Here I sit with my cuppa, in our cozy living room, with the snow falling outside and a fire burning inside. Since this will likely be one of my very last blog posts, unless we embark on some other significant family adventures in the future, it threatens to be a very long one. Consider yourself warned if you've followed this blog at all. We are now home, unpacked, mostly organized, starting to feel less effects of jet lag, and feeling all kinds of feelings. Firstly, we are feeling so thankful that this year went by without any major catastrophes. Secondly, one moment there is all kinds of joy at feeling cozy and comfy in our own home and with our lovely friends, and the next minute we feel some level of grief at leaving behind a life that no one here can relate to, or even begin to know about. When we flew away from Australia, it's almost as if we flew out of some sort of weird vortex that closed up behind us. I can now say that reverse culture shock is a real thing (one tiny example being my tendency to want to drive in the left lane every time I make a right or left turn). And we are still wondering how to answer the question: "How was your year?", and how to ask the same question of others, as well as how to not start too many sentences with: "In Australia..." while the eyes around us, understandably, start to glaze over and ears start to tune out.
For now, we are left with keeping in touch with a few dear far-away friends, and wonderful bonding memories that we can relive any time we want to with our little family of five. I think it will take a while for Kevin and I to process how we may have changed over the last year, and how those changes fit with the life that we had / will have here in Canada. I see it as a new adventure, with new and old all mixed together on the horizon. It is so good. We are so grateful.
Some finales in the last weeks...
Final living-out-Man-From-Snowy-River fantasy.
Final Aussie play.
Final truly hot days.
Final Dubbo-brew.
Final sightings of typical Aussie utes.
Final chance to buy typical Aussie hats.
Final schnitty Tuesday at the pub.
Final get together with our water park (aka: wet and wild) Thursday family.
Final "South" staff party - barefoot bowls.
Final workmate gift: Kevin. Whenever they need him.
Final DCS assembly.
Final day at DCS - goodbye lovely Miss Beikoff!
Final Connect Group get together.
Final Monday swim with Joey's best bud - Etie.
Final Friday swim.
Final fresh mango - sob!
Final crap parking job. (I could parallel park like a champ, but could not regular-park for the life of me!)
Final day in uniform....
...celebrated with a bottle of bubbly.
Final warm evening chat on the patio with fairy lights.
There were so very many more "finals" that I did not catch on camera. Most that we will miss dearly, and a very few others, not so much (863 barking dogs at all hours in the neighbourhood, flies on our faces, and dust everywhere are the main ones).
And, finally, on to our final Aussie family vacation...
******************************
If we had an Australian bucket list, climbing to the top of the continent (highly likely our only chance to say this) on Mount Kosciuszko would most definitely have been on that list. This, and the fact that we wanted to spend Christmas at the beach, in a tent, without roasting in the hot Aussie sun, guided our decision to head south for our final holiday. Unfortunately, all of the places we went to on our final holiday are now under serious threat of fire. We can picture so many of the places that are currently burning in NSW and Victoria, and I continue to obsess a little over the Australian "Fires Near Me" app. It is absolutely devastating. Hopefully, our photos and experiences can help others connect at least a tiny bit to what's happening in other parts of the world when we are so far away.
Our first day of driving, we headed to Kosciuszko National Park to spend a couple of nights. We were very quickly accosted by possums who have obviously eaten from the hands of humans at some point in their lives. Other than us and the possums, there was a large group staying at the park that appeared to be taking part in a Hindu men's retreat. They were extremely friendly, inviting us to join them in eating their huge vats of curry for dinner. Unfortunately, they ate their dinner well after we were in bed at night.
On our first (and only) full day, we headed straight to the ski town of Thredbo to take the Kosciuszko Express Chairlift up to the summit walk. This walk was a definite highlight of our year away. It is about 13 km return from the top of the chairlift, gently sloping up to the summit, which is a mere 2200 m in elevation. It was a beautiful walk, and the kids were superstars (especially Josiah, whose little legs carried him the whole 13 km). We all fully enjoyed it, and had fun riding the chairlift up and down a number of times at the end. We weren't sure how the weather or the smoke would cooperate with our plans, but it turned out to be a gorgeous 26 degrees with very little smoke on the horizon. Today, Kosciuszko National Park is evacuated due to fire danger in the area. It is somewhat hard to believe that we were just there on such a beautiful sunny day.
Snow!!!
The summit, in the background.
Crazy Canadian kid.
We made it! The tippy top of Australia!
Lunch at the top of a continent.
Bum-sledding.
Calla made a new friend on our way down the mountain.
I earned the nickname "Red Socks". I never sunscreen the bottom of my legs! I guess I should have known when being at the top of a continent that is extremely sun-conscious. Crazy Canadian.
The kids and I took a dip in the frigid Lake Jindabyne after our big walk. Really, it was probably the same temperature as most Canadian lakes. Refreshing!
For our Christmas on the beach, we headed to a holiday park just outside of Narooma on the south coast of NSW. I figured it was far enough away from Sydney, although closer to Canberra, that we might avoid some of the holiday crowds. I was right, until December 26th rolled around. It seemed all of ACT came down to Narooma on Boxing Day. Thankfully, we left on the 27th. The holiday park was great. It had lots of bells and whistles (big pool, ocean waves lulling us to sleep, big trees, bouncy pillow, trampolines, and the essential camp kitchen and bbqs), but not ALL of the bells and whistles that some holiday parks have to attract heaps of people. We do like people, but we love quiet spaces, nature, and small groups. I was quite happy with our choice.
One thing we appreciated about Australian Christmas is that it felt quite low-key and far less commercialized than North American Christmas. This may have been partly due to the fact that we did not decorate or have a bunch of festivities to attend. But, we did notice that not many people decorated the outside of their homes, we didn't see all kinds of ads about buying gifts, and we didn't hear a lot of people winge (complain) about how busy they were or how much money they "had" to spend on family and friends. It was quite refreshing, actually. Another new Christmas experience for us was Carols by Candlelight. Apparently, every little town and big city has a Carols by Candlelight evening where different musicians sing or play Christmas carols for the whole community. People sit on lawn chairs or picnic rugs and sing along and bring picnic-type things (including grog; or no grog, depending on the community). And, like every good Aussie community event, there is a sausage sizzle available (equivalent to Alberta's beef on a bun). We had the privilege of attending two Carols by Candlelight events (well, the big kids and I did - Jo had a significant "moment" that landed him, and Kevin, in the car for two hours while the rest of us enjoyed the festivities with friends at the Dubbo event). Take-two was a small town event at Tuross Head on the south coast overlooking a golf course full of kangaroos that we all got to enjoy.
Another exchange family who lived up the coast a couple of hours away joined us for a few nights at our holiday park. They just happen to be from south Calgary, so we look forward to catching up with them again. We had a really great visit, and the kids had lots of fun together too.
Australia Rock and lounging seals.
Walking along the boardwalk in Narooma was like walking along a giant aquarium. We saw stingrays, puffer fish, sea stars and cucumbers.
The kids loved playing in the soft sand. This was our first beach with an actual shark net. We thought maybe it was there because it was at the mouth of a large river and there were fatty delicious seals all over the place for the taking.
We went on a couple of beautiful walks, but all of the national parks in the area were closed due to fire danger so we did not venture too far. We also explored the picturesque little town of Tilba Tilba that is perched on a hillside with cattle grazing nearby and filled with trendy little historic shops and gorgeous flowery trees. I loved it there.
On Christmas Eve day, we headed to the beach town of Bermagui to enjoy some perfect boogie boarding waves and delicious fish and chips for our dinner.
The kids opened their traditional "something to wear" present on Christmas Eve on the beach, as requested...
...and watched The Polar Express in the tent.
We spent Christmas morning opening presents in the tent, and eating bbq'd bacon and eggs...
...then headed to Narooma to look at coastal creatures, have a sausage sizzle lunch, and play on the beach.
Christmas dinner was homemade pizza and pavlova for dessert.
We had a perfect beach day on the 26th at Mystery Bay, finding a pretty secluded little spot to play and explore. It was gorgeous. And at the end of the day, there was one other woman on our beach who I was able to pass on our beach shelter and boogie boards to, so we didn't have to cart them any further.
Kevin thought we'd better be able to say that we "threw some shrimp on the barbie" while in Oz, so that was our last night's activity. It was delicious and we all gobbled them up, but let me just say that Aussies don't actually do this on a regular basis. First of all, they call them prawns, not shrimp. Second of all, the Aussies we've talked to tend to buy pre-cooked, cold prawns from the grocery store.
The next day, we drove all the way back to Dubbo-area (Narromine, to be exact) to spend the evening and night with our dear friends. They very generously offered to drive us and all of our luggage (plus their family of 7) to Sydney to take us to a most entertaining Big Bash League cricket game.
Our caravan drove through Dubbo the next morning, where we were able to pick up our luggage, say hello to Kevin's exchange partner, say goodbye to lovely folks, and eat a gay-time breakfast (promised all year and supplied by Kevin's sponsor / coworker). It was a flurry of activity after a very short night of sleep.
The famous gay-time treat. So good.
Our beautiful neighbour, Deirdre. I will surely miss our coffee dates.
Our exchange partner's family and Joey's sweet classmate.
Alison - Kevin's lovely exchange partner.
And we were off!
We left the Haddons at their campsite and loaded our luggage into their van to drive to our airport hotel. We then met the Haddons at the game, but Kevin could not find parking as the game was totally sold out. He and Brett turned up about 40 minutes late, but after that, we had a most fabulous time! BBL cricket is very fast paced and the energy in the stadium was contagious. It was Sydney Sixers vs. Sydney Thunder, and the Sixers won in a super over. We couldn't have had a better, more fitting send off. And we got to share it with real kindred friends. We are so grateful.
Joey passed out for a good portion of the game, and it was another night ending at midnight with the train ride back to our hotel.
Rylan thought that going to the cricket was way more fun than watching baseball.
The members (I think that's what they were called) sat beneath this historical green-roofed area. Every time the crowd did "the wave" and it made it to the members, the whole crowd booed.
A sad farewell to the Haddon family. Until we meet again!
After another very short night in our comfy hotel beds, we had a giant breakfast buffet and headed to the airport. It all went pretty smoothly, and we were so thankful, yet again, that we had a ride to Sydney with all of our luggage.
One little hiccup we encountered was a surprise need for a travellers visa to travel through New Zealand. In our opinion, this new requirement was very poorly communicated, as Kevin checked into it when he booked our tickets a couple of months ago. At any rate, $60 NZ and 10 minutes later, we were cleared to travel through. Could be worse. And I guess we can say we've been to New Zealand. If only to hang out in the airport for about an hour.
The kids probably had about 15 hours of screen time over the next 20-something hours, but were pretty happy about it.
Being an emotionally "quiet" person, I finally had a chance to sit and process while watching a sad movie to get some tears flowing on the long flight. Goodbyes are hard.
And...here we are. Back in the great white north. We had a beautiful homecoming, coming full circle with the Farrelly family picking us up at the airport and making sure our house was ready for us (including some groceries in the fridge, and a delicious meal from another lovely family). We have had some beautiful reunions with friends, and we are enjoying the ease and comfort of home and familiarity. We have funny little musings; like walking into a store and expecting to be the only ones with Canadian accents trying not to be too obvious or loud about it, only to realize that everyone around us sounds the same. It will take a bit of time to adjust to life back in Canada, without a bunch of big adventures on the horizon, but we hope we don't get too comfortable. One of our goals that has come out of this year is to try and find ways to be uncomfortable in our everyday lives. We know that this year is just a tiny piece of our family's story, but we are so thankful that we were able to experience such a life-interrupting year together. We haven't figured out just how life-changing it has been, but we hope to be able to carry the lessons we've learned and the memories we've made for many years to come.
