John's work

The staff at the NSW helicopter service are amazing - extremely well-read staff, and cutting edge medicine provided in the helicopters and ground units. I am learning a ton of new information and reinforcing a lot of information too. There is a lot of helicopter search, rescue, and safety issues, as well as winching and water issues to learn. Last week focused on responses to accidents and included cutting up vehicles and a lot of very complex and demanding scenarios (complete with angry parents, unhelpful crews on scene, equipment issues, night issues, combative patients, etc.). Also, we had to pass our helicopter underwater escape tests, which involved escaping from a metal cage while upside down underwater (and blindfolded - see picture - but not handcuffed or in a barrel, fortunately) - also, sometimes our primary escape would be blocked and we'd have to follow our partner out - a little stressful, and hope it never happens of course, but certainly was exciting! We did this in the diving well of the pool where the Sydney Olympics were held.  This week focuses on hospital transfers of intensive care patients to other hospitals and additional procedure and equipment training. Flight training and ride-alongs are next week and week-end (ending at 10pm Friday night with night winching training) and then we start our shifts - depending on the shift, we either work on the road crew or one of the helicopter crews. The road crews are also responsible for any fixed wing (airplane) transfers that occur. It's a great group of students and instructors and I just can't say enough about the organization and its focus on safety and great patient care - really looking forward to getting 'in the field'. See pictures of Kate modeling my smurf top and cap - ;)

Uluru hotel carpet

Note that in the process of re-doing the rooms at Sails in the Desert hotel, they put new carpet in, which is fine, but the carpet pattern looked as if a gutted animal had been dragged across it and out the door, or some horrible crime had been committed - see Tess re-enacting the awful event ;)

Uluru

We decided to head for the 'red center' and left Saturday morning for Ayer's Rock / Uluru. It was about 100 degrees when we arrived, and many trails were closed due to heat. So we took off on a hike with limited water supplies in the 'Olgas' or Kata Tjuta, (meaning 'many heads' in Aboriginal, which was beautiful - lots of red rock and blue skies. Kate decided she was bringing her children to see them, though her plan is to wait in the car while her husband and children hike. Then to the cultural center and the hotel swimming pool. Tess and I got pizza to go and had a picnic watching the sun set on Uluru - you can see a faint rainbow over the mountain in the picture - an amazing evening! Sunrise wasn't as spectacular, but both girls made it up at 5:30 am to see it, so I'm proud of them! We took a hike around part of the base of Uluru learning about where the Aboriginals found water, and saw their 'school' area with rock paintings prior to flying back about noon Sunday to get ready for school!

Bondi - Bronte and etc.

You'll get a sense from the new pictures what an awesome area Bondi is - which is why there are a ton of people that come there. The number of surfers out in the water is amazing - it's like rush hour on the waves - slightly fewer surfers down the beach at Tamarama and Bronte, but more dangerous there as well. The walk along the beach and cliffs from Bondi to Tamarama to Bronte is about a mile of up and down, under cliff overhangs, along beaches, and right out to the cliff edges if you want - reminds us a lot of the West Ireland coast. It's spectacular - we walked from our house to Bronte with the girls (probably 4 miles round trip) with a break in Bronte for smoothies - they did great.

Girls get their school lists and uniforms the end of this week - today they went to get the car licensed, get library cards, and sign our rental contracts, have pizza, and check out the big mall (Bondi Junction) via bus - which runs from the corner.

John has been proving his hypothesis about 'it's not a matter of getting lost, it's only a matter of how badly' when driving by getting lost last night going to buy a used bike and again this morning going to training for the first time - despite Google map directions. He started two weeks of induction training (medical) this week including orientation to their missions, protocols, and equipment and tomorrow practicing helicopter ditching in the pool. After two weeks of 'ground school' there is a week of winch and flight training and then the shifts start.  He also has his uniform which makes him look like a giant Smurf with reflective tape - no pictures planned in the near future of this... The staff are incredibly smart and disciplined and he's looking forward to flying and learning a lot...

The Beach, etc.

Adding on to Harry Potter: The Exhibition

Kate would like me to post that she bought a Gryffindor scarf. Also, before going in a few kids were chosen to be sorted by the sorting hat, including Tess who was sorted into Gryffindor. The exhibition was a traveling museum and we were lucky to be in Sydney to see it.

Harry Potter: The Exhibition

Today we went to Harry Potter: The Exhibition which is a collection of props and costumes seen through out the movies. Kate liked the model of Dobby the house-elf which was scanned onto a computer to create the moving image of Dobby we see on screen. Dad's favorite was a pawn used in the giant game of Wizard's Chess from the Sorcerer's Stone. Mom liked the flying key from the Sorcerer's Stone, and Tess' favorite was a costume worn by Emma Watson/Hermione in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures so we do not have any to share with you. :(

Our new Mercedes!

Another beautiful day in Sydney... We awoke with the neighbors (with open windows, once they are up, we're up - but that's fine - I'll be up at 6:00am starting Monday so all's fair) and embarked on our odyssey. Let me just say that Sydney is an incredibly beautiful and picturesque city set hard against sea and hills; unless you are driving and need to get somewhere. It seems invariable that the street you MUST turn onto is labeled with a 'No Right Turn' (or left turn, or it's a one way coming at you, but just for that block). You then take a right on the next block, hoping to go around, but after three right turns you emerge into a parallel universe - the street has a different name (even if it was the one you were looking for - which is unlikely), winds over the hill, and of course leaves the city map that you have. The phone GPS refuses to re-calculate the route (or show you where you are). Directions are useless, as they presume an intimate familiarity with the entire metro area - 'ya know the Caltrex station on Grand North? well turn there, come up the lowside of Columbo after a left on Queen and come around again to avoid the divider on Palmatta and you're there' (since we already tried to cross that divider once and caught the underside of the car, and made an illegal U turn in another attempt). And yet somehow, mainly because you are bordered by water on one side, you bumble your way to a recognizable street. We bought extra bread at the store to leave a trail next time...

From a social science standpoint, it's interesting how used car dealers have evolved to a remarkably similar physical state though in radically different cultural environments...evolution, though not necessarily survival of the fittest. Short of dental procedures, there's few things less pleasurable than buying a used car. Through careful research on the web, and visits to 'Hatchback World' (literally) and other fine providers of used vehicles we did purchase a Mercedez-Benz today - which is likely to be the only one we'll ever purchase. It's 11 years old (77 years old in dog years) with 100k kilometers on it and would easily fit inside the back of our Toyota Sienna at home, so it will be easy to park. We do have room for an extra coin inside which we will use to flip to decide whether the groceries or one of the girls rides on top home from the store. I think we got a reasonable deal - unless the steering wheel falls off tomorrow. But it is a nice color - and seriously, it's exactly what we need for the next few months.

We had to purchase it with $50 bills as I couldn't get a money order without a passport - seemed fitting though somehow to be making a deal with a huge envelope of $50s. Anyway, we have wheels and an apartment. We grilled hamburgers on the back step tonight (meat from the butcher 2 doors down, which was cool, but $19.99 per kilo for the cheapest ground beef, which was not so cool).  In the picture, our apartment is the top right. Took our first walk on Bondi beach today, beautiful evening, tons of surfers and Kate was captivated by the skateboard park and a fearless 10 year old (or so) girl doing tricks... Tomorrow the big excitement is lease contracts, car insurance, and an electronic toll tag for the car - and on top of that excitement we may go see the Harry Potter exhibition! So it should be a great day!

Home again?

We're back in the city after one last luxurious day on Green Island enjoying the pace of 'island time' and checking out sand crabs, pumice (washed up on the Island from long-ago volcanos in Indonesia), and the underwater observatory (both at night, when the lights attract sea worms and shrimp) and in the daytime. Kate and Tess continue to refine their snorkeling skills... 'Moved in' to our apartment for the next two weeks - you have to like a climate that requires no AC or central heat (just a space heater in the living room). The girls were a little homesick because the apartment is truly a home and thus features family photos and thus 'isn't ours'. But it's good to see how other families live (at least in the long view) - and hopefully they will appreciate what we have all the more when we return. We'll be exploring the local grocery store and trying to buy a used car today, so more on that later ;) - note the honeycomb tempting Kate in the pictures below that Tess mentioned in her post - have never seen anything like it on a buffet (as well as Cassius - 18 feet long - being tempted by a piece of chicken)

Honeycomb!!!

At breakfast they have a huge slab of honeycomb you can cut a slice of and it tastes really good but the honeycomb is like wax.

More pictures

Green Island is the place to be...

Wrapped up our time in Port Douglas walking 4 mile beach and shopping at the local Sunday market (and hearing from the bookseller about the fact that she's lost 4 of her initial 8 cats to a python in the last few weeks - apparently they are very common, they can't usually kill children but there was a toddler that got wrapped up and they had to kill the snake recently to free the child - between this, sharks, and jellyfish it's a wonder we get the girls out of the hotel room...fortunately this is not an endemic area for most of the venomous snakes and you'd have to go out of your way to find a venomous spider.

Went to the cane toad races in a local bar 2 nights ago - Tess got to play Vanna White at the scoreboard, Kate didn't kiss any of them (they are poisonous, of course - but more to eat than to kiss), and 'Pigeon Toad' won the race.

Green Island is a coral caye a few miles off the coast of Cairns which has a resort, but is also visited by descending hordes of Japanese tourists celebrating the New Year (which is this week - Year of the Dragon for those following) - despite its size (you can walk the island perimeter in 20 minutes) it also has a crocodile farm with an 18 foot crocodile that you can watch being fed - yikes! Also watch the fish (and black-tip sharks) being fed in the evening. We've seen a number of turtles since it's more sea grass around the island. Snorkel trip again tomorrow and then Thursday back to Sydney to start work and our 'routine' lives here, which we're looking forward to...

Great Barrier Reef (and a train)

2000 kilometers and 2900 different reefs! After some initial grumbling about being forced to snorkel, the girls really enjoyed seeing the reef and all the fish and coral and the giant clams - the corals are incredible, tons of variety, the staghorns grow up to 30cm each year! Kate wants to SCUBA dive now...but is a little young still. Favorites included blue starfish, parrotfish, and the Maori wrasse. The water is incredibly clear and warm. We wore 'stinger suits' to avoid getting stung by jellyfish as it's their reproduction season - the box jellies in particular can be deadly. We went with a smaller boat, the Calpsyo the first day to several spots and on Quicksilver (huge boat with its own platform on the reef) the second time. In between, we took the Kuranda railroad to the small, cute, pricey tourist town of Kuranda - the train was originally the only link between the coast and inland and took 11 years to complete - 15 tunnels, multiple switchbacks, 55 bridges, (and 25 complaints from Kate about having to see the same things TWICE - on the way there and back). The weather has been spectacular considering we're in the rainy season - maybe some rain tonight though. Two more days in Port Douglas and then out to Green Island to spend a few days before heading back to Sydney and starting work, school starts on the 30th - so have to get those uniforms!

Daintree, continued...

We're scheduled to leave the 'zoo' today to head to Port Douglas and some Great Barrier Reef adventures! Kate especially will miss unfettered access to the emu chicks, wallabies, and kangaroos (including a joey) 24/7. We saw the wombat today for the first time (and its cube-shaped poop - which was quite an attraction). The cassowary (see picture) is an impressive bird, like a more colorful emu with a hatchet on its head - they can be very aggressive. We took a crocodile cruise and saw one croc (last fatality was only a few weeks ago - a fisherman), took the ferry over the Daintree river to drive to Cape Tribulation - named by Captain Cook after 45 days spent repairing his ship after they ran aground on the reef. Kate tasted a green ant's butt the other day (they secrete an acid that tastes like limes!) and wants to try it again. We've had awesome fruits every morning for breakfast, including custard apples and soursop (both good, but similar to eating wet cotton in consistency, especially the soursop). It's hot and humid, in the upper 80s every day - the girls have been swimming each day with three dingo pups that the keepers bring out of their enclosure at 12:30 to take a dip and run around. Yesterday we went for a horseback ride, got to trot (and canter) on the beach, rode in the rainforest and a lychee grove, and had a great time despite Kate's horse (Kiri) having to be led the last half of the ride as she refused to move at the group pace, and Tess' horse 'Reg' stopping to eat every three seconds or so. Last night had barrimundi and crocodile for dinner - the girls thought the croc was 'pretty much like chicken' - which is likely what the crocs say about humans as well.

Daintree, continued...