Lady Elliot Island and Noosa National Park

Have you ever been to a private island? One that's only big enough to land a small plane on? Where you can walk around it in 45 minutes flat, and need to watch for planes when you walk across the runway? Me neither! Until we visited Lady Elliot Island.

Lady Elliot Island

Lady Elliot Island is a small coral cay, located at the south end of the Great Barrier Reef. Our day trip to the island started dark and early (the sun wasn't even up yet!) because we needed to catch a plane from Hervey Bay, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Noosa. And the plane left at 8:10 am. And we needed to be there 45 minutes before departure. So the alarm clocks were set for 4:30 am. The motorway between Noosa and Hervey Bay (the Bruce Highway) has seen it's fair share of accidents over the years, so the Queensland government has introduced a few unconventional methods of keeping drivers attentive and awake. They have roadside trivia! I love trivia! Although I think Linda was the only one in the car to get a correct answer (the state animal of Queensland is the koala), it was a neat way to engage drivers along the road.

Once we got to the airport, and were ready to board the plane, the pilot said "Oh it looks like a full plane today, does anyone want to ride up front with me?". I didn't even think he had to finish his sentence because Alan was already sitting in the co pilot seat at the front of the plane. True story.

Australia Zoo/Fraser Island

On our next weekend, we were able to get away for a few days to one of my favorite places around Brisbane: Noosa and the Sunshine Coast. Not only did we have the opportunity to explore Noosa and surrounds, including the world famous Eumundi Markets, but we also stopped in at the Australia Zoo on the drive up, and then took a few days trips to Fraser Island and Lady Elliot Island as well.

The deadly hose is allowed to roam free at the Australia Zoo.

First up, the Australia Zoo. The Australia Zoo is the home of Steve Irwin's biggest and baddest crocs. The Irwin family is well represented here, with a life size bronze statue of the four of them greeting you at the entrance. Both Bindi and Bob, Steve's children, have action figures, dolls, and a series of books named after them. It's pretty impressive. The zoo itself is a massive park and you can easily spend the day here, feeding kangaroos, getting up close and personal with koalas, and watching all the different animal shows and information sessions that the park offers.

Oddly cute little things

Crocs!

Tamborine Mountain/Byron Bay/Springbrook National Park

We were very fortunate to have some visitors over the past little while. Alex & Linda, Alan's parents came for a visit. They proved themselves to be intrepid travelers, staying awake until almost 10 pm on their first night in Oz, after arriving on the 7 am flight from LA. I'm fairly certain Alan and I didn't make it past 6 pm on our first few nights in Brisbane. It was so nice to have people staying in the "guest wing" of our apartment, in fact it felt very empty after they left for Sydney. Thank you so much for traveling the long distance to visit us, Alex and Linda! We had a wonderful time!

Our first weekend together took us out to see Tamborine Mountain, Byron Bay, and Springbrook National Park.

Tamborine Mountain is in the Gold Coast hinterlands, and is an artsy little town filled with galleries, shops (including a cuckoo clock shop), wineries, and restaurants. Alan and I were here a little while ago on a very rainy weekend, and the place was empty, which was probably a contributing factor to our cuckoo clock purchase. With Alex and Linda, we were fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day and Tamborine Mountain was transformed into a bustling hive of activity. We took a walk to a waterfall, wandered the shops, and had lunch with some lorikeets at the Polish Place restaurant (where the views are considerably better when it's not pouring rain and foggy).

Here are some pictures from Tamborine Mountain!

A little walk through the rainforest.

Good God, it's been a while!

So much has happened!

Brisbane almost flooded again.
We went to Hawaii, and met up with my mum and papa, and bro and sis-in-law, Chris and Lis!
We had a few visitors through Brisbane to see us. Cousins Sarah, Steve and Isabella. Uncle Peter. And the main attraction, Alex and Linda came to stay!

Just sorting through photos, and will be posting some over the next few days. Watch this space!

Things that are different!

Canada and Australia are similar in a number of ways, and moving here has certainly eased us into the whole "living abroad/expat" mentality. That being said, there are lots of little differences that we've noticed over the last 6 months, especially since I started working at a hospital again.

Without further ado, I bring you... (drumroll please!)

Things that are different about Australia! 

Sorry for the lacklustre title

 First off, before we even delve into the concrete terminological differences, we should start with the simple linguistics of things. You know, putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle and pronouncing things completely wrong. I swear that people look at me strangely on a daily basis.

Garage - Gare-age, not ga-rah-ge
Debut - day-boo, not day-bew
Jasper - Jas-pah, not Jas-per
Knife - Knoife, not knife (this one's for Lanair)


Thrilling stuff! Ready for more fun? And away we go!

 Out and About

Capsicum - red bell pepper
Rocket - arugula
Lemonade - fizzy lemon soda
Lemon squash - A more sour version of lemonade as above, but more like the lemonade that we're familiar with
Bottleshop or Bottle-o - Liquor store
Arvo - afternoon
Petrol - Gas
Ta - Thank you
Tea - a drink, but also a meal, as in morning or afternoon tea. This gets confusing when parents ask where they can get tea at the hospital, and I say "I'll grab you a cuppa", (feeling all hip to the aussie slang) and I ask them how they like it, and then I get a weird look and a clarification "I meant my evening tea". Oh. Ok, right.*sigh*
Chemist - Pharmacy
Rice Bubbles - Rice Krispies

Hospital

Paracetamol & Panadol - Acetaminophen and Tylenol (same exact drug, completely different name)
Nurofen (ibuprofen) - Advil 
Amethocaine or Angel cream (topical anaesthetic cream) - Ametop
Wee - Pee
Nappy - Diaper
Bubs - Babies
(Sidebar - Can you imagine the looks I get when I ask about babies, pee and diapers at work? Oh, and for the record, the top of a baby's bottle is a teat, not a nipple. *sigh*)
Cannula or drip - An intravenous, or IV as we would refer to them at home
"The cannula has tissued" - "The IV has gone interstitial" - Or in layman's terms, "the IV is no longer in the vein" 
Bloods - Bloodwork
Ambo - EMT/Paramedic

When you write the date on a chart, it's day, month, year, which makes sense, but then I start to second guess myself, and the order of things and get all confused and wind up sneaking a peek at something else to figure out the right way to write the date.

Around the home

Lift - Elevator
Roller door - Garage door
Spanner - Wrench
Lounge - Sofa
Air Con - air conditioning, not a new airline catering to convicts (bahaha!)
Thongs - Flip Flops, sandals
Toilet - Washroom/Bathroom/Restroom/etc.
Rubbish bin/Wheelie bin - garbage can

Well, that's all for now folks!

Christmas in Oz!

Hello again!

I thought I would share some pictures from our first Australian Christmas. It certainly was a different kind of Christmas this year!

Our Target Christmas tree

Before Christmas, my parents and I participated in the inaugural Inter-Continental Christmas Cinnamon Bun Bake Off. We set up our respective computers in our kitchens, started a FaceTime chat and made cinnamon buns together. It was so much fun, it almost felt like we were in the kitchen together baking. Almost.

The Inaugural Inter-Continental Christmas Cinnamon Bun Bake Off begins!

You know the saying, "it's 5 o'clock somewhere"? Well, I made good use of it on baking day. And it was close to 5pm in Calgary, so I felt justified in my mid morning drinking. (Don't worry, I CAGE'd myself before imbibing.)

I was showing my parents the finished product

We chuckled to ourselves on Christmas eve, because the air con was on full blast and it was warm and humid outside, creating condensation on our patio sliding doors. It was almost like at home, when it gets so cold outside that it causes the condensation on the inside of windows to freeze. Don't worry, our air conditioner wasn't able to create frost, but in a weird way, it felt a little like home, but backwards. But hey, we are "down under" after all!

Santa was doing some pre Christmas jet-skiing on the Brisbane River earlier on Christmas eve day.

On Christmas Day we woke up and did some more mid-morning drinking.
Mimosas, just like at home!
And we had our cinnamon buns, just like at home!
And we sat on the patio, because it was already 28 degrees outside, just like at... Oh no, wait, that's different...

Merry Christmas!

Chrismosas

Cinnamon buns

Patio time

Chilling on the patio

At this point we decided to embrace the lack of cold weather and snow, and we headed to the beach for the afternoon.

Just laying in the water

Playing in the waves

Mudjimba North Shore beach

There was sand everywhere in our car after this...

He's a water dog, through and through

Alan & Jasper

Amanda & Jasper

We headed home, and made our Christmas dinner (just like at home!) and sat on the patio to enjoy it (not just like at home!)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Dog in Oz!

He's finally here! After 5 months of planning and bloodwork and paperwork and $$$, Jasper has finally arrived in Oz. Alan and I took a road trip to Sydney this weekend to pick up the pupperton. It would have been fairly easy to have Jasper flown from Sydney to Brisbane, but we figured his last plane ride was 14 hours so he'd be a little stressed out if he went on another one. And hey, what better way to see a country than by road-trip?

Yup, that's a windsock in the middle of the motorway...

For a second there, I was worried about Harry Potter's house elf... But he's Dobby, not Nobby. Phew!

My favourite billboard of the trip. "Road crashes affect more than just you. Don't rush" with a picture of a rather grumpy looking surgeon.

By the time the weekend rolled around, we were quite glad of our decision to drive to Sydney and get him because SE Queensland and New South Wales experienced quite the heat wave this weekend, with temperatures around the 40 degree Celsius mark. Not exactly good pet flying conditions.

Hot! Thank goodness for A/C!

We stayed overnight in the Eastern Creek area, close to the quarantine station. The quarantine station only releases animals between the hours of 10 and 10:30 in the morning on weekends, and we didn't want to be delayed by any traffic incidents or GPS issues, so I found the closest hotel to the quarantine station. And we were there waiting by 9:45 on Sunday morning. My dad would be proud. There were a few other families waiting to collect their pets as well. So we joined the queue and waited. By 10:00 the doors opened, and we were in! They checked our ID, and made sure there was nothing owing on our account, then they took us in where they had all the animals scheduled to be picked up that day. They had them in their crates on a truck, not sure why, I wonder what would happen if you didn't make it in time for the 30 minute collection window... Would they just leave him out on the road with his crate and a sign that says "Brisbane or Bust"?

Lots of stickers on his crate.

Fit to fly checklist

Baggage tag?

Alan took a video of our reunion, but it basically shows me fidgeting (I was so nervous!) and Jasper's reaction was pretty much as follows.

Quarantine staff member brings him off the truck
Jasper - "Freedom! I'm so excited!"
He rushes past me, in a excited flurry, then catches our familiar scent
Jasper - "Oh hey I know you guys!" Sniffs some more. "Great, glad you're here. Okay, now, how do I get out of here? You have opposable thumbs, let's do this people!"
He was so anxious to find the exit that I'm not sure he totally realized who we were until we got to the car. Where he promptly pissed on Australian soil.

I just had the strangest dream, or wait...

We drove past the quarantine station both going to and coming from the Blue Mountains and it is a massive facility. Check it out on Google Earth (Eastern Creek Animal Quarantine Intake Station).

We spent the night in Mullaway, just past Coff's Harbour, in a little beach shack. It was a great little spot, and we'll definitely be back, seeing as it's pet friendly and all. We took a walk on the beach on Sunday night, Jasper went for a swim, dug some holes on the beach, and tried to eat dead sea urchins and seaweed.

Mullaway Beach, just a short walk away

Reunited and it feels so good

Roo guard

 The next morning, I was up early and was doing dishes when a kangaroo hopped past our patio. So exciting! Prior to this, I had only seen kangaroos at the koala sanctuary, so this was pretty neat to see one in the wild, up close and personal. Jasper was shocked. It was the biggest rabbit he had ever seen. Ever. Of course, the camera wasn't closeby so we didn't get a photo, but it was pretty cool. (Last night, we saw a possum on our walk. The biggest squirrel he had ever seen. Ever. I think his first impression of Australia is that everything is bigger here.)

Our beach shack, the kangaroo stopped right on the wooden pathway beside the small green plant

Having a dog here means that, aside from the poisonous spiders and snakes, there's also a paralysis tick to worry about. So our first stop in Brisbane was at the pet store, to pick up a tick collar, flea treatment and heartworm prevention. The tick collar has a minty odour so he smells minty fresh at the moment. And his first full day in Brisbane just happens to be the hottest day in 11 years, so we have been hanging out indoors, enjoying the air conditioning.

It's quite strange actually, because as weird as it feels to finally have him here with us, at the same time, it feels as though he's always been here.

Home sweet home.

Next post - Blue Mountains!