Hello Home

It's nice to be back on good, old, dusty and often-dry Australian soil.  Where the gumtrees shed their red bark, and the chocolate lillies grow.  That same soil where the kangaroos leave their compostable deposits, and the bull ants build invisible nests... just in the place where I'm about to stop and stand... barefoot in my thongs... looking through a camera lens rather than at the ground... 

Yeah, I love Australia.

But New Zealand was pretty awesome too.

I have grandparents over there!  And there are no snakes!  What more could you ask for?

By the way, the mysterious and disturbing photo was taken in the Auckland Art Gallery.  I guess you could say I'm standing in the middle of a piece of art.  My Grandad is in that shot too, except I've only captured his reflections - the first of about 50 billion that is.

It was a trippy piece of art!

I took 991 photos and right now I'm deciding which ones will go in the album.

Here are a few which won't be getting printed or immortalised in my photo album.

A photo of New Zealand's first ever McDonalds (and just to make the picture even cooler, there's my Grandad's ear on the right).

Here is an excellent action shot of an ant bungee jumping off Sky Tower right in the middle of Auckland.  I considered trying it myself ... for all of three seconds (and then I found better things to do, like walking through the art gallery and watching paint peel).

Here is a photo of part of my favourite painting in the gallery - I like to call it 'The Expression On His Face Is A Masterpiece".

Here is another photo which won't be in the album.  No matter how many ways there are to look at this shot, I will always think that my foot is coming out of my head.  It was a pretty amazing lake though.

And then there is the Ambitious Shot in which I try to stand in the same place Peter, Edmond, Susan and Lucy stood when the train station disappeared and Narnia was suddenly there (Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian).

I promise, that mysterious shadow is me.

He, he.

No matter how many photos I cram into the album, I won't be able to capture everything New Zealand showed me... the awe I felt when I stood in front of God's own natural masterpieces, the fun of exploring new cities, the joy of being spoilt by grandparents you've missed, and then that feeling you get when you walk back into your old bedroom with a new sense of how blessed you really are.

:)

How the Locals Like It [Part 3]

Continued from Parts One and Two...


Every locality needs an oval.

The oval is where people meet on the weekends to watch barbaric forms of Australian Rules Football.  Or twelve year old boys playing cricket (all dressed in white, you can see them from miles away).

While I recognise that an oval is an important part of a community, I've never personally set a toe on this one. The only thing I would do on an oval is lie in the grass and stare at the clouds.  But I can imagine that this sort of behaviour tends to infuriate the sports people, especially when they are trying to use the oval for its intended purpose.

I've come here to drop off my brother at cricket training, or attend a 'function' at the cricket club.  Outsiders might see a squat, ugly brick building, all concrete and wooden benches.  Well, a bare building gives a sporting club a place to meet, and when a sports team meets, so do local families.  Trivia nights, barbecues, awards ceremonies, planning meetings.

The cricket club by the oval has established itself as a permanent part of the community.  I think this is why the bare clubhouse was even used for a memorial service, in memory of two teenage boys who died in the Black Saturday bush fires.  One of the boys had used that very clubhouse when he was on the cricket team.  Little things like that force you to stop and appreciate your own home town - a place where people actually stick together.

Speaking of appreciation...one of the most important parts of our little neighbourhood is the CFA.   Country Fire Authority.

How the Locals Like It [Part 2]

Our local post office is currently in a barn. I'll bet it's one of the only Australia Post outlets in a barn within a 45 minute radius of the CBD. {Oh yeah}

Before the barn, it was in a shack tacked onto the side of an old weatherboard house which was the home of three or four bachelor brothers.
When we moved into the area, Bob ran the post office (he was the most outgoing of all bachelor brothers).  Everyone knew Bob, and Bob knew everyone.  When you had to pick up a parcel, you didn't pick it up from the post office, you picked it up from Bob.  At the time I was about 11 years old so I took this for granted (what? you don't pick up your parcels from a man named Bob?)

How the Locals Like It [Part 1]

Melbourne is a large city.

Not large like New York large, or Rome large, but just really spread out.  Where does Melbourne begin and end?  Does anybody know?  If you live at one end of 'Melbourne' then it can take up to two hours to get accross to the other side, which makes it a little difficult when visiting rellies who supposedly live in the same city as you.

{I'm allergic to four hour car trips in one day, especially during peak hour traffic}

Throughout my short life I've lived in a few different patches of Melbourne.  Moving around is not very fun, and when we arrived in our current patch of Melbourne, the first thing I thought was 'this must be the bush'.
Which was silly, because there was a golf course down the road, and the local state park was more of an empty paddock than thick bushland.  And my 'this must be the bush' thought wasn't along the lines of 'the bush is an awesome place to live!'... no, it was more like 'living in the bush is living in the middle of nowhere!  Get me out of here!'.

It was an over-reaction.