Echidnas, also known as spiny ant eaters, live alone in the Australian bush. The only time they are with other echidnas is during mating seasons. Echidnas are egg laying mammals like a platypus and have a pouch like a kangaroo. Their bodies are covered in spines like porcupines, which are actually hairs. They also have no teeth but have a long sticky tongue. A puggle is a baby echidna.
We found this little cutie in his natural habitat at Barrington Tops Nation Park. He walked across the road in front of us so we decided to stop and chat to him. He didn’t seem to be phased by us at all and just waddled past. Slowly but very confidently.
Echidnas are always exciting to watch. This one I named Eric.
I love Dr Seuss. My first Dr Seuss book, Green Eggs and Ham was first published two years before I was born. So, you could say that I grew up with him.
Last year, I visited both the Sydney and Melbourne galleries of The Art of Dr Seuss. The Melbourne shop, welcomed us warmly and we spent 1 1/2 hours absorbing the world and admiring the drawing and sketches from our favourite books.
As an adult my favourite book is Oh, The Places You’ll Go! The Melbourne gallery had several pieces that I would purchase if I ever won the lottery. In the meantime, I will dream.
Have you ever been going for a day trip and accidentally found somewhere you’ll never forget? For me, this was Cabargo on the South Coast of New South Wales.
This historic village began in the late 1860’s. It’s unique main street is lined with turn of the century buildings. The shop owners today make and sell crafts and artworks that in many cases are similar to what they would have sold over 150 years ago.
We were first drawn to Cabargo when we saw the train cafe. It was lunch time when we drove through and this unique eatery didn’t disappoint. You could choose to eat inside or out. For us the choice was obvious. The train carriage was similar to the ones I had grown up with. So after lunch I enjoyed walking down memory lane remembering my childhood.
Unfortunately, Cabargo’s train cafe and the its unique main street are no longer. They were all destroyed in the bush fire that ravaged the village last New Year’s Eve. Cabargo became a community devastated by loss, not only of its buildings but also a father and his son who died protecting their property.
Growing up in Newcastle in the 1970’s, BHP was the biggest employer in the area. BHP opened in Newcastle in 1915 and closed it’s doors forever on the 30th September, 1999. At one stage, BHP employed 1 in 10 people in Newcastle. Everyone knew someone who worked there. No-one could imagine life in Newcastle without the BHP. However, 84 years later, the blast furnaces stopped. And Newcastle lost the smog and pollution almost immediately.
Last September, Newcastle celebrated the 20th anniversary of the closure of BHP with a special weekend. To celebrate we were able to visit The Muster Point. A memorial sculpture made of steel and bronze, 8 metres wide and 12 metres high completed just before the BHP closed it’s doors. On top of the sculpture is a cross to honour the lives lost over the years, in what was a very dangerous workplace.
Also at The Muster Point was one of BHP’s old managers. He was there to meet and greet old employees and others coming together to remember and celebrate all things Newcastle steelworks. His stories told of life working at BHP during those times. And he explained that for many of the employees, BHP was part of their family and sometimes their only family. For this reason, it was important to look out for the welfare of his staff. An example he used was arranging reading and writing lessons for some of the workers when he realised that they couldn’t do either. These were the little things that those of us who hadn’t worked at Big Harry’s Place ( the local nickname), had never considered.
We also visited Delprat’s cottage, which was built on site so Guillaume Deprat could supervise the steelworks construction even when he was home. The heritage society has done a great job creating a museum during the renovations. They are attempting to recreate the cottage as close as possible to the original building.
Delprat was a big fan of body strength. On of his favourite ways to exercise and improve his strength was with gymnastic rings. To ensure he could always exercise, he had a set of gymnastics ring hung in his bedroom. This allowed him to do two jobs at once – practise his moves and supervise his steelworks.
Due to technical complications I am 3 days late to start this years A-Z challenge but I will start anyway and see how we go. Here’s hoping we can catch up by next week.
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Beer is important in both Australian and Japanese cultures. So, it’s no surprise that when we went to Japan for my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding, our families bonded at the Asahi Beer Factory in Osaka.
The free tour was interesting and taught us how beer is made, bottled and packaged. I loved the colourful display of old beer cans and bottles from around the world.
However, the real fun came when the brewery tour ended and the beer drinking started. We had 20 minutes to drink 3 freshly brewed beers of our choice if we dared. Challenge accepted. No problem.
In Australia, we will be going into our second month of autumn on Wednesday. On the last day of summer, my son and daughter-in-law had their Australian wedding. It was a beautiful day. Since then however, I haven’t spent anytime out in nature. So I thought I would go for mindful walk around the neighbourhood to see what had changed. As I headed down the driveway, my first surprise was the budding camellias.
Then around the next block I found flowering frangipani trees. I love frangipanis, especially the pink ones.
Halfway through my walk the skies opened and in true autumn in Australia fashion, it started raining. No warning, just rain. Then I saw the first changing leaves of the season. In our cities you don’t get the amazing amount of leaves that change colour and drop to the ground that you do in the country areas. When we lived in country NSW, we spent many days playing in and with the autumn leaves everywhere we went.
Another change I noticed was the growth of berries and nuts on the trees.
On returning home slightly damp, I ventured out into our backyard to find the citrus trees are full of fruit. All in varying shades of green through to yellow.
And lastly I discovered the trees my husband had severely trimmed in summer were full of new growth.
I love this quote by Brene Brown. It puts simply everything we always knew without realising it. Coming back to blogging after over a 2 year break, I feel as vulnerable as I did when I posted my first blog post – Mother’s Day 2014. Each day however it got easier. As I connected with more people, my feeling of vulnerability lessened and I found my voice.
At present in most of the world we have an unprecedented way of life with restrictions that can change daily. In Australia, life last Friday week was so different to life yesterday. As a result, we accept that next Friday it could be very different again. We are all feeling vulnerable. But we are using the current situation to get creative and focus on what we can do and how we need to change things to get through. I’m a huge believer that many of the innovations that we put in place will become the new norm after the crisis as they will make everyday life better.
What are some of the innovating changes you have made lately?
Australians love visiting big tourist attractions. They are large sized versions of what the town or area is known for e.g. the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, the first big thing I ever visited back in the 1970’s. Today in Australia there are over 150 big things.
The latest big thing I visited was the Big UGG Boots at Mortel’s Sheepskin Factory at Thornton in the Hunter Valley. They are the world’s biggest UGG Boots weighing 600 kilos each. They were designed to be 13 x women’s size 8 UGG boot. Mortel’s have been making UGG boots in Australia since 1958. I can’t believe that they made the concrete look so soft and comfortable just like Australian UGG boots.
The Japanese also love our UGG boots. So when our Japanese family visited last year, we surprised them with a visit to the Big UGG Boots. They loved them. Communication was interesting but the ladies in the gift shop did a great job of explaining that sheepskin changes shape so the shoe sizes that they needed to purchase varied. Overall the visit was an excellent experience for everyone.
Attached to the gift shop is the sheepskin museum. It explains the history of Mortel’s as well as showing how UGG boots are made. My favourite was being able to shear a sheep.
If you are ever in the area the Big UGG Boots are worth a visit.
If we were having coffee I would tell you that I can’t believe that it is over 2 years since our last catch-up. Where did that time go? It seems like only yesterday but so much has happened.
Today would have been my late father’s birthday. Next week will be the 1st anniversary of his death. This time last year was a weird mix of sorrow and celebration as we all wanted him to become an octogenarian. And he did. He was 80 for 5 days. Tonight my family is celebrating his life with a Bob party in his honour, like we did every year for his birthday.
If we were having coffee I would tell you that my son recently got married again. His original wedding was in Japan in April 2018, and last month he and his wife held their Australian wedding to celebrate with friends and family here. It was beach styled, overlooking beautiful Merewether Beach. Like the Japanese and Australian cultures, both weddings were different but amazing. and blended together, made a complete celebration of their love.
If we were having coffee I would tell you that my husband and I have been designing extensions to our house that we are now waiting on permission to build. We have never designed anything before and after nearly 18 months of tweaking we are happy with how it has come together.
If we were having coffee I would tell you that during a 6 month period in 2018 we moved ourselves out of our Sydney home, our daughter to live on campus in country NSW and set-up a new home for my son on his return from Japan, prior to his wife arriving a few months later.
If we were having coffee I would ask you whats been happening in your world. Let me know in the comments.
