Great Ocean Road - Part III

I need to get back to our last holiday and take my mind off of the bushfires. That may be hard because one of our lunch stops on the way home from Adelaide - Waranambool - has apparently been affected. Everywhere you turn in this state, it seems they are still battling the flames and the fall out from Australia's worst peacetime disaster. The Royal Commisions are being established, arsonists are on the run, and people are becoming very angry...

Anyway, back to Adelaide. In the morning, mom and dad walked over to our very unique streetside hotel room on Franklin. Through some sort of miraculous feat of packing and people we managed to get all six of us and our bags, into the van and in relative comfort. We were destined for Robe, South Australia a mere 4 hours away and our route would take us back through Tailem Bend and then south down the coast. Climbing our way back out of Adelaide the van was full of chatter as the kids got caught up with Nana and Grampa. It was great to have mom and dad right there in the seats beside us and the sense of familiarity felt like home...which is not great when you're trying to drive on the other side of the road!

We stopped in a place called Meningie for coffee, scones and a stretch of the legs. Meningie is on the shores of a huge inland saltwater lake called Lake Albert. Shallow and murky it didn't look like a place you would want to swim but we walked a bit on the broad beach and marvelled at the view. After some great food but rather dour service, we were back in the van and heading south again speeding by endless scrub and flatlands with very little in the way to discern this hundred kms from the last. Lunch time found us in Kingston, a fairly remote seaside town nestled right on the Southern Ocean, and we all enjoyed a decent lunch beside what may have been the biggest lobster statue in the world - or at least the southern hemisphere! With all passengers seated in new positions we pushed on for Robe, rolling into the Robetown Motor Inn around 2:30. Interestingly, Robe was the jumping off point for a mass Chinese immigration during the Victorian goldrush as boats from China would land at Robe, in the state of South Australia, so that the workers would not have to pay a tax the state of Victoria demanded.

Feeling again a bit squeamish at the accommodations, or maybe it was the guy hacking butts outside our room 24/7, I was only too glad when we piled back into the van shortly after checking in and headed for Long beach to check out the boogie boarding and beach cricket potential. Happily, both were quite good though the water was churned up and felt a bit like we were swimming in spinach soup. Nonetheless, Colin caught some major waves and then retired to the cricket pitch to bowl some wicked yorkers to Nana and Grandpa. Great fun for all and despite a wonky back, Nana played wicket keeper with great aplomb. Grampa also managed to find a bit of his old school boy pace and form. Memorable stuff, indeed. Back at the motel, the kids had a dip in the pool while the adults threw a few steaks on the barbie. After a great dinner we were off to check out the local lighthouse and obelisk, catching a one-of-a-kind sunset.

With little time to explore the cafes and shops of Robe we were on the road early and before I could even get a decent cup of coffee! After stopping in Millicent for gas and cash I was still without a java by the time we rolled back through Mt. Gambier. Our first McD's wrong-sided drive thru experience in Oz quickly produced the necessary liquid gold and with my caffeine craving finally slaked we started working our way out of town and off to Waranambool - the scene of that pretty awesome park a few days earlier. Being Sunday, the park was a zoo (hardee-har), but the boys still managed to find their way onto the flying foxes for one more fling.

A very large part of the reason for this tour was to drive the Great Ocean Road with mom and dad and soon after lunch, we began to see the impressive coastline in all its glory. With the requisite stops at Martyrs Bay, the Grotto, London Bridge and the 12 Apostles, perfect weather gave our digital cameras a workout as we soaked up the unforgettable beauty. With a pit stop in Port Campbell for supplies and still buzzing with wonder at the views and the increasingly windy road we started the final leg to our Apollo Bay rental house.

Linton had found us a gorgeous place online located a few kilometres outside of Apollo Bay, set well up in the hills, and with a fantastic view looking back toward the ocean. It was a roomy but cosy spot to hang our sunhats for a day or two and came complete with an enormous projection screen, surround sound, stunning views, and a friendly pair of parrots. Though we were here for the scenery, as far as the kids were concerned, Transformers never looked or sounded so good! After a great pasta dinner and bottle of wine a la Grampa Peter, we were all in our happy place and looking forward to exploring the Apollo Bay area in the morning. As it was not perfect beach weather, we spent the next day walking in town, shopping for a few souvies, and then trekking out to the Cape Otway lighthouse where a climb to the top and a couple of roadside koalas were the highlight. Dinner was a lovely family meal at Chris's Restaurant, an area institution that hangs out high in the hills just outside Apollo Bay. Thanks, Dad!

With Melbourne now clearly in our sights, we packed up in the morning intent on making it to Lorne for another day of beach basking. Again the weather in Lorne cooperated and we lazed about the sand giving Nana and Grampa a good taste of what we had enjoyed so much just a few days prior. One more trip back to our favourite ice cream store for a taste of another kind (I think Alex had bubblegum with marshmallows and gummi bears) and then we were off winding our way back through Torquay and Geelong and finally back into Melbourne - excited and eager to share our adopted home with "the 'rents". Our third big Aussie adventure was over and our minds and mini-van were packed with the memories.

The Victorian Bushfire Tragedy

With the Victorian bushfire death toll now standing at 84 and counting, my earlier complaints about the heat suddenly feel hollow and a bit careless. All around Melbourne rural communities are burning or in some cases have been wiped out altogether. Upwards of 700 homes have been lost. Despite what seemed like reasonable time and warnings, people have been caught totally by surprise by the power, speed and intensity of these fires. Several of the communities we have driven through in our travels - Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Healesville, Warranambool and Warragul are under siege right now with fifty different fires burning in the state. Everyone is praying for rain, less wind and cooler conditions. The army has been called in to relieve the volunteer firefighters and emergency fund hotlines have been set up around the state. There are hourly updates, special reports and we are glued to it all.

Thankfully, we are comfortable in the relative calm and coolness of central Melbourne enjoying a gorgeous southerly breeze blowing in off Bass strait. But this disaster is still hitting pretty darn close to home. The proximity is certainly part of it. Some of these fires are only 50-60 kms away whereas bushfires in the past have seemingly only ever raged in far off California.They are also undoubtedly directly affecting the lives of people we have come to know, so that too is beginning to weigh. I was also thinking about an equivalent event occuring anywhere in Ontario taking 84 lives in one day and I cannot think of one in my lifetime. The power of that loss would be massive and gives one a sense of the scale of this disaster. The other thing of course is that in trying times, one likes to be surrounded by the people you love and for us, that's not quite an option. This is an unwanted and unexpected twist to our adventures abroad but it is also a real reminder that all around our little bubble life and death go on.

The heat is too much with us, late and soon

I had already documented the unbelievable Melbourne heat during the Australian Open but after today, I needed to write an addendum. The title of this entry is a borrowed and slightly altered line from one of my favourite poems by William Wordsworth. It, and the sentiment in the poem, seemed appropriate.


So we were again a part of history in Melbourne today as the mercury topped out at 46.4 Celsius. It could not have been more gross and everywhere we looked and listened Melburnians were hunkering down for the worst. Premier Brumby was on record calling it the "worst day in our history".

The day started out innocently enough with people out and about and carrying on around 8:00 am. Joggers were jogging, dogs were walking their owners, and dutiful dads were strolling their newborns down the street while mom got a few more winks. I was also up and at'tem, watering our front and back gardens in the hope that I might prevent anymore carnage. Both gardens are on their way to becoming stand-ins for the Gobi desert. Without rain "tank water" the water restrictions are such that it is virtually impossible to keep a garden green or even brown. But, like the dutiful tenant that I am, I was doing my best. The plants seemed happy to see me.


Two hours later the streets were abandoned. By 10:30 the wickedly warm northwinds had picked up and things began to get more than a little toasty. The wind is so bizarre in its strength - in terms of both velocity and warmth. At home, a hot day usually involves very little wind as you bake in the calmness and crave a nice breeze. Here the wind is very strong but the gusts seem hotter than the actual sun. It's like trying to breathe in a convection oven on broil. Soon we were turning out the lights and I was stringing up a sheet over our back doors to try to keep direct sunlight out. With power outages a real certainty we began filling water bottles and thinking about contingency plans, food, and flashlights. It was going to be a day of reading, computer games, videos and lots and lots of Lego! It would also be clothing optional.


Courageously Linton and Colin traipsed down to the local tennis courts (fully clothed!) for the start of his lessons only to be informed by a small sign and the gathering dust storms that tennis would resume on a cooler day. Once they were back in our little bunker, we cranked up the fans and watched the temperature climb. Another incredible part of this Melbourne heat is just how fast it can change, for better or worse. At noon it was 34 and by three it was 46! And the weather office had it all down to the hour. Remarkably, as a result of a mysterious 120 degree change in wind direction, the temperature had dropped again to 30 by 6:00pm and without a massive thunderstorm to clear the way. This blast was intense but thankfully brief.


If this whole year is a test of the family compact in terms of exposure, then a hot day in a tiny house only serves to increase that potentially strained dynamic. I thought we all did remarkably well. The kitchen was practically off limits due to the heat so we made do with fruit and cold cuts. We read and watched movies, played a few games, had a cold shower or two and simply tried to avoid any unnecessary movement. There were moments of frustration and restless boredom but when we did happen to poke our heads out the door, the inferno racing down our street made indoors seem like paradise. It was simply one of those moments where you knew that your fate and the weather was beyond your control and to resist or pretend otherwise was futile - and sweat inducing! Outdoors was just not an option. As Linton remarked, you know it's hot when it's too hot to go the pool.


As I write, it's a relatively pleasant 30 and going down, with a prediction of 19 overnight and 25 tomorrow. On Sunday, I am sure, it will seem like it never happened. Fortunately, living in the middle of the city, we have been spared the power outages, highway closures, brush fires etc. that much of the state has been plagued with. But record setting heat like we experienced today, just like bare ski hills might at home, suggest to me that there must be something to this global warming thing. And so, as Wordsworth wrote (and I am paraphrasing) in the same poem I quoted above, I hope that we haven't spent too much time "Getting and spending, and [laying] waste our powers" so that more of us might again be "moved" to see not "little" but all "in Nature that is ours". This kind of heat is simply unnatural!

Thoughts on living "away"... and returning home

Linton here - I realize it is time that I posted a blog entry now that we are more than half way through our year away. I have had many realizations in the past few months. Some deeper and less obvious than others...but here goes and I am warning you now, I am nowhere near the writer James is...

When my in-laws, Jane and Peter, were here we went to the Immigration Museum. It's a fascinating place that creatively tells the story of Australian immigration over the last 2 centuries. And it reminded me that immigration is not just something people did last century. It's happening all the time; in fact, similiar to Canada, one in four people living in Australia now were not born here. I loved this museum for many reasons but mostly because it struck a chord within me about living "away". The opening line in the first exhibit was something like "Deciding to leave the place where you have grown up is one of the hardest decisions of your life". Aha. This is why people kept saying to us how adventurous we were to be leaving Toronto. The exhibit went on to say "Immigrants have to essentially start their life over again, setting themselves up, initiating friendships and creating a new 'family' and framework for themselves in their new location." Now that I am living through a bit of that, I can relate and have a new appreciation for immigrants all over the world. I certainly know, and was educated by the Immigration Museum, that most people who immigrate are doing so merely to survive or to avoid or escape political differences, war or natural disasters. I know we are so lucky to be able to choose to live in another country just because we were curious or were seeking a new experience/location to study at. But despite all the privilege that we have, it isn't easy living in a place where you virtually know no one and with which you have no history. It takes proactivity and optimism to be successful no matter who you are and where you have decided to live. Don't get me wrong, it has been an amazing year so far and we have met great people and had amazing travels/adventures; but it will be nice to get home to friends, family, our own house, a car and to a city that we know. I feel privileged to be able to experience this year as a temporary citizen and to not have to worry about how much more challenging it might be if we were settling here indefinitely or had been forced to come.

This theme struck me as well when I was in Hong Kong visiting my cousin, Sheila. Sheila and her family have lived in Hong Kong for 13 years now. They only planned on living there for a few years but have stayed because it was advantageous to do so from a career and lifestyle perspective. Still they talk of returning to Canada. I met a ton of their friends (all expats) who had done the same thing. Really amazingly educated, personable and fun people from all over the world who had all decided to leave their family and friends behind in pursuit of a different (and maybe better) life experience for themselves and their spouse/kids. This got me wondering - Are there only certain types of people who will risk and choose to move away from home? Am I one of those people? Why or why not?

Those people that know my family know that my sister Sarah has lived in Johannesburg for almost 15 years now. She initially chose to leave Toronto to be able to pursue her career to the fullest and then stayed when she fell in love and has been the CBS African bureau chief for 12 years. Right now she is spending four months in Vancouver as a CanWest visiting journalism professor at UBC. She is one of two international journalists that was awarded with this fellowship - very proud of her! It will be very interesting to get her impressions of being back in Canada after so very long and discover how she feels to be back even for a short amount of time.

Technology, specifically Facebook, has been an important tool for me living "away" and I am grateful that I live in an age where this is available to me. This technology and other social networking sites unite people from all over the world who are interesting in connecting. I know, I know - it is not for everyone, but this year, it is certainly for me!! I love the fact that I can stay in touch with family/friends so easily. I love that I have two new friends in Melbourne who are ex-Torontonians who found me through Facebook and that I get travel advice from friends all over the world. I also love the fact that I can tell James that there has been a significant Canadian news story/event (parliament proroguing, snowstorms) before he reads the Globe online because someone has commented on it through their Facebook status. Technology has made this year easier for me because at any time of the day/night, I can see who is on Facebook or Skype and connect with them.

So upon reflection of the whole "going away for a year" thing, it has been totally worthwhile but a ton of work - luckily I like being busy. Just to actually execute the logistics of removing ourselves from our Canadian life and establishing oursleves in Melbourne was a feat in itself. To survive the first few months, ensure the boys were settled at school, make new friends and create a life for us here has been the next hurdle. Incredibly, we are now facing the last half of the adventure and we are conscious of maximizing the remainder of our trip but at the same time not wanting to return home with a mountain of debt. As we dare to look a little further down the road, we are even starting to think about and plan for how we will resume our "normal" lives as smoothly as possible back in Toronto. This requires us to transition back into our Toronto existence - move our belongings back into our house, find a childcare arrangement for the kids, change back all our insurance, utilities, bills, finance....get the kids back into their activities, etc, etc. In essence, a reverse immigration.

There are also many things that will be different upon our return - I will hopefully have a new job (anyone offering?), James will have a new bigger job at school, we will be very broke, some friends will have bigger families or some may have moved away, Canada will be in a recession, the list goes on. But what I can't really anticipate is how I/our family will feel when the novelty of being back is over. Will I have satisfied my need for travel and new adventures? Will I yearn to be a stay at home mom again? Will the kids be happy picking up where they left off at school and with friends? Time will tell. But in the meantime, I am going to enjoy these last few months while they last - as a lucky, grateful guest of this wonderfully welcoming country.

P.S. - I have just finished The Book of Negroes, which I highly recommend. In it, the main character, Meena, an African girl brought over to North America as a slave in the eighteenth century, spends most of her life trying to return back to Africa to her village and "her people". She eventually does end up returning to Africa but once there, realizes that her experiences abroad have shaped who she is and what is important, not where she is from. She has changed and so has her homeland.

Great Ocean Road - Part II

With sandy shorts and heavy hearts we loaded up the van and pulled reluctantly out of Lorne. Would we ever spend four such glorious days on the beach again? This had been the stuff of family legend and we were sure that the halcyon days spent guiltily soaking up the sun and surf might never be repeated, ever. The stars have aligned themselves in many strange and wondrous ways in Oz, and perhaps nowhere did we feel the vibes of luck and good fortune more than on the gentle shores of Lorne.

But that was yesterday and today we had some major mileage to make up. We were going to save the really scenic stuff for our drive home, so this leg of the journey would take us away from the ocean but hopefully a little faster to Adelaide. From the golden shores of Lorne we climbed inland over a beautifully twisty road that again forced us to engage the rating system and after a "below 7" urging from Alex we spent a dusty few minutes at the side of the road trying to catch our breath and balance. Thankfully, only a few more turns separated us from flatter and straighter highways and soon we left the seclusion of the secondary roads to join one of the three major roads between Melbourne and Adelaide. Our eventual destination would be Mt. Gambier, the second largest city in South Australia, but before we got there we would enjoy a rainy lunch in Warranambool, a seaside town famous for its shipwrecks and killer playground. The boys and I had a fantastic time flinging oursleves down the best flying foxes I have ever seen. Australia, I must say, does parks right!

Needing to get another few hundred kms under the wheels of our trusty Toyota Tarango, we scarfed down our picnic lunch in the foggy confines of the van and then headed onto the open highway like Kerouac's Sal Paradise, not knowing what we would see or where we would stop next but certain that we were headed in the right direction. In fact, this particular trip was really our own version of a classic "road movie". There were the seedy motels, strange characters, and always the road pulling us on. Of course, there were not the endless parties, bizarre drug use, ,and way cool soundtrack of an Easy Rider or even National Lampoons Family Vacation but in the same way that the road movie captures life through the collective journey, our drive to Adelaide neatly captured the four of us living within whatever the road presented to us every day. Upon reflection, the freedom of not knowing where you would eat, what you might see, or who you might meet as you pull into the outer limits of the next, new and dusty town must be part of what Sal and Jack were so desperately addicted to. And though many of these places seemed so remote and faceless, the thrill of what the next place just might hold had become quite enchanting.

And it was with such a mind that we rolled into Mt. Gambier - pronounced Gam-bee-err - not with the obviously french influenced Gam-bee-ey that we consistently wanted to use and had all of the locals giving us the "You're-not-from-around-these-parts-are-yuh" hairy eyeball. Our first stop tends to always be the "i" which is the local tourist info booth and is always good for a few brochures, a pee, and at times a cool thing to climb on. In this case we discovered that Mt. Gambier was actually settled on top of a series of ancient rivers, caves and caverns and beside an old, very extinct volcano. Way cool! This was something new and different from the now very "boring" coastline and beach vistas and we all oohed and aahed at the size of the crater that formed Blue Lake at the top of Mt. Gambier.

After checking in to our hotel and checking out a few more caves and sinkholes, we had a passable Thai meal at the Banana Leaf cafe on mainstreet Mt. Gambier. Something a little less awe-inspiring than the caves, or the food for that matter, was our Best Western hotel room. Linton thinks I am becoming a bit of a hotel snob, and I will admit to a growing need for a firm mattress, thick walls, a clean bedspread and furniture that evokes a time period other than 1930's Oklahoma. If that's what makes me a hotel snob then so be it. Suffice to say, on our budget, we have experienced a very wide variety of what Australia has to offer in terms of budget accommodation.

In the morning, we faced our longest drive yet as we needed to get to Adelaide by 6:00 to meet my parents. Before we got underway we visited Englebrecht Cave which had been a special promise to a very disappointed Alex who had shed a tear the night before when the cave had been closed. Again working inland we soon made our way through one of the most famous wine regions in Australia - Coonawara - stopping briefly at Wynns vineyard to sample a bit and buy a welcome-to-Australia bottle for my dad. Blasting our way past endless cattle stations, windfarms, and the odd secluded vineyard we stopped for lunch in Keith, South Australia where we were again welcomed by a very friendly and playable park. They boys were in heaven on a gravity-propelled train-like thing that would never see the light of day in Canada for fear of the 27 different types of potential for litigation. Here in Australia however, we were relaxed enough to see that it was perfect and safe enough for our kids.

With a "take away"long black precariously perched in the cup holder in order to fend off the inevitable post-lunch head-bobs, we pounded the pedal for Adelaide needing only a pee and petrol stop in strangely named Tailem Bend in order to finally make Adelaide. Crossing the Murray River and descending into Adelaide was nicely familiar and more than a touch exciting both for the sense of conquering another large chunk of the Australian continent and knowing that this journey had actually brought us within reach of family from home. Our dinner and reunion at Stanley's seafood restaurant on Gouger street was one of the most satisfying meals I have had in years.

Feb 3 - Another lucky fan buys a souvenir!

What is it about travel that seems to demand a souvenir? From the earliest days of “My parents went to Florida and all they bought me was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirts, there seems to be a need to mark one’s success at actually living and breathing in another country, with the purchase of some sort of trinket or doo-dad in order to more fully remember the experience. The pictures in the photo album are never enough, the beaded hair eventually needs to be washed, and the "unforgettable" memories of the mind are hardly reliable over the long term. And so, we need that t-shirt, sculpture, rare faux-crocodile lampshade or simple fridge magnet stuffed precariously in our luggage to reappear somewhere in our rec room announcing to the world that “I have been here. I have travelled. See my stuff. Hear me roar.”

I’m asking these questions because unquestionably I, too, suffer from the need for a travel status marked by the accumulation of unique indigenous material possessions. To start, I am trying to blog my experiences into a sort of permanent online record as a way of perhaps validating and then remembering years later the thoughts and emotions we felt at the time. I love it and, at times, it seems like all I really need to “take away” from this year. But then, I have been as equally obsessive about capturing our year in pictures. In fact, the family has posed so much in front of so many supposedly important landmarks that I think they could all do it blindfolded in the dark. And if the blog and the digital picture library are not enough, I have taken to making a very comprehensive scrapbook for all of our brochures, billets, and bits of flotsam that seems to gather in our wallets and back pockets after every trip. The scrapbook began as an activity with the boys – but, like Michael Phelps caught with bong to lips, I do not deny that I have claimed it as my own.

All of that activity might arguably represent legit examples of logging a once in a lifetime adventure – and yet there are so many, many more examples of souvenir excess; for one, my fridge magnet collection. I did not land on the shores of Australia thinking I needed a new fridge magnet. Let alone a collection. But as we began to frequent more and more gift stores and tourist traps, I began to notice that for no more than five or six bucks, some lucky tourist (or me) could depart with their very own replica picture of the rock, building, or venomous animal that they (or me) just paid good money to see in person. What’s more, as a magnet, that same lucky tourist (me) could go home and plant his purchase on the nearest fridge for all (my family) to see. Needless to say, I have managed to “collect” a few magnets over the past few months with the constant rationalization that they are cheaper than a t-shirt and will last twice as long. If I had in fact purchased a magnet at every possible store that was selling one, we could conceivably have 40-50 such prizes adorning the front of our lucky fridge. As it is, I have shown some admirable restraint with our tally currently coming in at 18…and counting.

Another reason for why I think the magnet collection is not bigger, is that I have discovered the next great collector’s item – beer coolers! If there is a fridge magnet at every gift shop, there will undoubtedly be a beer cooler placed right beside it. And while magnets at least retain some sort of dignity in terms of their relative usefulness and ability to convey a sense of place, beer coolers adopt a slightly more bizarre but funky trinket status when they are sold to market something so unrelated to beer. I have seen beer coolers promoting lighthouses, penguins, museums, and everything in between. In fact, we just visited the Old Melbourne Jail the other day, the site of many hangings and the execution of the infamous Ned Kelly, and I decided I needed a Ned Kelly beer cooler. ..A Ned Kelly beer cooler!! I bought it like I was buying a fine piece of art. It was perfect. It made sense. And I knew where I would display it…maybe I needed to start thinking about a display case. The current beer cooler count is three…and counting.

Fortunately, at least for our bank account, Linton does not share my need to mark visits with material gain. Well, unless you count the slow, methodical, and calculated collection of beach wear that seems to appear just before every holiday. The same can’t be said for the boys. Understandably, more for a six and nine year-old than a 42 year-old, the guys are always keen to pick up their own trinket or momento, perhaps as a kind of reward or medal for enduring the hot slog and forced march their parents’ have just subjected them to. In the early days of Australia we had some major blow ups in the back of a few gift shops when the clash between budget, good taste, trunk space and useless plastic toys all mixed together into one huge, ugly domestic dust-up. Usually, the kids won, though the victories and dust ups for that matter have been far less frequent of late. Maybe, just maybe, they’re getting enough joy out of dad’s magnets?

There have been still yet other moments of touristy materialism, though not all in such bad taste as a beer cooler or with such shouting as the incident at the Aquarium. In Alice Springs we splurged on a small original piece of indigenous art. In Byron Bay we bought a black and white photograph for a picture wall back home. We’ve purchased wine in Coonawara and t-shirts at Uluru all in the interest of bringing them and their memories back to Canada. Indeed, the wish list goes on and with no end in sight. Lint is eyeing a fancy purse made by a unique Aussie designer. I’m thinking seriously about a laptop bag from a very trendy bag maker. And Colin is still bugging us about getting a footy Guernsey from his favourite team – Hawthorn. Though we celebrated at the start of this adventure about how much crap we were able to rid from our lives – it would seem some of us are back to crap collecting in a big way!

Well, maybe not crap. But certainly more stuff. And maybe the difference between the crap I hurriedly dropped off at Goodwill last June and the beer coolers I am planning to bring home this July is the fact that there was not one emotional or significant memory tied to the those old toasters and broken toys. Whereas, each of the magnets and every one of the coolers has a moment, an event, or a venomous animal inextricably linked to it. So that when we do buy the odd tea towel or puka bead necklace on vacation we are not so much as adding needlessly to the future garage sale boxes we all have in our basements; rather, we are trying to buy symbols, cheesey as they may be, for those moments in our lives that mattered. And if any of that’s true, at our current rate of momentous moments, the fridge on Harwood should start to get nervous. Now, I just need to find that perfect digeridoo…

The Great Ocean Road - Part I

As I write this I am watching the men’s semi-final of the Aussie Open between Nadal and Verdasco. It’s a five set, five hour thriller and is the best tennis I have ever seen. The commentators are talking about it as the longest match in tournament history and it would seem fitting that on a day of record breaking heat there would be this, a record breaking tennis match. It’s 1:00 am, I have a nice cold glass of white wine and I am glued.

For our third major trip we had planned to drive to Adelaide and back along the iconic Great Ocean Road. Recognized as one of the great coastal drives anywhere in the world, the Great Ocean Road is home to the 12 Apostles, the start of Aussie professional surfing and innumerable vacation properties and communities dotting an endless array of picturesque bays, points and inlets. This would also be the trip where we would finally see family, in the flesh, for the first time in six and some odd months. My parents, Jane and Peter, were meeting us in Adelaide after having done some of their own trekking and traveling across this great country.

But before Adelaide there were many klicks of beautiful, and at times desolate, country to cross. With our first mini-van of the year packed to the gills with cricket bats, boogie boards and more stuff than we really needed we headed west across the Bolte and Westgate bridges. Our destination for the first leg of the trip was a relatively short three hour drive to a seaside paradise called Lorne. On our way there we would drive by the Avalon airport, Melbourne’s Mirabel, then down through Geelong and past the grammar school where Charles attended for a term or two. After Geelong you head due south to the coast and soon into Torquay the home of the longest running pro surf competition anywhere, the Rip Curl classic at Bells Beach. With time on our hands we decided to check out the Australian Surfing Museum and were impressed with the amount of history surrounding the sport. Having surfed for a couple of hours a few days later, my appreciation for the guts and athleticism of surfers has increased tenfold.

After setting the boys up with a new pair of crocs from one of the many surf shops along the Torquay strip we boarded our bus and set sail for Lorne. This was to be the same road Allie had lost his lunch on a few months back so we were in constant contact with the back seat asking both boys to update us on their rating – a scale from 1-10 – that is set to determine one’s nausea levels. A report of perfect ten is good news to the driver and co-pilot. A report of 7-9 is fine but indicates a need to open windows or reduce speed. Below seven is cause for more major concern and may entail an emergency roadside stop or the immediate need to disengage from all distractions and to stare straight at the horizon. Below 5 is a very dangerous rating and to hit a “two” would mean that all passengers should immediately duck for cover. Thankfully, with the rating system firmly engaged we coasted into Lorne with nary a dizzy thought or a scary burp to be had.

Lorne for us was paradise. We were booked into quite a nice place - the Mantra Erskine Beach Resort - which in a way reminded me of a newer Hermitage Club, at least in terms of the grounds. With the beach on our doorstep and the town at our back door we settled into 4 days of surfside fun and sun. Lots of sun. Days were spent boogie boarding, building sand castles, playing cricket, frisbee and soccer on the beach and being about as lazy as humanly possible. In fact, losing track of time and the date wasn't the half of it. There were times in these few glorious days where we laughed at ourselves and the relative "nothingness"of it all. I think we came to a point in Lorne where the sheer absurdity of the fortunate and fabulous situation that we found ourselves in finally came home to roost. Our stress levels involved administering enough sunscreen or whether the tide would wipeout the latest sandcastle. Lunch was food eaten anytime between the time when breakfast ended and dinner began. In fact, dinner reservations and store hours became an irritation and interruption to our slow, sloth-like existence. Were we finally heaving off the burden of the anal, stressed-out Canadian and adopting a bit more of the Aussie "no worries" culture? I'm not sure.

But another thing that occurred to me in the sun soaked stupor that Lorne had us in, was that the beach life is perhaps passing me by. No longer does lying in the sun have the appeal it once did. I need a lot of shade to make a full day of sitting in the sand bearable. As well, not that this boy's ever had rock hard abs, the prospect of baring all on the beach has also reached a new low in appeal. I find a sunshirt is now a convenient way of avoiding a burn as well as a misplaced jiggle or three. Additionally, my two hours wallowing in the waves, more off than on the surfboard showed me that surfing is a very young man's game. Wandering around the surf shops only reaffirmed that niggling notion. The piercings, tatts, haircuts, and fashion are so clearly beyond anything I would consider. I must so obviously look like I must be buying something for my son. Am I now destined for more golf and tennis and less in the way of surfing or wakeboarding? Certainly, I will never experience the joy of landing a reverse olly 540 mcTwist. And that kinda sucks.

These are the types of thoughts and experiences that troubled our beached out brains along the Great Ocean Road. Relaxed and reflective, the fortunate frolic on the sands of Lorne finally brought us to the realization that these could truly be the best, most relaxing days of our lives.