We are definitely having a cold winter here! After having an unusually rainy autumn, we’re now having an unusually cold winter. Check out the description of just how cold it’s been south of us (the vocab used is what Canadians use when it hits -20C!):
Fortunately, it wasn’t quite that bad in Central Queensland but the early morning temps hovered in the 4-8C range this past week and it only got up to around 20C in the day. Believe it or not, this feels VERY cold to us now – I wore a sweater (called “jumper” here) twice this week and we put the heat on most nights and first thing in the morning. I’ve also been getting nose bleeds this week as the humidity has typically been below 50%. The locals all report that this is unusually cold and when it does get this chilly, it usually only last a few days. It looks like things are starting to improve now – daytime highs 20-22 but only going down to 16-18 overnight. Thank goodness!
Something that is funny is that even though it’s always above 0 overnight and always around 20 during the day, it’s still cold and flu season! I totally don’t understand how that works. In Canada, we blamed cold temperatures and being indoors all the time for the spread of viruses. But here it’s not that cold and people are always still outdoors, yet respiratory viruses still proliferate. Very bizarre.
As much as we’re whinging about the cold mornings we’ve had this week, we still have spectacular afternoons. Hugh and I went for a bike ride with our fabulous eBikes last weekend and it was gorgeous! We biked south almost to Causeway Lake:
Not far from home, a couple ducks were enjoying the sun but staying out of what was presumably chilly water:
I’m not sure what kind of pipe that is, maybe water? It’s still so odd seeing pipes running above ground here!
Around Lammermoor Beach, someone started a rock snake last year:
It was much longer last year so I don’t know if it was taken down and started again more recently, but it’s such a fun idea! People paint rocks and keep adding them. I think it was only 600m long or so when we biked by and I’m sure it was over 1km last year.
Just before you get to Rosslyn Bay, there is what I call “Wonderland Mountain” – only those from Ontario will know why 🙂
It’s been so long since I’ve been to Canada’s Wonderland, I have no idea if Wonderland Mountain still looks like this, but I always remember thinking that the fake mountain was the coolest thing ever when I was a teen. Here of course it’s not a fake mountain, it’s for erosion control (I’m assuming). It’s a good time of year to see turtles close to the shore and Hugh and I stopped to watch some in the water here (no photos, I’m afraid, they surface very quickly and usually you just see their head pop up – but one did give us a wave of his flipper!).
As we continued past Rosslyn toward Mulambin, we were on a path we hadn’t taken before – and we saw this very curious sight:
Debbie M – we took this photo for you 🙂 What might not be apparent in this photo is that the horse somehow found his way to an island – from what we could see, he was surrounded by water. I know from watching Westerns on TV that horses do cross rivers and so obviously this one wasn’t too worried about what might be lurking in the water here. I don’t think it’s a crocodile zone, that would be closer to Causeway Lake.
Our aloe plants have been blooming in our fabulous winter weather. Here’s a couple in our front yard:
The Candelabra Aloes (we call them Tim Burton Plants, because they look like something that would be in one of his movies – they have razor sharp teeth!) have started blooming too. This one is huge (it was 6-8″ tall when we got it less than a year ago):
Well, we thought it was huge until we were downtown on Thursday and saw this plant!
That’s not a tree, that’s a flowering plant. Yikes.
In smaller plant news, our winter tomatoes and pineapples are growing well:
We actually seem to have better luck growing tomatoes in winter than in summer, but we’ll keep experimenting to see if we can continue to have fresh tomatoes all year ’round.
On the way back from the nursery the other day, we stopped at a local farmer’s stand to pick up some fresh pineapple. I think it’s very cool that we can buy fresh pineapple from the side of the road in the dead of winter!
In other random news, Hugh has added focacia bread to his repertoire of breads and it was SO GOOD:
We now have to see if we can replicate that delicious olive oil from Just Cooking in Vineland – Gulch friends, was it green onions they mixed in? Hugh’s focacia was just as good as the one at Just Cooking so if we can replicate their olive oil too, yum yum!
We thought we’d misplaced our glass screen bugs by local Niagara artist Joe Speck – but we finally found them tucked in a pocket of one of the bags we’d brought on the plane with us last year! They now enjoy their new home on the screen door to our patio:
And just like the one did on our screen door in Stoney Creek, these guys draw attention – maybe even more so given that there are cockroaches that big here 🙂
I’ve seen lots of images where a whole pile of European countries are superimposed on Australia to try to give people a sense of how big Australia is. Then I saw this version where Australia is superimposed on the States:
For people in North America, this is fabulous for explaining distances here. So often people think they can drive from Sydney to where we are, but that’s like driving from Tampa to Washington DC. Yes, you can drive it – but it’s gonna take awhile!
Poor Hugh had to deal with kangaroos on the driving range again:
At least they were off to the side this time – less scary than hitting right toward them.
And we’ve had lots of lorikeets at the bird bath this week. It’s funny watching them go for a dip because they almost always hang onto the edge of the bath with one foot, I guess so they can keep their heads above water. I saw one go in with both feet and there was A LOT of wing flapping to get back out. In this video, I’m not sure if the birds are scrapping or showing affection:
On the way to work one morning, I saw the end of a rainbow! I was so excited – not because I might find a pot of gold, but because the rainbow ended in the field where you’re supposed to see emus running around and we never do – so I thought FOR SURE if the rainbow was ending in that field, this would be my day to see emus. Nope. I continue to be emu repellent.
And the best bird news – I FINALLY caught the sound of laughing Kookaburras on film! They have eluded me for over a year – every time they start, I run to get my phone and literally the moment I click on Record, they stop. Every. Single. Time. But not last week! I first got an audio recording because they were in my neighbours’ back yard and I could only hear them, not see them. But then they kindly flew to the lamp post in front of our neighbours and they kept laughing. Listen to this – you’ll see why the first night we arrived in Australia, we thought there were wild monkeys around:
I’ll end this week’s blog with an all important pickleball update! Hard to believe it’s been a year since last year’s Yeppoon Pickleball Festival. Last year I only played in one of the two weekends because my hemoglobin was still so low even after the transfusions and I would get out of breath so easily, but this year I’m playing in both the Seniors Tournament (this weekend) and the Queensland Pickleball Tour (next weekend). Sharyn and I are playing together again for both events. Our results came close to getting us into the medal round yesterday, but no joy. Our friends Robyn and Sharon won silver and we’re claiming title to part of their silver medals because it was their win over us that got them to the medal round :). So Sharyn and I are all warmed up and ready to defend our bronze from last year next weekend! Hugh and I also had no joy today – slow start but we won our last 2 games 11-0, so we think we’re also warmed up for next weekend. Our friends Young Rob and Colleen won gold in our division (yes, Young Rob now qualifies to play in the 50+ group, but poor Barb has to wait another year before she can join the cool kids :)) – Rob and Colleen played so well! And then in the men’s doubles, Hugh teamed up with Melbourne Rob, who is new to pickleball and has only played a handful of games, and they won silver in their division!
Hugh also made his refereeing debut this weekend! And we met another former Canadian – Van from Ottawa, but has lived in Melbourne for 30 years. The folks from Melbourne love coming up here in the winter to escape their cold, grey days. At one point we had 6 Canadians around the table – us, Rob and Barb, Van, and our friend Janet who is from Halifax originally. Our friend Rod came out on Sat morning to cheer Hugh and Melbourne Rob on (I note that he didn’t stick around for Sharyn’s and my games and I note that when he watched Hugh’s and Rob’s games, they won, so I may have to have a word with Rod about distributing his cheering better :)). Rod and Lou had come over for dinner on Thursday and we think we may have convinced them to try pickleball. Whether from Australia, NZ, or Canada, we have made such terrific friends here.
You really wouldn’t believe how incredibly professional this whole tournament is – and it’s thanks to Young Rob and his amazing project management skills, keeping piles of wonderful volunteers organised and on track. Several months ago, our friend Kel asked Hugh if he would like to be the tournament chair to organise everything and Hugh said no way in hell but then managed to rope Young Rob in. And wow, Rob and his team have pulled off an absolute miracle. There were over 150 players in this weekend’s tournament and next weekend there are over 250. In little Yeppoon! I’m hoping to have some photos to share with you from next weekend to show just how professional everything looks – it is a well-oiled machine! I feel so lucky to be friends with so many of the volunteers who pulled this off. What a wonderful community we have!