More wildlife.

Meet the possum who lives in my garage roller door; posing in the apple tree that hangs over our decking. 

We hear he/she each night after sunset, as it noisely bounds across the metal parts of the roof and onto the decking.

Sometimes we are treated to a possum chorus, as all the possums in the area shout to each other, which sounds like (to my ears) a moped being kickstarted.

But his (or her) nickname 'Pooey' comes from the amount of droppings left across every surface at the back of the house.  For a small animal you would never believe the amount of poo it produces.

I have visions of having a Caddyshack style war with them.  But I am in rental and am well aware I'd loose.  Besides, it is apparently illegal kill, or even to move a possum far enough from your house that it couldn't find its way back. 

I must confess feeding them the occasional apple from my hands doesn't help my situation.  Can't help it - for all the mess, they seem so cute!.

The wildlife..

Found this handsome looking devil hanging out on the back wall of the house. 

Large brown spiders in Australia are apparently less of a worry than the small black ones.

This guy was very big and brown and bit of a shock.  Thankfully Huntsmen are virtually harmless (they can however give a nasty nip).

He was gone this morning, so I wonder if he crept into the house and is waiting to surprise us!

Things you don't see in the UK #2 - Australia's Favourite Cheese

But apparently it is nothing to get shocked or snigger about.  Nor should you consider contacting your member of parliament in disgust.  According to the Coon website: "The brand name recognises the work of Edward William coon in developing the 'cooning process' of cheese making".

So there you go, we all learned something.  You can read more of the Coon story here.

Small things.. amuse my small mind..

As a Christmas present to myself, I recently bought a secondhand chest freezer - I know how to live on the wild side.

There is something about having an electric appliance located in an area that is virtually outdoors.  It feels very Australian!

Everybody meet my new refridgeration device.

Things you don't see in the UK #1 - Magpie Swooping Season

Apparently the magpies of Canberra are aggressive, or at least the males are when it is nesting season.  (See the defensive head-gear worn by the cyclist to the left) and amusing article from the Canberra times:

The bush capital's swooping harbingers of spring are upon us and the ACT Government is warning residents to be aware of the black-and-white menace from above.

And while plenty of new magpie warning signs have been erected around nest-worthy suburbs, they weren't enough to save Erica Laurente from one particularly aggressive bird in Palmerston yesterday.

 Full newspaper article can be read here at the Canberra Times website.

Geocaching

A friend of mine recently got me into Geocaching. Put simply, Geocaching is a geeky treasure hunt. Geocachers hide treasure (caches), containing - as a minimum - a paper log so that finders can record their visit.  Once the cache has been hidden, the co-ordinates of it's location are published on a website (Geocaching.com) for others to find.

Other Geocachers then use their GPS' (these are surprisingly cheap, alternatively some smartphones can also do the same job) to track down the co-ordinates and find the cache.  Amazingly, there are over 500 caches hidden within a 10km radius of my home.  Even more amazingly I (unknowlingly) passed by two each day on my walk to and from work.  With the aid of my GPS and a good deal of heading scratching and poking about I was able to score my first finds.

The inventiveness of the folk hiding the caches is to be believed. Hidden in fence posts, children's play areas, I even heard of one hidden inside a snail shell.

The next stage was to involve my pre-schooler, as it is a good excuse to spend some time with daddy. I also look less of an idiot on my hands and knees if their is a little one alongside me.  Geocachers are mindful of the adult / child connection and the larger caches are used to exchange proper treasure between the kids.  At our first find together he was over the moon to swap a plastic soldier for a yo-yo.

It is also a great excuse to go exploring parts of Canberra that I would not otherwise be visiting.  Just watch out for muggles!

The day we went to Sydney

We recently made a tourist trip to Sydney, the intention was to secure some winter sunshine and to see the sights.  From Canberra, getting to Sydney presents four choices: Drive, Fly, Bus or train. On the basis that flying the four of us would be prohibitively expensive (nearly $1000AUD in total), our car is a shed and on a colleague's advice that the bus journey was over barren terrain, we chose the train.

Canberra railway station is interesting in that it doesn't sit in the centre of the city, instead it is located in the suburb of Kingston.  Despite being nearly 330km away from Sydney effectively Canberra sits at the end of a branch line.  Unless you want to visit Sydney or one of the stations in between, you will find yourself being transferred to a coach somewhere in your journey.  The station itself, is clean, quite and functional.  Unlike railway stations in the UK, we were able to park our car in the car park for free.

The train service between Canberra and Sydney is provided by CountryLink and the journey takes a little over four hours.  The price for two adults (the kids were free) travelling in first class, was a very affordable $222AUD for return tickets.  As we were going for a long weekend we opted for an early morning train, that arrived into Sydney Central Station at 11am.  An unexpected plus of leaving early was the number of kangaroos we passed by close to our windows, even before the train had left the station a startled mob bounced away in clear view.  They were a repeated sight until we reach the Glen Alpine and the outskirts of Sydney.

On arrival at Sydney Central station, we took the decision to walk to our hotel - the Circular Quay Marriott - which was at the far end of Pitt Street from the station.  After about ten minutes, my son decided he'd walked enough and spent the remainder of the journey on my shoulders. I one the bet of who would see something famous first, when I spied the harbour bridge through the pedestrianised area.  At the hotel we paid a supplement of $50AUD for a room on the 28th with a view of the opera house.

Next we decided to explore the Circular Quay itself, at this point I have to say the winter sunshine was not with us!  The skies were black and even before we reached the steps of the opera house the wind was driving us back.  So we took a few hasty photographs and to make good on a promise to my son, we bought tickets for the Manly ferry.

Had someone explained that that the Manly ferry passed through the heads, where the waves of the Pacific Ocean meet the still waters of the Sydney harbour I would have picked a different destination.  The first ten minutes of the crossing went smoothly, then I started to notice security staff appearing on the lower deck - their purpose was to ensure the side doors were closed and that everyone stayed seated.  "You won't drown, but you might break a leg if you try and stand up" I heard one say.  The next ten minutes lasted a lifetime - during which we were quite literally shaken, rattled and rolled.  Everyone went quiet and water sprayed through every gap in the doors.  Then just as I thought it might never end the waves subsided and we cruised into Manly Wharf.  As we left the boat, I overheard another conversation "Of course it is far worse on the way back".

I am not too much of a man to admit, that I chickened out and point-blank refused to travel back to Circular Quay by ferry. Manly isn't directly linked to the city by train or bus.  Luckily, the bus drivers of Sydney are an understanding bunch and as well as making sure there was room for my daughter's pushchair told us where to get off and which was the next bus to get onto and from where.  So unexpectedly, we also got to ride over the Harbour Bridge before being deposited a block away from the hotel.

That night, rather than risk the tantrums and tears of our littlies we had a feast brought to us by room service.  Which - if a little expensive - was very passable indeed.

The next day, with a hearty buffet breakfast inside us and a warm sun in the sky, we set forth once more to explore, sight see and take photographs.  Before slowly making our way back to Central Station to meet our train.  For our return journey, we were treated to a carriage almost to ourselves (at no point were there more than four others sharing it with us).  We would definitely go by train to Sydney again..