Segovia: Snow and Meat in Old Castile

After a week in Madrid we hopped on the high speed train for the half hour trip up to Segovia. Rather than do a quick day trip and back to Madrid, as most do, we decided to book 2 nights there, to do our site-seeing (and meal-taking) at a more leisurely pace, and get the feel of living behind the old walls of the city for a couple days.  

It was cold when we left Madrid, but we were very surprised to arrive in Segovia and find it snowing! The kids were very excited to see it, and spent lots of time catching snowflakes on their tongue, and even making a snowball. 

The reception at the hotel was the least friendly of our entire trip so far - and that's saying something. (Several places in China come to mind, along with our late arrival at the dump we stayed at in Perth.) I said "Hola" and was given a long look up and down before the nice man condescended to reply with "Hola" and then turn his back on me to continue on with whatever he was doing.  But we did eventually get checked in, and got some small measure of revenge later when he wad forced to come and fix the safe in our room, due to the presence of his manager at the reception desk when I informed him of the problem.

We had a few other incidents like this in Segovia - unfriendly bartenders, etc - though most people were pleasant and/or professional. Maybe they just get burned out on tourists, or maybe the cold weather had everybody down. 

But not us.  We had arrived in time for lunch (at 2pm) and we intended to make the most of it.  A place called Restaurante Jose y Maria had come highly recommended, and we found it just off the Plaza Mayor. The food is Castillian and the specialties are Corderito Asado and Cochinillo Asado, respectively roast baby lamb and roast suckling pig.  But first we were brought a small dish to tide us over - tripa. We did our best with it and even had E and D take a bite, though we didn't exactly tell them what it was. We ordered our standard vino tinto, and they wisely brought us a whole bottle. We also ordered an ensalada verde - we make a point of ordering this with every meal as the Spanish cuisine is otherwise fairly light on vegetables - and a roast vegetable plate, which was delicious. And we opted for the corderito. Most of the other diners opted for the cochinillo, and we got to watch the show. They come out splayed over big clay dishes, hooves splayed, snout high, ears wrinkled and crispy, and a slight smile - it looked as though they were flying, perhaps from this world into the next. The professional waiters then serve it up, using a plate to cut the cochinillo into about 6 servings - cutting it up with a plate demonstrates that it is cooked just right. The corderito had less fanfare, but was unbelievably good - better even than the cochinillo (which we had the next day). The wine was delicious, the corderito exquisite and, not wanting the meal to end, we kept ordering things - dessert, Porto, coffee, until finally there was no choice but to leave, 2+ hours later.

In high spirits we stumbled across the plaza mayor and into the cold, vast, and somber Catedral. It was begun in the early 1500s and is considered the last major gothic cathedral, in all of Europe I think. We saw gruesome relics - bone shards from obscure saints, and countless paintings and alterpieces, some dating back to the 12th century. 

The next day we had our cafe, churros y chocolate, y tortilla espanola, then set out for the roman aqueduct. It spans 9 miles and was still used to bring water to the city up until about 100 yrs ago. At the entrance to the old city it crosses a gorge, and rises to a height of about 100 feet, above a structure of two levels of arches, constructed of giant granite blocks, assembled with no mortar, no cement. It has to be one of the most amazing roman-built structures still in existence in the world, though there is apparently some disagreement about whether it was in fact built in the 1st century AD by the Romans. There are no records in existence of its construction, and some claimed that it was actually built 1000s of years before the Romans, though the best explanation I heard is that it was built by the devil. Apparently there was a woman who toiled every day to carry water the long distance from it's source to her husband. The devil appeared one day during her long journey and asked how he could be of assistance. The woman struck a bargain with him: her soul, but only if he could build her something to transport the water to her front door, and have it done before the call of the first rooster the next morning. The devil and his minions toiled all night, and had but one last stone to place when they heard the first rooster the next morning. The devil left, humiliated, the woman kept her soul, and the town of Segovia gained an aqueduct.

We tried a different restaurant for lunch, and had the cochinillo this time, and the fanfare was even greater as, after delivering a speech and then chopping up the cochinillo with the plate the chef yelled "Buen Provecho!" and raised his arms into the air, letting the plate crash to the floor behind him as he did so.

After lunch we went to the Alcazar, the restored castle/fortress at the edge of the walled city. Like the one in Toledo, it was built on the foundation of an old roman fortress. It's an extremely iconic, Disney-esque castle to behold from the exterior, but much of that is owed to 18th and 19th century restorations and additions. But because of those it was extremely well preserved and really neat to walk around. After having seen the royal palace in Madrid it was really interesting to see how a previous generation of kings would have lived. Big heavy wooden dining table and chairs, and thrones in the throne room. Ornate decorations on the ceilings, and religious paintings everywhere, including one of St James "the moorslayer" with bloody moors' heads rolling around at his horse's feet.

On our way back to our hotel we wandered through the old narrow streets, bundled up in all of our warm clothes and hats and gloves, catching snowflakes on our tongues, and enjoying immensely this corner of old, old Spain. And now we are on another train, speeding south to a warmer, and possibly even older corner of Spain. Next stop: Cordoba.

The First Days of Winter

I am so woefully behind on my blog entries! I‘ll just start where we are and then can try to fill in the older stuff.

We finally arrived in Madrid about a week ago after traveling 30 hours from New Zealand – almost half way around the world (the longitude of New Zealand is about 174 E and that of Spain is 4 W). It was long but not as bad as we thought it would be. We have been flying on all sorts of cheap airlines where you have to pay extra for everything. For this trip with flew with Emirates and felt like kings when we actually got food and drinks, free movies and pillows and blankets!

Our first day here was the hardest – we were so tired. After checking into our hotel we decided that the best thing we could do was to walk around in the sun and try to stay awake as long as we could. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, just like a sunny Southern California winter day. We walked up to the Plaza Mayor and sat outside to snack on some tapas. All of us were tired but David was the most tired and we had to keep poking him to keep him awake.

Slowly we adjusted to not just the time difference, but Spanish time. We are eating lunch at 3pm and having a snack at 9pm. We went out one night for tapeo – going from one tapas bar to another. The kids were not as excited about it as we were, but they tolerated it for the chorizo.

Tapas y vino

It has been a change from New Zealand, where it felt like we were going to see nature like mountains and beaches, we are now back in the big city and seeing cultural and history sight seeing. The Prado was spectacular, particularly the Goyas. David was not a fan Goya and in fact refused to look at or listen to the audio guide about “Saturn Devouring His Children” because it was too scary. Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” was also cool to see in person because you can appreciate all of the freaky detail. We actually found that all of the freaky stuff seemed a little less strange after we saw much of the other art depicting the judgment day from the same era such as people with animal heads and winged demon creatures. While the kids liked seeing all of the art, they really enjoyed visiting the Royal Palace and seeing the opulence of the 18^th century.

We also had the chance to see Picasso’s “Guernica” at the Reina Sofia Museum. It was incredible to see it in person – it is so huge – 11 feet high and nearly 26 feet long. There was a series of photographs that illustrated how Picasso developed the painting including features that were later replaced or removed in the final painting. The collection of Dali paintings were also amazing, not so much because they were his most famous, but because they reflected so many different periods in his work, not just his surrealist works.

One day we took the train out to Toledo. It was a great contrast to Madrid. While Madrid feels very European, it doesn’t’ feel particularly Spanish. It looks more like Paris, which is not surprising since it was built in the mid-1500s by kings originally hailing from France. Toledo, on the other hand, feels very Spanish with wrought iron, red tile roofs, and narrow, winding cobblestone streets. We had fun trying to navigate the streets and make our way to the cathedral and the Santo Tome chapel to see the El Greco.

We had been really looking forward to visiting the Alcazar in Toledo – a castle built on the site of a Roman fort. It had been heavily bombed in the Spanish civil war when it was under siege and had been recently restored (more like remodeled) and opened. At the entry were the excavated Roman remains, including a well, after this point, we were totally lost in the most

The best view of the Alcazar

tedious military museum ever. To be fair, we were still jet lagged as we were trying our best to find our way around, but it seemed to be a huge place filled with lots of nothing that had long confusing explanations. I think we enjoyed it the most viewing it from the city walls below!

After a few days in Madrid, the warmth of what we took to be an early spring quickly disappeared (we optimistically thought we had managed to avoid winter). While the sun was still mostly out, the temperature went back to normal – around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Even with all of our clothes on, we were still cold. We finally indulged in a winter shopping spree of more socks and sweaters. This was a big adjustment from months of shorts and flops.

After our week in Madrid, we are ready to go on to explore more Spain. We’re starting off with a few days in Segovia (North of Madrid) and then heading south to hopefully warmer Andalucía (Cordoba, Granada, Ronda, and Sevilla). After that, we haven’t decided anything yet, but are getting tempted to visit Portugal.

Camper Van New Zealand

Lots of people had told us that the best way to see NZ was via camper van (aka motorhome). We thought chilling in Devonport and sailing the Hauraki Gulf were not such bad ways either, but we wanted to see more of the south island and camper van seemed the best way. So we booked a 4 berth motorhome out of Christchurch, and flew down there from Auckland to pick it up. Campervanning is a high-class affair in NZ. The people from Kea picked us up at the airport, served us coffee on a silver platter at the office, gave us tons of helpful information and maps, and showed us around our home on wheels for the next 12 days. I was maybe as nervous taking the helm of that beast as I was of the sailboat - driving a giant motorhome through the cramped parking area, and out onto the wrong (left) side of the street - but I got the hang of it quickly and felt comfortable the rest of trip.

We drove west out of Christchurch and quickly headed up into the mountains, straight into the heart of Rohan and Gondor. We skirted Eisengard and made quickly for the safety of Helms Deep, with Aragon and Legolas serving as forward scouts...

It felt that way anyways, especially when we put Zep 4 on and listened to the Battle of Evermore and the Misty Mountain Hop. The scenery was instantly spectacular: grassy plains dotted with rocky spires, crisscrossed by granite strewn river beds, gushing with turquoise green water, and huge mountains rising up above everything. We stopped for a quick hike and found a limestone cave with a stream that runs for a good 1/2 mile underground. We weren't exactly equipped for that, but we did thoroughly explore the first 10 yards or so. 

We camped at Arthurs Pass that night, beside a river, surrounded by huge mountains. It was cold at night and the wind picked up and blew the motorhome back and forth, but we were snug in our beds. Earlier, before the wind had picked up, we had a visit from a large, greenish parrot-like bird called a Kea, the name sake of our camper van rental company. Keas are extremely intelligent and curious, and this one came right up to us, inspected various socks and things we had laid out, and generally hung around waiting for us to give him food, which we knew better than to do.

Day 2, after a late start, brought us to the beautifully-named Greymouth, on the west coast. We stayed at a holiday park on a beautiful beach. We had to share it with lots of other campers, unlike the night before when we had our riverside spot all to ourselves, and we learned that the benefits of power, playgrounds, and showers are outweighed by the benefits of having a beautiful spot all to yourself. 

Day 3 we drove down the coast to near the Franz Joseph glacier, and before we knew it we were climbing into a small helicopter for an up-close tour of the glaciers. Outside of Antarctica, this is the only place glaciers are found so near to the coast and at such low elevation. It's striking setting out from a lush, tropical, fern-covered area, and minutes later being up in the icy, rocky, barren mountaintops. It was my first helicopter ride, which was cool enough in itself, but flying over the glaciers and yet more LOTR settings was incredible. The glaciers were striated and cracked in places, and the pilot told us that some of the crevasses were 100 meters deep. I won't try to describe them any more - the pictures will do them more justice.

Rather than continue down to Queenstown and the Fiordland we decided to turn around and spend the rest of our time exploring the north part of the south island. We had already seen the fiords from the cruiseship, and we wanted to have some time explore the north, do some kayaking, etc. We stayed at a nice lakeside campground that night, and we headed north. We spent the next night in Westport, again at a beautiful stretch of beach, and after stopping to see the seal colony the next morning, and the pancake rocks, we turned inland to cut across to the north coast. We made it to Old Macdonalds Farm, a nice campground on the edge of the Abel Tasman national park, and we settled in for 3 nights there. Most of the park can only be accessed on foot or via boat. We opted for a little of each: we took a water taxi to one beach, hiked a couple hours across to another beach, and spent the afternoon lounging before getting picked up again by the water taxi. The tide was so extreme that the boat had to be towed out about half a mile by a tractor to reach the water when we left, but when we returned that afternoon the water had come all the way back in, and the boat pulled right up to the dock. The next day we took a beautiful kayak ride with our friendly Kiwi guide Brett (who pronounced his name Brit, and I was not sure all day whether it was actually Brit or Brett until I finally asked). We saw the split apple rock and had gourmet coffee freshly prepared on the beach by Brit, I mean Brett. Later he took the kids spelunking and showed us some creepy giant bugs that live inside the caves. Again we slept well that night.

We set off the next day for Nelson, and after spending a good part of the day taking care of business (taxes!) at an Internet cafe we found a funky little campground in the Maitai valley with a great little swimming hole. Unfortunately we couldn't spend too much time there because of the awful little biting flies (a problem to varying degrees throughout NZ). We moved on the next day to Picton, found a nice campground, and spent the next day on a beautiful hike out to "the snout" of a little peninsula that jutted into the Queen Charlotte Sound. This is within the Marlborough Sounds area, a beautiful corner of NZ known especially for it's wine. The view from our hike was spectacular, with bright green islets and peninsulas everywhere jutting into the turquoise water. The landscape is all thick green tropical vegetation, with millions of deafening crickets. David occupied himself by cricket-spotting, and stopped when he got to 60! 

We headed down the spectacular northeast coast of the south island, with seals everywhere. I kept spotting them for miles from the car and finally pulled over at a random spot on the side of the road, got out, and sure enough there were 15 or 20 of them sprawled on the rocks just 20 or so feet below us. After a while we turned inland and made our way to Hanmer Springs. This was more touristy and developed than we had been expecting, and arriving on the weekend didn't help, but we all enjoyed the water slides at the hot springs park, and mommy and daddy had a nice stinky soak in a sulfery pool while the kids did even more water sliding. We made our way back to Christchurch for the last night, dropped the motorhome off early the next morning (with no new dents!) and caught a flight back to Auckland. 

We picked up our rental car and drove out to the Coromandel Peninsula, and we reached the hot water beach at the perfect low tide time. There is thermal activity under the beach, and at low tide you can dig your own hole (or take over someone else's after they've left - my recommended strategy) and soak in your own hot tub on the beach! The thermal activity is extreme, and in parts the sand is actually too hot to sit on, so you have to get it just right. Next to us was a small hole that someone had obviously started digging but gave up on because it was too hot, and every few minutes someone would walk by and step in it and let out a quick painful "Youch!" before jumping out and moving on.

We stayed at a friendly B&B nearby for our last 2 nights in NZ. The next day we ran some errands and had some lunch, and then found out that Christchurch, where we had been only 24 hours earlier, had been hit by yet another earthquake. They had had a 7.1, I think, about 6 months prior, and luckily no loss of life in that one, though still fairly extensive damage. But this one was quickly proving to be a different story, and as the details emerged we were shocked and saddened by the destruction and loss of life. And at the same time we were grateful that we had left when we did, though I couldn't help but think how LA is overdue for another major quake, and wonder whether we are any better prepared than Christchurch was.

We enjoyed our time in NZ immensely and were sad to leave, though excited to begin the final, European phase of our year of traveling, and especially excited to begin it in Spain!

Sydney Sights and Manly

We arrived in Sydney after sleeping about an hour on the red-eye from Perth. The sun was just rising over the clouds as we began our descent into the airport. We got all of our stuff and got a cab to take us to our apartment in Manly, a town across the harbor from Sydney. On our way we drove straight through the city – past the Opera House and across theSydney Bridge – and got our sightseeing in for the day.

It is different than Western Australia. It is humid and more lush and tropical. There are people everywhere – we were getting used to towns of 200 and Perth wasn’t even that big. I guess it isn’t surprising when the whole population of Sydney (about 4.3 million) is nearly double that of the whole state of Western Australia.

When we arrived in Manly, we still had a few hours to kill before we could get into the apartment. We decided the best way to stay awake would be to hunt for nearby geocaches. Our first wasn’t too difficult but it was on a pier in a pretty busy place so we just had to keep looking out for muggles (non-geocachers). The second was more challenging. Dylan’s phone died so we couldn’t use the GPS anymore and just knew that it was near a bench on this little peninsula….that went on with tons of benches for about a half-mile. We searched in trees, under rocks and in dead logs but had no luck. I was a little freaked out because we noticed that there were spiders everywhere. After reading Bill Bryson’s book, In a Sunburnt Country, I was pretty sure that every living creature in Australia was poisonous and wanted to kill me. A few days later we found out that in our sleep-deprived state we had actually been looking on the wrong peninsula all together!

We have been spending most of our time at the beach. Manly is located on a narrow peninsula, one side of which faces the Sydney harbor and the other side faces the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately the ocean side has been plagued with blue bottle jellyfish pretty much since we arrived so not much surfing, but the harbor side is great for swimming. There are clear, blobby jellyfish on the harbor side too, but they are apparently harmless ones (according to the aquarium). You end up paddling right through them when you are out swimming – SO squishy. I still jump every time I touch one. It also kind of distracts you from the prospect of sharks.

There is also lots of hiking and open space nearby. We have hiked and searched for geocaches on the whole North Point peninsula, winding through arid eucalyptus and lush tropical palms and vine. It is beautiful and the thought of all of the deadly snakes, spiders, and lizards keeps you on your toes. We saw several huge monitor lizards both in the bush and right along the sidewalk!

We have gone over to Sydney a few times on the ferry. It takes about a half-hour and is a beautiful tour of the harbor, going right by the opera house and just in front of the Sydney Bridge. We have visited all of the places necessary

to highlight the deadly creatures of Australia – the aquarium and the wild animal center.

At the aquarium they had a huge exhibit on jellyfish. They are a pretty big deal here. The most notorious (and deadly) one is the box jellyfish. They are found up north of here, around the Great Barrier Reef. Summer is the big season for them and they are the main reason we are not venturing north. They also had a huge shark exhibit that included a gigantic tank filled with sharks, fish, rays and turtles with clear tunnels running underneath so you could feel submerged with them. The sharks would glide just a foot over your head!

The other dangerous animal in the north is the saltwater crocodile. There are only about 1-2 attacks per year here but I think it is the stealthy, speedy, deadly nature of the attacks that are so scary. There was one at the wild animal center. It didn’t move anything but it’s eyes as we watched it and it was still scary. The one we saw was only about 15 feet long but he was considered a small one.

The kids were especially excited to see the kangaroos and the koalas. We were lucky to see a koala actually moving! Koalas apparently have very small brains – partly as a result of eating very toxic plants and needing to use all their energy to process these plants. There were five or six other koalas in the enclosure and none of them moved at all.

We had planned to go to the zoo but it started raining as we pulled into Sydney so we opted for the Maritime museum which was right at the pier. It ended up being a great detour. We got to tour a naval battleship, a naval submarine and a replica of Captain Cook’s boat, the Endeavour. Both the battleship and the submarine have been maintained as they were while they were in use so each was like a time warp back to the 1960s. The submarine was especially interesting as my cousin had been on one when he was in the navy. I can’t imagine how he did it – weeks at a time in that small space underwater. I get claustrophobic on Captain Nemo’s Submarine – that deathtrap they call a ride – at Disneyland.

Since we will soon be heading off to New Zealand and are both starting to read a book about Captain Cook, the tour of the Endeavour was especially interesting. Like the naval ship and sub, they had all of the original furnishings on the boat. We got to see the galley, the hammocks where the crew slept, the officers’ quarters, and the rooms where Joseph Banks (the rich naturalist) and his entourage stayed. They had volunteers in each section of the boat to explain the details, which was especially great for the kiddies. The boat is still taken out for special excursions, with one starting in April to circumnavigate Australia for a year (www.endeavourvoyages.com.au). You live and work on the boat, performing the tasks of crew. We are already scheming how to get back!

A big part of our time in Manly has also been getting our next travel plans in order. Researching and booking our next move always ends up taking up more time than one might think. It is a good problem to have but just not something that we had quite anticipated at the outset of the trip. Until now, the longest trip we’ve had to book was for two weeks and that was all in one place! After a few more days here, we’ll head off on a cruise to New Zealand that will take us through Melbourne, Tasmania, the Fjordlands (in NZ), Dunedin, Christchurch, Tauranga and finally, Auckland.

New Year's resolutions

Words of wisdom from the Harvey Dickson Country Music Center in Boyup Brook, Western Australia.

Margaret River Holidays

Our two weeks in Margaret River have been amazing - a perfect combination of relaxing and lazing around and also plenty of outdoor activities (hiking, surfing, canoeing and swimming). Everything is nearby and everyone is so friendly and helpful. The only problem is that now we feel like we could spend a few more easy weeks here except everything is filled up for the summer holidays. All of the kids will be on their summer holidays until February but apparently around Christmas and New Year’s are the busiest.

One of the first things we did was have a belated Thanksgiving dinner – actually we had a whole Thanksgiving day where we cooked, watched a movie, and remembered everything and everyone for whom we were thankful. It was pretty easy to find everything we needed – the one confusing thing was the turkey. They have the turkey by sizes, size 32, 34, 36, 38, etc., not by weight. I am sure that somewhere there is a Rosetta stone to translate the sizes but there was nothing helpful on the wrapper. I figured if we just cooked it until we could pull a leg off, it would probably be good enough. It was and we had just enough leftovers to be sick of turkey after a few days.

There are loads of hiking trails around Margaret River to explore. We took one through a eucalyptus forest and where an old train line had run. Along the trail, in a dead fallen tree was supposed to be a geocache. We hadn’t done any geocaching since we had been with Erica in Hong Kong and we still had a little surfboard key ring that we needed to drop off.

This was easily the toughest geocache yet. The GPS on Dylan’s phone didn’t work well because we had weak reception and then eventually died! All we knew was that when it died we had been about 200 feet away from it and that it was in a dead tree. We walked up and down the section of trail we thought it might be, crashing through brush to various dead trees all the while slightly freaked out by the prospect of deadly spiders and snakes. Finally, as we were about to give up, we decided to try an upright dead tree (rather than one lying on the ground) and… bull’s eye! We were pretty excited and would have stayed to read the logbook longer except that we were quickly being chomped by bugs of all sorts. We learned a whole new respect for navigating through the Australia bush – it is wild!

As a family Christmas present, we signed the whole family up for a three-day surf lesson. Emma and David have been on the surfboards before but haven’t really had a formal lesson. Also, up until we went to Hawaii, neither of them were particularly excited about getting washed around in the waves and didn’t like getting saltwater in their mouths or eyes.

After going to the surf shop to get kitted up (Aussie for getting your gear on), we met instructor, Jarrod, at Red Gate beach. The beach was absolutely beautiful with powdery white sands and clear turquoise water. The waves were pretty small. Jarrod took the kids and got started with them and Dylan and I played in the small surf and watched the lesson. We were so glad we didn’t try to teach them – they listened to everything Jarrod said, did it without any complaining and had a great time. It was also so fun to watch them get excited about catching the waves.

Jarrod invited us to come down the beach early the next day as he was going to be teaching a bunch of kids in a holiday camp. He thought it might be fun for Emma and David to join in the fun. It was madness! There were about 25 kids with their surfboards all in the water at once with about five instructors racing from one to the other.

Dylan and I were on the standup boards that day, so we paddled away from the chaos out to the quieter water. The wind had picked up and as soon as I stood up on the board I was blown nearly out of the bay. It was no comfort when Dylan yelled out to remind me that the next land was Antarctica over 1,000 miles away. I managed to get back in and was feeling pretty good on the board until we started trying catch a wave. I kept running right off the end of the board as soon as the wave started pushing it, which I am sure was entertaining to watch.

I never ended up catching a wave, but I got some good practice. Dylan rode a few and made it look easy. By the end of the three days, Emma caught a few waves on her own and rode them all the way into the beach. David could catch them but once he stood up he’d be so excited he’d jump off the board!

There is a beautiful river that runs through Margaret River to the ocean (big surprise). We took a guided canoe trip up it to learn about local history (aboriginal and settlers), the natural history, to eat Australia wild food (kangaroo, emu, grub hummus, berries and seeds), to explore caves and to swim in the river. Our guide was a big friendly Aussie guy who cracked jokes left and right throughout his stories and clearly really enjoyed what he did.

One of the highlights was paddling through the paper trees on Boonaloongar Island in the middle of the river. This island, also called Sorry Island, was a sacred place for the aborigines. Apparently they would come to the island to unload all of the mistakes they had made or things they were sorry for. They would hug one of the paper trees, the trees would absorb all of the mistakes and they would be unburdened. The water in the river would rise and the trees would be submerged and the water would “wash” all of the mistakes away into the ocean. Needless to say, we all took turns hugging and unloading.

Another highlight was exploring the limestone caves about the river. Huge rooms went back into the stone and had been lived in for an extended period of time by shipwreck survivors in the early 1900’s. There was graffiti on the cave walls with dates of 1920 and 1913 written by the survivors. There was also a tunnel that went back through the cave and came out near the entrance. Dylan, Emma and David explored the tunnel (the diameter ranged between 2-3 feet) while I waited with the camera at the end. I was glad I did. It was pitch black and probably would have taken about 3 minutes but took closer to 5-6 minutes waiting for the others to make it through. Too claustrophobic!! The kids loved it and did it twice.

Christmas was a huge success. Santa found us and managed to fit down the chimney of the wood-burning stove. The kids played with toys, ate Christmas cookies and read books for most of the day. We took a little break and went down to the beach for a Christmas swim. The currents at the first beach we went to were too strong and started pulling the kids out almost as soon as we got in. We were all a little spooked so we moved on to another where it was much more mellow. It was a great Christmas celebration - Happy Holidays to all!

Rice Bubbles and Budgie Smugglers*

We arrived in Perth after almost exactly five months in Asia (almost 1/12 of David’s life!). On the plane here it was strange to think we wouldn’t be getting off in another Asian country but in one with more familiar elements. Our first couple days were filled with culture shock going from Asian to Western but also trying to sort out the cultural differences between American and Australian/English ways. Everyone is so friendly and helpful but is frustrating when you know they are speaking English to you and you still can’t understand them!

The first biggest thing we noticed was how empty it seems here. Perth is the largest city in Western Australia (WA) with a booming population of 1.5 million (WA itself has only 2.2 of the total population of 21 million). Compared to the huge crowded cities we have been in (Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok), where hundreds of people are around 24/7, it seems like a ghost town! We were staying in the main downtown area which is busy during the day but completely clears out around 6pm as everyone heads back to the suburbs (kind of like downtown LA). Even during the day, we still have been walking down streets and been the only ones on the whole street.

As a treat for David especially, we decided to take a trip the Perth Mint, which is touted as a great tourist attraction (there isn’t THAT much in Perth). The Mint was founded in 1899 by the British to refine the gold discovered in WA during the 1890’s and send it back to the motherland. They don’t mint regularly circulated coins anymore, but they do still make all sorts of commemorative coins (apparently the Japanese love them – they had special Hello Kitty ones) and the silver medals for the Sydney Olympic Games. The big highlight of the Mint tour was watching them melt, pour and mould a 25-pound solid gold brick. You could also try to pick up a 25-pound gold brick that was housed in a big plexi-glass box. David was in seventh heaven.

There were also examples of gold bars from around the world. There was millions of dollars worth of gold with what seemed like relatively little security. I don’t know why I do it, but I started scheming how you could knock the place over. I would never do anything like that, but I seem to always gravitate to scheming it. I was just feeling guilty for my scheming when Dylan pointed out how it seemed an easy place for someone to rob. I felt so much better that it wasn’t just me!

As a treat for all of us, we decided to take a ferry down the Swan River and over to Rottnest Island. The island is about 10 miles off shore and is Dutch for “rat nest” island. There are these creatures called quokkas that are found all over the island and look a lot like HUGE rats. They are actually much cuter. Aside from looking for quokkas, which isn’t too challenging, we spent the day at a beautiful white sand beach. We tried some snorkeling but there wasn’t much to see where we were and the water was unexpectedly cold! We were feeling very spoiled from our Indonesian adventure. We still had fun splashing around.

After a few days in Perth, we finally got our bearings together and headed down the coast to Margaret River. We were really looking forward to it, not only because there is great wine and really good surfing, but also because we rented a vacation house for two weeks for Christmas! We have been staying in hotels and eating out since we were in Japan. Cooking our own food, doing our laundry and hanging out in the backyard all sound really good.

On our way out of Perth we stopped in Fremantle, a port town just across the river from Perth. While we wanted to go to Fremantle for it’s pretty downtown with Victorian buildings and the fish and chips shops on the harbor, we really wanted to see the statue of it’s most famous resident…. Bon Scott. I am sure there are a few non-Australian hard-core AC/DC fans that would have known this was his hometown, but we only found out when we arrived in Perth.

We stopped to have some fish and chips on the harbor before seeking out the statue when we looked just across the street and saw it there. I don’t know if the statue was life-size, but he sure looked small. It was funny to watch all sorts of people stopping to take their picture with the statue. The best were these two older Italian couples. I had to wonder if they knew who he was or just figured he must be someone important if there was a statue of him and might as well take a picture with it. Apparently they also offer a special Bon Scott tour of Fremantle, which we would have done if we had time, that included his boyhood home, his school, the jail where he was incarcerated, and his grave.

A few hours after leaving Fremantle and being in the car for the first time in five months, we headed southwest and arrived in at our hotel in Bunbury. We had decided to spend the night here because it was home to the Dolphin Discover Centre that offers boat trips out to swim with wild dolphins. The town is on a protected bay and a river runs into the bay. The dolphins come in the bay to feed, rest and play.

The early the next morning we headed over to the Centre. They suited us up with wetsuits (Emma and David each wore two) and snorkel gear and then loaded us up on a small pontoon boat. There were about ten other people onboard with us. We saw the dolphins swimming all around and our guide, a marine biologist, talked to us about their behavior and identified a few of the dolphins. When we saw 5-6 playing in the water, they stopped the boat and we quietly slipped into the water. Our guide told us not to swim towards the dolphins, as that would scare them, but to make them interested in us by singing and duck-diving down underwater. We did this for about a half-hour and while they circled nearby, they never got very close.

We got back the boat to warm up and head towards another spot when they came back. Our guide told us we could quickly and quietly get back in the water. Most people were still warming up (including David wrapped in blankets) so Dylan, Emma and I got back in. I saw a dorsal fin in the distance but figured it was pretty far off when all of a sudden I was face-to-face with a dolphin!! He came within a foot of me, just checking me out. Emma and Dylan were right behind me and also got a close-up view too. I had an underwater camera but I think I was too dazzled to even get my wits about me enough to take a picture. As quickly as he appeared, he was gone, but it made the whole excursion worth it.

After the dolphin experience we got back on the road and headed south for Margaret River and our house. The drive was beautiful and took us from dry desert scrub to rolling fields, vineyards and huge eucalyptus forests. We were a little nervous about the house at first, but it has ended up being all that we were hoping. It has nice big kitchen and living room area with huge windows that look out into the yard, which is filled with tall eucalyptus trees. The town is nearby and consists of about three blocks of shops and restaurants.

There are about 70 wineries in the Margaret River area. We have made it to two so far. They are particularly famous for their cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. We haven’t had any cabs we were crazy about but had a very good chardonnay, Evoi 2008 reserve Margaret River chardonnay (in case you can track it down at home).

The chardonnay was enjoyed last night with our belated Thanksgiving dinner. We put together quite a feast with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. We even set the whole day aside to pretend it was Thanksgiving and spent the day hanging out around the house - Dylan played his guitar, David played chess and Emma made Christmas ornaments. We were all very thankful for our special meal together and thankful that next year we’ll get to have Thanksgiving with our family and friends.

Emma and David have been working very hard to get the house ready for Christmas. We made a cardboard tree and have decorated it with candy canes and origami balloons and cranes. We are gearing up for Christmas cookies and even have most of the presents wrapped – I am more on the ball here for Christmas than I ever have been at home when I am furiously wrapping all my presents on Christmas eve!

*Rice Bubbles=Rice Krispies, Budgie Smugglers=Togs=Bathers=Swimsuit