October 21, 2012

Adventures in Oz—aka cuddling a Koala never gets old


 
 Maia and I have been back from Vancouver for over a month. We’ve got our routine down, and well the problem with routine is the days compress into one long stream of days that seem like every other day and you forget to pick out the unique moments and savour them.
Playing in the surf
Saskia--our neice and boat guest catches a wave
And I reckon it’s pretty unique here. You just need to stay tuned into the oddness that is Oz and try not to worry that your new Ozzie friends might be insulted by the fact you find it terribly funny that the purchase of a Halloween pumpkin came with a safety briefing (knives are sharp, pumpkins are hard, but the goal is to cut a spooky face into the pumpkin—here are some directions) or that Evan got a one hour talk (complete with quiz) on how to safely climb a step ladder.
Kings Beach
Palm Beach
We’ve pondered the excessive efforts to mandate safety (the population is stupid? Possibly drunk?) and the local’s impressive ability to miss the point (“Did you notice the new countdown timers on all the walk signals?” “Yup, no idea what they are for…”) But one place we do appreciate the safety measures is on the beaches. AU has an enviable surf lifesaving program—a program that grew after the bylaws the banned swimming on the beaches were lifted in 1902. Yup, swimming at the beach during daylight hours was once illegal in parts of Australia…
 

Surfers Paradise at sunset
The beaches today are great. We’ve been back up to the Sunshine Coast for surfing and fun at Kings Beach and down to the Gold Coast for a day at Palm Beach (you pass through Miami to get there). Like towns, each beach has its own feel—Kings Beach felt like something out of a 1960’s Beach Party movie, while Palm Beach was a little more rugged and wild feeling. 

3 comments:

MargaretP said...

So good to see you are enjoying the beaches and trying different ones, if we had daylight saving it would be even better, after work beach picnics were awesome when we lived in NSW,the kids would still be playing in the water at 7pm...then sleep like logs all night !

Diane, Evan, Maia and Charlie the cat said...

I do really miss having long evenings! It's good to be warm at night agian though.

MargaretP said...

The secret to keeping warm at night and comfortable in Summer is a thick Woollen underlay, I got all mine second hand from the markets or the charity shops.You can machine wash them as long as you use a wool cycle and Wool Wash.
I found out the hard way, when sleeping on a vinyl covered mattress at a bush camp (quilting retreat).....we all drove the 40 minutes back home the next day and got wool blankets to put double under the bottom sheet, worked like magic !