Feeding (and Eating) Kangaroos

(An exclusive PETER post!!!) This is when we were feeding the wild kangaroos. It was right next to a big lake. My favorite time was when I actually, like, hugged a kangaroo on the back! We fed them some bread and some crackers, but they didn't like the crackers. When we were walking there we saw lots of kangaroo dung!! And while we were there we saw a mum with a baby in its pouch.

We've made two trips to Morriset, a town at the southwest corner of Lake Macquarie, to feed a herd of kangaroos that live on the grounds of a sprawling psychiatric hospital campus next to the lake. We tried to feed some fresh fruit to them on our second trip, but they rejected it in favor of sliced white bread, which they've clearly developed a taste for. We've also seen a wild kangaroo or two at the Hunter Valley Botanical Garden, and the Audrey Wilkinson Winery, as well as a wallaby (a small, shy kangaroo) near the Williams River in Barrington Tops National Park. But those sightings were nothing compared to strolling through the crowd at Morisset.

Last night, we ate kangaroo, purchased at the local Cole's supermarket at the Waratah Village shopping center. Nick said it tasted like (beef) steak; I thought it was closer to venison.

Weet-Bix

Weet Bix is sort of the national cereal here. Like Corn Flakes in the US. It's whole wheat, no sugar. It's like another version of Weetabix which is British and available in the US. It's one of the few cereals that come in extra large sizes and the only one you can buy generic in most supermarkets. It's very healthy for you!

Vegemite

Here's another new discovery: Vegemite. I chose this photo because it shows the vegemite on a cracker, the way you eat it. Of course, it's better if you spread it a little thinner and put a thin layer of margarine on your cracker first. How does it taste? Well, it's hard to describe. It tastes a little like bouillon paste because it's so salty. It tastes a little yeasty and fermented because it's made out of yeast. It's an acquired taste, but the amazing thing about it, is that a tiny serving of it has amazing amounts of B vitamins - including 50% of your folate requirement and also B12 which is not found in other vegetable foods. And lots of iron. It is very popular here. Some people eat it for breakfast every day and they serve vegemite sandwiches in the school cafeteria. It's kind of the role that peanut butter plays in the US. It doesn't taste as nice as peanut butter but it has a lot more vitamins.

Tim Tams

Above is a picture of our favorite cookies here. They are yummy! They have chocolate cookies, chocolate filling and chocolate coating! And the chocolate is really good! Hooray!

Hunter Valley Vineyards

A gorgeous weekend in the Hunter Valley (March 10 and 11). We stayed at fancy Tallawanta Lodge, adjacent to the Hunter Valley Gardens, a recently built botanical extravaganza. Walked and drove to a handful of wineries, including Lindemans. Pokolbin Mountain is the big hill in the background of the Lindemans photo. We drove up a long, narrow dirt road to the top of the mountain and some spectacular greenery along the way. It is about a 2.5 hour drive from Sydney to the Hunter wine region, on roads and through country towns and some rolling hills that reminded Sarah and me of the drive from New York City to the Berkshires.

I think the kids' best memory from the weekend will be the Aqua Golf, which was a driving range next to our lodge where you hit the balls into a small lake dotted with net baskets attached to metal signs advertising area businesses. There were probably about 20 baskets. If you hit your ball into the basket you got a reasonable prize from that business, mostly restaurants and wineries. Nick kept getting close to Swill and Grill (a chain of local steak places.) Near the end of our second visit I finally got a ball into a basket, winning a voucher for one free dinner at a nearby historic brewery/hotel.

Sydney Harbor Bridge 75th Birthday Walk

The bridge walk was very exciting, despite the cloudy weather. Hundreds of thousands of people walked across the closed span, starting at 10 AM and ending around 7:30. We did it at 12:30 in a sea of walkers, and it took around 45 minutes to cross. Around 5:00, while we were waiting for a train out of town on the bridge approach ramp at the Milsons Point station, the bridge was still packed with people. Everyone got free bright green (or yellow?) souvenir hats. No corporate logos on the caps, by the way, and very little sponsor advertising anywhere else for that matter.

The bridge was wired with sound--speeches, news reports and music representing each decade of the bridge's existence. As you walked along you passed through a soundscape of each era. Near the end of the walk, large wind chimes were strung across the top of the bridge with their music piped through loud speakers, maybe to give the effect of walking into the future. An engaging experience.

The photo of the Opera House was taken from the neighborhood of Kirribilli by Peter. We are standing a couple of blocks from the Prime Minister's house and the Glenferrie Lodge, where we stayed the night before the walk.

Products

I'm thinking of shipping a crate of Black & Gold Three Bean Mix back to Pittsburgh for our next Steelers tailgate party. I like the picture on the Shave Foam can. Of course ... if you're buying generic shaving cream you're probably using a generic razor.

JATZ CLIX!

You call it cotton candy, we call it a dental hygiene tool for the flying creature that leaves money under your pillow when you lose a tooth.
(Snapped in Chinatown, Sydney)

Signage

WHICH ONE ARE YOU?

(photos from a Darling Harbor food kiosk, in Sydney, and Darby Street, Newcastle)

Nicholas caught this next one across the street from a Vietnamese restaurant that we ate at our first night in Sydney. St. George is our bank, chosen for its friendly dragon logo, its proximity to our first Newcastle address, and because my Dad attended St. George grade school and high school. Why not?

Emu was on the menu at the restaurant, by the way, but I went for the crocodile. As expected, it tasted like chicken, and for good reason, according to this sign from the Sydney Aquarium. (I'll take a picture soon of the kangaroo meat section at one of our local supermarkets.)

Falk, not the school, is some sort of worldwide heavy manufacturing concern, with this outpost located minutes from our house. There are about 10 different Falk signs posted around the complex.

Olde timey beer advertising, or perhaps a psychological assessment, at the Oriental Hotel, in Cooks Hill, Newcastle; a way out sign at Central Station, Sydney; and more fun at Guantanamo, near the home of Nicholas' Spanish tutor, in Lambton, Newcastle.

Around Our House

By popular request (thanks Herbert!), here are some pictures of and around our house at 14 Buchanan Street. Note that we ended up on a street with the same name as the only U.S. president from Pennsylvania (James Buchanan, also the only bachelor president), and the house has four too-pruned maple trees in the front (the sickest one is not shown). Good old Pittsburgh-type trees, but they don't seem to be doing very well in dry and hot Australia.

The house was about six months old when we moved in the third week of January. It turns out that furnished rental houses are few and far between in Newcastle, so we were lucky to get this one. A young doctor, her husband and their baby, who have temporarily relocated to Africa for work, are the owners. The doctor's Mom and Dad live in town and are very friendly landlord agents.

Hamilton is a trendy neighborhood formerly filled with Greek and Italian families who are aging and moving out or passing on. Many blocks feature a house or two like ours, modern two-story lot fillers that have replaced more traditional one-story bungalows with backyards. Hamilton was seriously damaged by a 1989 earthquake that killed 6 or so people in Newcastle. Fortunately, from what I understand, reconstruction money poured in and the earthquake had the unintended consequence of contributing to Hamilton's revitalization.

The pictures include two aerial views from the master bedroom of our enclosed back deck, and another shot from the master bedroom east, over the back alley rooftops toward the tree tops in Gregson Park. There are also perspectives from our front gate, down the back alley, and along the front walk, which is lined with bottlebrush trees that bloom with bright red flowers shaped like ... bottlebrushes! And how about that New Orleans-style pink house with the tall palms down the block?

Barrington Tops

Barrington Tops National Park was the first trip we made in our new used car (a very solid Holden Commodore sedan, made by GM. It's a favorite of taxi companies and police forces. I discovered after we bought it that our car was formerly owned by a police department in Queensland).

From the Barrington Tops website: "Carved out of an ancient volcano, it rises from near sea level to over 1500m. In the lower valleys, you'll find World Heritage-listed subtropical rainforests. Up on the plateau, there is subalpine woodland which regularly sees snow in winter."

Unfortunately, we drove up with little planning and only spent a few hours before driving back--1.5-2 hours each way. Beats a roundtrip to Breezewood though, although the road system in Australia is much less developed than in the U.S. What look to be major roads on the map just 30 minutes out of town often turns out to be winding two-lane country roads.

Nicholas, Peter and a new friend that they met at the park are building a dam in the Williams River, which is being considered for a real dam to ease the drought in some parts of Australia. (No water crisis in Newcastle, however. It has rained very regularly in February and March.) The hotel is located in Dungog, the gateway to the southern section of Barrington Tops. A sign on the road approaching the town welcomes to the the "Shire of Dungog". Very "Lord of the Rings", we thought.