Weather is cheering up!

Hello Amigos!

During the APEC weekend, we were planning to get out of the city but Avery had a tough time with a cold and we did not want to chance it in such cool weather. We ended up staying in Sydney, watching heaps of videos and visiting the Taranga zoo. The zoo was fabulous! It did not feel like the over commercialized places that we often have in North America.

Forget weightlifting, Tom has turned to croc restling as a past time in Australia. Grrrrr!

Mom... don't look... Avery and an olive python.

The highlight for the kids was the seal show!

But the highlight for Ginette was the talk about the Giraffe and the acadia tree. Ginette teaches about Evolutionary Spirals in the grade 12 Bio. In this evolutionary arms race, the acadia tree develops taller branches and longer thorns, but the Giraffe only develops longer necks and tongues. Then, the tree is able to do some interesting things with the chemical tannin to make it toxic to the Giraffe. To see this up close was cool, as she had only read about it. Wish Tom could have caught the Giraffe's tongue though, boy was it long.

The last few weekends we have been doing some Sydney parks. Martyn, an exchange friend organized a canoe/kayak along the river system. We finished it off with a barbie.

This past weekend we headed to Palm beach for a hike up to the lighthouse. Spectacular weather and good company!

Avery has completed his apron sewing project and is now wearing it to cooking class!

And the boy finally got a haircut!

Ta for now!

Ginette, Tom, Avery and Jocelyn

Keeping busy until next term break

Hello everyone!

We are counting the days til our next term break, trying to keep ourselves busy.

We are missing home lately as the weather is rather drippy this week, and we are thinking of how beautiful it is during the Autumn months at home.

Jocelyn finished up her soccer season. She learned a great deal of foot control this year. We enjoyed all of the families that we were able to meet at these early Sunday morning games but we are looking forward to our weekends being free. They have a lot of early morning weekend sport here... yeash...

Jocelyn also has had two band concerts the last few weeks. One at a competition and the other at the school fun fair. The band is sounding better every day!



Jocelyn got a nice shinner...slipped into a trampoline while practicing soccer. Of course I had to put this one on the blog. She is looking good now but, it got worse before it got better.

We got to see the eclipse really well from the back yard. Tom got this great shot!

There are a number of coastal hiking trails in the area. Last weekend the exchange group organized a walk from the Manly Wharf to spit bridge. We are enjoying these weekend hikes lead by Wilma and Nick. The hike had some spectacular views!

We stopped off at the beach for a little food, sun and sand.

Nick's keen eye spotted a pod of dophins in the harbour. Lovely!

This weekend was a long weekend due to the APEC summit. We had planned to go camping but with Avery and Jocelyn with colds we decided to stay close to Sydney.

Hope your fall is going well! We look forward to the colours next year!

Sayonara,

Ginette, Tom, Avery and Jocelyn

Winter is nearly over!

Hello Everyone!

Things are looking good as the weather is cheering up! For a country in drought, I have never seen so much rain. We are told the water is not getting to the centre where it is needed though.

We have been staying close to Sydney with activities mostly planned around Jocelyn the last few weeks. Jocelyn has had another band competition, her birthday party, and has been winding down in soccer as her season is over this week. and .... Jocelyn got her first black eye after slipping into a pipe! It is healing nicely now.

We went whale watching in Botany Bay. In the first photo we are standing on the first rock that Captain Cook has been said to step on when coming to Australia.

We could not believe how patient the kids were sitting around waiting for whales. It was worth it though, even though they were probably a km away it was magical.

Avery is busy with his power point presentation for school, practicing the guitar and playing around on the computer.

I saw my first red back spider this week. When I went for a closer look, a teacher cautioned me not to get to close as they jump... yeash!

This weekend we are doing more sausage sizzles with some exchange friends, and the soccer families. That should be fun!

Take care all,

We are thinkin of you as some of you are returning to school soon.

Ciao,

Ginette, Tom and

Avery and Jocelyn

Undara and the Tablelands

We are settling in to term 3, but we have not finished the photos from our holidays. So here goes.

After the Reef Tour it was then time to take drive for a scenic tour through the Atherton tablelands to Undura National Park. On the way we stopped at the Cathedral and Curtain Fig trees. These were very interesting to look at.

The Cathedral Fig tree is estimated at 500 years old and is from the strangler fig family. This parasitic fig germinates on top of another tree and tries to make roots into the ground. Once this important step is done, the fig will grow vigorously, finally killing the hosting tree and then grow on independantly.

The Curtain Fig tree, is estimated at 800 years old. In this case the hosting tree tilted towards the next one, the fig also grows around that one. Its curtain of aerial roots drop 15 metres (49 feet) to the ground.

Here is a video shot at this massive tree.

eeeeeek! I cannot get the video to function at the moment.... help please?

We then stopped at Milla Milla falls for a lovely picnic. Tom took a million photos. I took the video.

As we got closer to Undara National Partk the road got more interesting. The road began to take on the feel of the outback. We kept seeing these lumps on the side of the road that at first we thought were hay bales. When we got closer, we realized that they were termite mounds! Huge! and really neat! We had to get Tom to stop to take a picture of one of these things.

When we arrived at the park, we had time for a short bushwalk around the area. Lots of rocks and things for the kids to climb and a great view of the area.

We stayed at the campground at Undura. In the evening they had a campfire talk and we learned about feral animals. These are animals that are not native to Australia. Wild pigs, cats, fox, rabbits and the cane toad are not well liked here as their presence has attacked or displaced native animals. It was an interesting and lively talk that we are sure we will remember for a long time.

Sleeping in our tent was an experience. We did not have such a great sleep between trying to keep warm, Jocelyn sitting up in the middle of the night to giving orders and bossing everyone around in her sleep, and all of us squashed into Tom as our mattress sprung a slow leak and we ended up rolling into Tom, the heaviest.

The tour of the volcano tubes was fun. “Undara” is an Aboriginal word meaning “long way”. The park protects one of the longest lava tube cave systems in the world. About 190,000 years ago a large volcano erupted violently, spewing molten lava over the surrounding landscape. The lava flowed rapidly down a dry riverbed. The top, outer layer cooled and formed a crust, while the molten lava below drained outwards, leaving behind a series of hollow tubes.

Later in the day we were able to go for a walk around the crater of a volcano. You might have flown around one Andre, but we got to walk around one! ... actually it really was not very exciting when the volano had blasted of 190 000 years ago.

On the way back from Undara, Tom wanted to stop at a woodworking shop. That turned out to be a treat! This place turned woodworking into an art. We spent almost an hour oohing and ahhing over the pieces.

Before we left Cairns we went to Mossman Gorge for a lovely picnic and a hike and then to Port Douglas. What a lovely little town. The highlight was a beautiful sunset as we watched the ferries come in at the end of the day, and in the evening, the famous ...cane toad races.

We are back to the grind, time is flying!

Take care,

Ginette, Tom, Avery and Jocelyn

More unusual signs?

We reckon the easiest way to show these signs is to just create another page. So here goes.

This next one was submitted by the Southwell family... thanks!

Enjoy....

These ones from the Zoo.

Jocelyn and Avery found these ones.

This is very interesting. There was actually a bottle of vinegar in the cylinder below.

Now our personal favourite... Beware! as cows fight back here in Australia, they have now become car tippers.

Namaste,
The Andress'

The Great Barrier Reef!

Hummm...

It was a difficult decision to decide on a reef tour. There were so many different companies with so much to choose from. Friends had advised us not to go on a really big boat with too many people, but we wanted to go to a pontoon on the reef. That way Ginette would feel a little safer in the water. We finally decided on Reef Magic. The boat took us out to Marine World pontoon on Moore Reef.

We had spectacular weather, warm with not too much wind. We got some good shots here. Using the underwater camera was a bit tricky. For the first while Tom did not know that he had video function on and thought he was snapping photos.




Then, it was hard to see just what you were taking as the screen was so dark. If we ever take underwater photos of fish again we will remember to put it on sports mode for a quick shutter speed as by the time the photo was taken, the quick fish had moved... ah well... live and learn.

A brilliant shot by Avery of a couple of Trumpet fish.




As we had lots of time to snorkel, we saw many different kinds of fish and coral. This coral is brain coral.




The kids especially liked the Napolean Mauri Wrass named Wally. He was about the size of Jocelyn. He would allow people to approach him to be petted. The the Marine Biologists on board said he thinks he is a dog. We cannot take the credit for these next shots, there was a photographer on board taking these. I had to show proof that I was snorkelling so here it is. Okay don't worry... I was not touching any part of the reef. The photographer handed it to me for the pose.



Jocelyn and Tom petting Wally.

We have not found Wallaby Way in Sydney yet, this shot, although not a great one... is proof that Avery and Jocelyn found Nemo at home on the reef.

Take care,
Jocelyn, Avery, Tom and Ginette

Hello again from Australia,

Well this is our big summer holiday, or should we say... winter holiday. Even after being in Australia so long it is difficult to get your head around the fact that the seasons are the opposite. Monday will mark our half way point to the time we leave Australia... how time flies!

We have finally went up to Cairns (pronounced Cannes to Aussies) in north Queensland to see the Great Barrier Reef! Thanks to the Hylands, our trip was a great success! It was also lovely to meet other exchangees on our journey.

On the evening when we arrived we did a Reef teach class. It was a 2 hour presentation with a marine biologist talking about things we would see on the reef, how to identify them and what things to be careful for while we are out. We learned some interesting stuff like the mistakes in the movie ‘Finding Nemo’. Had Nemo’s mother had died, his father would have turned into a female. It seems as though from the discussion, that tourists are not bad for the reef, as long as they remember to take only picture and leave only bubbles. The recent increase in people that have come to the see the reef has brought about an awareness to the preservation of it. Until only a few years ago only 3% of the reef was protected, now it is 30%.

The reef is the only living entity that can be seen from outer space... I really have to check this out now on Google Earth.

Warming temperatures of the ocean and its bleaching effects on the coral is another story though... Watching the Live Earth Show today is reminding us of this.

We had to wait until the weather conditions were right to do the reef ... but there was plenty to keep us busy in the Cairns area. We decided to take the scenic railway up to Kurunda as everyone suggested. From this we got a lovely view of the rainforest as well as these lovely falls .

The shops in Kurunda were interesting. There was lots of aboriginal art and some beautiful photography by an Australian Photographer Peter Jarver.

To get back we took the skyrail. This was a gondola ride for 7.5 km over the rainforest… beautiful. I tried not to look down too much because at times it almost reached 40 m high… somehow I survived.

On the drive up to Cape Tribulation, we passed a lot of sugar can fields. Tom stopped to get a picture for you to get a perspective of how big these canes grow... not much of a snack. In the Cape, we went on a river cruise tour in the Daintree rainforest. We saw 4 crocs bathing in the sun.

We also visited an Organic Exotic Fruit farm. We tasted lots of interesting fruit and learned about permaculture. My favourite fruit was a soursop, otherwise known as a custard apple, smooth creamy and sweet. It would make excellent shakes. The kids liked the breadfruit and pommelo. We enjoyed the campground in the Cape and interesting people we met from around the world.

We walked the beach and went on a hike around the campground and learned about the mangrove. The roots of these trees are especially designed for the saline conditions of the tropics. When the tide comes in, and it is the wet season, the trees remain stable. We were told that the tide going out washes organic matter back into the sea to feed the Great Barrier Reef. Nature looks after itself.

We got this great shot of Jocelyn at the campground, and could not resist to put in on the blog.

Well we should post this so we will have room for the next photos.

Send us your photos. We would love to see them.

Ta for now,

Ginette. Tom, Avery and Jocelyn