Michigan Visit

We spent a wonderful two week in Michigan enjoying the long days of summer with family.  Click on the photo to see more.

Family Visit

Carol, Olivia and Parker arrived in Sydney on June 27 for a three week holiday. The moment I told Carol that Galen and I were headed to Sydney for 18-24 months, she confirmed they would make the trek to visit us. No small feat to organize all that goes into international travel for 3, but Carol made it happen without a hitch.

To the question many of our Sydney friends asked, “Where is your family staying white they are here?”, the answer was, “With us..”, to which we received mostly eyes widening and and rapid blinking (translate: “5 people in your small one bedroom apartment?! What..?“). Really people, no problem.

Our time together is best sectioned into three parts: Sydney, The Great Barrier Reef, and the Blue Mountains, with an auxillary 2 days in Jervis Bay (turns out his trip rounded out the authentic “Aussie experience” for Carol, more on that later).

Sydney

Great mix of of checking off the highlights with room for those everyday life activities which become much exciting with our little gang. For example, all 5 of us went for hair cuts. Not all on the same day, and of course not all at the same place. To say Galen and Parker’s experience was a stark contrast to us gals is a massive understatement. The guys were in and out of their barber shop in less than 30 minutes total, without having to utter a single discernible word (everything is done in grunts) and only $35 lighter. The female experience was, well, let’s just leave it at different. We also celebrated a 30th birthday, saw Harry Potter at the 3-D IMAX, cooked some good meals together, and made a few indulgent stops at our local favorite coffee shop and gellatoria.  Some of the more traditional “must see” sights checked off of the list were:

• Bondi Beach and the coastal walk to Clovelly
• Botanical gardens (a favorite)
• Manly Beach (Galen and Parker swam, Brr!, and their first fish ‘n chips)
• Walk across the Harbor Bridge
• Opera House (Carol and I attended a symphony production, front row seats)
• Taronga Zoo (can’t hold the koalas, but you can get very close to them!)
• Sydney Aquarium
• Australian Museum and Gallery of NSW

The Great Barrier Reef

Galen took care of that post. It was amazing.

Jervis Bay

“The kangaroo jumped into our car.” Carol and I practiced our statement as we made our way to return the rental car. That was the truth. Not 5 minutes into Carol’s madain voyage driving on the left side of the road, the kagaroo charged right into the side of our car. And it was the nice Aussie folks who were passing us when it happend who chuckled and told us that now we have had an authentic “Aussie experience.” Not the one we were hoping for, but we’ll take it. Thank God for excess reduction.

The run in with the ‘roo was the most unique action in Jervis Bay, but the whale watching, hiking/trail running, and beach combing was fun too.

Blue Mountains

Unfortunately Galen and I were stuck with work, but Carol, Liv and Park didn’t miss a beat as they hopped a train to the Blue Mountains for 3 days. The report back was two thumbs up. They checked things off the perverbial “list” there too; daily hikes, the Three Sisters, toured the Jenolan Caves, 1000 stairs climb (Park has the shirt to prove it). They cased the little town of Katoomba and unearthed the best hostel to stay in (flat screen TVs and backpackers don’t usually go together…), a local bee keeper/opal jewller to patron, and the tastiest bakery (after tasting the ginger pear cake Carol brought back, I agree wholheartedly). Liv and Park’s hiking endurance was impressive; they were motivated! Couldn’t miss the twinkle in Carol’s eye as she proposed destinations for the next family trip…Pacific Northwest, the Rockies…endless possibilities here, gang.

No pics of their Blue Mountain trip, but you can get an idea of the terain here.

More than once during the trip Liv turned to me and said, “I just can’t believe we are here with you in Australia!” My thoughts exactly. This family makes it happen. Great family, great trip. Here are all of our pics.

Great Barrier Reef

Photos from our trip to Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef here.

Happy to say the Great Barrier Reef lived up to its standing as one of the natural wonders of the world.  We spent 6 days/5 nights in Port Douglas with Kristin’s family visiting from Michigan (Carol, Parker and Olivia).  Port Douglas is the easy-going resort town north of Cairns (major hub where we flew in) that serves as a launching point for many reef cruises.  The trip was great for two main reasons: 1) Snorkeling on the reef was outstanding and 2) the trip as a whole was relaxing, warm, tropical and felt like a true vacation.

First #2.  We scored a fantastic self-contained apartment right on the beach.  The 3 BR house, part of a balinese-themed compound of 8 other units, featured a fully stocked kitchen and a beautiful outdoor veranda with a BBQ so we could relax and cook all our own meals.  We also got lucky and arrived the same weekend that a monthly fishing boat shows up to unload fresh prawns, bugs (kind of like lobster) and scallops by the kilo.  We stocked up on enough for the whole week and BBQ’d to our hearts content every night.  Yum.  The house was right on the aptly named Four Mile Beach (facing east), and all the adults made it a point to watch the sunrise every morning (and I was happy to get a soft surface to run on every day).

At 18 degrees latitude, the climate in winter was ideal (sunny and mid-high 70’s) and made for a very relaxing tropical vacation.  We ate fresh coconuts that fell from the trees lining the beach.  Yes, tropical indeed.

On to the reef.  Several companies run daily boat trips out to the Reef – about 70 kms (1.5 hours) off the coast to get to the outer reef.  We chose a company that had a newer boat (faster and more stable) and made stops at three different reefs for snorkeling and diving.  At each of the three stops everyone puts on their gear, jumps into the warm water, and gets treated to a fantastic display of marine life.  Carol had a go at diving while the rest of us enjoyed the theatrics from the surface with our snorkels.  It was truly amazing.  We saw electric-blue starfish the size of a frisbee, giant clams the size of a large stuitcase, and honestly too many colorful fish to keep track of.  It was brilliant to see hundreds of fish swimming together in schools and changing directions simultaneously as if it was choreographed. But a favorite of everyone was the probably the reef shark, with it’s unmistakable profile that grabs your attention no matter how safe anyone tells you it is.  We all loved the experience so much we signed up to go back for the same trip 2 days later.

No pictures to tell the underwater story, unfortunately, but google great barrier reef snorkeling and you’re sure to come up with some good ones.

Tasmania

The South Coast Track

We happily received our first family visitor this month!  My dad, Buzz, flew in from Boulder on January 30 for a 3 week visit to Australia.  After a week of trundling around Sydney, he and I left for an adventure together in Tasmania.  It had been eight years since he and I joined up on a trip like this (we traveled to Patagonia and Peru together in 2001-02), and it was good to be on an overseas trip together again.

Movie with a View

Last night Galen, Buzz, and I went to the The Open Air Cinema. Every summer we have all enjoyed our respective home cities’ summer outdoor movies…each with a slightly different variation on the theme… San Francisco has “Film Night in the Park”, Chicago’s “Movies in the Park,” Boulder’s “Outdoor Cinema.” We all agree it is a great way to spend a summer evening, pack a picnic, share some wine, and eek out some play time in the last of the sunlight.  All that and then you still have a movie to watch.

This particular outdoor cinema is sort of on another level. Never mind the cost, and the difficulty obtaining tickets (two months of screenings sold out within a couple of hours), it is worth it. The event is held in The Royal Botanic Gardens, and the screen is IN the harbor. Yes, the big screen stands in the water with the Sydney skyline, Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge as a backdrop. Hey, if the movie is getting dull you just watch the fruit bats flying around or admire the view. It is hard to beat.

We knew we wanted to do this with Galen’s dad, so we made our movie choice based on his time with us, and were then pretty much locked into seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still. Our expectation were not high (Keanu Reeves…world coming to an end…), but it turned out to be a great choice for the venue (sci-fi remake of the 1951 classic).

Not to forget….the picnic. It was tasty: sweet potato salad, fresh zebra tomatoes with olive oil and basil, fresh fruit, and a Rose collected on our trip to New Zealand. Lindt was a sponsor, so we indulged in a couple of free Lindor truffles for dessert. Yum.

For the carb lovers

Last week I made bread. This is not necessarily noteworthy in and of itself, I was doing a little bread baking experimentation in Traverse City this fall with two of the best judges a bread baker could hope for, my sister and brother Olivia and Parker.

By the way, if I were a captain in the US Bread Tasting League, Olivia would be my first draft pick. She has a notoriously “selective palate” shall we say, and she is crazy about bread. There were many an afternoon in September when she would bound in the door after school, and before even closing the door she could identify what was cooling on the butcher block. To to watch her happily wolf down slice after slice and all the while giving great feedback… it was the best. I’m not sure the quality of those first few batches of bread were deserving of the praise they received, but the thought of hearing Liv bouncing back down the stairs for seconds on the bread is enough to inspire me to keep trying while I’m here.

I tried my very first batch of sourdough from a homemade starter. Sourdough is made with a starter from natural process of fermenting with captured “wild yeasts” (how dramatic!)  and lactobacili which are present in any sample of wheat or rye flour. So all you need is flour, water, a little warmth, and time. I used the book “Bread Matters” by Andrew Whitley (checked out from the library), and it worked out better than I expected. Actually I am happy it even worked at all, I wasn’t so sure for a few days. I enjoyed the process this bread required, not much effort, just a little tentative waiting and a few surprising simple steps. This was a French country bread with a wheat leaven starter, next up: a rye sourdough.