New Year's in Margaret River

We rang in 2011 on a friend's farm in Margaret River.   In June I wrote about wine, chocolate, and other indulgences in Margaret River.

On 1/1/11* we spent the day bumming around the area visiting a couple beaches and hitting up a local ice creamery.  I thought I'd share a few photos of what 1/1/11* looked like in Margaret River. 

*I love this date because it represents the same date in both Australia and the US.  In Australia the dates are reversed so today is 3/1/11 and not 1/3/11.

Hamelin Bay

Hamelin Bay

Karri forest



Karri trees



Caves Road

houses of Prevelly

Prevelly

kite surfers and wind surfers at Prevelly

kite surfers and wind surfers at Prevelly

Christmas in summer

For my first Christmas in Australia I sent cards depicting satirical Aussie Christmases. Santa at the beach in a swim suit, surrounded by Kangaroos and Kookaburras. Or Santa playing cricket with his elves, again on the beach. These cards are a rather fair assessment of Christmas down under. In the morning, many people head down to the beach before gathering for a family lunch of turkey, ham and prawns.

The thermometer on Christmas day reached 40 degrees Celsius or 105 Fahrenheit. When the temperature nears the 37 degree mark we typically find ourselves camping out in our lounge room with the air-conditioning. Shane woke me up at midnight on Christmas Eve to announce that he’d had enough and was moving into the lounge room. Bronson and I decided to join him on the foam mattress. Thus far, no sign of Santa was visible. We woke up around 6am with the sun already high in the sky and exchanged gifts.

As I stared at the fireplace in our old brick home I wondered how Santa brought gifts to the majority of children across Australia with no fireplace. As a child Shane had a small iron stove for a fireplace at one house. But, if you don’t have a fireplace? Well, he just walks through the front door of course.

Otherwise, Christmas is pretty much the same. People (although not quite as many) hang lights on their homes, kids sit on Santa’s lap at the mall, and everyone scrambles to finish their gift buying at 5pm on Christmas Eve. Many Australians talk of someday having a white Christmas overseas and photos of snowmen and children sledding grace many holiday items.

There is however, one added bonus to Christmas in OZ. The following day is Boxing Day which is a popular day to watch cricket and unwind from the festivities of the previous day. Once again we headed to the beach in the morning and then sat in our air-conditioned lounge and watched cricket until joining Shane’s family for a Boxing Day dinner.

With Christmas and Boxing Day falling on the weekend, Monday and Tuesday were public holidays. We drove down to Bunbury, 1.5 hours south of Perth, and spent the next two days skiing with friends at a sheltered beach ideal for water skiing.

On Monday, I was the last person to ski for the day. Our boat had been out of commission for several months so it was the first time I had skied since last summer. When our friend Matt dropped me off on the beach they quickly scurried me and the two dogs (the skier welcoming committee) out of the water. Matt was rather certain he spotted a four meter shark about five meters from where I skied. We were only 200 meters from our home base so he continued on, hoping I wouldn’t fall. Had I fallen, most likely nothing would have happened. We were one of a few skiers out that day and a shark was never officially spotted. But, it was enough for us to call it a day and take our ski boat to a local lake the following day.

Wishing you a wonderful festive season free of sharks and other unwelcomed surprises and all the best for 2011!

Good Read: The Paperbark Shoe

I enjoy reading. Lying on the beach with a book is one of my favorite leisure activities. I sometimes look forward to long flights - which from Perth is about any flight - because it gives me an excuse to read.  But mostly I read in bed, to wind down at the end of a long day. The challenge, is keeping my eyes open long enough to make it past ten pages, no matter how enthralling the book may be.

I typically keep a running “to read” list and I try to be sure to intersperse Aussie authors into the mix. The winter issue of Scoop, a seasonal publication that is essentially about everything WA (and quite well done I might add) highlighted the novel, The Paperbark Shoe, by West Australian native Goldie Goldbloom. It was the author that initially caught my attention. Goldbloom is Perth-born but has called Chicago her home for over 15 years (I can relate). She is also a Hasidic Jew, gay, and the single mother of eight children. Ok, so I can’t relate. But no doubt, as a single mother of eight, living thousands of miles from home, she has some interesting experiences to draw inspiration from.

The Paperbark Shoe is about Gin and Toad and their two children, set during World War II in the small outback town of Wyalkatchem (a real town) in WA’s Wheatbelt. It is insecurities and not love that bring Gin and Toad together. Gin, a talented musician from a privileged upbringing in Perth feels that as an albino she can do no better than the closeted Toad with his odd fetishes. Their life changes suddenly when two Italian POWs come to work on their farm. This book covers everything from the challenges of being different, tragic love, mismatched love, family dynamics, prejudices, war, distance, infidelity, regrets, to life in a small and very remote town.

I have a particular interest in books set in a different period or foreign place which are fictional yet based on history and this book ticked all the boxes. It’s a fascinating depiction of farming life in WA’s outback during the 1940’s, with insight into the Aussie dialect and the desolate landscape of WA.

A writer of short stories, this is the first novel by Goldbloom. It won the 2008 Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Novel Award in the US.

Before you hit your local Borders or Barnes and Noble be advised that in the US it goes by the title Toads’ Museum of Freaks and Wonders. Goldbloom explains that she felt the title The Paperbark Shoe would be lost in translation. With the Paperbark tree not being common in the US, she feared it would be interpreted as Paperback.   But you'll have to read the book to learn the significance of the title.  Happy reading.  Let me know what you think!

Thanksgiving

When the Pilgrims and the Indians sat down for the first Thanksgiving, I’m guessing they didn’t cook a hot meal in the 95 degree spring heat (with no air-conditioning by the way), making trips down to the beach between baking the pumpkin pie and stuffing the turkey. Then again, I suppose they didn’t saddle up on the couch for a game of football or eat cranberry dressing from a tin can.

This is the third year I’ve enforced Thanksgiving upon my husband’s family. I can count on my father-in-law to eat anything I put in front of him. But getting the rest of the crew to eat things like pumpkin pie and sweet potato casserole is a challenge. I know, weird, huh? This presents an additional challenge, because it means I’m left to eat the bulk of the leftovers by myself. Did I mention I work from home? Shane’s sister and her husband lived in the US for five years and understand the tradition. Kym even makes a mean apple pie. And for the first time this year, I got rave reviews on the sweet potato casserole. My mother-in-law now understands that it’s part of the main meal and not a dessert. She also announced that she overate which she never does. So this Thanksgiving thing is definitely catching on.

Preparing a Thanksgiving feast down under presents other difficulties. My first Thanksgiving in Perth I must have visited four major grocery stores looking for things like canned pumpkin and frozen pie crust before realizing it’s just not available and I’d have to go about things the old fashioned way. Under normal circumstances I’m a proponent of cooking from scratch, but a pumpkin pie isn’t a pumpkin pie unless it comes from a can. So, I rolled up my sleeves, boiled and mashed the pumpkin, rolled out the dough and successfully baked a real pumpkin pie and then did it again the next year.

But something magical happened earlier this year. While shopping at a local specialty grocers I came across two (dusty) cans of pumpkin ordered from usafoods.com.au.  I was so excited that I purchased both cans and sat them quietly in the back of my cupboard until this week. It wasn’t until later that I noticed I had spent $7.25 a can. For my crust this year I settled on a sweet flan case, not to be confused with a savory flan case. Aussies love their meat pies but sweet pies aren’t as common and after baking with a frozen flan case for the first time I realized it’s essentially a pie crust.

That’s the anatomy of a pumpkin pie down under. But, I’ve had to make a couple other amendments to my tradition American meal.

Big turkeys are difficult to come by. Thanks to Christmas, frozen turkeys start to appear in the stores at the end of November and for the first year I was able to find a turkey bigger than 5 kilos (11 lbs) to feed 8 adults and 4 children. Our 7.2 kilo bird was more than enough to feed the family with a day or two of leftovers.

But you can’t have a turkey without cranberry dressing and who doesn’t love a big can shaped blob of processed cranberries with ridges. No tin can cranberries in Australia, but thanks to Ocean Spray it comes in a glass jar. And what’s a turkey without cranberry dressing and my apple, sultana and almond stuffing – I mean apple, raisin and almond stuffing.

Shark Bay

Over the weekend Shane, Bronson and I spent three nights in Shark Bay. Shark Bay is an 8 hour drive north of Perth – a rather ambitious trip for three nights but that’s where we wanted to go so that’s where we went.

Shark Bay is not a bay per say but a World Heritage area consisting of two peninsulas. The southern peninsula is accessible only by an unpaved road. This road is appropriately named Useless Loop. Only a salt and gypsum mine resides on the peninsula producing the purest grade sea salt in the world. If you can handle the two plus hour drive on gravel road then camping and fishing are available by permit at Steep Point.  Shane seems to think we'll be making a trip there after the holidays.

We stayed in Denham, the only town on Peron peninsula to the north – population 1,500 and the western most town in Australia. A twenty minute drive from Denham on the opposite side of the peninsula is Monkey Mia – a small resort and famous spot for feeding and interacting with wild dolphins. In the 1960’s local fisherman began feeding the dolphins. Ever since then, the dolphins have come to the same beach to be fed by the people. Disclaimer: uncomplicated and unrefined does not support feeding wildlife but it seems to work at Monkey Mia and is a pretty amazing example of the relationship between wildlife and humans.

I’ve always associated Shark Bay with Monkey Mia as it has a bit of a reputation for attracting overseas tourists wanting to interact with the dolphins. I was delighted to discover that it’s an area with a special history and unique wildlife.

At the end of Useless Loop lies Dirk Hartog Island – an 80km island and the largest island in WA. It houses an eco-tourism resort accessible by plane. Dirk Hartog (great name) was a Dutch captain who landed on the island in 1616 when his ship was blown off course. He decided it was inhabitable so nailed a pewter plate to a tree proclaiming he was there and went on his merry way. In 1697 another Dutch captain, William de Vlamingh, landed on the island and replaced Hartog’s plate with his own. William spent some time exploring the west coast of Australia and the existence of any Dutch settlers is a mystery to this day. Some say there are aboriginals with Dutch ancestry running through their veins. It wasn’t until 1770 that Captain James Cook landed on the east coast, outside of Sydney, and the first British settlement began in 1778 - over one hundred years from when the Dutch first landed on the west coast.

Shark Bay’s history dates back much further than the 17th century. Hamelin Pool which sits at the base of Peron Peninsula is one of only three places in the world where living marine stromatolites exist – the other two are in the Bahamas. Stomatolites are one of the earliest forms of life on Earth – their existence dating back over 3 billion years. The high salt content of Hamelin Pools allows them to continue to thrive. And I can’t help but think that the lack of human contact in this area also plays a role in their survival.

The high salt content of the ocean can also be thanked for beautiful Shell Beach where Shane stands in the photo up top. This beach is made of trillions of tiny shells named the Hamelin Cockle which wash up and form piles up to 10m thick on an amazing beach that is several kilometers long and at points 1km wide.

In case I haven’t convinced you that Shark Bay is a magical place, it’s also home to Blue Lagoon Pearl Farm.

But possibly my favorite part of Shark Bay is the amazing wildlife. We had the opportunity to watch a father Emu (the dad rears the young) and his 14 chicks navigate their way through the bush and cross the two lane road.

 

All I wanted to see on this trip was a Dugong and after 7 hours at sea we finally saw one as we were heading in for the day. Dugongs (which you may know as Manatees) are the world’s only marine mammal herbivore and an amazing 10% of the world’s population lives in Shark Bay.  I was too mesmerized and he was too sneaky for me to capture anything on camera aside from the tip of his tail.

I’m fortunate to have a husband with a particularly keen ability to spot wildlife that I would otherwise miss. “Look, there’s an eagle, a snake, an emu, a roo (kangaroo), a hawk, a goat, a fox, a racehorse lizard, a sea turtle, a ray, a dugong, a school of fish” And we saw all of these in Shark Bay. He’s like my own personal Crocodile Dundee. If only I looked like Linda Kozlowski in that one-piece thong swimsuit


fishing



Eagle Bluff

 

Sunday drive



Yep. Today was one of those Sundays.

Our friend Norto wanted to dust the cobwebs off his boat and stretch its legs so being the good friends that we are, we kindly offered to stretch our legs on his boat.

We put the boat in the water just north of the city and headed east along the upper Swan. We had no agenda or destination. We were just going for a Sunday drive.

The narrow channels of the upper swan with its swampy banks and smooth dark waters are a different sight to the white sand and turquoise waters of its delta to the west. Fishing boats replace yachts. Old farm houses replace mansions. Tall yellow grasses replace manicured lawns. Lonely fisherman replace groups of cyclists. And the sound of the wind replaces the zoom of cars. It is nothing short of charming.

And if it wasn’t already charming enough, the banks of the upper swan are scattered with wineries. We stopped off at one of these wineries – waters edge. Waters Edge is home to WA’s oldest underground cellar - also Australia’s second oldest underground cellar

Life on the Swan in the 1850's...

And in 2010...



As they said above, it's just as it was over 160 years ago.

waters edge cellar

waters edge from the jetty

 a vineyard on the banks

 a Shag and its chick

welcomed clouds on a hot day

Sailing the Swan, cruising the Canning

One of Perth’s greatest attributes is its waterways. Hold on. Perth’s greatest attribute is its waterways. With Australia’s largest cities situated on the coast, impressive waterways aren’t exactly a unique asset. But for the millions of us across the world that have spent most of our lives landlocked, an extensive river system which is home to a dozen different water sports and drains into an ocean lined with unending beaches – then it’s kind-of cool.

I should mention that I myself grew up along an extensive river system – one famous for riverboat casinos, devastating floods, and a certain Chevy Chase movie. Not to discredit St. Louis and the mighty Mississippi (I just wanted to type it) and Missouri Rivers. The Mississippi River (he he) played a significant part in US history and St. Louis has its own unique assets like Imo’s Pizza and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard.

Perth has some other wonderful assets such as amazing weather, beautiful beaches, amazing weather and beautiful beaches. My point is, you don’t come to Perth for a shopping holiday or to experience the nightlife and that’s Ok because if you have any interest in the great outdoors, exercise, boating or fishing, you won’t be at a loss for things to do.

The City of Perth sits where the Swan and Canning Rivers meet and become the Swan - about 14 kilometers (9 miles) as the crow flies from Fremantle, the port city where the Swan dumps into the Indian Ocean. If you are a visual person like me with a strong desire to know exactly where you are on a map then click here. Zoom in a couple times and scroll west. See Attadale? That’s where I live.

If I were a crow flying from Perth to Fremantle, during my flight I’d see sail boats, water skiers, jet skiers, yachts, paddle and dragon boaters, rowing teams, kite surfers, wind surfers, fisherman and even booze cruises. I’d also see costal parks, jetties, rowing clubs, sailing clubs, cafes, and walkers, runners and bikers along the extensive walkways that cover every inch of land along the water. I might also see people jumping off the cliffs into the river at Blackwall Reach or boats parked casually in a bay enjoying a Sunday afternoon. There’s also a pretty good chance I’d see Dolphins and Perth’s famous Black Swans.

And that’s why the state of Western Australia has the largest per capita boat ownership in the world. Perth also claims to have the largest per capita population of self made millionaires of any capital city in the world. Coincidence? Well maybe, because we have a boat and so do some of our friends.

In case you’d like to skip the writing and go straight to the photos…

 como jetty

 como jetty

 south perth foreshore

 city views from King's Park

 river views from King's Park

 the narrows from King's Park

 boat shed

 

 views from Peppermint Grove

 more views from Peppermint Grove

 black swans

 south of perth yacht club

views from our dog park

Halloween anyone?

Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. I’ve already mentioned my affinity for candy corn, I have a special interest in the supernatural and although I arrived into the world five days late, I was due to make my entrance on Halloween.

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re wondering if they celebrate Halloween in Australia. I get this question every year. The answer is no… well yes… umm sort-of? The Australian version of Halloween is like this. It’s like walking into a bar on spring break in Cancun and ordering a margarita from one of those mass produced propeller controlled machines. It’s tasteless and has less alcohol than a Bartles and Jaymes wine cooler. So why even bother.

This evening at 6pm while the sun was still shinning bright, we went for a walk. During our thirty minute walk we saw a total of maybe seven children trick-or-treating. I sadly watched a group of 10-year-old girls dressed as school girl meets zombie go from door to door with no answer. At another house, one little girl sat outside in a ballerina outfit jumping on her trampoline while her dad washed the car. A bucket of candy lay on the grass. One Halloween friendly house advertised with black and orange balloons. It was bizarre. I felt as if I was in the middle of a bad dream where humans retreated underground and only the fanatical came out to celebrate Halloween. Not a jack-o-lantern or Halloween decoration in sight, no designated candy aisles in the stores and no “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” on the television.

By no means is this a criticism of Australia’s version of Halloween. I wouldn’t even expect Halloween to be recognized here but it’s something that’s slowly caught on in recent years from watching American tv shows and movies. I asked Shane when he was first introduced to Halloween. His answer was as a teenager, watching the Simpsons. How did I not already know this.

The curiosity is understandable. It gives young adults (and some older ones) they excuse to dress inappropriately and stay out late drinking and it gives young children an excuse to eat candy and socialize on a school night. A segment on this morning’s national morning program was even dedicated to the question of whether or not Australia should embrace Halloween.

I was living in England one 4th of July. A local American themed sports bar (because sports bars are inherently American) decided to capitalize on the 4th of July. The theme was Cowboys and Indians – hardly 4th of July but a good excuse to dress as a favored American stereotype and drink some pints.

But back to Halloween in Australia. If we’re going to get technical, Halloween’s roots are Celtic. Its commercialization is American. Seeing that there is probably a greater percentage of Australians with Celtic heritage than Americans then maybe they should be embracing Halloween?

But, as far as I’m concerned, my last Halloween was in 2007. I was a banana. That’s when my 28 year streak of dressing up for Halloween came to an end. On Friday I spoke with batman on Skype. He was in Houston. I had nearly forgotten that Halloween was only two days away until my friend’s four year old greeted me on the other end of the webcam.

I don’t want to leave you thinking that Australia doesn’t have its own holidays. On November 2nd, the first Tuesday in November, the Melbourne Cup will take place. The Kentucky Derby of Australian horse races but bigger. The state of Victoria declares it a public holiday and it’s rather acceptable for workers in other states to call in sick. I’m not really into horse races but the dresses, the hats, and the spring racing season is a big part of this culture and I enjoy watching Australians embrace a tradition that is uniquely theirs.

Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat! Mate.