Spring Holidays - a week in Melbourne

For us Canadians, September usually means back to school and changing leaves. Here in Australia it signals the beginning of spring, and the end of another school year with warmer weather coming soon.

For our last school holiday before the end of the year we decided to play closer to home and spend some time seeing and doing some things around us that we hadn't had a chance to get to yet. All while making some time for the kids to spend with their friends over the holidays as well.



We live at the foot of Mount Dandenong, and have never been to the top. So our first stop was a trip up the mountain. It was a cloudy day, but we could still just make out Melbourne in the distance.

Igor the giant is rumoured to have lived in the area for hundreds of years.  He's happy to share his chair,

but if he comes back looking to have a rest 

you'd better move!

The wishing tree has a legend that tells the story of a 4 year old boy that goes missing in the woods.  

After searching everywhere for him, his father stood at this tree and looked through the circle 

wishing for his son.  As he stood there looking he saw his son by the creek. What will you wish for?

Hannah and Tyler picked our next destination as the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We've seen plenty of zoos and heaps of amazing animals, but today we treated ourselves to a "safari tour" through the grounds to see some of the animals closer up.

The giraffes were a highlight! They walked right up to our truck and got as close as they could trying to check us out. 

Something else we keep meaning to make it to is the War Memorial and the Royal Botanical Gardens, so we waited for a warm sunny day and got to it!

The memorial is gorgeous, surrounded by grass and trees. The memorial is square with steps and lines of remembrance etched on each side, and the dome shaped roof has a glass window in its peak allowing for the sun to shine through onto the tomb of the unknown soldier at 11am on November 11. (Much like the war museum in Ottawa, except the sun almost always shines in November here!)

The botanical gardens were lovely. Long winding pathways and large grassy areas with enough room for the kids and wildlife both and perfect for our picnic lunch.

Melbourne Cup weekend is coming up in November, but in the meantime the show grounds are used for 2 weeks in September for the Royal Melbourne Show. Complete with livestock, produce, rides and more. We checked out a couple of the dog shows, walked through the gourmet "taste of Victoria" pavilion, the arts and crafts and the kids zone. 

The high light for me was getting to tour the Masterchef kitchen. We've watched 2 seasons of the show here and were eager to get a look into the kitchen we spent so may hours watching on television!

Anytime you can find a hot dog for lunch, Tyler thinks it's a good day :)

And rides, don't forget those!

The highlight for Hannah and Tyler was the show bags. An Aussie tradition at the show, there was an entire pavilion full hundreds (380 precisely) of stalls selling the goodie bags. After a half hour of checking out all their options (lollies, toys, makeup, fitness, health and wellness), they settled on a Wonka bag getting them $30 worth of product for just $12!

We finished off the week with a movie and a couple of sleepovers. Week 2 takes us on a road trip to Canberra, the capital of Australia.

Healesville and the Yarra Valley

Our latest ITA weekend brought us to Healesville and the beautiful Yarra Valley for some sight seeing and visiting with good friends.

After a good night of food and catching up with friends, on Saturday morning we headed off to check out the Healesville Sanctuary (known for breeding animals native to Australia) with the kids while the rest of our group headed off to enjoy a wine tasting tour.

Australian pelicans

A well fed dingo

 

Lyrebird

The kids agree that you can never pat too many wallabies!

One of the things that the Yarra Valley is best known for is it's wineries. This is where we met up with our group at the end of the afternoon. An extremely high end winery specializing in champagnes and sparkling wines. Amazing wines, spectacular views, terrible place for children! 

Domaine Chandon

One of the other exchange families lives up in Healesville, and when they arrived at their new home for the year found a 2-inch thick book on their kitchen table detailing how to either "defend" or "evacuate" their home in the event of a fire emergency. Yikes! As the weekend went on we learned about "Black Saturday" which occurred on September 7, 2009 when catastrophic bush fires spread through the hills destroying everything and everyone in their path. Healesville was saved by just 1/2 a kilometre when the winds changed direction.

We took a drive up the hill while we were there and were amazed at the regrowth that has occurred in just 5 years. The tree trunks are still black as tar, but all the branches are full of regrowth. And the ferns and grass are coming back with a vengeance despite the damage done by the fires. There are somethings you can't ignore though, like the smell of charred wood. It wasn't a particularly warm day, but as we drove up the windy road we could smell something hot. Thinking it was entirely possible that our little clown car was overheating, we stopped to check it out. Nope, not our car, just the smell of burnt trees on the wind. 

The stories are horrifying. The number of lives lost, incredible. The way they've rebuilt their lives, amazing. 

173 people died, 414 were injured. More than 2000 homes were lost and almost 8000 people were completely displaced. People saw their towns suddenly overtaken by flames after a simple change in wind direction. As others tried to make their way down the mountain to safety some would get caught in multiple care pile-ups caused by the poor visibility in the smoke, others were trapped as burning trees fell across the one roadway to safety. As I was looking through all the pictures on Google looking for one that showed the mad scramble to get down off the mountain and away from the danger, it dawned on me that there are no pictures, because none of those people survived. 

And we can't forget about the animals. Some must have escaped, others succumbed to thirst in the intense heat, and millions were incinerated in the incredibly high radiant heat. 

My short description can't possibly do justice to the people and the stories of that day. For more information simply search for "Black Saturday" and a number of resources will become available. 

What amazes me most is that people have come back. They've rebuilt their homes and they've started over, remembering and learning. 

**none of the Black Saturday pictures are mine. They all come from Google searches.

What we've been up to in September...

Once I got back from my visit home to Canada, the weather was getting nicer and we decided it was time to get back out there and see some more of Melbourne. 

Is it a spotted penguin or a tiny angry blonde Canadian in a halloween
costume? Nope, it's Hannah in her winter pyjamas! 

 Scienceworks is always fun, this time we spend more time in the construction zone and trying out the canoe.

 Father's Day was on June 1st, and it was the nicest weather we had in months. So out came the shorts and the gardening gloves.

Some of us got right into the getting dirty part of the day:

Others decided to ease into it!

I may have been sitting in the chair beside her :)

 It's been AFL finals time here and the kids had a Footy Colours day at school where they got to trade in their uniform for the colours of their favourite AFL team.

Hannah in her Carlton Blues and Tyler in Hawks yellow
and brown (yes the socks are an important part of the outfit!)

 There is a place out near the Melbourne Airport called Living Legends where racehorses go to retire and spend the rest of their days grazing amongst the rolling grassy hills.

There were also lots of trees to climb, and trails to follow. And although I didn't get a picture of them, heaps of kangaroos! 15 of them hopped across the road in front of us and I was so surprised I couldn't get my camera out in time!

 The horses were amazing, they had all won a minimum of 5 million over their career.

 Some were friendlier than others!

The end of school term brought three days of production. The school only puts together production every other year and the kids have been preparing and rehearsing for this literally all year.   Each grade does a musical number professionally choreographed and costumed for them. 

The preppies were all cavemen in a rendition of the Flintstones/Walk the Dinosaur, and the grade 3s were genies and astronauts as they brought I Dream of Jeannie/Major Tom to life.  As a member of the dance academy Hannah also had a ballet and a jazz number, so she was a tired girl and the end of each performance! 

Pictures and video weren't allowed in the theatre so all I got as a shot at home before costumes, but the school did take professional photos and video, so I'll post those when I get them. 

This was the first big stage performance for both kids and we were so proud of them. Hannah has never danced a day in her life and did the most amazing job. It was a great way to end the term. 

Toorongo Falls, Trestle Bridge and the Ada Tree

The start of term three brought a student free day at school for parent teacher interviews. With a day off we got together with some friends and headed out to see some of the amazing sites in our area.

First stop was the Ada Tree. The oldest tree in Victoria.  It's a whopping 270 years old, measuring 76 metres tall, 15 metres wide

The Noojee Trestle Bridge was our next stop. It's one of the only remaining wooden trestle bridges in Victoria. And it's a great place to climb!

On our way home we stopped to hike up to the Toorongo Falls and Amphitheatre Falls. I love that this is all practically in our backyard. 

The kids had a great day together, and the bonus...they slept the whole way home!

"Snowy" Sunday

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon today so we decided to go into the city to the market. So far we've been to the huge Queen Vic market in the city and the smaller but equally fantastic South Melbourne market so today we picked the Docklands market. 

Their website promised "a variety market in the heart of Melbourne's Docklands with arts and craft, vintage, ladies wear, plus sizes unique pieces of Jewelry, burbles, bangles and bright shiny beads, handmade soaps and natural body products, cards & wrapping, second hand books, and for the boys collectable model cars, kids face painting" It sounded exactly like what we were looking for. Too bad it turned out to be 5 stalls by the waterfront! I guess that summer is the better season for this particular market, so we'll try again in a few months. 

Luckily right around the corner is the Harbour Town Shopping Centre. A large outdoor shopping centre with heaps of outlet and specialty shops. Perfect. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and set to checking the place out. 

As we get closer to the centre we see one of these signs:

Snow play area? Well to Canadians this sounds like something we need to check out.  So we did...and we were a little surprised by what we found. 

Yep, you're not imagining things. That is a fenced off 10x10 sq ft patch of "snow" that kids are playing in.  I just had to take a picture... or 3 :)