developed yet. But seriously, it looked just like Pixar depicted in Finding Nemo. Except that the starfish we found were bright blue instead of pink. The boat went to Dunk Island first to pick up the bulk of the passengers for the trip. From Dunk Island, it took about 1 hour to get out to Eddie reef, which is 30 km away. From above water, the reef was an amazing green color, just like in Finding Nemo. We had about 3 hours to snorkel with a break for lunch. The weather was perfect and the tide was falling so the water became more calm during the day. One of my favorite parts of the day was holding hands with Robin/Will and pointing things out to one another. It was awesome!

Will: I like how there were thousands of giant clams and that they had really pretty lips. I liked how the coral was pretty colored and how the fish wouldn't run away when you floated towards them. Eddy Reef didn't have an island. At an island you walk over the coral to get into the water. At Eddy Reef, I liked that we jumped from the boat so the coral stays perfect.

Robin: I saw a sting ray and lots of sea cucumbers and a white-tipped reef shark and really big fish. And I also saw giant clams. Daddy saw an octopus and mommy saw a Barracuda. The first time I tried snorkeling, I inhaled water. I couldn't breathe! The second time I did great and I snorkeled for about an hour. Everything was my favorite!!!

Gavin: This was the second time I'd been snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef-- the first was at Green Island (off Cairns) in the late '80's. I remember thinking "it's like swimming in an aquarium!" Words, pictures or movies don't really capture the experience; it's amazing to be in amongst so many beautiful creatures, able to go wherever you like and take a closer look at whatever captures your interest. Will says he's interested in scuba diving; I think that will be a great father-son project (I'd like to learn, too) in a few years when he's old enough...

Australian Good Ideas: #1 Pavlova

2009-09-19T16:07:00.006+10:00

Michele: For a while I've been thinking about a series of posts called Australian Good Ideas -- things that we encountered in Australia that we think are good ideas. They are not going to be ranked in any way, just posted as we get to it. -
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#1: Pavlova (aka Pav for Aussies who must shorten everything)

While Lorna was here she rhapsodized about this dessert with Larry and Correen. We Americans were in the dark until Larry and Coreen revealed plans to make a Pavlova one night while they, Kristen and Cindy were visiting. This is the cake photoed here and you can see by Robin's reaction that we were instantly delighted. The cake itself is a light meringue. It is very hard to make yourself so grocery stores sell the meringue base in various sizes. Then you whip up some heavy cream to spread over the cake and decorate with fruit. My favorite so far is strawberries and passion fruit. Ahh, passionfruit! I may have to devote an entire blog to passionfruit at some point.

The cake is light and moderately sweet, which suits me just fine. You could make it sweeter by adding more sugar to the whipped cream. The bottom of the meringue base undergoes some sort of magic process where it gets really sweet and crunchy. This probably has to do with sugar settling to the bottom, but I'm going to keep thinking it is magic. This crunchy base is the best part of the Pavlova. When part of the base accidentally drops off a piece, our family fights over the rights to this bit. I think that the server should get the left over crunchy bits, don't you?

Pavlova is so named because the light cake is reminiscent of the tutu of legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova. She had toured down under in the 1920s and the dessert was developed shortly after. Now there are two stories to the origin of Pavlova (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlova_%28food%29). The Aussies claim that an Aussie in Perth developed it, while the Kiwis claim that a Kiwi developed the idea. Wikipedia supports the Kiwi claim but I will not risk being ostracized by my Aussie family, friends and neighbors by supporting this. It was the bloke in Perth!

Shells Galore

2009-09-14T17:46:00.004+10:00

Will: The shells here came from Uncle Larry's house. Some of them have dirt in them. Some he collected from western Australia. He has Pearl shells (lower left corner of photo) and some Tiger Cowries (in front of my hands) and some Cone shells (on the right corner of the rug) and some clams and some Scallops and others. At the top of the rug you can see some Cowries that I lined up by size.

I sorted the shells by type. I know a lot about shells and their names.

Michele: Thanks Uncle Larry for letting us learn so much from your shells. Robin and Will have been having a blast sorting the shells and learning the names of the critters.

This second photo shows some Cone shells. The patterns on the shells is amazing. Beautiful geometry designs. However, like nearly everything in Queensland they will kill you. The critter attacks out the narrow end so we are careful to pick them up at the wide end. Gavin found two live cone shells while tide pooling a few days ago.

Tide pooling is different here. In California and Maine we always tide pool by going to stranded pools of water at low tide. We might poke around the seaweed but generally we just look around for stuff. Here folks turn over rocks to see the good stuff. Good stuff indeed! The Cowries, Cone shells, sea cucumbers and even eels live under the rocks. Now that Uncle Larry has given us the scoop on proper tide pooling technique we are enjoying building our own shell collection. Lorna and my mom went home with boxes of shells that they found. However, our collections will never be as amazing as Larry's. These shells here are just a small fraction of his enormous and impressive collection.

Megan was right!

2009-09-13T08:57:00.008+10:00

Michele: We've seen signs all along that northern Queensland might actually be Middle Earth. The trees, especially the curtain fig, surely speak Entish. I've also suspected for some time that Elvish communities lie within the rainforest above the basalt cliffs behind Tully.

Well, I do believe that I found Hobbinton. It turns out that Hobbiton is on the southern Atherton Tablelands (photo at left) and not in New Zealand as Peter Jackson would have you believe. We visited towards the end of the dry season (no rain for two months) but you can imagine how green this area can be after a rain. So Megan may be right that this is Middle Earth... or was it Heather Clark who supposed this first? Either way, our suspicions were all confirmed in the town of Ravenshoe where a local realtor has let the cat out of the bag (photo below).

Another side adventure also may relate to the Middle Earth presense. A week ago, I lost my wedding ring at the launderette in town. The ring was in the pocket of my shorts and I forgot to take it out before the clothes were taken to the launderette. We have a washing machine here but it hasn't been working right and... well that is for another blog. Back to the ring. When my mom and Lorna returned with the cleaned, dried and tidily folded clothes, the ring was no longer in the pocket of my shorts.... our preciousss was in our pocketses! Thief! Thief, Laundrette! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!!

I searched every washer, every dryer and all around the launderette but didn't find the ring. However, I could feel it calling to me so I knew somehow that it had not yet entered the depths of Mordor. So I posted a note in the laundromat about my precious and suppressed strong urges to walk on all fours and eat live fish. Five days later, the eye of Sauron, I mean a very nice lady from north of Mission Beach phoned to say that my ring had turned up in her laundry. With the help of folks at the post office we got the ring back to us, its rightful owner. Right Smeagol?

Crocodile Henry: Bush Tour at the Mareeba Wetlands

2009-09-10T20:08:00.008+10:00

Michele: On the first day of our road trip we visited the Mareeba Wetlands. While the southern part of the Atherton Tablelands is very green, with lots of waterfalls, the northern tablelands are more dry. The wetlands north of Mareeba were artificially made to store water for irrigation. Being resourceful critters, birds have been utilizing the wetlands every year so that they are now a wildlife preserve. If you ever get to Mareeba I highly recommend the two-hour sunset tour.

Our German guide Henry started with a boat tour around the lake. We saw these cool Jacana birds with red heads and really big feet that walk on the lotus lilly pads. They are also called Jesus birds because they appear to walk on water. Henry also showed us how the snowflake lilly closes up when it is submerged in order to keep its pollen dry. After a spin around the lake on the super-quiet electric motored boat, Henry led us on a bush tour to a more shallow lagoon where birds flock at sunset.

Henry knew an awful lot about Australian flora and fauna but every now and then his English would fail him and he slipped into German. Very surreal. He showed us an amazing black orchid and tiny white orchid that are native to the region. Apparently orchids native to Australia are quite small and all the showy ones are imports. On our tour we saw big ol' elephant-shaped termite mounds, kangaroos, some sort of falcon and a 22 foot long steel lizard. Tanabe Mitsuaki, a Japanese artist, built and installed the sculpture free-of-charge at the Mareeba wetlands because there's wild rice growing there. This fellow supports the fostering of wild rice terrains around the world by donating and maintaining works of art.

At the shallow lagoon we had afternoon tea and Henry set up a scope for us to see the birds. (Crocodile Henry is standing behind Will in this photo) We saw Herons, Cormorants, Egrets, Brolgas, Jabirus and Ibis. The variety of birds was astounding and the setting impressive enough to turn anyone into a birder. I'm really not built for birding. My distance vision isn't great and my hearing aids neither give me good directionality nor do they capture the full range of sounds. But I loved seeing all these birds and could have stayed for hours. Catching glimpses of them through the scope was especially nice.

After the viewing, we headed back into the bush to the headquarters where we were treated to wine and cheese while watching the sun set over the lagoon. A tree frog slept high up on the wall and a wallaby hopped under the deck and nibbled on their lawn. This splendid day was capped by dinner with Melissa and Jim at their home.

more photos will be posted on facebook. Send us a note if you need the link.

Road Trip Blues

2009-09-09T17:32:00.004+10:00

Michele: We took a 3-day road trip to the Atherton Tablelands and the Gulf Savannah. This photo poetically sums up the trip. I entitled the photo: Heaven and Hell. We saw some amazing things but also spent a lot of time driving around -- 7 of us in trapped in a minivan.

Road Train Chicken

2009-09-09T12:12:00.014+10:00

Gavin: Michele and Robin and Will and Lorna and Barbara and Phil and I all piled into our rental mini-van on Sunday and headed for the Atherton Tablelands and then the outback. Just the driving was a good adventure.

There's a certain etiquette to outback driving, based on the width of the road and the size of your vehicle. Happily, my relatives filled me in on the proper etiquette, so we were well-prepared for the impromptu games of "road train chicken." Here's how you play:

First, plan a trip that involves a "developmental" road. I believe "developmental" is government-speak for "we'd build a real road here if we had the money, but we don't, so instead we'll pave a single lane down the middle of a wide gravel path."

Then drive for a while. Eventually you'll see a cloud of dust in the distance, which is the road train: a truck towing three or four trailers, up to 50 meters (160 feet) long, coming towards you at up to 100 kmh (60 mph).

The only rule in Road Train Chicken: Road trains have right-of-way. The developmental roads have big gravel shoulders on either side, so when you see a road train coming you slow down, pull all the way over off the paved surface, and let it pass.

What happens when two road trains meet each other? I dunno. The truck drivers all talk to each other on radio channel 40, but our rental van didn't come with a UHF radio, so I don't know how they work it out.

Two cars meeting is no big drama-- you just share the road, with each car putting two wheels on the dirt to pass.

Well, no drama as long as you remember to put your LEFT wheels on the dirt. I'm really glad I had a couple of months practice driving on the left before playing any Road Train Chicken!

Things you find on a Queensland beach after a really windy night

2009-09-05T22:06:00.003+10:00

Michele: After some rain showers on Thursday, the night was really, really windy. The windiest night we've had so far. Friday morning we were eager to see what might have washed ashore. Gavin found a HUGE cuttlefish bone. The thing was as long as a 2 liter soda bottle. Huge!

Also only the beach we found many small blue jellyfish. The photograph to the left shows two of the jellyfish that Lorna found and put to float in a 2 liter soda bottle (it is difficult to photograph things that are floating in a soda bottle!). The small one on the left without tentacles is a By-The-Wind sailor. On the top of it is a sail-like extension that catches the wind and blows the poor critters onto our beach. The one with long blue tentacles is a Blue Bottle Jellyfish.

Well the Blue Bottle Jellyfish, with its cute slighty-artsy name is known by another name in most parts of the world -- Portuguese Man-of-War Jellyfish. That is right, we had many small Portuguese Man-of-War washed up on the beach.My step-brother Chris once had a run in with one of these when he was ~18 years old. No, he didn't get stung by the jellyfish. The jellyfish had brushed against a rope of the boat and later while we were snorkeling, he brushed against the same rope. Oh man he was hurting! Readers who know Chris will know that this is a guy who can take a lot of pain but he was truly hurting that day. By the way, don't tell my mom that these are actually Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish. We are just telling her that these are Blue Bottle jellyfish that happen to have a sting to them.

The Blue-Bottle Jellyfish are prevalent in the waters here in the warmer months but the locals don't fret about theses painful creatures as much as they worry about the Box Jellyfish, which will kill you outright. For this reason, stinger nets are set up at certain locations along the beach to make safe swimming enclosures. Also the beaches have stores of vinegar, which can be administered to stinger bites to reduce damage. The Blue Bottles tend to show up in the waters first. The ones we found were all small ones but I'm not sure I will be swimming in the sea outside of the stinger nets anymore.

Despite their evilness, the Blue Bottles are amazing looking creatures. The second photo is a better image of the jellyfish from Wikipedia. Robin, Will and I walked up and down the beach to see how many Blue Bottles we could collect. No, I didn't touch the critters. I used a stick to roll them onto a leaf and then covered them with another leaf. The kids were also very careful. We collected 7 of them and set them in the soda bottle with Lorna's two. Their blue streamers looked really cool at the center of the table. That night our dinner guests (Larry, Coreen, Kristen and Cindy) remarked that we had the most dangerous centerpiece they've every seen.

A Day on the Dunk

2009-09-04T10:35:00.005+10:00

Michele: A couple days ago we took a day trip to Dunk Island, just a few km off the mainland. After months of looking at Dunk from our window, it was nice to finally visit. There is a nice resort on the island but we just took one of the morning ferries out and an afternoon ferry back. The 11:00 ferry was full, everyone of the ~30 seats was taken. Because the tide was going out, the ferry was grounded. The captain tried to pull the ferry out using the anchor but no luck, so he asked all the men to get off the boat and push it into the deeper water. Once all the guys were off he said "OK now that the guys are off, I will take off with all the ladies!" After we got into the deeper water the men scampered back on and we had a very fast trip to the island.

The resort is in a paradise-like setting. Lots of orchids and staghorn ferns (such as photoed) everywhere. We got to walk around the Dunk Island resort to get to our first destination, a swing bridge on the way up the mountain. We had seen pictures of a swing bridge on the island and found a old map that showed it to be on the way up the mountain . So we set off. After 45 minutes of climbing we realized that this swing bridge was no longer there -- probably a casualty of Cyclone Larry. What we did see on the track was an amazing bird show in the photo. It is a Australian Brush Turkey. This bird scratches the ground everywhere causing massive erosion. Why? It gathers the loose debris and soil into a huge mound that will house its eggs. The heat of the composting mound incubates the eggs. Very cool! But to me, I think it is less work to just sit on the eggs to incubate them. The brush turkeys were not shy and one accompanied us nearly all the way down the track crossing in front of us now and then to pose for photos. We also saw another golden orb-weaver spider -- very cool!

Robin: After the hike we went snorkeling. The beach was covered with lots and lots and lots of coral so you could kind of tell that it was a good snorkeling spot. First, we had a good picnic lunch there and then we did the snorkeling. First mommy and daddy and me and Will went snorkeling but then Will got scared and he left. He wasn't used to things underwater appearing so close and was afraid to bonk into things. And so me and mommy and daddy were left snorkeling.

We went out in the deep (~5 feet) and saw shelf coral that was stacked and stacked and stacked on each other and there were tons of little blue fish around. We also saw a big rock that had a big clam (8 inches) with bright blue lips on it. When you put your shadow on it , it would close up tight. When you took your shadow off of it, it would open a little bit. The clam opens a little so that it can catch food -- we could see down into the clam.

On the way back, we passed by the shelf coral again and saw big yellow fish and one even bigger purple fish. And when we got where it was shallow, I found a cowrie. The end!

Michele: We were snorkeling for over 2 hours and when we came back and told our adventures to Will he really, really, really wanted to give it another try. He went in with Gavin and this time didn't get scared and saw some amazing things. I was very proud of both kids for being great snorklers. We will definitely come back to this beach for more snorkeling adventures.

A Moo-ving experience

2009-09-03T11:24:00.007+10:00

Michele: Today on my bike ride I had a delightful conversation with the cows at a farm in Wongaling. I moo - they moo - I moo etc. You get the picture. This got me thinking about the differences among the cows that I've meet while cycling in different parts of the world. I've been pretty lucky to have had the opportunity over the past 20-odd years to have cycled in some beautiful places around the world and there are distinctive differences among cows of various countries. Warning: stereotypes are present in the following analysis.

America: This is a composite of cow conversations in coastal CA (Santa Barbara to Eureka), Wisconsin, NJ and MA. Cow interactions in other regions (e.g. Texas) may differ. American cows are friendly and nearly always moo back warmly. In fact, once they get going it is hard to get them to stop. It seems that they thrive on attention from passers-by. They having a lilting moo that tends to be higher toned than cow of other countries - a little whiny/needy.

England: British cows are friendly, they will moo back with a hearty warm moo but at the same time they are a bit aloof. No sustained conversations with these cows and often they would move away from you after a the first exchange of moos. During 2 weeks of cycling through southwest England I learned something about the British. They have too many hedges! The beautiful countryside can only be appreciated in small glimpses through the breaks in the hedges at gates. Perhaps their aloofness owes to these hedges. The poor cows have a very small view of the world and are understandably wary of greetings from across the hedges.

Northeastern France: French cows are a little crazy. Sometimes they converse with you but often they just watch you pass with unblinking eyes. Their moos tend to have an upward lilt - similar to American cows but more demonstrative and less inquisitive. One time near the Loire, I greeted some cows and got the entire herd stampeding along side us across the pasture. Of course, our road was longer than their pasture and they came careening to a stop at the end of the pasture. Hmm. Les vaches sont peu des folles! No? During our 3.5 weeks there it rained every single day. This didn't help our sanity and may have contributed to the behavior of the cows.

The Netherlands: Dutch cows do not care to converse with passing American cyclists and don't even make eye contact. Despite many of my warm and courteous 'moos' I received not a single response. We weren't in the cities either, we spent two weeks cycling through prime cow country of the Overijssel, Friesland and Gronigen. About half way in, my Dutch friend Pauline, pointed out to me that in the Netherlands, the cows say 'Boo' and not 'Moo'. Ah! After that I tried booing but this didn't have any effect either. I think I know the source of the problem. Have you been to the Netherlands? The place is teeming with hordes of cyclists. The bike paths through the National Park of the Veluve has veritable traffic jams of cyclists. Dutch cows have seen it all before and with classic Dutch stubbornness they are not about to humor the cyclists.

New Zealand: Kiwi cows are very friendly and quick to engage conversation with a warm hardy moo. Some will sustain long conversations. Cows in New Zealand are far outnumbered by the sheep. I suspect the cows enjoy the attention of cyclists. By the way, getting sheep to scamper across the hills of New Zealand is great fun. All you have to do is 'bah' at one and it will startle, starting a chain reaction that is glorious to watch.

Australia: Once you get their attention Australian cows are very friendly and responsive though not excessively talkative (like American cows). They have a deep resonating moo that expresses warmth and curiosity. In all my cow conversations anywhere, I always initiate the discourse with an opening greeting. Imagine my surprise this morning when on my return trip past the cows, one of the Aussie cows greeted me as I came up the hill. Talk about out-going! Australian cows are by far the most extroverted and friendly cows I've ever met.

Butterflies and Waterfalls at Tully Gorge

2009-09-01T17:56:00.010+10:00

Michele: A few days ago we packed into the rental van for a picnic and afternoon in Tully Gorge. With 7 of us, we needed something larger than uncle Larry's Mazda 323 so we rented a Toyota Torado from Sugarland Rentals. Now we get to drive a stylin' vehicle with Sugarland Rentals emblazoned in large letters across both the rear window and the top of the windshield. Hee haw! The advantage of having one vehicle is that now the grandparents, Gavin and I all get to hear the kids whine about the drive.

Anyways, we set up for Tully Gorge, about 45 minutes drive inland and had a wonderful picnic at a park/campground alongside the Tully river. At the moment, the river has recent crocodile sighting placards posted. Last month a 2 meter long croc and a 1.5 meter long croc were spotted in this popular swimming hole. Ok, no swimming for us here. The park also has a short butterfly track. Australian tracks really seem to deliver their promises. The Magnetic Island track that advertised koalas had an adorable one just next to the track. This Butterfly track had scores of butterflies include the Ulysses that is distinct to this area. Robin and Grandma Lorna enjoyed the track so much that they walked it twice.

After lunch we headed up river to a good swimming spot. The crocs can't go up many of the rapids so if you head up stream you can get away from them. The spot that we went to is popular with the white water rafters and the people who watch them. The hydroelectric plant releases water at noon each day. Fortunately, the crowds had all left before we we got there and we had the whole river to ourselves.

Across the river was a delightful waterfall and evidence suggests that in the wetter season there are two water falls. The rocks here are columnar basalts. Floating under the basalt ledge looking up at the columns was uber-cool even for the non-geologists. In the above photo Gavin has just floated under the waterfall. The current was pretty strong so we had to take care to get across. This involved a lot of upstream walking before across-down stream swimming.

The Ulysees and Blue Triangle butterflies are attracted to blue colors, which they think are other butterflies ready for the mating. Well this poor Blue Triangle butterfly in the photo at right mistook my mom for a like-minded butterfly lookin' for lovin'. The blue of her bathing suit exactly matched the blue of the butterfly. This fellow stuck around for a long time; he was persistent.

American birthday down under

2009-08-29T14:57:00.006+10:00

Michele: Today we celebrated Robin's 9th birthday with 7 of her Aussie friends from school. All girls of course, 'cuz boys have cooties. Will was permitted to participate on an advisory level. The party was as all-American as we could muster.

In the pool they played 'Marco Polo', which in Australia goes by the name of 'Marco Polo'. They thought I was hysterical for introducing this new American game to them. After that, they played 'Fishy Fishy Cross my Ocean' which is has equivalent with a different name here. Aussie kids are trained early to relish in competitive sports (we think this is why Australia has by far more Olympic medals per capita than any other country) and the games went over quite well.

Lunch featured an America menu of:

hot dogs with ketchup, which ended up being beef sausage with tomato sauce.
potato chips
home made chocolate chip cookies; Aussie speak -> biscuits
cut up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Aussie speak -> peanut butter and jam
small blue berry sourdough pancakes rolled up with real Maple syrup

The kids were very dubious of the blue berry pancakes. Blue berries don't grow here and very few of the girls had tasted one. As for the Maple syrup, when I told them it came from the sap of Maple trees, several of them were certain we were certifiable. To their defense, blue berry pancakes can look quite unappetizing, but remember that this is a group who cherish vegemite! Why should lumpy blue food turn them off? After much prodding, I convinced one kid to give the pancakes a try. She reported that it tasted good and two others girl braved up enough to try one. That is as far as they went. Ah well, more for me! At one point I asked them "Would you rather have a peanut butter and jam sandwich or a vegemite sandwich?" We got three enthusiastic peanut butter and jam vote (but two of them were my kids) and we got 4 enthusiastic vegemite votes. I suspect the non-voters were being polite about their distaste for peanut butter.

After lunch we made puppy dogs out of balloons and a large birthday banner for Robin. Then we headed down to the beach for a sand castle contest. Three teams each had 20 minutes to make a castle with any materials found on the beach. I joined a team that was short and we made a grand fort with crenulations, towers and a door woven from palm fronds. The judges (Gavin, Lorna and Will) gave first prize to the sea turtle mom and baby pictured. Well sure it is creative but how are the turtles going to defend against invading marauders? Huh!

The girls played together very well and had a great time. We ended the party with the traditional song, birthday cake and goodie bags.

The birthday song, goodie bags, cake are similar to aussie birthday parties. However after the song, they tend to give several hip-hip-hoorays to the birthday child. We just clapped. Another major difference is that here the birthday child opens the presents and thanks the party goer at the start of the party, when the guests arrive. We ended up doing things in a hybrid way as Robin opened presents in the middle of the party when she was bored while Gavin and I blew up balloons for making the puppy dogs. After several dud balloons and several popped balloons, we lucked out with just enough viable balloons to make one dog for each child. *whew* In an amazing coincidence, each child ended up with a different colored balloon.

The idea of opening presents at the start of the party is interesting. It gets all the thank yous done with. When the child opens the gift, they say thank you and then everyone runs off to join the party. No notes to be sent nor guilt over delays in sending notes to the party goers. I like it! I'm thinking that I may adopt Aussie birthday techniques into future birthday parties in America.

Robin: When we did the balloons mine popped,and how unfair is that!
I'm the birthday girl for goodness sakes!! Well, I suppose it wasn't that bad I still got a balloon dog, kinda well here's what I did:there was a only-body-and-legs dog and the one I made had only a head. We attached them together and Voila! Perfect...well sorta,Oh Well!

More Critters at Lacey Creek

2009-08-27T20:58:00.004+10:00

Michele: Yesterday we took a walk in the rainforest with the kids and the mums (Gavin's and mine) to Lacey Creek. Although it has been very dry here for the past month, the walk by the creek was absolutely delightful. The bird song in the forest is amazing. We saw sorts of house plants gone wild (will expand on this in a future post) as well as strangler figs, termite mounds, and lots of cassowary scat, some of it quite fresh looking. At one point along the trail they have markers next to about a dozen trees explaining how the cassowaries use each tree for food. It was a very well-planned display and the shed at this site hosted an amazingly large spider. Our spider book helped us narrow this down to a golden orb-weaver spider. Now I'm a spider admirer but I agree with Scott J. that no matter that they aren't poisonous, walking into one of their webs and having them crawling over you would be horrible.

The highlight of our walk was waiting at the parking area. A dad cassowary with at least one young were eating fruit fallen from a tree. When we approached, the chick ducked into the woods. The chicks have rather plain speckled brown coloring to blend into the foliage. The dads do the parenting. The moms lay the eggs and then take off to pursue their careers, I mean pursue their pleasures. The dads sit on the eggs and raise the chicks until the next mating season. Now that we've learned all about cassowaries, I have a feeling that I will hear lots of cassowary analogies each time I travel to conferences.

In this photo you can also see the cassowary's feet. They have three toes with super-creepy sharp talons. Think raptor and you will know exactly what these look like. Cassowaries have been known to attack people with their talons though the last fatality was over a hundred years ago. Never the less, we stayed our distance.

We haven't yet visited a single wildlife sanctuary or zoo but already we've had fabulous chances to see lots of Australian wildlife in their habitat. While northern Queensland may not be a cultural mecca (Monica, the nearest Ikea is 1600 km away), I feel incredibly lucky to be spending time in this part of the world.

Sweet

2009-08-27T09:08:00.005+10:00

Gavin: After gathering many data points, I believe I'm ready to generate a hypothesis regarding the food here:

Australians have a huge sweet tooth. Yes, even bigger than Americans.

We made the mistake of buying "traditional" mayonnaise when we got here, before we realized that "traditional" means "sugar paste mixed with a little oil." We're buying the "whole egg mayonnaise" nowadays.

I'd have to take some measurements to work out what percentage of the local supermarket (Woolworths, aka "woolies") is dedicated to chocolate-covered biscuits and candy bars and ice cream (oh, helpful hint to New Englanders in Australia: the Mission Beach woolies hides the real maple syrup in amongst ice-cream toppings, NOT with the pancake mixes or any other place you'd expect to find it) and pavlova mixes, but it seems like half the floor space is taken up selling things where the main ingredient is 'sugar.'

Maybe it's something in the water; I was born here, and I've always had a pretty big sweet tooth. Maybe by the end of our stay I'll be guzzling "old-fashioned" soft drinks by the litre and eating Violet Crumbles by the handful.

I should do my part to support the local economy, right?

Despite an extended maintenance stop of 13.98 hours last Thursday, the factory crushed a very creditable 98,437 tonnes [of sugarcane last week].
-- Tully Sugar CEO John King, quoted in the 20 Aug Tully Times

I've already booked a dentist appointment for two days after we get back to Amherst...

Extrapolating from one data point

2009-08-26T21:33:00.004+10:00

Michele: Are all Australian garlic presses wonky, or just ours? As we’ve settled in we’ve found ourselves bumping into this type of question again and again. Which of our limited experience could be representative of life in Australia? I’ve tried in this blog to be careful not to make sweeping generalizations about they way things are done down under. Afterall, things could be different the next town over. Actually, since we are in Mission Beach, I’m SURE they are different the next town over.

Wondering about all this reminds me of some conversations with my European friends back in graduate school. From their experiences in the SF bay area they would make generalizations for the US. For example, they would lament the lack of public transit in the United States. But I would counter; the east coast indeed has perfectly functional public transportation! On a geologic field trip to Utah my Dutch friends were convinced that all of the US outside of the SF bay area featured cuisine like that found in rural Utah. I recall often feeling the need to explain and defend what might be representative of the US. Despite my earnest explanations, I don’t think they ever really believed me.

Perhaps Australians would feel the need to defend some of the generalizations that I’m starting to make. The Aussie washing machines are constantly off-balance and the garlic presses only give 60% yield of garlic. Maybe the Bruce highway really has more than two lanes somewhere -- but I don’t believe it.

Banana Festival

2009-08-23T13:49:00.008+10:00

Michele: Yesterday was the Mission Beach State School’s annual Banana (bah-nah'-nah) Festival to raise money for the school. For weeks the Parent & Citizen committee has been working hard to plan this event. We’ve donated used books for the book sale and a bottle filled with marbles for the bottle stall. The festivities were quite impressive! BBQ, bar, massage, art projects, bounce house, performances of recorder, chorus groups and yoga. I didn’t realize that yoga was a spectator sport but at one point I heard the crowd cheer. I wonder what that was... Just as at the Tully Show, there was food-as-art contests – is this an Aussie thing?

I helped sell plants for an hour.Although I couldn’t answer any questions about the plants, I had a good time and was impressed with how much money the plant sale brings for the school. The event draws not just school parents but a lot of tourists who are in town this weekend. This was evidenced when I ran into a geologist, Klaus, who I had met at the SGA conference last week. He lives in Perth and was having a short holiday with his family after the meeting.

The highlight of the day for me was watching the Lolly Toss. Lolly = candy. The principal, Mr Robertson, climbs onto the roof of the school and throws candy down onto the squealing children gathered below. It was hysterical mayhem! Klaus and I agreed that they ought to have had a Lolly-Toss at the SGA conference.Something to consider for the SG&T business meeting at GSA in October….

Several of us are still sick and feverish (looks like I got it too) so we left before the fireworks and the cane toad racing.That would be a blog in of itself.

Neither a village nor a town: Townsville

2009-08-21T20:58:00.011+10:00

Michele: So you are wondering 'Townsville'? Which clever Aussie came up with this name? Well it turns out that one of the founders of the city was a Mr. Town. Yup, you got it.

We found Townsville to be a mixed bag. On the one hand we really enjoyed many of its 'big city' features. Lots of diverse take away food and more than one shop to choose from when buying kids sneakers etc. Townsville has a delightful strand and the people, like all the Aussies we've met, are great. Our hotel was in the residential North Ward and, I kid you not, there were Frangipani trees in every yard. I guess the Townsvillians didn't get the memo about Frangipanis being out of fashion for Aussie gardens. Good on ya' Townsvillians! But in addition to all these great features there is a creepy side to Townsville too.

Creepy trees: All along the strand are these uber-creepy trees. The Curtain Fig trees have tentacles (ok they are really roots) that come down from the branches to the ground and then grow strong as trunks. They look straight out of middle-Earth as Megan would say. I kept expecting one to uproot itself and start speaking Entish. To get a nice photo, I tried to get Robin and Will to hide amongst the 'trunks' but they wouldn't go near the trees.

Creepy birds: Walking along the strand one night we heard eerie noises. A hollow whistling that grew intensity for 30 seconds until it sound like children screaming under torture. The sort of noise that makes you want to rip your hearing aids off. This noise was coming from, no kidding, 3 birds along the shore. These birds call at night to each other and I'm telling you that there is no mistaking this bird call for any other bird. I haven't had a chance to look up more information on this bird but I 'm sure Tim or uncle Larry will know it. Not, that I want to seek these birds out again.. *shudder* Robin says that she's heard some at South Mission Beach but I'm keeping my hearing aids off at night from now on.

Creepy sand flies: Well the sand flies themselves are not creepy -- they are minuscule and their bite stings. But what is creepy is that the welts from their bites linger and itch for freakin' days. I thought nothing was worse that Wisconsin mosquito bites -- I was wrong! Days later, poor Gavin still has ugly red welts from the bites of these tiny flies. The beach didn't have the sand flies but the pool area of our hotel was unbearable.

Creepy huge spider: The one in this photo is a sculpture hanging on wires over a street downtown BUT we saw two of these St. Andrew's Cross spiders in the female toilet on Magnetic Island. The ones we saw were about 10 centimeters across -- wikipedia says that the females are much larger than the males so I'm hoping the ones we saw in the female toilet were females. Otherwise, this one above the street might be life-sized. Their aerodynamic leg spacing is both beautiful and a little creepy.

Sleeping Koalas

2009-08-20T22:38:00.007+10:00

Michele: One of the highlights of our visit to Townsville was Tuesday's trip to Magnetic Island. I played hooky from the conference and we booked the auto ferry over and back for a day of hiking and snorkeling. Magnetic island is a few km from the coast and has wonderful granite boulders everywhere. Rock wallabies were scampering on the rocks near the dock. Having the car with us was a wonderful decision because Will was a bit feverish that day and this way we didn't have to worry about catching busses etc with a feverish child. Now you might be thinking, you had a feverish child and you are making him hike around in the heat etc! Well, yes we did.... but but we had an agenda, an important agenda, to see koalas in the wild.

Magnetic island hosts some great habitat for koalas. No predators for the them and lots of acacia tree leaves to eat. One of the guide books touts that on the Forts track you will nearly certainly see koalas. We consider ourselves a group with pretty good observational skills so we felt that this was as good as a guarantee. Even feverish Will was excited at the prospect of seeing trees abound with koalas. Well, it wasn't so much a long hike (only 4km) but it was one of those hikes that feels long.. uphill, dry, hot and accompanied by whining children. Fortunately, Gavin spotted the backside of a koala in a tree off the trail in time to prevent mutiny. That one was pretty far from the trail though and looked like a grey blob on a tree branch. Fear of the death vipers advertised at the trail head prevented any of us from wandering off trail to get a better view of that koala. So we continued on. Sure enough, just at the side of the road was another koala sleeping oh so photogenically in a tree. This koala was the most photographed koala in all of Queensland on Tuesday. This trail attracts a lot of koala-seekers so everyone on the trail was pretty excited to see this koala. It was amusing to see all the humans, who usually walk with eyes on the ground for obstacles, walking with eyes in the trees. Yes, I stubbed my foot a couple times.

Koalas sleep for 20 hours day because the nutrition from the Acacia leaves is so poor. They wake in the cool hours and eat then sleep through the hot day. As long as they stay in the trees, no predators can get them so they are adapted for clinging onto tree branches while asleep. Back in Amherst, we have a cat named Koala. She also sleeps all day and in some strange places. Here is a photo of her sleeping in our papers-that-need-filing box.

After the koala spotting we went for some snorkeling but by then Will was pretty tired. Robin and Gavin snorkeled some. On the ferry boat ride back to Townsville after dinner, Will did his best koala imitation clinging to dad and trying to sleep. And the next day, Gavin woke up with a fever....

Gettin' work done

2009-08-20T17:35:00.006+10:00

Michele: Why the long hiatus in Cassowary Tales postings? I had a huge work crunch and this overlapped with a trip to Townsville for a presentation at the SGA 2009 meeting. SGA stands for the Society of Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits. Obvious, no? This is an international meeting that gathers every two years. This year's meeting was in Townsville just 2.5 hours drive from Mission Beach. I'm not an economic geologist but I figured 'Heck, I'll be in the neighborhood why not go?'. While getting my abstract ready 6 months ago I started realizing that ore deposits folks care a lot about fractures in rock, just as I do so it turns out that this match is no mismatch. My talk was well received and I'm looking forward to learning more about mezothermal gold deposits. If you are remotely curious about damage created adjacent to faults during earthquake rupture, you can see some of the movies of the models that Heather Savage and I made (http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/cooke/topics/damage.html).

Since I'm blathering on a lot about work in this posting I figured I will share with you a photo of my office while down under. Desk and chair are borrowed from uncle Larry (thanks!!) the second monitor on the right I got for $10 at a garage sale one block over. I have my laptop and my new Dell Precision workstation that Tom Carpenter helped me load with Linux Ubuntu before I left. This is the same one the went to 38 Mitchell Street when we thought we lived there. I named my workstation Wongaling after the next town over. Over the past month, I've had Wongaling running lots of models for me. When they see the black monitor screen full of numbers the kids remark "Oh you are making the computer do things for you aren't you?". I've actually been working pretty hard since arriving here. While the kids have been at school I've been revising papers, running models and working on the technical program for the upcoming Geological Society of America meeting in Portland in October. Oh and blogging! :-)

Gavin's office is downstairs poolside. He definitely has the better view (see photo) but it comes at the price of hot sun in the mornings. We took a roll of brown craft paper and hung sheets over the windows as curtains. The kids have decorated the sheets to look nicer. Gavin has spent a lot of time figuring out logistical things like how to get an Aussie driver's license and how to get his Aussie passport renewed. His old passport is somewhere in our Amherst house, Doh! He has also started working on projects for the new Start Up he's involved in.

Tomorrow my mom and step dad, Phil arrive. On Tuesday, Gavin's mum arrives and we will be doing lots of holiday things with them for the next three weeks. Our Cassowary Tales postings will feature lots of classic far north Queensland activities... stay tuned!

Mostly Harmless

2009-08-14T10:42:00.012+10:00

Gavin: My morning routine these days is to help get the kids ready for school, put them on the school bus, and then go for a run on the beach. Well, more of a jog, really. Ok, I don't actually spend the whole time jogging, I usually get distracted by a pretty shell or interesting critter washed up on the shore.

So maybe it'd be more accurate to say that I beachcomb strenuously.

Anyway, this morning I ran to where Wongaling Creek enters the ocean, where I found this interesting critter:

I had no idea sting rays would or could swim up freshwater creeks. And maybe they're not supposed to; this one was dead.

Maybe it didn't hear about what happened to Steve Irwin, and was Crocodile Hunter Hunting; there are, after all, crocodiles in Wongaling Creek:

I've been browsing through Wildlife of Tropical North Queensland, and most of the wildlife here is harmless. True, page 6 has a wonderful picture of the Box Jellyfish, which can kill you, the Snakes section is pretty alarming, and the entry on the Estuarine Crocodile says "adults rarely exceed 5m (16feet)." Oh, good, they only RARELY grow to be longer than a Hummer!

If you focus on one little thing it's easy to lose perspective. The reality is that horses, cows, and dogs kill more Australians every year than sharks, crocodiles and jellyfish. And way more people are killed every year in car crashes.

So we're going to obey the speed limit and wear our seatbelts. We'll stop swimming in the ocean in October, when the jellyfish really get going, won't go swimming in random creeks or rivers, and will stay well away from any snakes (it's pretty darn unlikely we'll run into the world's deadliest snake).

And we'll keep enjoying all of the rest of the wonderful, beautiful, mostly harmless creatures that live here.

South Mission Beach Accomodations

2009-08-13T19:06:00.006+10:00

Michele: In one week, we will have house guests so I thought I would provide a brief overview of accommodations for anyone planning, thinking or dreaming of visiting. Our house is in a residential part of Mission Beach but just up the street is a upscale resort called The Elandra. No, not The Elandra Hotel or Elandra near the Sea but The Elandra. http://www.elandraresorts.com/ There is a posh looking sign for The Elandra at the turn off for South Mission Beach -- as if aside from The Elandra there might not be any reason to go to South Mission Beach.

A while back, Gavin and I walked up to see what the hoopla was all about. After two blocks the residential part of our street ends and the street climbs up a hill through the rain forest. There are a few more houses near the top of the hill -- houses with names, those sort of houses. Then a ways farther starts the grand entrance of The Elandra with stone walls, palms in perfect alignment and notable lack of cassowary scat on the road. It was the sort of road that made it clear that no one arrives at The Elandra on foot... well except us. So we walk down the entrance road past the parking area and into the front lobby.

This is where our American accents can really come in handy. We explain that we are checking the place out for prospective visitors and could they share with us some promotional materials. They gave us a pamphlet that touted the features of The Elandra, the pool, dining views and secluded villas. All for the low, low price of $500 per night. We tried to coolly explore the common areas of the resort but Gavin and I were chuckling too much over the cost to really pull it off.

So on the one hand there is The Elandra and on the other hand there is our guest room. At our guest room you can enjoy ocean views while dining indoors or al fresco on our covered terrace. The pool is open at all hours to guests. Alternative accommodation consisting of bunk beds are in the poolside lounge area with en suite bathroom. Exercise facilities include the nearby beach, tracks and a choice of bicycles. Nightly entertainment includes whatever is on Australian free TV.

Cost to you? Free! So now that we are done with the settling in phase of our adventures we are ready for the hosting phase. All you've got to do is get here.

"So you are here on holiday."

2009-08-11T21:13:00.008+10:00

Michele: This is the typical greeting that we get in shops once they hear our American accents. Mission Beach is a tourist mecca, but in a not so bad way. The Lonely Planet says of Mission Beach:

"This area has to be one of the most stunning and relaxed places of the whole of North Queensland."

Mission beach is off of the main Highway so this keeps some tourists away and it doesn't have the night life and accomodation choices of Cairns. Most of the tourists I notice are caravaners parked along the beaches and backpackers waiting at the bus stop, which hosts a Cassowary statute of typical Australian tourist statue size. This time of year is also the height of the tourist season as schools in the other states have been on term break and the weather here is not yet hot. Our neighbors who run the local sea kayaking company have been amazingly busy. I can see why the shop keepers make the assumption that with an American accent I must be breezing through on a 10-day Tour D'Australia. Probably I also still have a slightly mystified look on my face every time I go into a shop and try to find the items I seek. So I find it amusing that the bike shop owner in Tully has three times asked me where I'm from and wished me a good holiday.

However, we recently discovered a means of bypassing the "So you are here on holiday." conversation and jumping right to the "Welcome to Mission Beach" conversation. No, I didn't assume an aussie accent- my aussie-speak is atrocious. The solution? Kids in school uniform. Gavin and I picked the kids up from school one day to get set up with public library cards. When I phoned beforehand, I learned that the library has a policy of charging $50 if you don't have two forms of ID with your Mission Beach area address. Well, it turns out that if you show up with uniformed children, they don't get quite so fussy. After the library we tried our new trick out at the bakery. Sure enough, with uniformed kids in tow the baker was chatty and welcomed us and inquired into all sorts of personal details. Very different discourse than when I bought a lemon slice the previous day.

The tricky part of the "So you are here on holiday." conversation is how to respond. My favorite response so far is "This is a beautiful place to live, don't you think?"

Frangipani Fascination

2009-08-10T11:49:00.008+10:00

Michele: One of the trees in our font garden is a Frangipani. I was immediately fascinated in this tree because it is only deciduous tree around and the only leafless tree that I've seen in northern Queensland. Even more peculiar is that this bare tree is producing clumps of beautiful Frangipani blossoms. Sure, I've seen the Frangipani leis on TV... whatever, was my reaction -- but in person I am completely charmed. The flowers have a captivating three-dimensional shape and lovely subtle variation in color. The petals overlap in a pleasing 5-fold symmetry and grandly flare outward from the stem. The heady scent is not nearly as sickly sweet as when bottled.

Our tree drops a blossom every night. I read on wikipedia that the night is when the Frangipani scent is strongest. The flowers attract moths who think they may be fruit and then the moth carries pollen from flower to flower. The tree is originally from central and south America, so how did it get an Italian name? The scent of the Frangipani resembles the scent that a Mr Frangipani of 16th century Italy used on leather gloves. What a strange story to this strange tree!

According to an Australia horticulture site, having Frangipanis in the garden is a bit out of fashion. I imagine this is something like having azaleas in northeast US gardens -- been there, done that. Well passe or not, I'm still fascinated that this huge bare tree produces clumps of flowers and drops one daily. Each morning, I pick up a flower when I take the kids to the bus stop and add it to a cup in the kitchen. A small zen moment in my morning.

Everything except quidditch

2009-08-08T11:01:00.001+10:00

Friday was the Mission Beach State School's athletics carnival. Wow! Where to start... The carnival is a day devoted to sporting events -- no classes. The three houses compete with each other for points throughout the day. Oh wait, I have to explain houses.

The students each belong to one of three houses. Sheryl's (very nice administrator) computer, which I will refer to as the sorting hat, chooses each student's house. Students of the same family all belong to the same house. Upon admittance, Robin and Will were determined by the sorting hat to be in Beaver house. The three houses are Beaver, Otter and Taylor, named after three nearby cays on the Great Barrier Reef. Beaver is light blue, Otter is yellow and Taylor is red. Each child purchases a house shirt with house distinct fish/plant emblem (see photo). Students are permitted to wear their house shirts for PE days and for the various sports carnivals.

Friday began with a grand parade and chanting of house cheers. The Beaver house cheer goes something like

We are the house of the blue triangle, every team we meet we mangle!

Cute, eh?! For the athletic carnival, all students were asked to come to school barefoot - no shoes for the events. It went against every grain in my US east-coast raised nature to send my kids to the bus stop without shoes this morning. Robin and Will both delighted in going to school unshod.

The day included sprints, high jump, long jump, shot putt, tug of war, ball games and relays. Of course there were breaks for the two lunches. Lunches were eaten under the appropriately colored house tents erected for the occasion. For many of the events, good performance was rewarded with points to the student's house. "Beaver, 2 points!" The teachers, of course, also belong to houses. I think the principal's affiliation with Taylor house may have skewed his objective assessment of Beaver points. Dumbledore always did like Griffendor best! Robin and Will were very proud of scoring many points for Beaver on the shot putt and long jump. Will did well in the sprints and earned a ribbon for the third place finish of his house in the ball games. Oh wait, there were only three houses. Ribbons for everyone!

The end of the day involved awards to houses and individuals and some more cheering for each house, led by the house leaders. Some students showed their school pride with body paint and hair spray in the colors of their house. Beaver house had the loudest and most creative cheers. Besides the cheer with the triangle (we don't know why triangle) they composed the following cheer:

leaders: Rah, Rah, hit them with a car
response: Rah Rah, hit them with a car
leaders: Rah, Rah, hit them with a bra
response: Rah, Rah, hit them with a bra
leaders: Rah, Rah, drag them to a spa
response: Rah, Rah, drag them to a spa
all: go Beavers!

I reminded my kids that in our country rah, bra and car don't actually rhyme. Another cheer is:

Hit 'em to the left, Hit 'em to the right
We all train on vegemite
Gives us strength, give us might
C'mon Beavers, fight fight fight!

Wildwood Elementary vs Mission Beach State school 3 weeks in

2009-08-06T18:58:00.002+10:00

Robin: I like Wildwood better than Mission Beach because all my friends are at Wildwood and because I'm more used to Wildwood and it has all my favorite teachers.

Will: I like Mission Beach more than Wildwood, not because of my friends. I like Mission Beach more because there are more activities and less work. At Mission Beach we always get a second recess.

I want to ride my bicycle

2009-08-05T20:45:00.006+10:00

Michele: Yesterday Gavin bought 4 shiny new bikes from the nearest Kmart 70 km away in Innisfail. Woot! We have been looking for three weeks to find used bikes but didn't have luck. The fellow who rents bikes to tourists recommended that we just buy cheap bikes and if they are in good shape he might buy them from us. A brilliant solution.

Gavin valiantly put the bikes together and with the help of our neighbor's compressor to pump up the tires, we are now spinning around the neighborhood. To be honest, they are still Kmart bikes so there is a fair bit of rattling going on the spinning, but ah well. They are bikes and with them we can soar.

Today, Gavin and I rode to Wongaling for lunch. It turns out that not much is open in Wongaling for lunch but we found an overpriced Greek place that had very good food. With tummies full of souvlaki and calamari we set out to ride back home on the beach. The fine sand and silt are packed so that at low tide, your can ride along the beach. Yes, I know that sand and salt water are just about the worst things to expose your bike to --- but it is fun! At low tide, you can ride all the way from Wongaling to South Mission Beach on the beach because the creek between the towns fans out along the sand. The ocean waves and views of Dunk Island were amazing companions for our ride home. The head wind and tightly pumped tires on sand were not! Note to self: it takes twice as long to get home upwind along the beach than it does to get there along the roads. Second note to self: get gel cover for cheap Kmart bike seat.

After our nice workout, we were looking forward to sharing the joy of beach biking with the kids. They were so excited that before I had the chance to finish the sentence "Stay away from the water and be careful not to turn on the loose gravel" guess what happened? Will turned on the loose gravel and went down. Falling on the beach is usually not a big deal but somehow his toenail got bent back and this has convinced Will that beach biking is the worst idea ever... for now. Robin has a different outlook and is already planning to see if she can ride all the way to Cairns on the beach.

Fan Palm rainforest

2009-08-03T17:12:00.012+10:00

Michele: When we were scouting places to live in Queensland, a couple things caught our attention about Mission Beach. The first was... well.. the beach! The second is that the hills behind the town are all part of a world heritage rain forest with some really nice walking tracks. A fortnight ago, we had the opportunity to walk through the fan palm rain forest in the Licuala State Forest. Licuala refers to the fan palm that is abundant here. The fan palms only grow in some areas and the cassowary really like the fruit. When a cyclone hits, the fan palms close their leaves so they are one of the few trees that weren't heavily damaged by cyclone Larry in 2006. The eye of that cyclone made landfall at Innisfail ~50 km north of Mission beach and we are told that the devastation in this area was vast. We saw photos of the damage at uncle Larry's house in Babinda. Yes, cyclone Larry hit Larry's place, but he was out of the country at the time.

On our peaceful walk in the Licuala state forest we saw trees with buttresses at the base of their trunks. The informational sign said that the buttresses catch debris, which enhances the otherwise poor soil. I never realized that tropical soil would be poor. I always figured with all the litter, the soil would be rich. We saw lots of ferns and other plants growing half way up the palms. There are more photos of the forest on my facebook page.

Robin: I saw a strangler strangling a tree. Like in this picture. It looks like you could climb up the tree with ease. And the strangler fig went all the way up the tree! I learned that the strangler strangles the tree and it makes the tree inside rot and the tree that is being strangled eventually collapses and the strangler stands on its own.

A Social Couple of Days

2009-08-02T20:10:00.011+10:00

Michele: After a week of working from home and feeling a bit isolated, we had three days with lots of socializing. On Friday, Gavin and I volunteered for the school's Tabloid Sports day. From 9 am to 12:30 we played games with the kids in years prep-3. Our game station was a bit complicated and my American accent seemed to confound some of the young ones. Will and Robin really liked having us at school and I enjoyed meeting their friends. It was wonderful to see Robin and her friend Hazel chattering away. Meanwhile, Will and his friend Oliver both sat side by side quietly awaiting instructions. They were easily the calmest 7 year-olds in the entire school.

At 10:00 the whole school has 'little lunch'. This seems to be more than a snack and like a light lunch. They have a recess after this and then back to classes until the 'big lunch' at 12:30, which is also followed by another recess. Many of the adults brought along 'little lunches' to eat with the kids. I'm still a little confused about all the lunches. The tuck shop (for buying lunches) is open Wed-Fri but Robin and Will are still a bit shy about buying lunch. I'm still sorting out what half the items are. Lavash? Pikelet? By 12:30 on Friday Gavin and I were worn out and looking forward to the peace and quiet of working in our house for the rest of the day.

Saturday we had a delightful day visiting Uncle Larry and Aunt Coreen in Babinda. Gavin's cousin Melissa and her husband Jim were there from Mareeba too. I was thrilled to finally meet Melissa and get the chance to know both her and Coreen. When Gavin and I were married the groom's side of the church was pretty empty. His mum was his only family there because all the rest are all in Australia. Saturday's gathering was very special to us -- a comfortable Andresen family get together. I'm looking forward to more such gatherings over the coming months and when Lorna visits.

I gave Melissa and Coreen some wicked heavy pots that I made -- thank goodness they survived the journey. Maybe making thick pots has an advantage.... Although we brought along a camera, we were enjoying ourselves so much that we forgot to take pictures! Larry's garden hosts amazing bromeliads, orchids, lime trees, five-point fruit tree, vegetables, bananas and even a pond with coi. The highlight of the yard is uncle Larry's aviary with baby budgies, quail and cockatoos. After a wonderful lunch of BBQ and salads we chatted on the terrace for hours watching the view of the mists on the mountains. Wow, what a day! I promise to actually take photos next time.

Today, Sunday, was quieter for Gavin and I but the kids' social life is picking up. Robin had a playdate with Hazel this afternoon and Will is booked for a play tomorrow after school. This puts me at ease a bit as they will adjust much better to school once they have friends that they can relax with.

After a couple days of socializing, I'm refreshed and looking forward to working on some papers this week. Deadlines are approaching so I will be working hard for a while.

Dough Doh!

2009-07-30T18:00:00.000+10:00

Gavin: So the Australian economy has been doing pretty well; unemployment is under 6%, the recession here has been mild, and even though there was a big stimulus plan down here overall government debt is low (20% of GDP-- the US is at at about 70% of GDP).

That's good news for Australians. Not so good for our personal finances; every time the dollar weakens everything here gets more expensive for us. We shoulda listened to our friends who told us back in March it was a good time to buy Australian currency.

It is a very nice currency; the bills are colorful, attractive and waterproof. And the coins have kangaroos and emus on them (and the Queen, of course). One of these days I'll even remember that the little gold ones ($2 coins) are worth MORE than the big gold ones ($1 coins)...

The Bruce Highway

2009-07-29T23:49:00.002+10:00

Michele: The Bruce Highway runs the entire east coast of Australia through the state of Queensland. It links cities along its 1700 km length and in some parts, like northern Queensland, it is the only N-S road. The Bruce Highway is the lifeblood of transport -- think route 95 on the east coast or highway 101 on the west coast of the US. Trucks hauling double loads, caravans, and commuters all travel this road.

In our neck of the woods, the Bruce Highway looks like any other two lane road. This picture shows sugar cane fields on the left and banana plantation on the right. A few days ago on a shopping trip to Innisfail, we managed to inadvertently get off the Bruce Highway without realizing it. At another point that day, we were searching for the Bruce Highway and hadn't realized that we'd been on it for 5 km. The secondary roads seem to have more bumps and sugar cane track crossings than the Bruce Highway.

Downward Facing Dog Down Under

2009-07-28T17:15:00.005+10:00

Michele: Today I went to a second yoga class in Mission Beach. It has been 8 years since I last practiced yoga and back then I went to classes for less than a year. I was surprised how the poses and movements here are so similar to the ones I did in Amherst 8 years ago. Ok, well since yoga has been around for a long time and originated in India, I really should not have been surprised by this. Downward facing dog is just as uncomfortable as I remember. Yeah, yeah, I know... it will get better as I get used to it.

Gavin has taken up running on the beach, which is fantastic. Running doesn't work for me, I get bored. I need exercise that clears my mind by making me think a lot, I gotta confess, yoga is really not my thing. I would much rather be dancing and moving around or biking. But since dance classes are scarce here and I haven't a bike yet, yoga will suffice. Yoga seems to be very popular here, the kids even have yoga at school. And besides, yoga is good for me.

One thing that really drives me nuts about yoga is the shutting your eyes and relaxing part. Deafies can't shut their eyes and relax. I wear my hearing aids to class but I still can't understand anything the instructor says unless I'm lip reading. So I'm constantly sneaking peeks to see if the other people are in a new position. My Amherst yoga teacher eventually accepted that I would 'relax' with my eyes wide open with occasional darting looks around the classroom to make sure I was doing the right thing. These teachers will have to get used to this too.. along with my strange accent ... and tendancy to grimace during downward facing dog.

Up to their necks!

2009-07-27T20:21:00.002+10:00

Robin: Today, at the beach, Will, Daddy and I went swimming! Me and Will usually stay very near the edge, but today since daddy was there we went soo far out that the water was up to my neck!

This one is for Debbie Morgan

2009-07-27T19:18:00.003+10:00

Michele: It turns out that you can combine a love of travel with a love a dogs. Grooming on the go! We looked out the window yesterday to see the neighbor's dalmatian Washa getting a bath in the street. Washa looked quite content with the process. The trailer is pulled by a pickup truck. Lots of Aussies have trailers - though most don't have a roof structure, just a base with low walls. Gavin borrowed uncle Larry's trailer to bring back used furniture from Cairns. Now Gavin has a case of trailer envy and wants one for back in MA.

And on the 15th day, they rested

2009-07-25T18:41:00.004+10:00

Michele: No adventures today. It was gray and rainy for most of the day. We are no longer waking with the sun and today we slept in until 7:30 or 8:00 am. While I was content to watch the rough ocean from the window, Gavin and Robin went down to the beach... and got a bit rained on. We did housework, watched footy, played cards and generally acted as if we are on vacation. Robin and Will seem to get bored easily -- probably because they are still settling in and don't know what all their options are.

The Tully Show

2009-07-24T17:36:00.010+10:00

Michele: Today we went to the Tully Show. Tully is a large town 20 km from Mission Beach. It is the nearest large town... and by large town I mean that it has not only a hardware store but also a lawn bowling club. Tully also hosts the regional high school. The Tully Show is an annual 2-day agricultural fair. This is such a big deal that all the schools and grocery stores are closed today. The sugar cane plant in Tully was even closed. The tall stacks in the background of this pic are the sugar cane processing plant (note: uncharacteristic lack of steam coming from the plant).

The show covers a much larger spectrum than any US fair that I've attended. There was of course the midway with fast food, try your luck games and rides, such as Ferris wheel (pic above was taken from the top) and bumper cars. There was the tractor section and the petting zoo. However, the Tully show (and other Australian shows) also has horticultural competitions, fruit and vegetable competitions, they even have scrapbooking competitions (see facebook for photos of these http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2330635&id=9128001&l=7693463011). Robin's entry for flower decorated saucer filled with sand did not win any prizes but we thought it looked fabulous. Some of her classmates had awesome entries for the 'food made to look like things'.

We all had a great time at the show. First some sandwiches from the Girl Guides while watching 11 year-olds jump their horses and then the Ferris Wheel and the Hall of Mirrors. The highlight of the day were two shows at the grand stand. The first was a horse show where Guy McClean did tricks with his trained horses. He mentioned several times that he and his 4 horses are going to America soon to do shows there. All you Yanks, keep an eye out at your local rodeo for Guy McLean. The second show was a motorcycle jumping show. I caught a picture of one of the rider in the middle of his somersault in the air. The black bar at the top of the picture is the roof of the grandstand. Very impressive! We coasted to end of our day at the show with bumper cars, big slide, petting zoo and admiring stalks and bunches of competition-winning sugar cane and bananas.

So what the heck is a Cassowary and do they have tails?

2009-07-23T17:07:00.009+10:00

Michele: By now you've noticed that we've named this blog after a creature that lives in the coastal regions of far north Queensland, the Cassowary. At the top of our blog is a picture of a Cassowary taken by a professional photographer (Yay, creative commons!). This blog entry has a picture I took a few days ago of a Cassowary walking by the side of the road. These large flightless birds have crazy colors and an ungainly walk. It won't surprise you to hear that the Cassowary is related to the Emu and the Ostrich. Around these parts, the Cassowary is protected in part because they are rare and in part because lots of tourists come here to see them... This Cassowary that we saw is about 4 feet tall but they grow to over 5 feet. Like all things that grow in Australia, they can hurt you, but only if provoked. Okay, you caught me, I was joking. It only seems like all animals in Australia are to get us. I have no plans to provoke these large birds.

So far, we've only seen them along the side of the road. On a walk through the palm forests (to be blogged soon) we saw lots of Cassowary scat but didn't sight any the birds. The forest is so thick that a Cassowary could be nearby but you would miss it. For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary
More photos of the Cassowary we saw are on my facebook album
www.facebook.com/michelecooke

INTERESTING PLANTS IN AUSTRALIA

2009-07-21T19:36:00.006+10:00

Robin: In Australia there is a plant that when you touch it, it shuts. In Amherst, there is a greenhouse that has some of those and they work really hard to keep it alive. Once Mommy bought one of these plants, but it died. But here this plant grows like a weed by the road and in the grass!

Michele: The plant is Mimosa Pudica or Sensitive plant. Here is a video of the leaves closing up as Robin touches them. This clip is 2.4 MB... you should see the full resolution version. It is awesome! But it is also 53 MB....

The different flavours of colour... er color... er

2009-07-21T19:29:00.004+10:00

Robin: Today,at school I spelled colour right..er..wrong..er..umm?

Things you find on a Queensland beach at low tide

2009-07-21T17:14:00.014+10:00

Michele: Today is a very low tide: 0.09. In August we will have another low tide like this and then there won't be any more that low for the rest of our stay. The water level today was lower than the boat ramp. One of our very favorite things to do at the coast is tidepooling and over the past few days we've found some pretty cool things at the beach at low tide.

First, I will geek out a little and describe the hydrogeology of the beach at low tide. If you don't want to read about this just skip ahead to the critters. At low tide the ocean surface drops below the ground water table. This is evident on the photo from the shimmer of the wet sand. Throughout the wet area are seeps where the groundwater flows onto the surface. Lots of cool erosion sand patterns too that I didn't photo... yet. All the interesting low tide critters live in this region. Maybe because it is always wet, even when exposed by low tide. Maybe because they like the combination of ocean and ground water. questions for a biologist. As for the salinity of the seeps? I don't know. I didn't get to the ground and lick them... yet.

OK onto the critters. We saw these strange coils of sand that are pushed up from some critter in the sand. No these aren't piles of the topic of Gavin's recent post.. these are indeed sand. The piles accumulate when the tide recedes and the waves no longer wash the piles away. This photo shows one of the larger piles, some are smaller, some are nearly perfectly coiled. We speculated that these were clams but weren't able to dig deep enough to find one... yet. We don't yet have confirmation that these are clams... stay tuned.

Another fascinating find was live sand dollars. No sand dollars are not the eggs of starfish as some kids at school tried to covince Robin. These photos show the track of a sand dollar and the critter slightly buried in the sand as well as a cleaned off sand dollar on my hand. I remember finding lots of sand dollars on the beach in Florida as a kid. These must live in the water there too. Their thousands of tiny feet along the rim are amazing. In your hand, they kind of suction on a little -- not as much as a starfish but a little tickle.

Another thing you can find on the beach are urchins. Both children (who are pointing out a crab) and the spiny kind that live in the sea. Note that Will is sporting the typical Queensland footwear (see Gavin's recent post). Unfortunately, the glassy rind of a vesicle within the basalt cut Will's foot only a few minutes after this photo was taken. Maybe we are not so crazy to be skeptical of this Queensland trend... or maybe Will just needs tougher feet. Next to the urchin in the second photo is sea cucumber. In the third photo, it doesn't look as if the sea cucumber that Robin found is in water, but it was in a shallow tide pool crawling along. Very cool find!
And all over the rocks are crabs. Gavin looks rather proud of finding this crab.

This blog format is not so convenient for lots of photos... Because facebook is much more convenient for series of photos I've made an album there. In the future when I have a bunch of images to post, I will just put them on facebook and only put a few here. If you want to see all the photos and don't have a facebook account.. yet.. just send me a note and I will email you a link to the album.

Robin on Parade

2009-07-20T17:32:00.004+10:00

Michele: Every Monday morning first thing at school is Parade [we are not sure why they call it that]. All the children in the school gather for announcements, singing of the Australian anthem and giving out of awards. About 15 awards are given out for good efforts during the past week. The principal likes to emphasize the positive and I think this is a very nice approach. Robin is going to tell you about one award given today.

Robin: I got a award today because I am new.
The Principal called out what the person did, then their name he told him/her to come up to the stage [it is more like a platform] then he gave the person a piece of paper [that is the award]. Then, he shakes their hand. When I got my award this is what he said

"This award goes to a girl who is new,she just got here a few days ago. She is doing very well in school and she is getting along really well. Robin Anderson. [ha ha] Please come up the stage."

I feel good about getting this award but a little nervous about getting up in front of the whole school. I also felt good because everyone clapped for me when I got the award.
THAT IS THE END OF MY STORY [bow]

Will: When the principal said Robin's award I looked to my friend and smiled. I was proud of my sister. Also, my friend Cameron got an award for being friendly with a new kid. I was the new kid.

Shoes and Sh**

2009-07-19T08:36:00.008+10:00

Gavin: A couple of ordinary, everyday experiences here shocked me a little bit. They poked at irrational cultural taboos that have been elevated to Laws in the U.S.

The first was visiting the elementary school, and being shocked by the number of kids who go to school barefoot.

I'd say maybe 20% of the kids wear sneakers, 50% flip-flops ("thongs"), and 30% go barefoot. I'm imagining the conversations with the bus driver, school teachers, and principal if we sent Robin and Will to school barefoot one bright, sunny day. I'm guessing they'd appeal to safety ("what if the poor dears STEP on something?") and, if we were insistent, would eventually appeal to some State health and safety regulation requiring Appropriate Footwear in all Educational Facilities.

Personally, I've already started to go native. Fight for Foot Freedom!

The other irrational cultural taboo that shocked me was the use of the "s-word" on TV here. The whole family was watching "Master Chef" (the Australian version of Top Chef; or is Top Chef the American version of Master Chef? anyways...), when Julie messed up her dish and exclaimed "oh shit." Apparently, TV stations don't have to bleep any words here.

Of all the words we have for excrement/feces/crap/poop, why is that one considered taboo in America? As the kids all say these days, WTF?

Comfort Food

2009-07-19T08:09:00.010+10:00

Michele: Today we have been in Queensland for 1 week. After a week of doing things we have never done before I thought that we all deserved some comfort food -- tastes of home. The prescription? Chocolate chip cookies (aka American-style chocolate chip biscuits) and wraps.

Because it is typically a holiday rental, the house was skimpy on baking supplies. I bought a measuring cup and measuring spoons that have both imperial and metric units. Some Aussie recipes I've come across will mix units. For example, 150 g of butter and 1 cup of flour. We still don't have a proper cookie sheet or pot holders but tin foil in a baking dish and tea towels can suffice. The cookies... err biscuits... err whatever came out pretty well and the kids are delighted.

The wraps are one of our favorite dishes. Rice paper wraps that you load with noodles, chopped shrimp (aka prawns), cucumber, thai basil (aka green basil), crushed peanuts, sauce, and, if you are so inclined, cilantro (aka coriander). I love this dish because each person loads their own, which means that I don't suffer the whining from the kids that some undesirable element (e.g. bell pepper, aka capsicum) has made its way into their meal.

One American Voice

2009-07-18T07:18:00.004+10:00

Robin: In school, my class was reading aloud all together. I noticed that it sounded funny because all the voices were the same and then there was one that sounded different -- one American voice. That was me. To make it sound better, I made my voice sound like theirs.

3 Jackey Jackey Street, South Mission Beach, QLD 4852

2009-07-17T10:44:00.009+10:00

On a walk through the neighborhood today, Gavin and I made a discovery. It went something like this
Michele: “Hey, look over there, that abandoned looking house is marked as 38 Mitchell Street!” We pause.
Gavin: “What? That is our address!”
The windows were all shut and curtained. We walk over to the front door of the house and knock. No answer. In front of the door is a rubber-banded pile of mail addressed to Michele Cooke-Andresen. This includes a Failure of Delivery notice from UPS. They tried to deliver my brand new Dell precision workstation shipped from the US to 38 Mitchell Street yesterday but I was not there to receive it. Well, that is because... I don’t actually live there!

It turns out that the property manager has mixed up our address. All the paperwork that we’ve signed is for 38 Mitchell Street. We are even paying for electrical service for that house. After a call to the very helpful postman, we learned that our actual address is 3 Jackey Jackey Street.

I have to say that everyone in Australia has been amazingly helpful and friendly. Gavin’s family has been absolutely wonderful to us! The school staff, the postal staff, clerks in the shops, even the confused staff of the electric company have been friendly, effective and resourceful. With one exception -- the property management company, and I will specifically list Lorraine of Ray White realty here because I’m so irritated at her ineptitude. She has been unresponsive to our questions (e.g. has never called us back), ineffective at guiding us to the proper resources (e.g. unable to tell us how to get hooked up with internet) and now we see clear evidence that she is inept.

OK…. It is therapeutic to write these things out they say.
I really should emphasize that the Lorraines of Australia* are really the exception in our experience so far. The post man has said that he will bring all mail to the Andresens to 3 Jackey Jackey street. If you have already sent something to 38 Mitchell street, please let me know.

*note: Lorraines of America are an entirely different breed ← and I'm not just saying this in case Lorraine James of Amherst is reading my posting.

First Day of Term 3 for Robin and Will

2009-07-16T19:13:00.006+10:00

Michele: Today was the first day of school for Robin and Will at the Mission Beach State School. The school covers levels Prep (kindergarten) through 7 for several towns including South Mission Beach. Above level 7, kids go to a regional high school 25 km away in Tully. MSSB has about 300 kids and 2 classes for each year. There are ~8 buildings separated by covered walkways. The grounds of the school are like a park with palms, bromeliads, lots of skinks running about and even a pond. A large play area is covered to protect children from the sun. Robin and Will are sporting the school uniform, which includes a brimmed hat. Such hats are required in order for children to play outside. For good reason, Aussies take sun safety very seriously.

At Aussie schools, families purchase a long list of school supplies including lined workbooks, scrapbooks, quadrilled books, math workbooks, pencils, rubbers (those are erasers!), colored pencils, craypas, rulers, scissors, glue, twist crayons, plastic envelopes, cardboard envelopes, reading diaries and Thrass charts (that is some sort of phonics thing). In the lower grades, the workbooks are specific for each level. Based on his age, we thought that Will might be level 1 and bought a level one book. By lunchtime he was upgraded to level 2. Apparently, the level 2 books have guide lines closer together than the level 1 books. School supplies are bought at newsstands and the clerks at the newsstand near the school are getting to know me quite well by now.

Robin’s day involved coordination exercises designed to stimulate thinking, morning tea, a math test, lunch (the whole school gathers at one time) and yoga.
Michele: “Robin, Did you have a good day at school?”
Robin: “I didn’t have a good day, I had an awesome day!”
Will: “Will didn’t have a good day… he had a great day!”