End of Week 2-Road trip to the Blue Mountains

Oh Ottawa.  The weather that you are pouring forth on your inhabitants is just cruel!!  We are watching and cringing from afar.

We opted to travel for a day trip on the weekend.  It was good to get some practice out on the open road.  We even both had to contend with street lights and real intersections for the first time.  Dave had a solidly fun time practicing driving a manual transmission over the mountain roads.  We continued to be very impressed at the cyclists who were on the roads.  All of them had thighs the size of my children's torsos!!
  We got some great travel advice from our new friend Holly.  So we started at Katoomba and went for some fabulous bush walks.  We walked under cliffs, down to the waterfalls and all around to various amazing look out points.  The weather was terrific and the view was crystal clear.

This was a walkway right in the middle of the falls (on the left is facing the falls, on the right is facing the cliff).  Pictures just can't do justice to the majesty of God's creation here.

 
 We then headed off to Leura and found this sign and opted to stop for a picnic.  We discovered that the charge to get in to this park was $2 a person.  Typical of the WB family, we opted to stay cheap and follow the trail down beside the park to see where it led.

 We found ourselves alone in the world on the most incredible small cliff I have ever seen.  We put down the esky (cooler) and made ourselves picnic lunches while trying to identify shapes cast in the shadows of the clouds on the tree tops below on the valley floor.  They can have their $2 view.  Ours was priceless.

 We are planning to be picnic masters by the end off this!

Echo Point

 We took a quick walk down to Echo Point to see the Three Sisters and then headed off to Scenic World.  (Bonus point for Scenic World as they accepted the Doodle's Access 2 pass and we saved $23 off of our family's admission cost.)  The whole family enjoyed the steepest incline railway in the world, the steepest aerial cablecar in the southern hemisphere and the very well signed walkway through a Jurassic rainforest.

 The doodle was not at all sure about this activity the first time as you can well see.  He conquered his fear, went on the railway and LOVED IT!

WB Family at the top of the sign

Clowns

These last two are the view down through the floor of the scenic skyway.  Also pictured are the shoes that we were required to wear as we were in the Blue Mountains and the funnel web spiders that about a million of you posted about on my facebook page are alive and well in this region.

I got all of the photos right way up this time.  Yay!  So...more photos next time?  Or would you rather just google this stuff to see professional photos that are far more impressive than anything my phone will take?  Let me know in the comments.

On Being Domestic

At home in Canada I am not domestic.  I have a career that I enjoy, I have two wonderful children, a house and hobbies.  I am not domestic.  Dave and I share the chore load pretty evenly and we hire in domestic assistance to do the things that neither of us wants to do.

In Mudgee, however, my job is to be domestic.  This is new for me.  I mean, I can make breakfast, pack a school lunch and get dinner on the table like a boss.

I can also run errands, pick up children, fill out school paperwork, insure vehicles, manage international insurance claims... I CAN DO THESE THINGS, they are not necessarily things that I excel at.

Here I am also in charge of planning vacations.  Now PLANNING is something that I can get behind.  I can come up with schedules and plans and all of that.  I am just used to having other people around to implement it.  Now I have a home staff of, well, me.

I've been running errands.  Stuff needs to get picked up dropped off, signed up for, purchased...
 OH MY GOODNESS that takes a lot of time!!  A couple of quick stops and I've lost an hour.  Yesterday it was on both ends of the day.  I can't get everything done!!!

Successes so far:

1. I found one of the missing spiders with my size 11 Croc
2. the children, especially doodle, who has several changes of uniform, have school uniforms and have yet to attend school in the nude. Many of those uniforms were acquired for free or left behind by our awesome exchange family.
3. there has been a healthy, planned out supper on the table every night
4. the laundry baskets are empty and the laundry line is full
5. the children have been dropped off to school and no one has had to spend the night there as I have also picked them up (though really you could see how I could cut out some errands if I just skipped both of those some of the time).
6. the insurance claims are almost ready to be mailed off (we dropped almost $2000 in Vancouver on lost medication and the doodle had that Australian emergency room visit last week)
7. a day trip for this weekend has been planned
8. THIS LUNCH that I ate today

I am clearly a "wrap sandwich over achiever"

Winning!!

    9. My awesome neighbours (the same gold star achievers that boosted our car, loaned us their car and fed us last week) have booked travel (accommodations, flights, van rentals) for the Sydney Spartan, Melbourne Spartan AND the Brisbane Spartan.  There is NO WAY I would have wrapped my head around that yet at all.

   10. I created this beauty of a map of where we are planning to go so far. It is colour coded by who is attending and who is arranging it.  Each post it note states the location, the date(s), the things we will do there and the distance from home.  There's still more to go up, but this is how far I've made it to date.

Australia is a shockingly large country!!

Opportunities for growth and development so far:

1. not a single person has shown up to clean the house
2. the insurance claims are not yet mailed off
3. I have locked myself out of my on-line credit card access and need to call Canada to resolve it
4. I have not yet filled out a pile of paperwork for a weekend in Sydney coming up soon
5. We've been here two weeks and I have YET to get to a wine tasting and there is a place less than 1K from my house that I have my eye on.  Last night while I was out running I noticed that they have a special on where you can get 6 bottles of wine starting at $59.  I would never have noticed that from the car as there is far too much going on when I am driving (I hit the mother trucking windshield wipers today), so running the area proved a good idea.
6. I never found the second spider that went missing.

So the plan for next week seems obvious.

The running scene

I fancy myself to be a runner.  Back home in Canada I run three times a week with an awesome friend (miss you love!!!) as long as it isn't colder than -20.  We typically go 6.5k twice a week and 10k once a week.  So I fancy myself a runner.

 The first night that I showed up for Mudgee's free "run club" the warm up was 2k.  That should have been a tip off to the 8k of interval training that we would be doing.  Anyone who does 2k just to warm up, means business.  I did it though, and it was fun.  One of the women asked me if I like trail running.  "Sure", I reply, "trail running is fun".  I'm thinking of the Nepean Sportsplex, or maybe the local ravine runs through Riverside South. You know, mostly level ground with dirt/gravel.  Trail running.

I got a message from her two days later asking me to join her and some other people for a trail run.  When on exchange you SAY YES to everything, so I said yes.

I am an idiot.

That is stupid advice.

I should have asked better questions.  Smarter, more discerning questions.  Like: 1, "how many of the people who are joining us have completed an Ironman in the last 12 months?"  If I had asked, just that ONE question the answer would have been "everyone but you" and I would have stayed home.

I could also have asked "are we running on flat trails like in Ottawa?  Or are we running straight up one of these beautiful hills I've been admiring so much?"  Asking that question would have netted me an answer like "straight up a hill, rather like the final ascent to Everest" and I would have stayed home.

But no, I am an idiot.  So like the dumb puppy that I am.  I got in my car and I showed up, all in, eager to go.  And they all got out of their cars with their Ironman visors on and we jogged up a gravel road and then straight up a mother trucking hill mountain.

We did 3K up the hill mountain and 3K down.  I didn't even vomit at all.  So I am going to call that a win.

So I still fancy myself a runner, and an idiot.

First Day of School

I happen to think that the school uniforms are adorable.  I am not at all certain that my children would agree with that.  

We took the classic "in front of the front door" photo like we always do.  I could not resist getting some photos with the fabulous view in the background.

 This is a photo of just the upper year students under the COLA (covered outdoor learning area).  I guess pick up should be easy at the end of the day...my kids will be the ones in gold and navy...

Later....

Both boys report having had a great first day.  The doodle made a new friend in his class and is responding well to not being medicated in the afternoon.  His teacher reports that he had a solid first day as well.

Monkey joined in with a gaggle of boys who were playing the Aussie version of his favourite game "man hunt".

I put supper on the table in my second day running of being a domestic goddess ;)  Dave biked to and from work for the second day in a row and is enjoying the physical activity.

I found two giant (in my mind) black spiders in the kitchen area today.  I went and got my shoe to kill them both and couldn't find them upon my return.  I think that is worse than ever having seen them in the first place.

Last Day Before School Starts

Both boys expressed to me last night that they are missing home/feeling anxious about starting school.  I chatted with my mom about it and like all good grandmothers, her solution involved food.  We made sure that I had their favourite macaroni and cheese recipe and I let the kids know that we would be having it for supper.

First the doodle and I spent the morning baking muffins.  Nuts are permitted in school lunches here, so we were able to use some nuts to make the muffins a bit higher in protein.

 I have no idea why the photos are sideways, I am turning them and saving them before uploading.  Sigh.

The boys were quite happy to have rasher bacon (we have not located pemeal bacon yet) and macaroni and cheese for supper tonight.  It should be great fuel for their first day of school tomorrow!

Week 2-Australia Day

Today dawned bright and early for the WB family.  We actually needed to be somewhere for 9am.  We got the Monkey dressed proudly in his Canadian Scouting uniform and went off to the local park to celebrate Australia Day (complete with bouncy castle!).  His group was responsible to raise the flag and he was chosen to hold the Scout Flag.  He was quite proud, as you can see from the photos.

On the way home we recognized that the roads were all but deserted...so I pulled over and THIS HAPPENED!!  Yay!!!  He stalled it a few times, but we practiced starting and stopping on level ground and at some intersections (such as there are in Mudgee!!).  With some confidence built up, he drove us home.

No idea why this is sideways.  I did try to straighten it.  He's driving, in case you can't tell

We had a wonderful 'straya day BBQ with new friends.  Apparently you must have lamb on Australia Day.  This was news to me but I was more than happy to oblige!

We got home and both boys individually expressed that they are feeling sad and missing home.  Monkey is telling me that he is missing Roxy.  The doodle says that he misses his room, the cold and the lack of scary spiders and things.  We've been here just over a week and as a family we've never taken a vacation longer than that.  It doesn't surprise me that they are finding that things are catching up with them.

Dave starts school on Tuesday and the boys start on Wednesday.  There are some big transitions yet to come.

Day 7 - A Trip to Dunns Swamp

Today we went to the Uniting church service here in Mudgee. The service was about an hour long and was quite delightful. The message was biblically focused and the people were warm and inviting. I assure you that the boys favourite part was the after-service social where we shared cupcakes and snacks, as well as playing outdoors. The congregation was loaded with people who wanted to get to know us and learn about Canada.
Following church, we loaded up the car and headed with two other families to Dunns Swamp. The name was quite misleading (phew!) and the day was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was superb and the scenery was some of the best that we've witnessed so far. I spotted my first marsupial (a wallaby in the bush while on a nature hike with two of the other adults). The boys (and Saje) largely hung out by the water's edge and enjoyed the company of the other four boys their ages.
Here are the boys each in different boats as they went out into the swamp for a paddle with some of the other kids and adults. 

 Monkey took one adventure over to the other side of the river with the kids and one of the dads. They climbed some of the rocks and posed for pictures as the rest of the parents looked on from across the water.

 I went on a trail walk (note: not a trail run, I learned from Saje's earlier adventures this week).

It was a 1.5 km walk along the edge of the water where every 500 m or so there was a spot that just opened up to a beautiful view of the water, landscape and rockfaces. 

 Near the weir (a small dam) at the end there was a high point with a warning sign. 
So I went past.

No fence.
No guardrail.
Nothing.

Just an absolutely spectacular piece of nature. (there's about a 300 m drop about 1 m behind me)

 When I returned to the area by the beach, the boys had decided to undergo their own climbing adventure. Here's Monkey on a 75 foot rock smiling for all his glory in the setting sun.

It was a phenomenal day to prepare us for Australia Day tomorrow.

Day 6-Breakfast of Champions

We woke up and enjoyed a breakfast of leftover pavlova from dinner that we shared on Friday night with some new friends.

 I am not sure that we will ever get tired of the beautiful surroundings that we live in here.

 The new friends that we got together with on Friday let us know that we have pomegranate trees in the garden.  Monkey and I set out immediately Saturday morning to find it.  WE FOUND IT!!  He is really taken with all of the plants around the house.  He loves to go out and explore them to find what is here and what might be ready to be harvested next.

Pavlova for breakfast means biking, rather than driving in to town, so I grabbed a bike and helmet from the garage and made my way in.  I discovered that the bank is closed for the long weekend, so we wont have any cash until Tuesday.  The post office and the grocery store are open though, so we can get what we need.  The vistas here are out of control.  Every corner that I go around looks like it should be on a post card.

 There's been a reasonable amount of rain recently, so things are nice and green.  We headed over to the neighbour's place for a swim and supper.  Their yard is all mowed ground and the kids wasted no time after swimming to come up with a game of soccer.

The car never moved today.  Which technically means that I did not use the windshield wipers in the place of the indicators.  I am still hoping for the day when I can say that for real!