Well, we have lived for a whole week in Australia and are
really still enjoying every day!
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we aren’t just on vacation, but we’ve
moved to another country. Most people you
meet and talk to are Australian, but there are lots of Americans too, as well
as Indian and Asian. The Aboriginal
people are everywhere in town, as well as sitting in groups out in the
bush. I haven’t seen any “anti-social” behavior
as such yet. There was a young aboriginal
boy playing at the park this morning and was indicating that he liked a dog
that was running around, but he didn’t seem to speak English.
Let’s see…Trent has been picked up by the bus now for work
and that is working out just fine. There
is a “govy” that shares his bus stop (a government worker) so they can meet up
and chat until the bus comes. It is pretty
cold in the mornings and evenings (sweatshirts and pants), but in the afternoon
the sun is just so direct and warms you up very quickly. We did buy a car this week (and returned the
rental car)! It is a 2001 Landrover
Discovery II, silver, with lots of amenities.
It was owned by a local couple who are moving to Perth and selling most
of their possessions before they go. It
is a diesel, has a snorkel (which is a black tube thing that hooks to the side
of the windshield and down into the engine, and puts the air intake by the roof
so you can drive through deeper water and so you don’t suck as much dust in…when
it rains here, it usually floods and when it hasn’t rained, it’s always dusty!),
a “bull” bar (I guess for bouncing bull kangaroos off the front of your car??),
cb radio, 7 seats, and good off-roading character. I did finally drive for the first time on
Friday and went to the APO (the US post office), the IGA (neighborhood store), back
to the APO, home, the park and then downtown Alice so we could return the
rental car. It is really scary to drive
on the left and remember what to do on roundabouts and major
intersections!! But, we made it and now
I feel like I can do it!
The kids and I have been taking walks around the
neighborhood every day, so we have found several playgrounds. One is a really nice park with fun equipment
and big fabric shades and benches; the kids just love it there. It is all sand so they get to be barefoot to
play. Finding parks and going to the neighborhood
market have been our main ways of occupying our exploration time during the
week! Last night (Friday night) we tried
a pizza place called Rocky’s and it was really good! They serve garlic bread with their pizza, so
the boys especially were enthralled with Rocky’s! Today we slept in a bit and the kids watched
a video for breakfast while eating some cinnamon roll biscuits (we haven’t see
cinnamon rolls here!! I had to make them
with a biscuit dough this morning from scratch, which turned out pretty good,
but was a bit of work for a Sat. morning breakfast. I have this fan oven with different
bake/grill settings on one side and then the Celsius degrees adjusted with another
knob. There isn’t a manual here, so I am trying to
figure it out as we go, but it is definitely different. Anyway, after we all got ready for the day we
went to an auto parts store and got seat covers for the front seats of the
Landrover, as there were a couple rips. This
afternoon we set out on an adventure to go see the historic telegraph station
that was the reason Alice Springs began to flourish out here in the Red
Centre. It is a fun reserve and has walking
trails through the bush and rocks to some lovely Australian scenery, as well as
the telegraph station (which we didn’t get to go into because they wanted to charge
admission). We walked in the dry Todd River
bed and climbed rocks where the “Alice Springs” were named for. I guess they were named for Mr. Todd’s (the
telegraph stationmaster) wife and aren’t actually springs, but the waterhole
that stays the longest before the river dries up. The town used to be called Stuart, but the
name was changed to Alice Springs at some point. We did see some kangaroos feeding in a bushy
area from on top of a rocky hill, so got some good pictures of that! There is a lot more vegetation here than I
thought there would be. Lots of small
brushy bushes and not so much open desert land.
But the rocks are very red! All
of us had a great time hiking around out at the telegraph station, and then
towards sunset we headed over to the
Heavitree Gap Motel (just south of town), because behind it every evening you
can hand feed the rock wallabies!
Trent bought little bags of “dietary pellets”
for the kids and they had a blast letting those wallabies eat from their
hands. They were petting and talking to
them and being very careful not to scare them…It was very cute! A couple of the wallabies had a joey in their
pouch. The joeys were about the size of a
squirrel. The wallabies are about 18”
tall with some variation. We will post
pictures of all that when our internet cooperates (next week??)!
 |
| Beaux feeding the Rock Wallabies |
On a worse note, we did see our first redback spider this
morning right between our screen door and the laundry room door to go outside. Trent happened to see it and got it killed,
but showed the kids so they know what to watch out for. I guess we are supposed to be real careful once
we get our patio furniture because they like to live under seats and
tables. Yuk!! Our sponsor (one of Trent’s co-workers) said
that coming in the winter gives you a false sense of security, because all of
the scary creatures come out when it starts to get warm. There is one spider in particular we don’t
want to meet – it is the size of a small dinner plate and is a ground
hunter. I guess they are notorious for
coming right in the door if you leave it open and they are extremely fast! Luckily they aren’t real poisonous or
aggressive – just disturbing.
Heading to church tomorrow at the Christian Community Church
where Trent’s boss, Ray, goes. We drove
by it today so we’d know where to go. We
might drive out on another adventure in the afternoon, just for fun! We
have ordered school curriculum for the year, so will need to be starting that
when it gets here, but for now we are learning all about our new town.
Odd Australia things:
doorknobs are about 50” off the floor (that is taller than the kids, so
really high compared to the US), they don’t have bacon, car dealers close at
noon on Saturdays, water is heated via solar energy unless you push the “boost”
button in the kitchen, “dip your headlights” means turn off your brights, “docket”
means receipt, and pavement is called “bitumen”.
I guess that is enough for tonight!
Hilary
Love to read how you are doing. Can't count the number of times I hear your kids' names in a wistful voice around our house. You are missed. We love the details about what you are learning in Australia. JoJo, especially, loves the differences between here & there that you are pointing out. He thinks it is very funny to call the pavement bitumen. :)
ReplyDeleteAfter your post I got the strange urge to look up Australian spiders. Then I stopped quickly because it was quite disturbing! Love you guys! :)
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