Couch Potato in Kinglake

Greetings from the land down under where men are blokes and friends are mates. You fill your car up with petrol from the bowser and the law-breaking rowdies are called hoons (a short form of hooligan or perhaps a cross between hood and goon?). Ring-tailed possums do not have rings around their tails, but their tails curl up into a ring as do the tails of every other type of possum. Dinner is called tea, even though tea doesn't factor into the meal at all. Linens, towels and the like are collectively known as manchester. A pickup truck is called a ute (short for utility vehicle) and an ATV is called a quad bike. (Think about that last one for a minute. Is it just me, or is there something inherently wrong with it?) I may not be accomplishing much here, but I am gaining a whole new vocabulary.

I thought it was time to write as I'm getting e-mails from people wondering if I still have a pulse. I do indeed have a pulse, however it's throbbing very slowly these days. I really haven't been doing too much since I returned back to Brian's place after my excursion down the Great Ocean Road. It's been nice to just live a normal life without having to think about where I'm going next.

The weather continues to puzzle and vex me. I thought that we had fickle weather in Canada, but it's nothing compared to southern Australia. It will be 40 and sunny one day and rainy and 12 the next. It has certainly been more of the former than the latter, and since they're in a horrible drought here, there is much rejoicing when the rains do come. Much of the state is still burning and the fire-fighters are really getting worn out. New Zealand, Canada (BC) and now the US (Idaho) have all sent in fire-fighters to help with the battle. Despite the devastation to the countryside, there has been almost no loss of livestock or homes - it's a real credit to the fire-fighters.

I am trying to run regularly, but on the particularly hot and dry days I can't manage it even in the early hours of the morning. It just sucks the moisture right out of me and I'm unable to complete even a kilometer. There is a pine plantation behind the hill that Brian lives on, so I climb up the hill and do my running through the baby pines. It's a great environment for it - the views are great and there are no vehicles on the roads back there. Just me and the beautifully colourful birds. Of course I keep my eyes peeled for snakes on the hike up the hill through the bush, but so far I haven't had any encounters. There are tons of tiny lizards that are really cute but move in a snake-like way and generally startle the bejezzus out of me.

Last weekend we took the kids to the annual Raspberry Fair at a nearby raspberry farm. It was just like country fairs everywhere in the world - rides for the kids, some market stalls and lots of good food. Unfortunately, due to the drought there are very few raspberries this year, so the pick-them-yourselfers were coming back from the fields with very little to show for their efforts. We got the kids hopped up on cotton candy and sno-cones and then delivered them to their mother :-).

This weekend Brian's son Jayden turned 7, so we went to his birthday party at the local cricket pitch. A dozen or so of his friends joined him in a cricket match and the adults all pretended to be fielders while nattering away among ourselves. It was a great party and the kids were happily occupied for three hours with the game.

Speaking of cricket, I have become quite an expert on the subject. This is not necessarily by choice, as this nation is more obsessed by cricket than Canada is by hockey, and it's impossible to avoid. I could even comment on the love lives of the players, but I'll spare you. There are five television stations in Australia and being out in the country, Brian only gets two. Now that the Australian Open is on, there is tennis all day on one and invariably some hugely important cricket match on the other. Just my kind of programming - NOT! I reckon that watching a cricket match is about as exciting as watching paint dry, and some of these games last for 5 days. FIVE DAYS! Who in their right mind plays a game that lasts five days? And how much must you be missing a life to actually watch a game that lasts five days? That is just beyond me. Now Australian rules football is another thing altogether, but it must be the wrong season for it as I haven't seen any on TV since I've been here.

I am leaving the day after tomorrow for Brisbane. I will be staying with a couple that I met on my tour in Peru in October of 2005. They are really lovely people and I'm really looking forward to seeing them. They both work shifts (nurse and cop) so I'm not sure how much time we'll all have together, but it sounds like they have plans for us to visit the beach and do some camping. It will also be nice for me to explore the city, as I remember Brisbane to be really beautiful. I must say that I'm really looking forward to the beach, as there is nowhere to swim around here (other than indoor pools) and I've missed that in the extreme heat.

I'll try to be more diligent in my blogging, and I expect that I'll have more to write about once I get moving again.