We have revived our old blog to share our travels with our family, friends and our future selves. We've changed our names around a little to keep our privacy. We hope you enjoy your visit!
Both boys were awarded a Bronze Medal Award at the end of year a seemly. This is a huge deal! As you can see from the group photo, not many of the students have been recognized with this award.
To earn a bronze award a student needed to be given 4 merit awards throughout the year. These awards are not easy to earn.
Monkey should have received his at the same time as BigC but there was a paperwork glitch and it was missed. Non worries mate!
Monkey received his this morning. Photos were tricky given the lighting, but trust me, he is grinning ear to ear!
We are suddenly in to our final two weeks in Australia. Dave has been away on a camping trip with some of his students so I've been teaching the boys to play gin rummy.I took this opportunity to teach them the rules that I grew up on rather than the rules that Heather and my dad have invented over the last 15 years. This is my attempt to get things back on track. We'll see if I am successful.
The boys did well. It's possible that I am winning by a solid margin...but time will tell how quickly they can close that gap.
With only two weeks to go we are packing up. This is not as complicated as when we came over here. Now we down own much and this house was already packed up when we arrived. I am clearing out a few items like the weights and kettle bells that we've acquired. The rest of our belongings are clothes and such that are coming with us.
I am not worried about the weight of our bags. I am wrried about the volume of our bags for the driving time in NZ. All of our luggage needs to fit in the trunk of the car. I've been packing up clothes that we won't need again until we get to Canada and vacuuming them in to the luggage. It's very effective! This:
Very easily becomes this:
I am really hoping that the NZ customs folks don't want to open the bags up! Than again, our first stop is in an air bnb home, so they will have a vacuum cleaner there if I need to re-do this.
As we draw to the final few weeks here in Mudgee, it came to my attention that recycling time is upon us (they don't take back empties here in NSW).
Saje was away this past weekend, so I decided go put my time and creativity to good use:
Bottles of wine = 106
39 red + 57 white
Reds =
12 Vinafera
6 Scheutz
2 Rosby
2 Robert Oatley
4 other Mudgee Red singles
13 rest of Australia
Whites =
19 Elliot Rocke
6 Gooree Park
2 Thumbprint
2 DiLusso
4 Peter Van Gent lucky Dips
10 other mudgee whites
7 Tasmania
7 Australian others
Characters in the photo above:
M= Vinafera
U= Scheutz
D= NSW
G= Mudgee Whites and Reds
E= Mudgee and Tassie Whites
2= Gooree Park and Mudgee Whites
0= Peter Van Gent and Mudgee whites
15= Elliot Rocke whites
(Yet to consume 2 Elliot Rocke white, 1 Gooree Park rose, 9Red = 6 Vinafera, 1 Rosby, 2 Scheutz )
Oh, how did beer consumption go this year.
It paled in comparison.
42 Bottles all told.
We have enjoyed the wine immensely (and routinely). We will miss Mudgee for many reasons.
Tough Mudder Sydney was an incredibly fun challenge!!
We started off clean and dry. That feeling would not last! For those of you (my mom) who wants to see some random person's Go Pro footage of the event, I found this
This was filmed on Saturday. Anna and I ran it on Sunday (she also ran it on Saturday...she's nuts!). If you can picture it, the course was even more torn up on Sunday and we were even dirtier, the pits deeper and more slippery and the whole thing just even more FUN on Sunday!
We crawled over, under and through everything you can imagine. Less than 1km in and we were up to our necks in mud so thick that it was possible to get stuck and not actually be touching the bottom...or the sides! We were dragging each other through the pits (it was awesome). Soon we were sliding in to ice water. If being chest deep in it was not enough you then had to swim down and go under a barrier. Most of the major organs in my body held a quick meeting and agreed that the end was near and that they needn't bother continuing for much longer. When I erupted from the surface of the water gasping and spluttering, I was staring straight in to a camera lens. That promises to be an excellent photo for all future driver's licenses and passports. If any of you readers ever heads up a search party and they are looking for me, THAT is the photo that I want you to start with.
New to me in this event was a massive crawling obstacle called Cry Baby where they pump in tear gas in to a low chamber and you have to crawl through it with your lungs and eyes burning. I should mention here that different to Spartan events, in Tough Mudder you can by-pass any obstacle that you feel you need to without penalty. The premise of the event is very different to Spartan. This is the pledge that we have to say at the start line.
For those of you, other than my mom, who watched the youtube video you saw that we had to throw ourselves at quite a few things. In an obstacle called the Leap of Faith, we had to leap from a platform to a mud slicked cargo net and then climb up it. In an obstacle called King of the Swingers we had to leap off of a(n even higher) platform to a trapeze and swing out to ring a bell. In both cases you ended up in water if you fell. In the case of the second one you were going in the water no matter what.
We crawled through tubes, under barbed wire, through something called the Birth Canal. We crawl under a bladder full of fluid. It is really, really heavy. Of course we climbed huge walls that required human pyramids to be formed to get over them. Anna and I had to take turns with the other on her back for the Soldier Carry, we climbed through the woods just because they were there.
In the middle of all of that we ran a rumoured 19 or so km. I didn't wear my run watch for this. I didn't bring my phone. I knew from watching Saturday's race while volunteering at the event that the mud was going to be too much for either.
The very last obstacle is called Electro Shock Therapy. This thing was AWFUL. Remember that in Australia we have 240 volts. Not 110. On Saturday I watched huge guys go from running to being face first in the mud after one zap. I watched people have to get pulled out. I heard the zapping sounds of electricity on skin and heard people scream. Anna, who is one of the badassiest mud runners I know DID NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT on Sunday while I wanted to strategize. I watched a lot of people bi-pass it. I just couldn't walk around it. I came here to do the race and I was going to do it.
You can see us at the start of the obstacle trying to figure out which route looked the least bad.
Here's a video of some big burly dudes going through before us. You can hear them get zapped. You can see them hit the deck quickly to get away from it. You can see how badly they didn't want to get back up and take more of it. This is what we had been watching.
*shudder*
So with that, I went. I knew that I was best to try to stay on my feet as much as possible and just get in and out as fast as I could:
I turned around at the end and Anna was still psyching herself up for it. The announcer saw her daughter in the crowd and we started cheering her on. In the video I am running beside her (on the outside of the structure). You can hear everyone cheering for her. The vibe was awesome.
And with that muddy hug, we were done! It took us a little over 3 hours and it was SO MUCH FUN!
I saw a lot of photographers along the course, so I will be adding a post in the coming days with those photos for those of you (other than my mother) who are interested.
I volunteered to join BigC and his class at the zoo. We rocked up to the school for the 7am departure in good spirits.
Dubbo and Mudgee (and even Sydney) are in the throws of a heat wave. By Aussie terms that means forecast Temps today of 40-44.
Be that as it may, the excursion was planned and we were going. Australians are much more accustomed to warm temps and cope well. The teachers all had spay bottles with ice cold water with them and they kept spraying down the kids.
There were two cases (or maybe more) of bottled water under the buses. The buses were air conditioned (at first, keep reading). The kids were all instructed to bring two bottles of water. One was to be frozen and wrapped in a towel. I later learned that this towel is then wrapped around the necks, under the collar of the shirt to keep the kids cool. The kids all knew it too.
We had the best of luck if you are a child in year 3. If there was an animal with the urge to have a bowel movements today they waited until our class was watching. Blessed we are.
This skink let go right in front of me (yay) and this rhinoceros climbed out of the water and then sprayed his excrement in a most spectacular fashion for us while I grabbed a photo of BigC.
Luckily he was also awesome enough to show us his teeth. Any excursion with a class of 9 year olds has the secondary benefit of reminding me why I was sensible enough to cease all procreation after blessing the planet with two offspring. Each and every child on the trip (around 120 or so) needed to tell us URGENTLY that they have previously been to the zoo. That they saw, ummm, stuff...and then share a convoluted story about that experience. Those without their own experiences to share were kind enough to tell us about other people they vaguely knew that had once vaguely had an experience that related in some way to a thought that wandered though their heads.
The zoo was awesome and BigC had a fabulous time. The heat was lovely*. The animals we're animated enough, the heat considered.
On the way home the trouble started pretty early on. Our bus overheated and blew a hose about 20 minutes outside of the town. Long time blog readers will remember that my mother and I discovered a low gas tank in about the same spot back in July and also made the decision to drive forward in to the land of no cell phone reception. Our decision ended well, this one...not as much. After pulling over many times, turning off the AC, offloading passengers (BigC and I included thankfully) to the other bus to lighten the load, the bus finally gave up completely about 60 KM from Mudgee. With no mobile reception we had no choice but to leave them there and call for assistance once we could.
If a kid was going to vomit on the bus today he was never further than 2 seats away from me. I'm like a genie!
*this Canadian will NOT complain about heat, ever. It does not happen. I love it.
...we will be sitting on a plane that will take us out of Australia. Parts of me are ready to get on that flight. Parts of me are tempted to put my hands and feet on the door frame like a cat refusing a bath. It's tempting, but our departure is inevitable.
We've started to pack. I've weighed bags. I've negotiated with a 9 year old who wants to be permitted to bring home shorts whose front button no longer does up around his waist without significant effort.
I've looked at the 4 huge fleece hoodies the 11 year old still has in Australia and wished I'd thought to send them home with my father in September.
I've hosted brunch with a group of Australians who generously offered to help us eat the remaining maple syrup.
We've consumed wine! How could I forget that? We have been sticking to our 4 bottle a week required consumption rate. It's a tough job, but we're up for it.
Mostly I've been planning our next adventure. The plane that leaves in 28 days is taking us to New Zealand for over a month. We are planning a huge trip to cover both islands over 35 days.
So we're sad to leave Australia and excited to experience NZ and excited to get home in January. The only thing I am not even a little bit excited about is the cold.
Look. I'm not looking to point any fingers here. However....when I left for Sydney last weekend we had worked our way down to less than 3 bottle a week.
When I returned from Sydney 6 extra bottled had appeared in the house. I didn't buy them...
This weekend some Canadian exchange teachers came to Mudgee for a visit. Of course, we took them to our favourite spots. Of course, we pocked up a couple of favourites since we were RIGHT THERE.
The wine tally is currently at 4 bottles a week. Life is tough.
Today was the annual Mudgee Motorfest. We didn't know exactly what to expect from the event, but we knew that we were all in. BigC had this day marked on his mental calendar since the signs went up around town weeks ago.
The boys headed straight for the KubKar-style racetrack. They each took several turns with their favourite car before handing things off to the younger kids around.
BigC was overjoyed at all of the fire trucks that were on display including the retro command post
And the older (1980ish) big Fire trucks. This one had no steps or ladder, so you had to hoist yourself up after standing on the tire.
Monkey could barely see out over the high windshield, but those days are rapidly drawing to a close.
My personal favourite was the 1974 Red Charger. My Uncle J owns a 1973 version in dark blue. I can still recall the day I got to go for a ride in it as a teenager. Beautiful car.
The boys preferred this car - they both totally felt that it was Batman inspired.
We saw some kids racing their own pedal cars and they politely asked how they could race them. The kind event staff lady (pretty sure she's a grandma) told the boys they'd have to build their own and enter in 2016. When she found out that they wouldn't be around next year, not only did they get to have a race, but they got some treats before they left for the day too.
We checked out the 4wd trucks
And some older Ford F-100's (anyone in the family know more about the one in this photo?)
It was a wonderful event made all the better by the bag of lollies and free ice cream (or slushie in BigC's case) to top off the day.
I've never been to a sushi train restaurant. Oh glory!! Sushi passes through the restaurant on a little conveyor belt, you grab what you want and you pay by the plate at the end.
I need this to be much, much closer to my house/work/places I hang out. It was fabulous!
Since Ben decided that sushi train was not quite amazing enough, they introduced me to Churros for dessert. MERCY! sweet deep fried batter dipped in caramel? Where can you go wrong here?
Mayne it is a good thing that I can only access these things after driving for 3 hours...if it was easier, I might need new clothes in a much larger size!
Halloween is nowhere near as big of an event in Australia as it is in North America. Rather than stay home, Ben, Anna and I took off to go to Penrith (close to Sydney) for an even called Running Scared.
This is a nighttime run of 8km that boasts 20 obstacles, zombies and, AND a glow in the dark medal!
Anna and I have hopped in a car for less!
First off was a stop at the mall. Since it was Halloween I'd like to show you what Australians think is a "pumpkin". That's right, a butternut pumpkin!
The race was awesome. We took exactly 0 photos as Anna and I open to run it and smash all of the obstacles. We had lots of stuff to crawl over, under and through. We got chased by zombies, clowns and all sorts of this that go bump in the night. We got to do a SLIP N SLIDE!!! This thing was huge!! It ran down a hill and was covered in water and baby shampoo. We each took a huge run at it and then launched down it. Well worth the 10 minute wait for our turn.
At one point Ben and his crew were joined by a runner who chatted them up for a few minutes...only to have a zombie full on tackle her mid-stride! She was one of them!!!
There was an awesome double set of Monkey bars that we both nailed. We got to climb over a shipping container, crawl under heavy ropes, run away from clowns on unicorns unicycles. We got to traverse a waterway in an inner tube and more!
We grabbed hot showers at the venue (so awesome) and were home (to our accommodation) by 11:30pm.
It's been a pretty amazing year of travelling around this country, sharing varying accommodation with Anna and picking my clothes up off of assorted lawns.
This is a huge deal! As you can see from the group photo, not many of the students have been recognized with this award.
Be that as it may, the excursion was planned and we were going. Australians are much more accustomed to warm temps and cope well. The teachers all had spay bottles with ice cold water with them and they kept spraying down the kids.
There were two cases (or maybe more) of bottled water under the buses. The buses were air conditioned (at first, keep reading). The kids were all instructed to bring two bottles of water. One was to be frozen and wrapped in a towel. I later learned that this towel is then wrapped around the necks, under the collar of the shirt to keep the kids cool. The kids all knew it too.
The zoo was awesome and BigC had a fabulous time. The heat was lovely*. The animals we're animated enough, the heat considered.
