6/15 Esplande, Bargara, Queensland, 4670

Now there is no excuse for not knowing our mailing address!

We have officially moved into the condo unit that will be our home for the next year. We successfully missed the cyclone and I got our stuff moved in on Saturday, your Friday. It didn't take me nearly as long to move this time as last time, that took 2 years of organizing and packing. This little move took only about 2 hours, door to door. Instead of writing and posting pictures I am going to try and make a cogent video (where is Colin when I need him?) that walks you around the place so you get a feel for it.

We are so thankful to have found this beautiful place and are able to have it for the duration.

We have never lived in a multi-unit condo before. The closest we got was an attached townhouse in Louisville, Kentucky. Neighbors can be so difficult that after I met my neighbor to the left of our front door there.....never again.......
only because you can only be so lucky once to have a true friend be so close without planning it. Judy, known now as Judy-Ann, was a ball of energy who was always up for a drive in the snow with this crazy person from Wisconsin who didn't let weather get in the way of shopping! We became fast friends and like our adventure here, I knew no one, so having a chum my age next door was wonderful. (Judy decided she wanted to learn how to drive in the elements and moved to Minneapolis in the late '80's)

We have been blessed with wonderful neighbors wherever we have landed. Fox Point is the epitome of a truly amazing place with the best neighbors and friends you for which you could ever hope. We moved onto a street that at the time, had 5 houses with kids all the same approximate ages, and parents to match. The people on Acacia Road are some of my/our  best friends, forever. We knew that moving to Australia meant selling the house where our kids had grown up, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I don't think you can ever go back, I know that we will stay in touch, but to have had such a special neighborhood was ......the best. (waaaaaaaaaa)

So far we have met a few people here. John has met more than I, he was in the elevator (lift) with a few people, so he introduced himself. They already knew all about us.......ummmm....creepy. I guess this is a very, shall we say, interactive building, and everybody knows what and who is going around.

And then this morning we got scolded for music being too loud on the veranda. Welcome to Bargara!
The lady downstairs on the first floor yelled up, "Your music is very noisy, goodness, I've never heard such loud music." It wasn't loud, at all, where are the seniors with hearing aids?

We immediately turned it off and whispered, "OK, that was unpleasant", the joys of communal living.  We will find the right volume for our music and hopefully this will be a one time scolding.

The lady next door was very nice when I gave her some mail that landed in our mailbox, wanted to know if we drank wine.....love to have us over for a drink....now that's more like it.

This is not to say we won't have some learning to do here. The first night here was post cyclone and there wasn't a whisper of a wind, it was like the wind needed a breather. We are very anxious to have the ocean at the center of our lives from day 1 here. So throw open the doors, open those louvers, push the shutters out of the way, let THAT ocean come into THIS room! And make way for hoards of bugs!!!!!!! Oh yes, the flying kind, the crawling kind and the no see 'um kind all made their way by the light we provided. Yuck, is this all part of the ambience of an ocean front unit? Close those louvers, shut the doors and lock those shutters.......too late as even as we turned out the light the no seem um's found us. I guess post weather system it is usual to have a really buggy night, no one told us that, but I was mentioning it to some of the tennis pals and they told me. It was buggy everywhere Saturday night, it wasn't that our location was anything special( except is really is). We will know better next time we have a really still night.

Our unit faces east so we wake up to the sun at 5am. Not a bad alarm clock. It is glorious to wake up to the sun peaking out between the clouds, and the birds, wow, so noisy. We have parrots that fly around in the trees here on the beach. They don't talk to us, but they cock their heads like they're trying to understand us.

We explained to them that we speak American English, which ain't so good, but they just keep trying to overhear our conversations. Too darn cute. But it is a wild morning scene here, lots to take in.

The Beach by the unit

We have discovered or been made aware of some really nice perks of this condo, the storage unit in the garage has 2 bikes that we can use, and a set of golf clubs. The clubs will come in handy as the Bargara Golf Club is literally across the street. The bikes will be great to have because having only one car I can still get around while John is in Bundaberg working. There is a bike path that follows the coast for miles and miles, it goes right by the Mon Repos Turtle Rookery and up to the Burnett Heads Lighthouse which I am going to ride to this weekend. We have both said that these "little" discoveries were like moving to Fox Point and finding the swimming pool and the skating rink and warming house. We just couldn't believe how lucky we were to have landed in the perfect place to raise the boys.

So we are all settled and ready for house guests. We have plenty of room and getting a long list of things to keep you occupied. With the list we've compiled you will have no time to sleep in the lovely bedrooms we have ready. We promise to give you some unforgettable memories in the land of "Oz".

I hope this video is better as I got sea sick watching the first one. As I said, "Colin I need you!"

We're not in Kansas anymore...or are we?????

We came to Australia in search of adventure and so far we haven't been disappointed. 

Even this week as we move to our ocean front unit we will be "dodging" our first cyclone ever. Cyclone is what the Southern Hemisphere calls a hurricane. Oh *%@#, (that's in case someone's darling children are reading this blog), that's not good! This little storm is named Marcia, like the oldest girl in the "Brady Bunch" which is on regularly here. Looks like Bundaberg is in the target of the storm, landing near Rockhampton and moving south or right over Bundy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-18/cyclone-marcia-forms-off-queensland-coast/6137986

We are just north of Brisbane on the east coast.




Bundaberg has had 2, 100 year rains in the last 4 years. (Does this sound familiar Milwaukee?) The flooding was the result of a cyclone that spun around and got "stuck" just west of Bundaberg and just dumped inches and inches of rain on the area.

They measure in metric, and there was 300-400mm of rain that fell. That's 12-15+ inches of rain people! Some of the pictures were just

unbelievable.

This was the 2013 storm, but there was a 2011 storm that was just about as destructive.

Many of the sports facilities were damaged beyond repair with the first flood, then the second one wiped out any resources to rebuild, yet again. To say people take these little weather events seriously is an understatement. They can be very dangerous, and just like in the US, the TV coverage is constant.

We are deciding whether to make the move into the unit on Friday, or wait a day or two. The underground garage has us a bit worried if the rain is heavy, we had a car drowned in a garage in Madison during a freak thunderstorm. I always think about lower levels and things stored in lower levels....that's all I'll say about that.


Day 1 Cyclone Watch is proceeding. So far, at noon, some wind but no rain. made landfall north of us and slowed quite a bit. I drove to Bargara to collect the keys to our unit but will see about moving things in tomorrow, or Saturday here. From what I understand about this storm, the worst could be later today as it moves south and weakens. Like with a lot of what we have experienced
about Australia, things will happen on their own time. So either this storm will come, or it won't.

And it didn't! We had a large rainfall in the evening, and some wind, but we missed the storm. The towns of Yeppoon and Rockhampton bore the brunt of Mar-See-A (that's how they pronounce it) and the pictures today showed the force the storm.

We are grateful for being spared this new adventure as the places hit are still without power and it will take weeks for them to get back their infrastructure. I'm sorry this will be a boring blog about the cyclone that wasn't, but happy to report it.

What's Up, Chuck? Or "The sea was angry that day my friends"

I wasn't sure how to start this blog, there were so many options.

Be scared, very scared, if when booking an all day excursion that starts with the suggestion of anti- nausea medication. John took the suggestion seriously knowing my issues with motion sickness and ordered some Compazine for me to take before the cruise started.

We were going to Lady Musgrave Island which is located about 2 hours from Agnes Waters, the site of Captain Cook's landing in Queensland, but not his first in Australia. http://www.lmcruises.com.au/

We left Bundy about 5:30am for a 7:30am departure from Agnes Water. I drove, yes, I'm driving regularly now, on the correct side of the road, the 2 hours. John had just finished a spat of shifts and was spent, so I drove while he slept. It was a very narrow 2 lane road, my friend Debbie's favorite, and there is NO shoulder here. The ride was a little harrowing in that I met buses and long tractor trailers, double trailers, all heading for me at 100 km/ hour. Gulp.

We made it in plenty of time for the departure, swallowed our meds and boarded the ship for the day.
We knew it was at least a 75 minute ride, that's what the brochure said, but the wind was really blowing, so they announced it might take up to 90 minutes. We left the dock by way of what we call a patio boat, to get to the big boat, all because it was low tide and the big boat was too deep for the depth. We got on and headed to the top as fresh air is my best place for the trip with my motion sickness. We got settled and took off. The captain then announced that everyone at the stern of the boat (back for you land lubbers) needed to come to the front of the boat so the propellers wouldn't hit the sand bar that we we're passing over.  OK, that's how slim the margin is here. Made it over the shallow inlet and we were off to sea. It was windy, there were white caps off in the distance.....
                                                                               

The Lady Musgrave

Back to the fresh air and our seats, and the open sea. Lots of fresh air, and wind, and waves, and waves, and waves, and splash. We were soaked in 5 minutes. Everyone was laughing and yucking it up, so what if we were wet, it was a warm spray, and the sun was out, we had sunscreen on, the day was warm, it wasn't that long a trip........until it was. The crew came out to explain what to do in the case of motion sickness, they had these handy little gadgets which John has so nicely offered to demonstrate. They are called

SPEW BAGS.

These little gems were in great demand 20 minutes into the trip. We were still laughing as the waves hit the boat and drenching us, there would be no drying out on this trip out. We then heard the unmistakable noise of unbridled vomiting. You know the noise that comes from your toes, and there's no way to muffle it. Horrible for the person getting sick and not much better for the people around them. The chorus of spewing started with a woman about our age with her husband and kids (the guy had a Harley Davidson 95th Anniversary T shirt on), so it was easy to identify them, then it moved to  all sections of the boat. It was a barf-fest! We were barely 30 minutes out and it became obvious that the 20-25mph winds were going to slow us up, a lot. (We found out later in the day that 25-30mph winds would have cancelled the trip, which had happened the day before.)


I'm not going to report all the afflicted but there were a couple of really injured folk who you just felt for, they were so miserable. It seemed that the trip over wouldn't end, and it did take over 2 hours in the chop to arrive at Lady Musgrave Island. As we approached the reef, this is the southern most end of the Great Barrier Reef, the waves and wind calmed a bit and we readied for departure. The crew announced lunch would be served within the hour and I heard a collective groan from the group leaving. We needed to get organized for snorkeling and scuba diving and time was precious as we had such a long enjoyable trip over.

The guy who was getting our masks, snorkel and fins was a character. We wondered if someone had picked him up from a garden as he looked just like a garden gnome.

His accent was so strong that even the Australian passengers couldn't understand him. Our little gnome was a little more angry than this jolly sort. He shouted at us to pick up our fins and masks, and barked our sizes at us like "You're a 39 and oh so fine" or "You're 40 and very naughty",  over and over he used the same shtick. He was also quite abrasive and shouting not to drip on the seats (um, excuse me, hadn't we just had a 2 hour soaking, courtesy of this ship????).

John and I had snorkeled a few times together, in Hawaii, in Costa Rica, Greece, and in Australia. I like to have him swim with me as I get disoriented looking down and need him to re-orient. First off, the water is incredible, the color in one place is the most sapphire blue I've ever seen then turquoise, then clear silver. Amazing. We figured the coral under the water's surface was the reason, or no coral under the surface were the blues and greens. The grey was where the coral was closest to the surface.
The fish were everywhere and the most colorful in the world. That little "Finding Nemo" fish is called a clown fish and even though they are very shy, I saw a few.

But the real treat was swimming with the sea turtles. They were all over this spot and you could just calmly swim above them. Their colors and shell patterns were beautiful, you just couldn't swim away.

In full "flight"

A disclosure here, I don't take all the pictures I use in this entry, or in the blog. When I can find an image online that captures what I've done or seen, I use it. Most times these photos are better than the ones I've taken or could have taken. 

They have safety measures in place while we were in the water, if you heard a whistle, you needed to look back toward the ship to see what the danger is. As we drifted and swam with the turtles, not knowing how fast the drift was or how far we had floated away, I did hear the whistle. I looked up and saw John, but no other snorkelers, that panicked me a bit, and motioned to John we should head back. The wind was still blowing and the waves were quite difficult to navigate. I used to be a strong swimmer but this was hard swimming. Also, I chose to wear a life jacket whilst snorkeling, that just added to the drag. I wasn't sure why the whistle was blown from the boat, but my fear was the obvious......dun, dun, dun, dun

Rut-row

We made it back to the boat, no idea why we were called back but it was OK, I was tired and lunch was being served. 

We had another chance to see the underwater world with a glass bottom boat that we took to the Island itself. They had a naturalist take us in small groups to the Island and through the boat bottom we saw lots of turtles and coral, sea cucumbers, eels, and sting rays. We took a lovely walk on the Island to see it's wonderful wildlife. Marcus (our guide) loved it here, and spends time volunteering to care for it in the off season. There is a campsite where you can spend the night, or many nights. We saw up to 50 tracks where the turtles had nested just the night before, this is a big nesting ground for the Loggerheads and Green Turtles.

We had an hour of guided walking which was really informative and enjoyable. 

We got back to the boat in time for "tea" and then for the ride home. I was swallowing another

pill when I suggested we offer some meds to the 2 people we had the worst of it going over. They both accepted our offer and we were off. We got this picture of the gentlegnome of whom I spoke and discovered he was the OWNER of the boat, which makes sense, as no one else would have hired him.

The ride back was WITH the wind and much better. It was a rolling ride instead of a trip trying to rip through 15 foot waves. I fell asleep as John talked to a nice family from Canada, my med had kicked in. 

We departed the ship and headed for the night at The Pavillions 1770. John had booked us in a beautiful complex, and once we had gotten our bags in the room, he headed to the bottle shop for refreshments, good on him!

We had a nice dinner next door from the complex and headed to bed, it had been a LONG day.

More on Agnes Waters and 1770 soon.

Tennis, Aussie Style

I have been waiting to post on tennis until I had a grasp of the differences between US and Aussie tennis. I have played about 6 times and I think I can talk with experience now, well maybe not, but I'll give it a try.

The first time on the court was about 2 weeks ago and it was a morning group of women, senior women. It was very casual, they call it SOCIAL (I will capitalize all the different ways the game is different) tennis, you show up and play a set with a group of gals and then rotate around. But before you go out again they stop for a CUP OF TEA, hot tea. It was close to 90 degrees that first day and I was sipping on my ice water and the ladies were drinking hot tea. After they finished their tea, we went out again to play another set. Let me define senior ladies here, I was the youngest on the court by 20 years, at least. That's not to say they weren't good players, as any seasoned tennis player knows, start sweating when you see a older player because they know where to put it, they are good players. And good for them to be out there playing, in the heat, drinking hot tea. God love 'em!

The next time I played was with John, a mixed doubles group in the middle of the day, again, we were the youngest by years. It was fun doubles and this was John's first time out so we played our first set together and then we split up to play with the other players. I had warned him about the score keeping, they don't say the score often but when they do they way "FIF DOUBS" for 15 all, or "FIF 3" for 15-30, in other words, keep the score in you head because you have no idea what the score is otherwise. The other differences are, they ROLL THE BALL UNDER THE NET to return it to the server. We usually bounce the ball over the net, and announce that the ball is coming. I was trying to take this all in so I could report to John and he'd not be as lost as I was the first time out, but it was useless, I couldn't remember all the stuff and he was lost.

Now for the surfaces. The first time we played was on astroturf with a light sand covering. You can slide on this stuff, if you know how, and it's quite easy on the joints. The second time we played was with John, and it started to rain whilst on the court. We NEVER STOPPED PLAYING. It was really coming down and no one stopped or even paused. The ball got heavier and heavier, the court wasn't really slippery, and we just played until the set was over. Go figure.

We then played at the Bundaberg Tennis Center, which was the picture and place in one of my first blogs.  It is a clay surface with either tile or chalk lines. This is a place where you collect the net from a store room and attatch it to the posts before playing. We are in a group on Wednesday nights with rated players, A or B. Somehow John was placed in the B group and me in the A. This was a mistake.
John also had a bye the first night but showed up anyway and played with the B group. After he said,
"If I have to stay in this group I'll loose my mind." I had a go with the top female player and a male player who was quite good and got waxed all 3 sets. I suggested we switch spots. Let's see how it goes. Oh, and it rained and rained on Wednesday night, and we kept playing. No one is bothered by the rain here.

                                             

Between the two sides of courts


I played again on Thursday morning, a women's group, but I had no idea of the skill level. It was back at the Bundaberg Tennis Center, on the clay, but the median age was 80 and I'm not kidding.

This was like Interclub where we stay for a luncheon. The only hitch is that all my sets were 6-0 and not that close, and then we waited and waited to get back on, and it dragged on until 12 (we started at 9), then there was lunch. Again, it was lovely, like a high tea, with hot tea, china plates and cups, and very British. Well, maybe not exactly like Interclub. Where the hell I am??????

I'm sure I'm looked at like some crazy American, who shouts, "Good shot!" and the score, like 15-love, and tries to "high 5" them when a shot is good. I just can't change who I am.

Today was social tennis again. I was there alone as John was working. There were 8 of us, very good number for doubles. It was really fun tennis with a great skill level, and I am getting used the surfaces. But as we lost one player late in the afternoon, it was suggested that one court play "AMERICAN DOUBLES" which is, you guessed it, what we call "AUSTRALIAN DOUBLES".
They had a good chuckle over that, and they all love MY ACCENT!

As I had hoped, tennis is my safe place, where even though we say the score differently, and play in the rain, it's a great respite. We love playing and old or young (yes, I feel young in these groups) it's fun and great exercise.

The oldest player I've played with so far is "Bert" who is 94 years young. The head lady here, is 80 years young, and also a very good player. She runs everything. She'd be like my dear friend, Nan, she connects people and gets you into a group. So you see it's the same on this side of the world, people who love tennis, and love to play, are wonderful, no matter where you are.

Backgammon

For those of you that have either known us a long time, or vacationed with us, you know that we usually bring a couple of games with us when we travel. A deck of cards is usual. But what is always in the suitcase, or carry on, is a backgammon board.

John and I have been playing this game for over 39 years. We started playing when we were dating and have continued to play all these years. For those of you reading this blog, blah, blah, blah.....
you know that we moved and packed and I don't know where anything is. We have probably 10 backgammon boards, the travel kind (that pack easily), the beach kind (that roll up into a beach bag), the formal kind (that you can leave on the coffee table), and the ones with missing pieces and mismatched dice. DO YOU THINK I COULD HAVE PACKED ONE OF THEM?????? No, and I have no idea where they live right now, could be a storage unit in Lake Geneva or Milwaukee, have not a clue which one. So.....

We have to buy one here so we can play on the beach, it's tradition.

We looked at a couple of stores and finally found one at the Big W.

It was a combo, checkers and backgammon, a two-fer! We were excited to open it and play it on Elliott Heads Beach, photo below.

Elliott's Head Beach low tide

The Board

Now look carefully at the board. You will see there are some missing pieces that are replaced with coins of Australia decent.
The kit was missing 7-8 pieces but we made the best of it by using the coins. This is not the first time we have had missing pieces. We've lost pieces in the Smokey Mnt. National Park way back when John had a temper tantrum and flipped the board onto the forest floor, I made him find the lost ones, which wasn't easy considering his defect. He's color blind. the pieces where green and brown, he can't tell the difference and they melded into the back drop of the leaves and foliage. I just watched as he struggled to find them. He could tell I was going to be a strict parent, this was basically his "timeout".

The pieces have gone missing in Geneva Lake, as have dice, off the pier, never to be recovered. We have placed the new board and pieces in our beach bag, ready to play when we get the chance. We've played on a ship, on a plane, on a train, and every location where we've vacationed. It's one of things we enjoy playing, even when one of loses, which always happens. 

John has become quite the player as he discovered playing "online" with people from all over the world. He would get home from a long shift and switch on the computer to de-stress from the life saving and frustrations of his profession. I have to admit that his playing for hours after his shift did get under my skin.  I would wake up hours after his shift was to end and think "wow, he had a tough shift, so late getting to bed....feel badly for him".... only to change my mind when I wandered downstairs to see him glued to the computer playing and loosing track of how long he'd been there. He stopped this as we geared up to move and he needed the time to sort and pack, and here, well we pay for all our online time, so it isn't happening here. 

Maybe, just maybe, I can catch up to his skill level.

Good on you!

So we went to Hervey Bay Friday to see our other option here in Queensland. It's like maybe 115 km from Bundaberg, so about 1 1/2 hours by car. Hervey Bay is known for whale watching from October to December. Apparently they are so prevalent you don't even have to go out in a boat to see them, just look out your window. Right now it's just summer and beachy, like Outer Banks beachy, very touristy and summery. We went without a reservation for the night (this will be a recurrent theme) and only dinner reservations at Coast,  a restaurant that both Scott and my wonderful tennis buddies gave us a gift certificate. After a couple of "sorry no room at the Inn", we ended up at the Radison in Hervey Bay. It was fine, no great shakes, but a clean and comfortable room. We sat at the pool and played a few games of backgammon, cleaned up, and went out for dinner at Coast.

Coast is a very upscale, pretty restaurant. We were there on a Friday night, and maybe Ladies Night from the demographics we observed. Next to our table was a birthday party for a gal with 18 of her closest friends. It was a wild scene man. Our very sweet waitress had our table and this huge table to work, and she was was working. She took our drink order and we had to hunt for her the rest of the night. The gals at the birthday party table were keeping her busy. We had a very enjoyable night even with the distraction. (John kept talking about what the gals were wearing.) Australia is very casual so there were people in shorts and flip flops all the way to the decked out birthday girls with their finery on. We had a great meal of "small plate" dining, and we know that we will come back.

We made a decision about the next 11 months whilst visiting Hervey Bay. The director of the Emergency Department gave John the option of staying in Bundaberg or moving to Hervey Bay. (I think I explained this earlier)

While we enjoyed the overnight in HB, it did seem very busy and had a lot of traffic. This little area was "discovered" 10 years ago and the building started and still hasn't stopped. The little towns on the Esplanade are full of tacky tourist shops and eateries, but there is very little zoning apparently. It has lovely beaches and an amazing 1/4 mile pier in Urangdan, but it all gets lost in the traffic and congestion. This isn't even the busy season, the whale watching is October-December, that's high season for this area. So we have decided to stay in Bundaberg, well at the Bundaberg Base Hospital, but move to Bargara. We have found an apartment that even I couldn't believe how lucky we will be to live there. See the pictures and plan your visit!

Far Left, second floor

View from the front window

The louvers open to reveal a complete view in front and to the side of the ocean.

This is between the slats of the front exposure

The rest are of the interior of the house. Wherever you see the louvers, there is a window to the ocean on the other side. I couldn't open them as our time to view the house was limited.

Dining Area

Living Room

The kitchen is next, and with this building comes a barbeque grill on the first level, right by the herb garden which is a community garden, this includes a lime tree with full, ripe limes ready for a Bundy Rum and Tonic!

The bedrooms are generous and comfortable. The master has a view of, yes, the ocean.

Master

Guest room

It has 2 beautiful bathrooms, one with a whirlpool tub. The other room is a den/bedroom, with the desks and bookshelves.

His and hers

So we are super excited to get in at the end of February and start hosting friends and family. I cannot believe we have found this living situation. I am pinching myself. 

Oh, the beach, I forgot to tell you, it's right across the street from Kelly's Beach where we saw the turtles hatching. The golf club is maybe 50 yards away. Downtown Bargara is a short walk along the beach, and the realtor told us that in whale season you can see them from our place as they migrate up to Hervey Bay. Bring your binoculars!

Let's see, this beautiful Lake Geneva freezing after NewYear's
or

This, Kelly's Beach first week of January, hmmmmm