For all you early risers who get up on Sundays at the ridiculous hour of 6am and enjoy a coffee whilst reading this blog – I apologise for being late getting it out today! But I have a good excuse – friends from Canada arrived this arvo! Hence the title of the blog – saving the best for first – I’m starting the blog with what just happened this evening that was definitely the best event – my friend and colleague Michelle from McMaster arrived today!
Michelle and OT PhD student Meaghan were speaking at a conference in Cairns last week and they kindly agreed to stop in Rockhampton/Yeppoon to do a talk for us tomorrow. It is such a treat for all the SPs and OTs in Central Queensland to have such incredible speakers right here in little Rockhampton! And the icing on the cake is that I get to catch up with some wonderful Canadian friends. Suddenly hit home that we haven’t seen friends and family from home in 15 months 🙁 We showed Michelle and Meaghan a couple of the beaches this afternoon and tried to show them kangaroos at the golf course, but the roos were in hiding today, so will have to try again later this week. Tonight we went out for dinner at Vue:
Vue is one of our favourite restaurants in town and is also special for us because when we moved here, my friend and colleague Sandra V got us a gift card for Vue and it was the first place we went to the first weekend we arrived here in May 2023. So every time we eat here, we remember the excitement and awe of that first weekend of our new lives.
You can see in the photo above that Hugh had his McMaster cardigan on. The person who brought the wine to our table suddenly said, “Are you from McMaster?” Totally not the question we expect to hear in Yeppoon! And we hadn’t noticed that she had a Canadian accent. Turns out Bridget is Canadian, studied at McMaster (grew up in Westdale!), lived in Whistler, met an Aussie boy, moved to Melbourne, then they just moved up here two weeks ago. How fun is that!
Michelle and Meaghan enjoyed seeing all the lorikeets that congregate in the trees along the shore every day at dusk. Hopefully when we have them over to our place this week we’ll get the lorikeets at the bird bath to show them close up. One day this week, this little guy was either admiring himself in the window or trying to attract the attention of what he thought was a potential mate:
The other day we had the largest collection of lorikeets at the bath yet:
They couldn’t all fit in the bath so some were trying their hand at swimming in the pond. Didn’t seem to be their favourite thing, so Hugh has now added some larger rocks in the pond so they have something to stand on while having a splash bath. Will report back how they like the new addition to their ensuite.
Moving from birds to bees, we saw this near the pickleball courts last weekend:
Aussies are fiercely protective of animals. While in other parts of the world, the first response might be to get rid of the bees’ nest, here it’s to find a solution that allows both bees and humans to exist safely together. This goes for all animals, even snakes and crocodiles and other things that can kill you. Learning how to live in harmony with things that scare you – imagine if humans managed to apply that philosophy to other humans.
Still on the topic of bugs – sometimes they aren’t so bright (well, bright in colour, just not in intellect):
This is a very zoomed in photo of a screen door in our house and yes, the fly (I think it’s a vinegar fly) has stuck his head through the screen and gotten himself stuck. When I first saw him, I assumed he would figure it out so I left him be. The next time I saw him, I thought he was dead and left him there so I could show Hugh when he got home. A couple hours later, he was still there but was moving, so to be like an Aussie, I decided to try to save him. I pushed his head through and he landed on the ground but was rather still. I decided that this may be beyond my skill set so I left things to Mother Nature – which probably means one of the resident geckos had a colourful meal that night.
It’s warmed up a little in the last few days – overnight lows only down to 15C and daytime highs around 23C. Pretty much weather perfection with the beautiful clear skies! Yesterday we just had to soak in some of the fabulous weather along the beach:
I took this photo from one of the piles of built-in lounge chairs along the foreshore:
They’re actually not super comfortable, but they look pretty and I love that the town put loungers all along the beach walk so you could stop and enjoy the view.
So while it has warmed up, as you can see in the photo with Michelle above – when it gets down to 20C, I do need to wear long sleeves and a wrap, otherwise it’s a bit chilly! I’ve been keeping an eye on the weather back in Hamilton to see if my hypothesis about the dew point is accurate. If you remember from a blog in the summer here, Hugh and I were puzzled at how sweaty we were getting when the temperature and humidity levels were similar to the 32C 85% humidity days we’d have in July back home. We happened across an article blaming the dew point and so we started checking the dew point on the days where we just seemed to drip in sweat more than we thought we should based on the temperature and humidity. Sure enough, every time the dew point was 26C or higher, that’s when we really felt the heat. I found some 30+ degree days in Hamilton, and the dew point never reached 26:
So I think there is something to this whole dew point thing! I don’t really understand it, I just know that when the dew point hits 26C, it feels way hotter out and you really sweat.
Oh yes, pickleball! My last blog suggested that Sharyn and I were all warmed up from the Seniors’ Tournament and were ready to take on the competition at the Queensland Pickleball Tour event last weekend. Well, let’s just say that we made lots of friends :). But there was a memorable moment in between games when Sharyn and Alannah told me about this fabulous Aussie delicacy:
They explained that it’s a chocolate powder that you mix into milk. And because my phone listens to all my conversations, this ad appeared in Facebook a few days later:
Yes, this is about right. I don’t know what Milo is (pronounced like silo), but it is very delicious. I had Hugh make me a cafe mocha with it – it blends in with the steamed milk so much better than regular cocoa or hot chocolate mix. Yikes, this is probably not a habit I should be adding to my day. I will have to play more pickleball to wear off the calories.
Hugh at least came home with another medal! Here is a photo of him and Melbourne Rob getting their silver medals in the Seniors event the weekend before:
And then last weekend, Hugh and Young Rob won bronze:
Hugh had scooted home to get my knee brace for me and that was when they did the medal ceremony, so Rob kindly photoshopped his rendition of Hugh with his medal into the photo for us 🙂
Our friend Catherine is an incredible local artist and she prepared this fun board for the pickleball tournament:
A photo of a bunch of us cheering on Rob and Colleen in their mixed games:
To show you how amazing our pickleball facility is, here is an aerial shot of 10 of the 14 courts:
Hopefully we’ll get Michelle and Meaghan out to try pickleball this week!
Yesterday we went to the track to watch the horse races. Well, we were definitely not expecting this:
The women were in dresses and hats or fascinators and the men in suits! It was like a mini, rural version of the Kentucky Derby and Hugh and I were very clearly underdressed. I was, however, curious if there were some women trying to see who could find the most tacky used bridesmaid dresses from the second hand shops in town. Not a question that would be polite to ask, so I will do more reconnaissance on this tradition and report back. We bumped into our friends Carollyn, Ben, and Karen and we’re going to book a marquis together for the next race and I will definitely come up with some sort of fascinator to don, just because it’s so fun to say.
Hugh had stopped by the Men’s Shed to do something the other week and a few of the guys there asked if he could do a bowl turning lesson for them. So he did that on Wednesday:
Getting back to Aussie foods for a moment, lots of pizzas here have prawns on them, so we finally tried one the other week:
This was a white pizza and the prawns were fine on it, but I’ll try them on a regular tomato sauce pizza and see what I think. So far I’m not convinced it’s a good use of prawns.
And I’ll end this week with very exciting news – Hugh and I got our Queensland driver’s licenses this week!
We decided to celebrate with drinks 🙂
I hope you’re all having a fabulous summer! Will check in with you again in a couple weeks when I’ll share some fun Aussie Olympic stuff. Just love the sense of humour here and what broadcasters can get away with…