Australia - Brisbane - Lest We Forget and Back Alley Gambling

Sidenote: for the curious out there (looking at you, Carly), the kangaroo meat was purchased, prepared and mostly consumed by none other than Mick the Australian, though he didn't want to eat it anymore either after Colin and Ingrid ragged on it as dog meat.

This past Saturday, April 25th was ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day in Australia, the second biggest holiday after Australia Day. Like Canada's Remembrance Day, everyone gathers to pay tribute to those who have served in the wars and to those in service around the world today. Australia holds candlelit dawn services all over the country to mark the occasion. For some reason, the dawn of said services started at 4:30am instead of when the sun actually rises at 6am.

However, once the dawn service is out of the way, the tone of the day changes quite dramatically. Where Canadians would file away from ceremonies dressed in dark clothes with jackets pinned with poppies and solemnity abound in remembrance, Australians disperse to "raise a glass" for ANZAC. Actual motto of the day.

I opted for my ANZAC Day experience to center more around the latter spirit of the day instead of the getting up at 4am part. I attended an ANZAC day BBQ (of course), where the orders of the day included a blind beer tasting competition before lunch and a fiercely competitive game of Two-Up in the back alley. Not kidding - our whole party of about twenty people were yelling at coins on a blanket in the alleyway behind our host's house for an hour.

For those who are unfamiliar with the game (like myself), Two-Up is gambling based on coin tosses. There are two coins; you bet that both will be heads or both will be tails. It's that simple. I'm appalling at gambling games but managed to not be the first person out of play money, quite a coup for me. Mysteriously, this game is illegal in Australia every day of the year except for ANZAC Day. No one knew why.

You almost want to wish people a Happy ANZAC Day. That's how festive the day felt at times. After the gambling, it was back to the booze. After all, those glasses aren't going to raise themselves to the veterans and the troops overseas.

Australia - Brisbane - Wildlife Encounters At Home and Away

It was only a matter of time before I had my first encounter with a kangaroo in Australia.

What I didn't expect was for it to happen in my kitchen. Rather than sighting a roo bounding footloose and fancy-free around my backyard or alongside the car on a highway, I observed one diced, marinaded and fried in a container in my fridge. In the spirit of adventure, I did try some. It wasn't too bad - a lot like beef or venison, but with a stronger flavour. I don't think I could sit down and eat a whole steak of it. Certainly not as keen on kangaroo as I was on alpaca. And now that Ingrid and Colin have repeatedly insisted that kangaroo meat isn't fit for dogs, I'm even less of a fan.

And kangaroo in my fridge was not the only wildlife in my kitchen this week. As previously mentioned, we have a bit of an issue with ants in our house. What I had not realized is that ants are a tasty snack for geckos, and in a house with open windows and no screens, the geckos can't help but be lured indoors by the feasting potential within. They also eat mosquitos, so at first I had no issue with our lizard roommates. But another thing I learned this week about geckos is that they can be a bit territorial. To the point of dive-bombing resident humans. I am now a bit wary of them as they scuttle overhead on the ceiling. When I had the back door open the other day, a pair of them menacingly scurried in my direction. I gave them a very evil eye promising them a nasty end. It was a bit of a stalemate for a few minutes. Luckily, they didn't call my bluff and wandered back outside.

Fortunately, this week I also had my second encounter with a kangaroo and this time it was alive and eating food out of my hand at Australia Zoo, in no danger from my BBQ. The lazy little grey kangaroo (little in comparison to his cousin the red kangaroo) wouldn't deign to get up for his snack, and like a Roman emperor remained reclined to nibble at his pellets. Seeing as these roos lounge around all day in a walk-through enclosure with zillions of tourists eager to offer them some grub, I guess I can understand that they've gotten a bit choosy.

A much more exciting feeding that same day was for the crocodile in the Crocoseum. Apparently Steve Irwin, the beloved Crocodile Hunter whose family manages the zoo, was inspired to build the Crocoseum after seeing some movie starring his friend Russell. You may have heard of it... Gladiator. But in his nature-loving ways, instead of having man vs. beast in the arena, the Crocoseum highlights how to live alongside each other.



I have to say, I couldn't take my eyes off that crocodile for even a second while he was moving around the arena.



I really don't know how these people hand feed these dinosaurs on a daily basis!

At one point under heavy security from adult wranglers, Bindi Irwin was feeding the croc and you could really sense how the croc did not differentiate between the meat strip in her hand and the rest of her arm. The look in his eyes and body language said she would make a tasty lunch. Bindi was responsible enough to remind kids in the audience at the end of the show that just because she fed a croc today by hand, that doesn't mean they should go home and try it in their backyards.

Less enjoyable about the show in the Crocoseum was the opening segment. Now, as many of you know, my greatest pet peeve in life is when people work the crowd. I find it incredibly patronizing and inauthentic. And at this show, I got to sit through almost 40 minutes straight of it, the worst of it being the "Crikey!"-off. I wish I'd made that up. And it was followed by 6-7 songs from Bindi's Jungle Dancy Party. Ughhhhhhhhh. Now, I have no problem with Bindi being a child star and entertaining children with songs and dances about animals. I just don't want to attend her concerts. Is that so unreasonable? To give you an idea, there was one song where she walked out leading a pony and sang a song whose chorus was "I love horses". Not kidding. She and the pony just stood together for most of the song. I'm just saying, they probably could have set up a separate showing for the Jungle Dance Party and left me to enjoy the awesome croc feeding show in peace.

Australia Zoo was pretty great on the whole there - put in a good six hours wandering around the place. I learned that otters are the greatest escape artists on the planet, having disassembled the nuts and bolts of their enclosure in one instance; koalas have two opposable thumbs and are every bit as adorable as the hype suggests; elephants can spray but not drink through their trunks; tigers enjoy playing in the water; alligators are extremely long-lived; crocodiles can recognize voices; and the Woma python is my new favourite snake, since it eats venomous snakes.

Australia - Brisbane - The Expanding Backpack and the Peach House

After my short but sweet visit in Mona Vale, I flew up the coast to my home for the next two months: Brisbane. Carolyn, Gavin and Alysa drove me out to the airport (there was some concern as to whether my flight would go out due to some blackouts in the city, but it all worked out) and I was fortunate in scoring yet another airport pick up at my destination, this time courtesy of Mick's family, which was very kind of them considering we'd never met before.

Upon landing, Brisbane was already a good deal warmer and more humid than Sydney and I had been obliged to wear jeans on the flight, as my backpack had become ridiculously crowded over the previous week or so. Up to this point in the trip, I have been traveling very light. We're talking five shirts, three pairs of pants and two pairs of shoes, including what I wear. So yes, I do a lot of laundry and wear clothes out pretty quickly. Also, this enabled me to carry my own bag most of the time, notably up the Inca death staircase on Isla del Sol. However, as I intend to get a temp office job while I'm here, I had to upgrade the wardrobe substantially. Neither hikers nor flipflops are really ideal interview shoes and my t-shirts were in shambles. So after shopping in NZ, Sydney and Carolyn's closet, my bag ballooned up from 12.5 to 21 kg.

I reassured myself that this was alright because I would be unpacking and hanging up my clothes in a closet upon arrival. But when that bag rolled around on the luggage carousel with an angry green HEAVY sticker, I felt a bit guilty over maybe overdoing it. Not guilty enough to carry it myself though... Mick was kind enough to volunteer and I was lazy enough to accept his offer. Although an annoyance at the time, it was definitely worthwhile - I've already had occasion to wear my new dress shoes three or four times this week and it's swell not having to do the wash every five days.



I've moved into a peach coloured house with a bright pink door shared with Mick and his friends Colin and Ingrid. Colin enjoys Xbox, bacon and running the taps when others are in the shower. Ingrid enjoys puppies, waking Mick up with a watergun to make her breakfast on holidays, and going to bed at exactly 9:05pm on weeknights. Safe to say we all get on well.



The house is all one floor but fairly spacious for four people. My favourite part of the house is the kitchen. And here's why - not only do they have an entire freezer devoted to meat, they also have an entire full size fridge just for beer (in addition to the small scotch keg and the wine rack, of course). No joke. I also enjoy the front yard, because the two cars are parked on the lawn - no driveway to speak of really.



I have a front bedroom with loads of sunlight (a lil too early in the morning... I'm awake most days by 6:30am because it's so bright) and far too many neighbouring birds in the front yard tree. Between 4-7am, our house sounds like we live in a rainforest reserve. It's easy to forget how LOUD animals are. The choir of crows and magpies and geckos sounding off all morning is quite a racket to wake up to in the morning. And I'm on the quieter side of the house!

In case any of you were worried that I've relaxed my guard, I continue to eye anything alive with the suspicion that it could kill me. I'm keeping a very close watch on the small spider in the corner of my room, but he seems pretty chilled out up there, so I'm leaving him be for now. There is also a persisting rumour that our back shed has a resident carpet snake, who I am not eager to meet. Our biggest problem is ants, because the windows are always open and there are no screens on them to keep the bugs out, but on the scale of threatening wildlife in Australia, I'm happy to settle for ants in the cupboard.

When I'm not being paranoid that something venomous is out for my life, I'm just getting some sort of life organized here. I had a quick visit with my cousin Kim this week, who is also wandering around Australia. She dropped in for dinner and an overnight en route to the Gold Coast. Aside from her visit, this week was full of exciting activities like opening a bank account here, getting a tax file number, job applications, one phone interview, baking cookies that are consumed astonishly quickly by my roommates, making my dad's homous, meeting my roommates' friends and families, cleaning the house, two naps, etc. I haven't really wandered into downtown Brisbane just yet, but since I'll be here for awhile, there's no hurry on that count.

Australia - Mona Vale - En Garde, Nature and Vegemite!

Well friends, I made it to the land down under. My first few days here were spent in Mona Vale in the northern beaches area just outside Sydney with some family friends. Carolyn is our neighbour Barb's daughter and she got married and moved to Australia about five years ago. She, her husband Gavin, her adorable baby girl Alysa and their incredibly well-behaved dog Fudge were my hosts in Mona Vale.

First off, I had no idea Sydney would be so big! Watching it as the airplane landed, you could see the urban sprawl in every direction. Added bonus to my flight was that I was on the right side of the plane to see the harbour and opera house as we came down. I didn't actually get into Sydney to do much sightseeing this time around, as I was happy just to visit and poke around the beaches. Plus, Mehron is on her way here to meet me in less than two months and we'll be making the rounds in Sydney in June, so best save the big ticket sites for then, right?

Mona Vale, I've been told by Gavin, is the centre of the universe, which is the kind of claim you'd think would appear on the town signs, but no. Carolyn amended the statement to Mona Vale being the centre of Gavin's universe. Ha ha. It is however home to an incredible gourmet pie shop (the staple of Australian cuisine, almost as common as burgers, savoury not sweet). I spent almost ten minutes struggling to decide between spinach and feta or chicken brie and avocado (I went for the second). They must have had about thirty different kinds!



Anyway, Mona Vale is a lovely place altogether. When driving around, golden beaches peek out from random directions and you can see the sea air over the roads sometimes - that's how humid it is here. My incredibly hospitable hosts were concerned that I might be cold and put extra blankets on my bed. Too cute - me having just come from 10 degree rainy Dunedin to sunny 24 degree Sydney. I had to go shopping because all of my clothes are too hot!

Also did I mention they have a pool in their backyard? You know what I like about pools? No sharks. Also, no jellyfish. And no rip tides. Or any of the usual life threatening forces of the Australian oceans.

And first meal I was served was butterfly lamb on the bbq. At no point did they force feed me Vegemite sandwiches. Best of all, unlike the Discovery Channel portrays, I don't find a Sydney funnel web spider in my shoes every time I go to put them on, nor have I found any snakes under my bed. At least, not yet - it is still early on. Still plenty of time for the Island of Death (as my friend Emily affectionately nicknamed Australia) to catch me off guard and cause my demise.