November

Sunday, 30.11.2008

Today we went to the Featherdale Wildlife Park in Sydney. We saw lots of native animals. Sarah was able to touch a koala and a kangaroo and we saw a baby wallaby in its mother's pouch!
In the evening I went to Sydney to the Opera House for a concert of Sting and Edin Karamazov. It was great! They were both playing lute and Sting (sometime backed up by a small choir) was singing songs from John Dowland, who lived during the reign of Elizabeth I (= classical music rather than rock). The sound was fantastic, so much better than on the CD. It wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the Opera House, so the picture below is from the internet from an earlier concert.

Kassowari Wombat

Wallaby Koala

Kangaroo Croc

Echidna

Place of the concert and view back to the city from the opera house

Wednesday, 26.11.2008

From Sunday to Wednesday I was at a conference on biological polyesters in Auckland. I gave a presentation on my work on Tuesday. On the same evening we had a conference dinner on Waiheke Island, with a traditional Maori welcome ceremony, food, local wines and entertainment (including a haka - rugby fans will know what that is...). The dinner was cooked for half a day underground.
On Wednesday I had some time to go to a museum in Auckland. In the evening I went up the Skytower. I had been up there before almost 4 years ago with Nick, but that was during the day. Tomorrow I am heading back to Sydney.

Our dinner is coming out of the ground...

Dinner

Sunset on Waiheke Island

Maori house in the museum

Auckland Skytower

Auckland from the Skytower

Saturday, 22.11.2008

I spent Friday and Saturday with friends in New Zealand. We were very lucky with the weather and spent a lot of time at the sea. The first evening we had a lovely BBQ, for the second evening we planned to catch some fish. But the only fish that went for the bait was a big sting ray! I had a great time!
On Friday Sarah had her Christmas concert from the child care centre. Nick took her to the concert. She had to dress up in a kind of costume with a Christmas hat and socks with bells, which she didn't like very much. Also being up on stage wasn't exactly her idea of a nice Friday evening... ;-).

Beach at Mt. Maunganui, NZ

Pohutukawa tree and Mt. Maunganui

Beach at Mt. Maunganui

More beach

Sarah at her Christmas concert

Thursday, 20.11.2008

I am off to New Zealand to visit friends and to go to a conference in Auckland. Nick has taken the day off to look after Sarah and take her to her swimming lessons.

Sunday, 16.11.2008

We walked around Adelaide in the morning and then flew back to Sydney, with Sarah sitting on our laps. The man sitting next to us entertained Sarah for most of the flight!

Saturday, 15.11.2008

Today we walked around Adelaide. We walked along the river, where a rowing competition took place. Then we went through the botanical garden. After lunch and Sarah's sleep, we visited the South Australian Museum - stuffed animals, aboriginal culture, fossils, opalized dinosaurs, comets, bones etc. Sarah enjoyed it and we did, too. In the evening we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. We really enjoyed Adelaide and the surroundings. It seems much more European compared to Sydney.

River / lake Torrens, Adelaide

Sarah & Flopsy

Botanical Garden

Cooling her feet

Come on daddy!

At the museum

Ahhhhhh!

Sarah sneaked into our bed. She feels very grown-up...

Friday, 14.11.2008

Today we hired a car and went for a trip in the Adelaide Hills. The first stop was Mount Lofty, from where we had a great view over Adelaide (and a coffee). Then we continued to Hahndorf, a lovely town founded by German settlers in the 1830s. We had lunch at the German Arms Hotel before we went around the town to shop for local delicatessen for our dinner (see picture below). We bought some German Schwarzbrot (bread), local goat cheese and mature cheddar from a shop called 'Udder Delights', a Landjaeger sausage, Beerenberg Green Tomato Pickle, strawberries from the Beerenberg strawberry farm, locally grown Kalamata olives and Verjuice (unfermented wine / grape juice from slightly unripe grapes). We also bought a beautiful original painting from an aboriginal artist. That's going to be our Christmas present this year! The gallery will send it home for us.
Then we drove around the hills a bit, so Sarah could get some sleep. We spotted our first wild kangaroos, too! And we visited a small local chocolate factory. In the late afternoon we arrived in Gumeracha where they have the biggest rocking horse in the world, a wooden toy factory and a little animal park. Unfortunately we couldn't buy Sarah any of the wooden toys, because they are too heavy to take back to NL. But we enjoyed the little park with peacocks, kangaroos, ducks, geese, parrots and other animals. One of the parrots said 'hello cookie' to Sarah!
In the evening we enjoyed the delicatessen we had bought in Hahndorf. It was fantastic. Sarah liked the Schwarzbrot, the sausage and the cheddar and she ate almost all the strawberries...

View from Mt Lofty, Adelaide Hills, on Adelaide

Hahndorf

Adelaide Hills

Our first wild kangaroos!!!

Giant rocking horse

16 350 km to Amsterdam!

Delicatessen from Hahndorf

Thursday, 13.11.2008

The view we had from our train carriage in the morning was just awesome. The sun was rising over the red soil of the outback - that is the Australia I really wanted to see. We had a quick tea / coffee and muffin before the train rolled into Broken Hill, a silver mining town. We went for a bus trip around the town and stopped at an old silver mine. And of course we also had the chance to buy some souvenirs. When the train left Broken Hill it was time for breakfast. The food in the restaurant was included in the train fare and was really good: 3 course dinner, 2 course lunch, cooked breakfast, yummy! All the staff were also very helpful and friendly. By lunchtime the scenery had changed into endless corn fields with the odd gum tree. In the early afternoon we rolled into Adelaide. We really enjoyed the train trip and would recommend it to anybody holidaying in the area! We spent the rest of the day settling in in our apartment in the centre of Adelaide - and getting a hair cut in Nick's case.

Outback, sunrise

Old silver mine in Broken Hill

Sheep!

In the lounge

Dusty outback

Cornfields

Lunch

Yummy, cold turkey

Wednesday, 12.11.2008

Holidays!!! We took the train from Campbelltown to Sydney Central station (~1h), had lunch at the station and then we boarded the Indian Pacific train. The train goes twice a week all the way from Sydney via Adelaide to Perth (4352 km) in 3 days. We only did the first leg to Adelaide (1 day). We had our own little gold cabin with seats that converted into two berths and a collapsible cot for Sarah, which took up all the remaining floor space. We also had our own little shower with fold-down toilet and fold-down sink. The train was 18 carriages long and also carried some cars. In the "gold" area we had a lounge carriage and the Queen Adelaide Restaurant carriage, where they served delicious food. The train left Sydney just before 3pm and made its way through the Blue Mountains (about 1000m high) and reached rolling hills with grazing cows and sheep by the time we had our sunset dinner. Sarah had had a good nap after we left Sydney, but had problems to get to sleep in the evening. Most of the track further inland was so shaky that my teacup half emptied itself just by standing on the table. Nick and I didn't really get any sleep, because the tracks were so shaky and things were moving noisily around all the time, but Sarah slept through until the morning.

At Sydney Central station

Getting ready for bed

Sunday, 09.11.2008

Today Sarah was invited to her first birthday party. A girl in her group at crèche turned 2. She had her party at a place called Softplay, with a bouncy castle, slides, a pool of balls etc. All the other kids really went for it, but Sarah took a bit to warm up to the idea. And she is anyway not so boisterous as all the other kids, but in the end she enjoyed it. And she had a little party bag to take home! It included a green 'pearl' necklace that Sarah loves, but unfortunately the combination with sun crème made it stain her neck green...
In the afternoon we went to Dee Why just north of Sydney to visit some friends of Nick's mum. We went to the beach and later we had a snack of delicious mini quiches and Australian tea cake, which Sarah both loved!

Party!

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Dee Why beach

Dinner...

Saturday, 08.11.2008

Our landlords have put their house back on the market last week. So we had people coming round to look at the house every day, sometimes even 2-3 times per day. Even at the weekend. Or while we were eating...
Nick took Sarah swimming this morning while I did our weekend shopping. Sarah has gone off bananas and apples, she wouldn't even try nectarines, peaches and melons, but she still likes kiwis - and funnily strawberries. The strawberries here look beautiful, dark red, but they have absolutely NO flavour. I would have thrown them away, but she loves them! Generally, Sarah is veeery fussy about her food. She used to eat everything, but her dinners have now reduced to risotto, cucumbers, sometimes peppers, sweet corn, Weisswurst, sausages, Pasta Bolognese from the jar, bread, sometimes root vegetable soup or pasta with salmon cream sauce. She doesn't eat any of the meals they cook at the crèche, either... But the seems to like Vegemite sandwiches! And anyway, she's got much chubbier than she has been in Holland, because she hasn't been sick since we got here.
In the afternoon we went to the Australian museum in Sydney. Lots of bones, stuffed animals, Aborigine stuff, dinosaurs, crystals... We saw the top 10 most dangerous snakes, and spiders, too (all dead luckily). Sarah enjoyed it much more than we had thought. We also learned that wombats have a pouch the other way around than kangaroos (so they don't dig soil into it), hide from predators in their burrows with their bottom sticking out and they produce cubic poo! I think this pouch thing is really brilliant, wouldn't mind being a marsupial myself. It makes the birth so much easier and you always have a place to keep your child, money, keys, etc. ;-)

Coffee break

Sydney Cathedral

wombat poo

Sunday, 02.11.2008

We have been up north this weekend, driving 860 km in total and still having only covered a tiny bit of this huge country (see the two green balloons on the Australia map)! We left Saturday morning, drove around Sydney and had a little break just north of Sydney. On the way back to the freeway I spotted a guy in the middle of the highway, trying to help an echidna crossing the street. Echidnas are egg-laying mammals that look a bit like hedgehogs. After our break we went up north along the coast. We struggled to find a nice cafe for our lunch break, although the area is quite touristic. Generally Australia seems to have much less of a cafe-culture than New Zealand does, unfortunately. In Newcastle we stopped so Sarah could stretch her legs and play in a playground. At 5pm we arrived at our Hotel, the Oaks Pacific Blue Resort (balloon F on map) at Port Stephens. It is a really cool resort, with a huge lagoon-like swimming pool, encircling most of the accommodations. We just had to walk over a little beach from our room and could jump into the pool. Sarah enjoyed it a lot. We all went for dinner together and went to bed early.
On Sunday we enjoyed the breakfast and then went for a swim and warmed up in the outdoor jacuzzi. Back on the road we continued up north, seeing some nice beaches, lakes, pelicans, green rolling hills, grazing cows, hundreds of eucalyptus trees... Most of the afternoon we spent on the freeway back home. At dinner time we struggled again to find a decent place for a break and ended up at KFC. You can always rely on finding a McDonalds, KFC, Red Rooster or Hungry Jacks in even the smallest town... It was past 8pm when we got home, all quite exhausted.

Sarah in action Echidna (www.abc.net.au)

Oaks Pacific Blue Resort Salamander Bay (F)

Beach at Hawks Nest (H)

Building sandcastles at Smiths Lake (I)