Wildlife

Life's a zoo down here...

Summer in Oz

Clancy's lunch with Lyn, Bridget and David

The riding chicks and the paddling chicks (below)

Summer was the name of my horse on Fri. as we set off through the bush. She seemed to be in a snit over something and flattened her ears whenever any of the other horses were nearby - perhaps it was the novice rider she had to cart around for a few hours in the heat. At one point she apparently had had enough walking and thought galloping really fast was a good idea. I lost one stirrup almost immediately and while clinging like a burr, attempted to rein her in. Despite there being two horses directly in her path, she paid no attention and caromed off them like a pinball. At least they slowed her down enough for me to get back in the saddle, as they say. We walked the rest of the way, other than the times we jumped sideways when kangaroos were nearby. I saw one fox, a mob of 'roos and no snakes (yea!).

I'm moving pretty slowly today but have to get limber enough for dragon boating tomorrow night. I've persuaded Lyn to take advantage of having the Garden Gnome in residence, so I'm cleaning up her front yard tomorrow. Since I have no idea what constitutes a weed and a plant here in Western Australia, she'll have to stay in the vicinity, lest the Gnome alters her garden beyond recognition.

Scotch on the Beach

My friend Lyn and I were on a drive up the coast and just passing through Cottesloe when she swerved into a parking lot exclaiming that Scotch on the Beach was on. Here we go, I thought, another drinking opportunity in Australia and it's only 10 am and 35 C. Turned out that I didn't hear the -ture as in Sculpture. Each year, international artists are invited to install their works on the beach in this town with a gorgeous seascape as a backdrop.

If you've noticed a dearth of posts to this blog, it's because I've been too busy relaxing! Outdoor movies and concerts, kayaking on the Swan River (taking care not to roll into the water amid the big brown jellyfish that were everywhere), and dragon boating seem to take up a lot of my time.

Today we picked up David Edwards and his friend Bridget at the cruise ship pier and gave them a tour of Fremantle and the Little Creatures brewery, the sculptures at Cottesloeand the riverside drive into Perth. They fly out to Auckland tomorrow after a cruise all around Australia, including Bali.

Tomorrow I'm horseback riding with another friend and will hopefully get a half-dead pony who's not afraid of snakes or kangaroos, which I'm told we'll see. Next week is a two-day trip to Rottnest Island for biking, barbequing and drinking wine. Actually drinking wine is a regular activity wherever I happen to be.

Just so I don't forget...petrol here is $1.29/l and in NZ it was $2.02 - I guess we don't have it so bad. Relatives are rellies, cookies are bisquits and bisquits are bikkies. This weekend is Labour Day and I just took in the concert and fireworks just down the street. It's rained once here since Nov. so there's very little chance that any of these outdoor activities will be cancelled - what a great country!

Hot, hot hot!

Arrived in Perth after a 7 hour flight from Auckland only to wait on the tarmac while an electrical storm cleared the area. Apparently those Aussie ground crews don't like working around lightening. I was sitting in the annoying traveller section with a kid kicking my seat in back and a very large woman in front who interspersed pacing the aisles with flinging herself into her seat. I had visions of the seat and the woman landing in my lap, severing my legs, or at the very least, badly bruising them. I was ready to kill someone by the time I made it through immigration, customs and the fruit, nut, honey check.

My friend Lyn was there waiting and we thankfully recognized each other. Neither one of us could remember when I had last been in Perth, but we think it was 2005. My other friends, Del and Joan, were waiting on Lyn's porch when we finally got home and we ate and drank until I was too tired to keep my eyelids up. The night had cooled off to 37 and I left salt stains on the sheets.

Tonight was dragon boat racing with Graham the steerer/coach in back yelling commands that I didn't understand, and the strokes up front setting far too fast a pace for my liking. Once Graham knew I was from Canada (my T-shirt with Canada in big letters across the front might have tipped him off), he encouraged us all to do Canadian racing starts which he assured us was the reason the Canadians were such a dragon-boating powerhouse - who knew?? Anyway, they were really hard and I'm sure most of my fellow boaters are hoping I don't come back, or maybe that Graham doesn't.

Lyn and I plotted out my time here until the end of the month and I think I have about 45 min. free next Tues. I may not have time to blog...

Bucket List - check!

Are you allowed to add things to your bucket list, do them and then check them off? Riding a motorcycle for miles on an NZ beach just wasn't on my bucket list radar, but I have to say it was a pretty memorable experience.

Wayne and I set off yesterday morning in order to hit low tide on a west coast beach outside of Auckland. We got stuck in the soft (deep!) sand on our way to the beach, had to offload the bikes and have someone tow us to the hard-packed sand 100m in front of us. Waves are very big and the sand is black in this part of NZ-beachland. The Piano was filmed just south of where we were. Beachgoers unload their 'toys' at the access point, and we saw surfers, dune buggies, 4x4s, kite surfers, "blow-carts" (an NZ invention), horseback riders and dirt bikes like ours. After what seemed like WAY too short a lesson, I was tentatively teetering down the beach in first gear. I got the hang of shifting pretty quickly but Wayne told me that "bikes aren't meant to go in a straight line" so then I had a whole new set of skills to worry about! Despite the weaving practice, I preferred going really fast in a straight line, with nothing to worry about but the odd piece of driftwood or a speedbump jellyfish. This beach is actually classified as an NZ highway and speeds are posted (60 km).

When we got back to the car, Wayne drove it through and I muscled my way on my bike through the deep sand alleyway to the parking area - the beer waiting in the cooler never tasted so good!

Auckland Zoo

Auckland lifestyle

Fifteen hundred residents a day travel by ferry to Auckland from Waiheke Island. Not a bad commute as commutes go.

You can't walk more than 20 feet in any direction without stumbling across a cafe, and the choice of coffees is astounding. I'm partial to latte with a triple shot of expresso, but I pay $5.60 for one of those babies. Starbucks has cracked the scene here but I haven't seen a Tim's anywhere around.

I was so appreciating the NZ countryside the other day as I labored up one of the 53 volcanoes that surround Auckland, not so much for the views, but for the ability to walk through knee-high grass without the slightest possibility of stepping on or near a snake. You gotta like a country with no snakes! Or anything else that can kill you for that matter, except maybe for the bus drivers. I rode with one yesterday who seemed intent on running down a cyclist and almost took off a young woman's nose who was standing too close to the bus lane - and she didn't have a big nose.