Winter in Wisconsin

Patrick and I have made it home safely, sort of. We are both visiting family for the holidays and heading back to Denver on January 1st. While I have been visiting my parents we had one nice snowstorm. The snow has been on the trees for three days and looks beautiful. We have had the opportunity to do some of the fun things we do in the snow, sledding, snowmobiling, and cross country skiing. Unfortunately our snowboard equipment is in Denver. As Patrick and I talk with each other and reflect on our experience we have both realized how great of a time we really had in Australia and we are looking forward to visiting again. Although we are happy to be home and visiting our family and friends, we both realize it is easy and difficult to be back home. We miss our friends, the time in Australia and the things we had the opportunity to experience. We have grown and changed as we learned more. This simply just makes it different to be around our friends and we will eventually learn to adjust. Many who travel say it is more difficult to adjust being back home. We can't say it is any more difficult than adjusting to living in a new place, maybe just not as fun.

Reflection on Teaching

Our year is almost complete and we are both sad to leave some of the great new friends we have made. However we are also excited to see our family and friends. The year has been fantastic despite the difficulties. The ups far out weigh the downs and make the work and uncertainty worth it.

Teaching in the beginning of this year was difficult. Transitioning and learning the system took some time. The vocabulary, everyday procedures, and process take some adjusting. It often took every ounce of energy I had to not say my school (in the States) does it better. It isn't because your school does it better it is because you are used to that system. All schools have processes and procedures that function really well, based on the students, staff, and sometimes the architecture of the spaces. As an exchange teacher I felt it wasn't my job to question it, but to learn to understand what I was having difficulty with. What I eventually learned was that schools are constantly making choices about how to deal with issues that arise. Often times the choices made have a positive consequences and a negative consequences. The question I that often came to mind was, what are we gaining from this choice and what are we going to loose?

Personally, it took Patrick and I time to find our way around and what was around. This takes as much time as you put into it. We had to learn what the neighbourhood had to offer from shopping to parks to classes. We had to try a variety of things to see what we enjoyed doing as it wasn't different than Colorado. When you start learning this you start to establish patterns and habits. The place starts to feel more comfortable when you have a few habits developed. Those habits were often as simple as when we go grocery shopping or go to the gym. Shopping is interesting here, because most shops close around 5. Neighbourhoods have 1 late night a week and are open on Saturdays but not Sundays. If you are working all day and travelling on weekends it make shopping more difficult.

Making friends and establishing relationships also takes time and is probably uncomfortable in the beginning. It is uncomfortable because you know back home you have all these friends and you know who to call to do something fun, or who to call for problems. When you start in a new place you have to establish and build these relationships. But once you establish these as most do, it is sad to go. And that is where we are at, sad to leave.

The Things We Will Miss

There are many things Patrick and I will miss about Australia. We narrowed the list to 10 things list below. The items are listed in no particular order.

1. Sparkling Red Wines
2. The birds singing (especially the Kookabarra)
3. The Gum Trees
4. Beaches
5. Our Friends
6. The Staff at Hamilton
7. The Landscape and Wildlife
8. The neighborhood bakery, butcher, and fruit and veg.
9. Visiting Wineries
10. The Australian Accent

I also began to think while I was making the list, what I missed about the States. The list below is again in no particular order.

1. Good, Cheap beer from the Micro-breweries
2. Our Friends
3. Our Family
4. The Mountains
5. Snowboarding
6. Percipitation
7. Green Landscape
8. Snow
9. Mountain Biking
10. Carpool

Worlds Biggest Guitar Band...

Guinness Book Of Records: Biggest Guitar Band Attempt

Adelaide had a fantastic two week guitar festival last week, to kick off the event they tried to break the world record by forming the world's largest guitar band with everyone playing "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple.

They didn't quite break the world record but a record 1,350 Australians took part in our Biggest Guitar Band attempt, with many hundreds watching on. Around 2,000 people showed up and enjoyed the event.



Patrick and Larry rocking out trying to make history.



The guitar salute at the end of the performance.







Someone posted a youtube video online from the world record attempt.

Canberra...

Recently we had the chance to visit the capital city of Australia, Canberra. Kim has a friend she knew from traveling years back, Marianne and her husband Steve, who had recently relocated to Canberra from Darwin. They were gracious enough to put us up for the weekend and show us around. We had a fantastic time. We went to a great formal party that had some amazing food and interesting people. We also spent two days wandering around the city and went to the capital buildings, the war memorial, and the national art gallery. It was neat to see and learn the history about the Australian government and its political system. Canberra is a well laid out city that is easy to get around. It has small satellite areas that are all connected together throughout the city with a lot of surrounding trees and parklands. It has wide streets, and many walking and biking path, so many people commute by bike or walk. We spent one day driving out of the city and went bush walking out in the surrounding mountainous countryside. Canberra is very similar to Washington DC back home in the states.




Vintage cars lined up outside of the old parliment government building.



The capital building and national lawn.



Looking out across the lawn to the hill with the impressive War Memorial gallery.

Our favorite beaches...

Well our time in Australia is coming to a close here fairly soon. We have about a month left and are very busy trying to plan for some last minute trips, parties, packing, cleaning, etc. The year has really gone by fast, before we know it we will be back home in Colorado. One of the great things we have enjoyed this year are the amazing beaches and coastlines in Australia. So we thought we would share a top ten list of some our favorite beaches we have been to. (We included a few from New Zealand as well). Who ever coined the phrase life is a beach, must have been from Australia!



1. The "Twelve Apostles" along the Great Ocean Road.



2. Sunset over the beach at Marino Rocks viewed from our friend Dave's balcony.



3. The beach from Innes National Park on the York Peninsula contains the remains of an old shipwreck "Ethel".



4. Wineglass Bay in Tasmania is spectacular. You hike about two miles up to this rocky overlook where you can see the hourglass bay and beach down below. It is another two miles down to the beach which has crystal clear blue water.



5. This is one of the many great beaches just north of Cairns in Queensland. They have the poisonous "box jellyfish" during the summer months.



6. The Coorang National Park along the coast of South Australia contains miles and miles of wide empty beaches.



7. Johanna Beach along the Great Ocean Road, just outside the town of Apollo Bay.



8. Another great beach in Tasmania is the Friendly Beaches outside the town of Bicheno. We hiked out to this beach from a great nature conservatory were we saw some Tasmanian Devils.



9. New Zealand has some great beaches as well. This was one of the beaches on the north island near the capital city Wellington.



10. Moreaki Beach in New Zealand on our way to Christchurch on the South Island. They have some great boulder shaped rocks on the beach.

Kangaroo Island...

Our latest travel adventure took us to the remote island of the coast of South Australia, Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island is a very isolated part of South Australia. It was fairly pricey to get to, as they only have a private ferry operating to get there (you could fly if you wanted to from Adelaide). The island is one of the nicest parts of South Australia we have seen. Great quite beaches, wonderful wildlife, neat natural features, and great scenery. The island is about 50 miles wide, by 150 miles long.



Australian Sea Lions up close on the beach at Seal Bay. The are quite docile animals and laze around on the beach.



We took a great scneic drive down to the cape of Hanson Bay.



A sea pelican wandering near the beach at Pennshaw point.



The Remarkable Rocks in Flinders Chase Park. They are aptly named and are a bizarre formation of wind and water weathered and shaped rocks high on a sea side cliff. The rocks are covered in a orange color from a certain type of lichen moss. They were fascinating and we spent a good part of the afternoon climbing and walking around the large area of rocks.



The north part of the island has great sea side roads with magnificent views out into the ocean. We went down to several nice beaches and bays.



We hiked down to a underground cave that looked out into the ocean at the western tip of the island in the Flinders Chase area.



We saw a lot of wildlife, and had to stop many times for them as they crossed the road. Here is an echidna hiding in the bush.



Kim took a great photo of the scrub brush trees.

Dreamtime Story...

This is a series of five Aboriginal Dreamtime stories illustrated by the incredible paintings of Ngarrindjeri artist, Jacob Stengle. These paintings were commisioned for the Department of Enviornment and Heritage and are on display at the Flinders Chase Visitor Center on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

This story tells about the creation of Kangaroo Island. It is of the Ngarrindjeri people, whose country land in Australia extended from the upper Murray River to Cape Jaffa in the South East. The story is passed down from many generations about the great Ngurunderi and his two wives.


NGURUNDERI AND PONDI



As Ngurunderi paddled his bark canoe along the small stream, he was able to spear a very large cod which he named Pondi. The great fish struggled so fiercely that it widened the river with its tail and flooded the nearby swamps and billabongs by spilling the water over the banks.

THE RUNAWAY WIVES



Ngurunderi was searching for his runaway wives in the southern end of the Coorong. He searched for many years and continued searching as far south as the lakes, continuing all the way to the beach along the Murray River until reaching Encounter Bay. Here he finally found his wives laughing and splashing in the shallow water.

THE PAGES



Ngurunderi finally found his wives who had deserted him and was full of anger. He summoned a great storm that caused the waters to rise and drown his wives. His wives spirits were formed into the two rugged and rocky islands known as the Pages.

THE LAST WALK



When Ngurunderi's anger subsided he realised what a dreadful thing he had done to his wives. He fled over to Kangaroo Island, full of remorse, to try and cleanse his soul. Here he rested in the scrub among logs, gum trees, yaccas, and sheoks. The morning sighing sound among the trees helped him to temporarily forget about his terrible actions.

THE FINAL ACTION



Ngurunderi rested a long time on Kangaroo Island. The time had come for him to return to his heavenly home. His final action on earth was to leave instructions for his people to follow his steps to the western end of Kangaroo Island and pay respects to the rugged Pages Islands. In remorse for his wives, he leapt from a cliff into the sea and drowned, but his cleansed spirit rose to the sky.

Tasmania...

Well we finally got back this weekend after two exciting weeks of traveling around Tasmania. Tasmainia is the southernmost island of Australia located 240km south of Victoria across the Bass Strait. The island is fairly small compared to the rest of Australia (its the smallest state) and is 300km long by 315km wide. The highest mountain on the island is Mt. Ossa at 1617km (5300 feet). Nineteen National Parks covering one quarter of the island help to preserve the abundance of beautiful coastlines, beaches, rivers, forests, wildlife, glacier carved lakes, and stunning mountain ranges.

The island has a bleak history, Europeans discovered Tasmania in 1642. By the mid 1700s they were starting to settle on the island and wiped out most of the indigenous Aborignies within the next 150 years. Hobart was built around 1790 along with prison colonies around the area south of Hobart, Port Arthur. Convicts were shipped from mainland Australia and England. Over 74,000 convicts were sent to Tasmania between 1800 to 1850s. In 1853 government stopped the penal conlonies and convicts from being shipped and sent here. The island was originally named Van Diemens land, but was later changed in 1858 to Tasmania to free itself from the image of its tainted penal history.

Today Tasmania is a vibrant relaxed place. Although you can still visit the remains of the prison colonies, most notbaly Port Arthur and learn about its past. The biggest cities are Hobart, Launceston, and Devonport. The are very small cottage seaside towns and villages scattered throughout the island. For the most part, life is relativley laid back, rural, and unhurried here. There are about 500,000 people on the island. The people we encountered were very friendly and interesting to talk to. The main industries are mining, logging, tourism, and agriculture. The local cheese and fresh seafood were fantastic. Below are a few photos from our trip.





The sunsets over the ocean were breathtaking. Our favorite beach was Wineglass Bay in the Freycinent Pinensula.



We hiked around Dove Lake in the Cradle Mountain. The weather was raining and cold, and the rain later changed to snow.



The tall gum trees were massive. Here you can see Kim in the bottom right to give you a sense of scale. This picture only shows about the bottom half of the tree. We saw trees even thicker and taller than these, and some were close to 98m (300 feet high) and very old. I can't imagine the sound one of these trees must make when it eventually crashes to the ground.



We had a great place to stay in Hobart, thanks to Kim's friends Ron and Avril. The have a nice house in the hills overlooking the city and this is the veiw we got to see from their deck.





Kim and I went to a great photo gallery exhibit in Cradle Mountain. We found out that they had a photo contest from pictures taken in the world heritage areas around Tasmania, so we decided to send in two of our photos. The first one Kim took of Lake St. Clair, and Patrick took the other one of the the green moss along a hike named the "Enchanted Forest". Let's keep our fingers crossed, top prize is $5,000. But hey even if we get our photos displayed that would be great!



Here is the infamous Tasmanian Devil. We stopped at a nature park outside of Bicherno were we could see them up close and watch them feed. They are small, cute, animals, but have razor sharp claws and teeth, and can be hightly aggresive when feeding. They are under threat to a new disease that spreads tumors in their mouths and faces, and has devestated much of the population. The Tasmanian tiger went extinct in around 1940, lets hope that dosen't happen to the Tassy Devil.



We went up to the top of Mt. Wellington outside of Hobart, and saw our first taste of snow in Australia. Some kids earlier in the day decided to build a snowman on the summit.



Rocks and washed up driftwood along the coast.



This is the old historic church building in the convict town of Port Arthur. There is a great museum explaining the local history of the penal colony and you could walk around the grounds and visit 30 different buildings, jails, shops, houses, and prison quarters to see what life must have been like here 200 years ago.

Tasmania was great and we really enjoyed our time traveling there. It was such a contrast to the other parts of the country that we have seen so far. The area was rich in history and very scenic with incredible natural parks and beaches. There were also many interesting people, places, and things to see.

The Grampians...

We took an exciting camping trip a few weekends ago to the Grampians in Victoria. It is a huge national park that has a broad diversity of flora and fauna, wildlife, and rock formations. We did some great hiking, and saw some very neat rock caves painted with Aboriginal rock art. We also had a great campfire and enjoyed hanging out with our friends Ginger and Paul at the campsite as well. The park suffered a very extensive big bush fire about two years ago and it was very visible. So we made sure to use extra special caution when we put out our campfire. You could see the charred markings form the brushfire on trees, however, there was much new growth starting to happen along the forest floor. Luckily, none of the surrounding towns sustained any damage.

More information about the Grampions region can be found at online at www.thegrampians.com.au



Extensive view of the Grampions mountain range.



Kangaroos hopping away upon are arrival near Asses Ears pass.



Large yellow farm fields of canola grow all throughout this region.



Patrick, Kim, Ginger, and Paul at the base of the Pinnacles hike, before starting the climb up through the canyon.



Ginger and Kim enjoying a cool little waterfall stream.



Looking up to the sky through the burnt trees at our campsite.



Kim and I on the summit of the Pinnacles.



Kim showing of her bouldering moves.