I apologize for being a week late with this week’s episode! Mom and Andrea were visiting for a couple weeks and we had such a fabulous time! They returned home on Tuesday and I’ve been back in the deep end at work. The good news is – I actually didn’t work for the 2 weeks they were here and that’s a first in the last 25 years of my career! So I don’t mind being in the deep end again for awhile, it was so worth it to be completely off for such a long time. Actually not a long time in Aussie-land, two weeks barely counts as a vacation down here, but for me, it was amazing – and especially so because Hugh and I had so much fun with mom and Andrea!
OK let’s start with the items in the title of this week’s blog. It was during mom and Andrea’s visit that we encountered all 3. Oh wait, no, let’s start with the chips!
Andrea carefully packed a suitcase full of Miss Vickies for me – absolute heaven! And mom brought Dentyne and Old Bay seasoning. We thought we’d try to make the chips last but if we alter a night with Miss Vickies and a night with the best we’ve found here, it just resurrects the chip disappointment all the time. So we’re just going to work our way through all the Miss Vickies and then go back to Aussie chips when they’re all done.
Ok, now back to the items in the title of the blog. First, the bacon. Oh my. We were all in the Woollies mall one day and Andrea needed some chicken and sausage for a dinner she was making. I let her know about the best (as in closest to what we have in North America) sausage we have discovered so far but mentioned that friends had said the butcher near Woollies had good sausage and we just hadn’t tried it yet. So we went in to take a look. They didn’t have the kind of sausage she was looking for (I can’t believe I just typed that sentence, but for Rob B and the curling gang, I’m leaving it in there for you :)), but in the course of looking around the shop, Andrea noticed bacon that looked like North American bacon and was labeled “maple bacon.” Needless to say, we bought some and Hugh cooked it up for us:
Well, it isn’t perfect but it’s definitely close! So we now have a supplier of almost-North-American-style bacon, woohoo!!
Next came the emu. These rascals are incredibly difficult to happen across in the wild. I’ve seen them a couple times but have never been able to get a photo or video. Well, we had taken mom and Andrea up to Byfield and we decided that we’d take a detour on the way home to show them Hedlow Creek – I told you about this beautiful area in the last blog. It was CRAZY hot in that neck of the woods that afternoon (car said it was 42-44C and fortunately dry rather than humid), but we stopped to take photos of all the cows (the dirt road goes through huge cow pastures) and the creek. Suddenly Hugh noticed movement in the distance and it was an emu! We immediately turned our cameras toward him and he immediately noticed and took off running – but I caught him on video!
Speaking of hot, check out the inside temperature in our house today – but it’s low humidity and clearly we have acclimatized because it feels completely comfortable with just the ceiling fans on!
OK back to the title story. For the final item in the trifecta, we were waiting for our meerkat encounter at the Rockhampton Zoo, when a snake suddenly slithered out of one garden bed, along the sidewalk, and over to another garden bed – our first close encounter of the snake kind in 18 months!
This was a very small snake by Australian standards, pretty skinny and less than a metre long. We stood still. Correction, I stood still because that’s what I learned in the Australian Snakebook group. Mom ran away in a panic as fast as she could (yes, the woman who lives in North Carolina where they have every poisonous snake imaginable). And Hugh and Andrea followed the snake at a borderline-too-close distance to get photos and videos. I actually wasn’t worried because it was so small, I was assuming a tree snake of some sort. Well, when we got home, I posted the photo to the Snakebook group (that’s actually not the name, it’s just such a really long name for the Facebook group I prefer to call it the Snakebook group) to ask for an ID. I almost died when they responded – it was an Eastern Brown, one of the most highly venomous snakes in Australia! Yikes. Note to self, never assume a tree snake, no matter how small.
OK while talking about critters, we would often sit on our patio reading our books, having a beverage, etc. and we noticed one day that a mud wasp had started building a nest on the leg of one of our patio tables:
I’ve previously told you about these insects. They’re black and orange and look like the hornets we’d sometimes see in Ontario, so you immediately think they’re going to be vicious, but mud wasps are great, they can be within inches of you and completely ignore you. So this one was going about building her nest and it was incredible to watch her (him?) at work. She’d bring the mud over, build a layer, go back and get more and add to the thickness of the walls, and all so quickly – I think it was done in an hour. But the next day she came back and added a second story! She must’ve laid her eggs (no idea what mud wasps lay, so I’m just saying eggs and Marvin can correct me :)) because she closed the hole in that lower level when she built the second story. And then the next day she did it again – it was now a triplex and she had closed up the hole in the 2nd story!
Absolutely fascinating to watch this process. Unfortunately, it has a sad ending. The day after mom and Andrea left, Hugh noticed a bunch of dirt all over the patio near the table – something had ripped open all her hard work to eat the contents inside 🙁
OK, back to happier news. After our snake encounter at the Rocky Zoo, we had a much more fun meerkat encounter! Meerkats are not native to Australia, but they’re very cute:
They particularly liked mom and weren’t terribly keen on Andrea. Can’t blame them. (just kidding!) The alpha male did hang out with Andrea for a bit and the zoo keeper mentioned that he’s the one who decides when the visit is over. She said when he jumps down and moves away from us, that’s when time’s up. Sure enough, at some point (after being with Andrea – coincidence? I think not :)) he jumped down, moved toward the fence, dug a hole, and peed in it. That was the signal for all the other meerkats to go join him. So now I know what to do to drag Hugh out of a party when I think it’s time to leave.
With mom and Hugh both being Capricorns, we visited the Tropic of Capricorn marker in Gracemere:
Andrea had put in a special request to make a bowl while she was here so Hugh took her to our friend Dave’s workshop and they made one:
She did a really great job! And Andrea became Hugh’s kitchen helper too. He taught her how to make flat whites with our Breville coffee maker.
Hugh had to help her put the heart on top for me and it wasn’t the best job but that’s OK, I’m sure she’ll step up her game next visit 🙂
Cathy, you will recognize this mug. In December 2022, Cathy and Kevin gave these mugs to us as part of a long-running alpaca meme among our Gulch friends. Thank goodness they had left before we opened the package so we didn’t have to explain our jaws dropping. I had just received the job offer for Australia the week before but it was still secret – and here Cathy was giving us mugs talking about packing our bags for an adventure 🙂
Hugh also taught my sister how to make pasta (some good Slim Dusty playing in the background):
And mom and Andrea helped Hugh plant another pineapple in our front yard:
When Hugh was golfing, Mom, Andrea, and I visited the Koorana Crocodile Farm – one of my favourite places to go! Andrea got a terrific video of a cranky crocodile formerly known as Charger, but Andrea requested she be renamed to Justine, no idea why.
Other photos from Koorana:
Our friends Kevin and Joanne really made mom and Andrea’s stay extra special! They took us blokarting one afternoon (Andrea is now hooked!):
Kevin and Jo also hosted Melbourne Cup Day. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race – but the state of Victoria gets the day off as a public holiday, it’s that big of a deal! We all had to come with hats or fascinators so given that mom, Andrea, and I had been at the crocodile farm the day before, we made crocodile-themed hats:
Mine had a great tail, too 🙂
This is Kevin and Joanne:
Kev was the bookie for the day as we placed our bets on the race as well as some awesome games Jo had planned. Hugh won his corn hole game, the trivia game, and the men’s horse race:
(yes, that’s me in the backround, blocked out by one of Hugh’s prizes)
Here are our friends Rod and Llew in their Melbourne Cup finery:
Kevin and Joanne also took mom and Andrea sailing over to GKI (Great Keppel Island). Mom has been a sailor for many years but Andrea got to try her hand this time:
When mom and Andrea first arrived, we drove down to Hervey Bay the next day so we could take them to K’gari, the world’s largest sand island. Hugh and I had gone there in winter (June) and were looking forward to going back now that it’s warmer. It was awesome swimming in Lake McKenzie and seeing all the sights on the island again. We were staying at an Airbnb on the ocean in Hervey Bay and were treated to a spectacular thunderstorm over the water our first night there. We drove back home on the Saturday and stopped at one of our favourite breakfast places in Bargara – the Windmill (I think I talked about this place when we first visited it almost a year ago). As we were leaving the restaurant, a blue-faced honeyeater was scavenging and I got perhaps the best photo of one yet:
They visit our bird bath regularly but they don’t sit still for long. When they’re eyeing up someone’s breakfast leftovers, apparently they can be quite still.
We spent plenty of time wandering aroud Yeppoon – and by wandering I mean stopping everywhere mom thought there was a good chance of a capuccino and some chocolate :). Here we are down at the main beach:
We also went up Mount Archer for the first time – fabulous! It was a bit hazy so our views weren’t as spectacular as they otherwise would be, but we just loved it there. Hugh and I think we’ll pack a picnic and go back one of these days. Got a good photo of a brush turkey while we were up there:
Also discovered flora called Grass Trees that are super funky! I can’t find a website that shows them in all their various forms so you’ll just have to google “grass tree” and click on images. We’re definitely going to have to add one of these to our yard!
There was a Mama Mia dance party in town while mom and Andrea were here. We of course had to go and dance the night away with our friends Leigh, Sharyn, and Toni. Leigh snapped a photo for us:
When Andrea and I were kids, we would stand on the hearth of the fireplace in the basement and belt out all sorts of tunes, notably ABBA. We called ourselves The Harmony Sisters. This name isn’t terribly accurate – while Andrea has a beautiful singing voice, I cannot hold a tune to save my life. What I brought to the duo was artistic license. Do you remember finger knitting back in the 70’s? Andrea and I had been doing that and we didn’t really know what to do with this long, scarf-like item and we just kept knitting it longer and longer until it must’ve been 10 feet long. Somehow, I thought the Harmony Sisters should use this 10 foot knitted thing to tie our heads together while singing. You may have noticed that neither Andrea nor I are internationally renowned, so apparently the artistic license I brought to our musical act was not what the world was looking for in the 70’s.
All right, I’ve been saving the best for last – which I also did for mom and Andrea’s trip. Hugh and I hadn’t been to Cooberrie Park but we’d heard from everyone that it’s fabulous so we saved it for mom and Andrea’s last day. And wow, was everyone right – it was AMAZING! We literally have hundreds of photos. Hugh’s brother Gary always calls me Allen Funt for all the photographs I take in general, well, the day at Cooberrie certainly wins the Allen Funt award for most photos! I did my best to cull the herd to a handful of photos and videos to give you a flavour of things, but it’s really just something you need to experience! OK, here we go, in no particular order:
A wombat named Flo:
Albino peacock (tail looks like a bridal veil to me!):
The thing that grows on its head is apparently similar to a rhinoceros horn. But that’s not what they kill you with, it’s one of their claws. See the photos in the link above – scary!
Regular peacock (I know we see these in North America all the time, but it was fun walking among them, or looking way high up in trees seeing them there):
Kangaroos and emus everywhere:
Some type of skink – I love this variety because it’s hard to know which end is which 🙂
Birds galore:
And of course, koalas:
So for those of you who will be coming to visit, we have plenty of incredible things on the itinerary in our special little part of Australia!
Mom and Andrea – thank you so much for making the long journey here, I had a pile of fun every single day with you. Mom, it was so amazing to see you back to yourself when we almost lost you earlier this year, and I can’t wait to visit with you when you’re in Sydney in 2026. Andrea, how lucky am I to have such a smart and hilarious sister; my face still hurts from all the laughing. I love you both to the moon and back!