Journeys

Perhaps the biggest change to our lives since moving to Australia is the difficulty with which to travel.  It has been said a thousand times before, but Australia is a long way from anywhere, even travelling around Australia itself can pose difficulties.  Adding to these difficulties we now have Jessie and Goofy to consider whenever we want to go away.  When we went to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island for a long weekend last month it was the first holiday we had since we went to Darwin back over Easter.  This was a big change from when we were in the UK and would go away almost once a month.

It had been a long time since I had managed to get an ADO off work so as soon as I had one booked Barnadi went straight out and bought flights to Adelaide, what we would do when we got there he left for me to plan.  With Goofy safely dropped off at the kennel and a spare key left with friends who would look after Jessie while we away, we headed off.  Now Adelaide itself is not a big city, it's CBD a grid system similar to Melbourne but surrounded on all sides by parkland.  It is not a very tall city either with very few skyscrapers and lots of old historic buildings still intact.  For transport it only has a single tram line which takes you from the north of the CBD down to Glenelg a seaside suburb.  But although we spent most of that first day exploring the city, Adelaide itself was not our final destination.  We hired a car at the airport and driving down the Fleurieu peninsula to Cape Jervis where we caught the ferry across to Kangaroo Island.

Admiral's Arch: Flinders Chase National Park

Kangaroo Island located 112km south of Adelaide is Australia's 3rd largest island at 4405km2 it is roughly seven times larger than Singapore.  At the 2011 census the population of the island was calculated to be only 4417 people, at roughly one person per square kilometre it is a very sparsely populated place.  To the aborigines, Kangaroo Island is known as Karta "Island of the dead", and they haven't occupied the island in over 2000 years.

Seal Bay: Sea lions

We stayed in the small town of Penneshaw just off the ferry, it had a choice of two restaurants both of which closed their kitchens by 8pm a reflection of the low demand from the low population.  The highlights of the island however are not the restaurants but the wildlife and stunning geology.  Despite the name we didn't see any Kangaroos on the island what we did see though was a lot of sea lions, fur seals, tamer wallabies and pelicans.  Our first stop on Kangaroo Island was Seal bay, although Sea lion bay would have been a more appropriate name as it is home to a colony of sea lions.  Like Philip Island and the penguin parade, the beach is protected and so the only way to see it is to go on a tour with one of the park wardens.  We arrived at 9am on the dot and so were just in time to join the first tour of the day with only a small group of 5 Singaporean tourists joining us.  The sea lions were so cute and their similarity to dogs, both in appearance and behaviour made us feel a deep sadness that Goofy couldn't be there with us.  Our next stop was another couple of hours drive away, did I mention just how big Kangaroo Island is?  Right on the most south westerly tip, within the Flinders Chase national park lies a stunning extremely windswept stretch of coastline.  The highlight being a walkway that leads you down under the cliffs and through to the Admirals Arch where a group of New Zealand fur seals struggle to bask on the exposed rock face as giant waves threaten to wash them back out to sea.  The wind was so strong that as we made our way down the board walk it was hard to breath, but the view at the end was more than enough compensation for the discomfort of getting there.  The wind, the waves and the rocks, all coming together in a way that words cannot do justice to.  Only a short detour away was the next unimaginatively named geological formation, the Remarkable Rocks.  These rocks lived up to their name, a strange collection of misshapen boulders left behind remnants of a long extinct volcano. That night we brought a couple of bottles of local wine and a large family sized seafood pizza and sat on our balcony to watch the sun set over the sea.   On our second day on Kangaroo Island we took a walk up Iron Rock Hill, just outside Penneshaw and found a nice little shop in American River where we had a brunch of fresh oysters and abalone.  We couldn't do much more as the ferry was booked just after lunch to give us time to get back up to Adelaide and our flight home.

Remarkable Rocks: Flinders Chase National Park

It was good to be home again and see Jessie and Goofy.  We had needed the break so desperately and it was a good trip, but even though we knew they were both in safe hands it was still a real struggle to cope with leaving them behind.  Jessie, being a cat, coped with the separation with out any obvious upset, she still got fed and fuss and that was enough.  Goofy was not so happy, whenever we bring him home from the kennel he is always a little quiet and withdrawn for the next couple of days and whimpers a little when he sees you.  It broke our hearts to know that in just a couple of weeks we would be sending him back there and this time for considerably longer.

It had been over a year since we last returned to the UK, the longest time since we had moved out to Australia nearly 3 years ago.  I was feeling incredibly homesick by the time this trip came around.  Once again the timing of this return home was decided by a wedding, although purely by coincidence the trip also coincided with the birth of my best friends first child.  With stops in London, Bath, Burham, Lavenham and Cambridge this was also the longest trip home we had made since we emigrated.  We managed to catch up with so many people this time, including a lot of people we had missed on previous visits.  When returning to Bath my homesickness was at its strongest, in some ways it felt like we had never been away, but there were changes too, some little, some not so little.  From speed limit reductions in Oldfield park to new housing developments along Lower Bristol road Bath was not the same as when we left.  It is not just the place that is changing, but also the people, I jokingly said to my best friend David, that since we moved away it was like our friendship had been put on fast-forward, skipping through all the day to day stuff and jumping straight to the big stuff.  The second time we returned to Bath was for his and Kirsty's wedding, the next time they had just bought a house together and this time we had arrived just in time to see their new born baby daughter.  When I think of Bath, I miss the place so much and of course I miss the people even more but I know realise I could never move back there.  Just like Barnadi and I, Bath and all of our friends have moved on, they are all on their own journeys, things haven't just been stuck on pause while we were away.  It is the memory of my time in Bath that I am homesick for and this recent trip has confirmed that the Bath of today is a completely different place to the one we left behind.

Self Regulation

It's that time of year again where accountants across the country get very very busy.  It is a legal requirement in Australia for everyone to do a tax return at the end of the financial year which, as far as I can see, is because the Australian Tax Office (ATO) is completely incapable of doing its own job.  The ATO  is not the only big organisation in Australia which is set up to be a regulating body and yet delegates a lot of that responsibility to the very people it is meant to be regulating.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is the Australian equivalent to the MHRA or FDA and it is responsible for regulating all therapeutics available for use within Australia.  Well that's the theory, there is one big exception, natural, complementary and alternative medicines.

There is a common misconception that because something is "natural" it is safe, this is far from true a look at any number of poisonous plants and animals in the world makes this abundantly clear and yet this concept of natural equals safe is behind the TGA's decision to allow manufactures of these natural, complementary and alternative medicines to regulate their own products.

A recent audit of the TGA's self regulation policy showed that 90% of the listed products that went though this process were in violation of regulatory requirements.  These violations included mislabelled products, poor quality and misleading claims unsupported by any evidence.  These results are shocking but not to be unexpected when you consider that these products are made to make money, the manufacturers of these products only goal is financial gain.  Whether intentional or accidental, violations are inevitable when you allow the manufacturer of a product to then regulate it.

What I find most disturbing about this set up is these products are listed by the TGA as if they were properly regulated and this gives the general public the impression that these products may actually have been tested to ensure they are both safe and efficacious when the truth in the majority of cases is completely the contrary.

Australians are world famous for their laid back attitudes, but there has to be a limit.  When an organisation that is set up to be a regulating body, whether that's the tax office or the TGA, then it needs to do the job itself.  Self-regulation may save the organisations time and money, but it is open to abuse and in the case of the ATO it could cost the government millions in lost revenue and for the TGA it puts the general public at risk of serious harm.

Only a game

Melbournians are in general extremely passionate about their sport, more obviously so than any other Australians.  A clear example of this is in the number of AFL teams that originate in Melbourne.  Out of the 18 teams in the premiership 50% are Melbourne based teams.  It is not surprising then that they take events such as the world cup very seriously.  A little too seriously for my own personal liking, I have never understood how people can become so obsessive over what is essentially a hobby.  Still I have managed to avoid it impacting my life too much as Australia got knocked out quite early on, and local interest quickly waned.  Still with Wimbledon and the Tour de France still going on, I have plenty more to avoid.

One such way I have found to avoid watching or hearing about sports that do not interest me, is to play games that do.  Last weekend after a lot of umming and ahing I finally gave in and decided to buy a copy of my favourite board game, Ticket to Ride.  I had been struggling to justify the $80 price tag, with Barnadi telling me I would have no one to play it with anyway.  Fortunately Barnadi was quickly proved wrong as in the week since I acquired the game I've managed to have two board game nights.

For those who have never heard of the game, Ticket to Ride is a strategy game where players compete to build trains routes across a map, in this case, of Europe.  This is done by collecting enough cards of a matching colour to link two cities.  Points are awarded for each route laid, with extra points available for completing specific routes which are available on ticket cards, points can be deducted for any ticket not finished before the end of the game.

My first game night was on Wednesday when Mona came over for a game or two or three.  Despite getting confused between Budapest and Bucharesti she still managed to beat me twice, but as all good losers know it is not about the winning.  It was just a good feeling to be playing again after so many years without.  For my second board game night Gene, Cameron and Kirsten all came over for dinner and a game.  Barnadi was working so I attempted to cook, by making a fish pie.  Again the night was completed with three games.  I managed to walk the first game with a very convincing win, but by the second game I did a Mona, miss reading my main mission and losing a whopping 21 points, allowing Gene to storm ahead and take the game.  By the third game I think the wine had been flowing a little too much and it was the lowest scoring game of the night.  It was Gene's turn to do a Mona as he got confused between Erzurum and Smyrna, allowing me to make a sneaky win.

I am sincerely hoping that at least one or two people will become regular visitors for a game, I might even be organised enough to remember to make a pudding.  Then I can justify expanding my board game collection with games like Bohnanza.  Not that I ever hope to have a collection big enough to rival Martin and Laura's library of games it does make me feel a little less homesick.

Jessie enjoying a game

A Wet Weekend

After the warmest May on record, winter has finally hit Melbourne hard.  Strong bitter southern winds, bringing lots of rain and flooding to many parts of the city.  On the plus side, it means we can put our new ducted heating system to the test, and so far it has passed with flying colours, well worth the investment.  The rain did not stop us taking a day trip up to Daylesford this weekend to visit Barnadi's friends Leah and Evan.  The trip was rather spontaneous in its complete lack of planning, we had been taking Goofy for a walk when the rain began.  Cutting the walk short we headed back home, but Goofy had hardly had enough time to stretch his legs, so we got in the car, planning to drive to Bundoora park where we could let him off the lead a bit and he could have a run around.  Before we even pulled out the driveway Barnadi suggested we make a day of it and head down to Williamstown, this sounded like a good plan to me so instead of driving to the park I took us up onto the ring road.  It was here Barnadi changed his mind again, we hadn't seen Leah and Evan for a while, and last time we drove up to Daylesford to visit them, the house they were building by the lake was still far from finished.  It seemed then that a visit was well overdue and we got off the ring road at the Calder freeway and headed north-west. 


Trentham Falls

On the way we stopped briefly at Woodend to buy a bottle of wine and a small house plant, it was rude enough of us to turn up uninvited, but to turn up empty handed as well would have been unforgivable.  We stopped again at a little place called Trentham, every time we had been to Daylesford before I had seen the little brown sign to Trentham falls and thought I would like to go there and yet we never quite managed it, until now.  Just of the main road a potholed little driveway lead us to a small car park, surprisingly busy for such a miserable day.  From the car park it was a surprisingly short 70 metre walk down some muddy steps to the viewing platform.  An impressive cascade over columnar basalt cliffs, made all the more impressive by the rain we were now enjoying.  Once we had our fill of falling water, we got back into the car and made the short final leg of our journey into Daylesford.  We weren't the only uninvited guests to turn up that day and Leah miraculously managed to throw together a delicious impromptu lunch.  After lunch Leah took us on short walk to the Mill Market where she had a stall selling vintage items, Evan stayed back tasked with baking some scones for tea.  By this point poor Goofy was getting rather fed up, what began as a trip to take him for a walk had ended up with him being tied up outside in the rain most of the day or stuck in the back of the car.  The walk to the market at least gave him the chance to feel involved again, and the walk back via the lake gave him the chance to get even wetter with a quick swim. 

Mill Market

Along the pier a there was a buzz of activity as three boys were busy tying balloons along the railings, lighting candles and setting up a stereo.  On quizzing one of them about what was going on, it transpired a friend of theirs was about to propose to his girlfriend, and they were helping to make it as romantic an occasion as possible.  Our thoughts were with that couple as we headed back up to the house and the rain once again came down, the heaviest it had been all day.  Would the girlfriend still agree to walk around the lake in this weather?  Would the candles still be alight, or the stereo work?  Would she see the romantic side, being dragged around the lake in the cold and wet?  I guess we shall never know.


Fed up Goofy

Despite his modesty Evan's scones were perfect, and went down exceptionally well with a hot cup of tea.  It was just what was needed to thaw out after the chilly walk by the lake.  Realising Goofy had had enough, cold, wet and muddy as he was, we decided it was time to say our farewells and head back home again, where we could give him a thorough wash.

Solstice

The winter solstice brings the longest night, but also sees the return of the Light in Winter festival in Federation square.  This years centrepiece was an installation by UK architect Asif Kahn named radiant lines.  Also located around the square were home made shrines, totems and some creepy puppets by the Indonesian Papermoon Puppet theatre.  The solstice also marks the one year anniversary from our move to Bundoora.  It may have only been a year since we moved from Northcote to our house, but it feels like a lifetime ago.  Lodgers have been and gone and our two beautiful children arrived. 

Radiant Lines

Having children, even non-human children can become very stressful at times.  Poor Goofy took quite ill last week vomiting twice and loosing all appetite.  For a whole day he didn't eat a thing, but he was still drinking water and wasn't showing signs of dehydration so we didn't take him to the vet, but it was a close call.  By the next day he begun eating again, but only small amounts of plain rice.  He is now back to his normal naughty self, which although frustrating is a great relief.

Goofy is not the only one who has been sick.  Barnadi caught the flu very badly this year and had to take a whole week off work which is completely unheard of for him, he has now vowed to get the flu jab every year from now on.

The arts

Our spate of cultured nights out to the opera did not stop at two.  After the Turk in Italy we went to see Carmen, the most famous of the operas we saw and this was followed the next week by La traviata.  La traviata might have been the lowest budget but they had a novel set design, involving laying the back drop canvas on the floor and suspending a large mirror over the stage.  A trick that worked really well for the big party scenes, but didn't quite work so well in the country house where the lead male actor looked like he was sleeping on the walls.  The opera season has now ended, so we will be returning to plain old musicals for future theatre excursions, the King and I, showboat and Guys and Dolls being just some that we are planning to see.

At the start of this year I set myself 5 seemingly unobtainable goals, and yet I have now completed one.  As a child I was always writing stories, but a life as a pharmacist following guidelines and evidence based medicine had pretty much killed my imagination.  I had an idea for a story or two buzzing around my head, but never found a way to get them out.  Then one day earlier this year inspiration struck, the first day back at work after white night, Cameron and I were having a conversation.  It started with a single phrase.

 "The Camerosaurus and the Peppermint princess made their way through the aftermath of the battle between the White knight and the peoples of Swanston"

And from here a whole story grew, and as of today the first draft is now complete.  Ironically enough this original phrase no longer features anywhere in the story.  Now begins the long and painful journey of editing, something I have never had that much patience with.

The Dogs B*****ks

Having Goofy de-sexed was a lot less traumatic than Jessie.  That is not to say it was without risk, as all surgery carries some risk.  His recovery was much quicker, he was a little wobbly on his feet for the next couple of days, but otherwise he seemed unfazed and it wasn't long before he was up to his normal naughty tricks.   While exploring around the new University Hill development in Bundoora he ran off after a mob of kangaroos and disappeared without trace for a good 15 minutes before we found him again.  We left him at home in the garden whilst we went to the opera, and he reached his head through the catflap and pulled through and shredded a new rug.  He's not always naughty though, he joined us at the Indonesian Street Festival at Victoria market and won a free Javan bandana for his dancing.  A busy week for a dog who is meant to be convalescing.  His stitches are now out and it is like nothing ever happened.




Dancing Goofy

We have been very cultured this month, going to the Opera twice in as many weeks.  The first was a Tchaikovsky work, Eugine Onegin.  I had never heard of this opera before, and it was an extremely melodramatic tale of a young man who rejects the advances of a girl and dances with her sister.  The sister's boyfriend just happens to be his best friend, but jealousy makes him challenge Onegin to dual.  Pride forces Onegin to accept and so he ends up shooting and killing his best friend.  He then goes a little off the rails and travels around aimlessly for a few years before returning to St Petersburg where he finds the girl he rejected at the start of the opera is now married to the prince.  He decides now that he wants to make a go of it, and she tells him where to go.

The second opera could not have been a bigger contrast.  The Turk in Italy by Rossini, but modernised, well brought into the 1950's, a ridiculously riotous romp tracking the love life of an Italian woman, bored of her husband and sleeping with pretty much every man in town.  When a Turkish boat lands she goes straight after the womanising Selim.  Selim himself has another admirer a concubine that had fallen in love with him.  After much farcical partner swapping and mistaken identity the woman finally reconciles with her husband and the Turk returns home with his concubine.  The whole situation is constantly being overseen and manipulated by a struggling poet looking for a good story to write a play about. 

Slightly less cultured than Opera last weekend was Eurovision time again.  As Sam and Athina are currently crossing the border between China and Kazakhstan, they were unable to join me this year.  Instead Cameron came over and I cooked a Lasagne for dinner.  This years entries were much better than last in my humble opinion and I couldn't decide on a favourite between Hungary, Ukraine and a few others.  That's not to say there weren't a few duds  Belarus with the Cheesecake song and Poland with the butter churning.  Still it was no surprise when the Austrian bearded lady Conchita Wurst won, with her song about a phoenix, an allegory for her own sex change.

Adventures in the top end

Why is the Northern Territory still just a territory and not a state? This question has bugged me for ages, and after our recent trip to Darwin, I'm still non the wiser.

Florence Falls, Litchfield Park

For our Easter break we decided to take a trip up to Darwin, even Barnadi had never been to the Northern Territory before, so it was going to be a new adventure for both of us.  Getting off the plane it felt like we had touched down in another country.  Leaving behind the cold wet autumn in Melbourne to arrive in the tropical humid heat of Darwin, we could have just as easily been in Indonesia.

Darwin

We had hired a car as part of the package, although Darwin itself is small enough to walk around in a couple of hours it was not the main attraction for our visit.  In fact after just one night it was clear Darwin as a place to visit had very little going for it.  Historical buildings don't really exist as much of the original town was destroyed during the war or by tropical storms.  The CBD that exists stretched out on a peninsula between two harbours is growing with new tower blocks emerging all over the place, but there is a complete lack of any heritage buildings such as you would find in most other state capitals.  Despite being the capital city of the Northern Territories it seems everything shuts down on public holidays and Sundays leaving the place feeling more like a provincial town.  The few places that did open charged a significant premium for doing so and seemed to mainly cater for the enormous backpacker community.  The same backpackers that left Mitchel street feeling more like a Spanish island resort, with drunken louts clogging up the streets all night.

Magnetic Termite Mounds

Cathedral Termite Mound

We get up early the next day, our first diversion was to Litchfield park.  The closer of the two national parks we had planned to visit this trip.  Litchfield is a mere one and a half hours out of Darwin and boasts many beautiful waterfalls and colossal termite mounds.  The roads in the Northern Territories are some of the emptiest and fasted roads I had driven on in Australia, speed limits extending to 130km/h in some areas, the drive was long and tedious but well worth it (and still only a short ride compared with what we were about to attempt), our first stop was at the magnetic termite mounds, so named as their flattened structures all aligned perfectly north to south.  There were of course plenty of the Cathedral mounds to admire as well, incredible to think something so small could construct something so big.  Once we had seen enough termites we continued on through the park to Florence falls the only waterfalls that we visited where it was safe to swim in the plunge pool.  Crocodiles are endemic to most of the waterways in the NT, fresh water and salt water making swimming a very treacherous past time.  The number of people already swimming at Florence falls however reassured me that if a crocodile was present, it would surely have had its fill by now.  After enjoying a swim in the deep clear waters we dried out on the rocks and ate a small lunch before we continued once more on our Journey.  The next waterfalls we stopped at were the Tolmer falls and we could only admire them from above, as there was no route down to the bottom, we didn't stay too long there before we got back in our car to our final waterfall of the day, the Wangi falls.  The Wangi falls are usually open for swimming, but due to high water levels the risk of crocodiles had forced the park rangers to close the area.  We attempted to do a circular walk here, but that path was closed too as the heavy rain had damaged one of the bridges.  So we just sat and admired the water so tempting to swim in, but so deceptively deadly.  We had dinner at a stake house that served crocodile, so I feel suitably assured we got our revenge.

Wangi falls, Litchfield Park

Rock Art

The next day, Easter Sunday we took on the challenge of driving all the way to Kakadu national park., world heritage listed and possibly the NT's second biggest attraction after Uluru.  The world heritage status however is under threat thanks to one foreign invader, the cane toad. The drive just to get there takes a good three hours and as the park itself is so vast you've still got another hour or so driving just to get somewhere.  The drive is not too dull as it passes through a variety of landscapes including forests, flooded wetlands and it crosses several giant majestic rivers,  The amount of dead Wallabies on the road however reminded me how important it was to get back before dark.  The most exciting spot along the road was the dingo, I haven't seen a wild dingo before so to just see one trotting along the side of the road casually turning his head to watch us pass was a real treat.  I'd picked two main areas I wanted to explore in Kakadu, Nourlangie Rock, a site of ancient aboriginal cave paintings and Yellow water a good spot for a cruise and some crocodile spotting.  The road to Yellow water unfortunately was closed due to flooding so we ended up with only one proper stop.  Luckily Nourlangie was worth the trip all by itself.  Before getting to Nourlangie itself we stopped at a neighbouring rock, which we climbed and were blessed with views of not only Nourlangie, but the vast flat plains bellow and the dramatic vast sheer cliffs that followed the horizon right down to where the Jim Jim falls would presumably be.  The rock art at Nourlangie was interesting and the cool shelter between the imposing rock faces made it an obvious choice for those early nomadic tribes to call home.  But as is usually the case in these matters, where man has done something impressive, nature has always trumped him.  The end of the track around the paintings took us on a climb to a lookout so stunning we could have stayed there all day, that is if the heat and the flies didn't force us to retreat back to the car and its life saving air conditioning.

Nourlangie Rock, Kakadu

We then spent what we thought was going to be our last night and day in Darwin.  Our flight wasn't until 6pm so we had a whole day to kill.  After checking out of our budget hotel we did a little drive following the coast North.  We took stops at the Botanical gardens and the Darwin museum, which was free to get in and so was well worth a visit as an air conditioned diversion.

As we arrived at the airport that evening, we dropped off the keys to the hire car and made our way to check in only to hear our flight had been cancelled.  Now Darwin really is the arse end of nowhere and there were no alternative flights we could get, and as driving would take several days longer than simply waiting for a replacement flight the next day we were completely stranded.  The airline did at least put us up in a nice hotel and provide dinner vouchers, so all was not lost as we guiltily made the most of an extra night in Darwin, knowing we should be feeling bad for missing a day of work.  Luckily both our bosses were understanding of our situation, not that there was anything that we could have done if they weren't.  More worryingly we had to arrange extra care for Jessie and Goofy.

21 hours later than planned we finally left Darwin.  All in all a good trip, but 2 important lessons were learnt in case we ever ventured to the top end again.
1. Go in the dry season
2. Don't stay in Darwin

Seaside living

Last weekend we said goodbye to our house guests from the last 4 months as they resumed their travels around Australia, next stop Sydney.   In celebration of Adam's birthday we took Adam and Coralee for lunch in Williamstown.  Barnadi found a nice looking seafood restaurant called the Strand which had views across the bay with the city skyline as its backdrop.  We shared a couple of starters including a selection of various sharing dishes and some soft shell crab.  For mains, Adam had lamb an unusual choice for a seafood restaurant.  Barnadi had the salmon after a difficult decision between the salmon and the risotto.  Both Coralee and myself had the Barramundi, we were all very happy with our choices and still had just enough room to try a little dessert.  We walked off our big lunch along the rocky seafront between the harbour and the beach.  The walk left me with a sense of envy as we looked at the stunning mansions along the shore with their even more stunning views.  An earlier check at a property website revealed that most of these foreshore mansions would require funds in the millions to acquire.  It is therefore an unrealistic dream that one day we might be able to move to a sea front property in Williamstown. 

View from Williamstown

The other big change in our household this week was the addition of central heating.  Despite Melbourne being hot in summer and cold in winter, insulating never seemed to play a part in building designs.  With our heating now installed the next step is to improve our insulation, double glazing being our first big priority, although at a cost of $13,000 + it may have to wait a little bit longer. 

We have created another area of poor insulating recently by installing a cat flap into our back door.  The flap itself didn't last long as Goofy constantly banging his head through it has successfully removed it permanently.  Jessie is really enjoying her new found freedom, having lots of space to run around and learning how to climb trees keeps her occupied most days.  She has even started hunting, although starting small, her current quarry is crickets.  She catches one and brings it into the house minus its back legs, she then lets it run for a bit before pouncing on it.  This process would be repeated indefinitely until the cricket gives up trying to escape, then she gets bored and leaves it alone, shaken but still alive.

Goofy trying out Jessie's new cat flap

Trials and Tribulations.

So finally after 3 long months of waiting I have started my new job at the Alfred, working within their clinical trials department.  It is strange to be back working on clinical trials again, and yet it is also all so familiar.  Thanks to the implementation of ICH GCP guidelines, trials are conducted in almost identical ways in most countries around the world.  Working in clinical trials is certainly not everyone's cup of tea.  It is highly regulated and involves excessive amounts of record keeping to the point of OCD.  It is also quite reassuring to see how similar the trials department here in Australia is to what I was doing back home, as where I worked before I was the only clinical trials pharmacist and with the help of my one technician I pretty much had to work it all out for myself.

Goofy has now finished his 5 week puppy school and his behaviour is much better, although that may also be linked simply to his maturation.  Goofy has pretty much got a full set of adult teeth, but unfortunately that hasn't really stopped him wanting to chew everything.  He does seem to be getting better with Jessie and isn't biting her quite so much.  Barnadi was unable to join me and Goofy for the last 3 lessons, as he had to work instead.  The dynamic of the group changed over those last lessons quite drastically.  Daisy continued to be hyperactive, but the others got bored of her antics and tended to ignore her.  Romeo got much braver, and seemed to latch on to Goofy as his new best friend.  Mr Fitch turned quite grumpy and Austin was growing into quite a precocious young upstart, in the final week he even tried to violate Goofy....Goofy being Goofy however, didn't even seem to notice.

Bundoora

When we first moved to Bundoora I always felt it was a bit of a nowhere place, an outer suburb which has been developed only very recently to cope with Melbourne's expanding population.  Its size, shape and politics gives one the impression that Bundoora is simply the space left behind when all the other surrounding suburbs were created.  It does not therefore contain the depth of history, variety of architecture or cultural significance of some of Melbourne's older inner suburbs.  Bundoora is governed by 3 separate municipalities, Darebin to the south, Banyule to the east and Whittlesea to the north and as such Bundoora has no obvious town centre or focal point in which its population of approximately 26,000 can congregate at or feel proud to be a part of.

But maybe I am being to harsh on the suburb I have now chosen to call my home, I have recently been doing quite a bit of research on the history of Bundoora and it seems there is still a great deal that Bundoora has to offer.  If the three opposing councils can stop competing and work together, then Bundoora looks like it might have quite a bright future after all.

Geography
Located 16km north of Melbourne CBD, and covering an area some 15km2 lies the suburb of Bundoora.  The southern border is marked by the Bundoora campus of La Trobe University and its northern border by Bundoora RMIT.  It's east and western edges are in part bordered by the Darebin creek and Plenty river respectively.  The main access to Bundoora is via Plenty road which runs north to south and is the route of the 86 tram and the Northern ring road which crosses Bundoora east to west.  Bundoora is a very green suburb and a lot of its area is given up to open parkland, golf courses and wildlife reserves, perhaps the most significant of these is Bundoora park which encompasses an area some180 hectares included in which is Mount Cooper a long extinct volcano and claimed to be the highest point in the metropolitan area of Melbourne.  Whether this is true or not I do not know, but it does give one an incredible view of the city.


View from Mount Cooper

History


Bundoora Homestead

The area along the Plenty river was first settled by white people in 1839, in that time the area was mainly given over to farming due to the rich fertile soil found in that area.  The name Bundoora is thought to come from the aboriginal word meaning "a plain where Kangaroos live".  The first post office was built in 1863 on the corner of Plenty road and Grimshaw street, the present day site of Narai Thai restaurant.  The area of Bundoora park was used for breeding thoroughbred horses and the Bundoora homestead was built by John Matthew Vincent Smith in 1900.  By 1920 however Smith sold the homestead to the government to convert into a hospital for returned world war 1 veterans with psychiatric disorders.  Perhaps the most famous doctor to work there was Dr John Cade, an Australian psychiatrist who first discovered the effects of lithium as a mood stabiliser.  The rural isolation of Bundoora meant that this was not the only psychiatric hospital to be built in the area, the Janefield training centre also opened in 1920, and a third psychiatric institution opened in 1949, Larundel, an extension of Mont Park hospital.  The birth of psychotropic pharmacotherapy after world war 2 lead to a complete change in the way mental health disorders were managed and one by one each of these hospitals closed down.  Most of the Repatriation hospital was torn down, with only the old homestead being left intact, La Trobe built their campus on the site of the old Mont Park hospital and the RMIT on that of the Janefield training centre.


Facilities and recreation
There is a lot to see and do in Bundoora...if you like Golf.  There are two golf courses in Bundoora, one in Bundoora park and the other, Strathallan golf club located between the La Trobe nature reserve and the Gresswell habitat link.  For those who do not like golf however there is still a surprising amount to do. 
For shop-a-holics there is a factory outlet store at University hill a shopping centre near the RMIT and two other shopping centres at Bundoora square and Polaris. 
There are also plenty of restaurants to choose from, if you like Thai, Indian or pizza that is.  There is a 10 pin bowling alley and pool hall along Grimshaw street, but unusually for a University rich area there are not really any bars or clubs to go out at night. 
For those into culture, the Bundoora homestead is now open as an art gallery, it is free to enter and they have continually changing exhibits and a small café if all that art work gets you thirsty.
For kids there is the Cooper settlement, located in Bundoora park inside which you will find a heritage village, a petting farm and a small wildlife reserve, educational and fun.
For those more into nature then there are several wildlife reserves including one at La Trobe university and there is also a beautifully winding cycle track along the Darebin creek to explore.


Larundel, Main hospital building

Development
Bundoora is currently undergoing a mass of new developments some good, some not so good.  The old shopping centre at Bundoora square is getting old and tired, its design was never that attractive primarily consisting of a giant car park with a few ugly shops dropped in the middle.  Their attempt to brighten the place up with murals does little to improve the character of the place.  Two new shopping precincts are currently being developed.  The first to the north is University hill, located by the RMIT the plot encompasses a wide area that is now being developed.  The first stage is already complete and includes a large factory outlet store as well as some smaller retail outlets, the majority of the rest of the development will be given over to medium density residential properties.  Polaris to the south is a much smaller site and yet I feel it has a much greater potential.  Located just north of La Trobe university and to the east of Bundoora park, Polaris is being built on the old Larundel site.  What remains of the old psychiatric hospital which closed in 1999 has been extensively vandalised with several of the buildings completely unsalvageable, some however have been incorporated into the redevelopment of the site, giving the development the opportunity to mix old and new architecture and retain the history of the area for future generations to appreciate.  Combine this to its favourable location by Bundoora park and you can see why this is the development I am most excited about.


Polaris

Residential development is also exploding in Bundoora, not just at the Polaris and University hill sites, but all along Plenty road new apartments and townhouses are being constructed.  One which is probably less favourable amongst the current locals is being planned on the site of an old Smorgys restaurant that burnt down last year.  The site is located by the edge of Bundoora park, and approval has been gained for 5-6 apartment blocks, the tallest being 8 stories high.  As well as being higher than any other building in the area, its proximity to Bundoora park seems a little out of place and unsympathetic to its surroundings.
One area of development that still really needs to be looked at is transport, as previously mentioned the 86 tram runs up Plenty road.  This route is always slow and unreliable, trams frequently are late or break down and the journey into the CBD can take over an hour.  There are no train lines that run through Bundoora and buses are as much victims of the ever increasing traffic as all the other commuters.  If the population continues to boom as planned by all this development then improvements to transport links need to be seriously considered.

So all in all I guess Bundoora is not really that bad after all.  There is a surprisingly large number of things to see and do and It has quite a unique history which is being preserved, shopping facilities are improving and a lot of money is being invested in developing the area.  Transport links to the CBD and other suburbs are slow but they do exist.  Bundoora might not have the obvious class of Northcote, the hipster appeal of Fitzroy or the nightlife of St Kilda but it does have its own charm and I for one am proud to call Bundoora my home.

Road to recovery

Jessie has been making an incredible recovery from her operation, the very next day she had begun eating and drinking again and more importantly purring again.  We took her cone off during the day so she could move about more easily, but put it back on at night to ensure she didn't have a go at her stitches while we weren't looking.  As the days went on she became more and more like her old self, her stitches remained in place and the wound appears to be healing nicely. 

A happy Jessie

Goofy on the other hand is getting increasingly frustrated with being kept separated from Jessie, but as much as he loves to play with her, he plays too rough and while she is in this state we have no choice but to keep him outside.  Goofy did get a little reward however, in the form of week 2 of puppy school.  The same group of puppies were there as last week, Austin although still small had grown more precocious and was barking viciously at everyone, including Daisy.  Goofy having a bit of a crush on Daisy however stood to her defence.  Mr Fitz was his usual amiable self, and even Romeo the snooty Pomeranian made a little bit more of an effort to socialise.  The main focus of this weeks class was diet, with a bit of walking on a lead and the command drop also being taught.

A better behaved Goofy?

This weekend saw the return of Melbourne's white night, which I have been looking forward to ever since its debut last year.  Barnadi was working as usual so I met up with Cameron in town, Kirsten was also meant to be coming, but due to a few seconds of rain earlier in the day she stood us up.  There were a lot of installations returned from last years event, but also a significant number of new pieces.  I don't know if it was just that the novelty had worn off, or that the crowds were just too big, but the start of the night did not fill me with the same sense of awe and magic as it had done the previous year.  Cameron and I started our night heading up to an event called purple rain at the top of the CBD, but the queues were so long it would have been pointless to even attempt to get in, the same thing happened outside the synchronised swimming.  The walk back down Swanston street was a real struggle and we took a breather down Bourke street where the bank of Melbourne had set up a small seating area for exactly that purpose.  When we finally made it down to Flinders street station we were about ready to give up, but we cut under the station, over a bridge to Southbank and double backed to the Queen Victoria Gardens were a colossal frame supporting a dozen spotlights pointing into the sky stood, it was here that Barnadi called to say he had finished work and arrived in the CBD.  We met him outside the arts centre, but by this time Cameron had had enough and went home.  Barnadi and I stayed out for another couple of hours the crowds had eased a little by this point and so it became much more enjoyable.  We spent some time in Federation square watching the giant dance class in session, sat by a giant pyramid of sand with flickering lights projected onto it and disturbing sounds playing in the background, we even entered a small room with flickering lights and mirrors which gave the illusion that the whole place was shaking.  We then went home happy with a night well spent.

White Night Melbourne

Back to School

Goofy being Goofy

Last week Goofy had his first day at Puppy School, a very interesting experience for Goofy.  The 'School' was located at the vet we use in Thomastown, and it must have made a good impression on Goofy as he headed straight over to the class room area when Barnadi took him for his vaccinations this morning.  In the class there were 4 other puppies a grumpy Pomeranian called Romeo, a Spoodle named Daisy, A terrier called Mr Fitz and a tiny golden Labrador called Austin.  As the only girl in the group Daisy was a complete flirt, all Austin wanted to do was sleep, Romeo kept himself to himself and Mr Fitz seemed a very sociable chap.  Goofy at 16.6kg towered over them all and completely dominated all the others at playtime.  As you might expect, puppy school is more for the owners sake than the animals, while Goofy was having the time of his life, we were being taught about everything from toilet training to dealing with unwanted behaviours.  The only command they taught us in the first lesson was sit, which is something Goofy can actually do quite well already, and has done so from a very early age.  The course is for 5 weeks and for only $75 was a bargain.



Poor, poor Jessie

Jessie has unfortunately not been having such a good time of it.  This morning she had a trip to the vet to get spayed.  She is now sitting on the front door mat in her cone of shame, growling at anyone who comes near.  I am not sure which is distressing her more, the pain from the surgery, the indignity of the cone, or just a general mistrust of all human kind.  I doubt she will be as keen to jump into her carry case from now on, or make the journey to the Vet.  It is very distressing to see her like this and I really hope she can learn to forgive us soon, for as much as I want to comfort her there is nothing I can do.

Smoke gets in your eyes

The whole of Melbourne is currently coated in a thick blanket of smoke.  As the CFA fire warnings slip back out of the red and into the blues and yellows, most of the fires that were burning have now been brought under control.  The hot still air however has meant the smoke from all these fires has lingered on leaving the city in a chocking haze.  I half expected this cloud of smoke to stimulate a massive influx of patients onto the respiratory ward where I work at the Alfred hospital, but fortunately this fear has so far not manifested itself.  The Summer months are always a worrying time, with the inevitable grass fires that the hot dry weather triggers.  It is especially worrying for us now we live in one of the outer suburbs, where there is so much bush and parkland around us.  As always a large number of these fires did not start spontaneously and have been deliberately started by people who obviously have serious mental health issues.  One such person, responsible for the fire in Fawkner last weekend has thankfully been apprehended, but there always seems to be a fresh load of budding 'firebugs' ready to replace those that get caught.

Life post holiday has quickly returned to normal and it is already as if the holiday never happened.  It is not surprising I suppose, that Barnadi was keen for us to book our next one as soon as possible.  So last weekend we took a trip to our old travel agent in Northcote plaza and booked return flights to the UK.  While there Barnadi decided we should pop into Telstra, our internet/phone package was about to come to the end of its contract and since we never use our land line apart from receiving cold callers, he figured it may be cheaper just to get internet alone.  He was wrong, in fact if we cancelled the phone line our bills would go up by an extra $11, so not surprisingly we kept the phone line.  I then wanted to check if maybe bundling our internet with Foxtel (a paid cable TV service) may be a cheaper alternative, it wasn't, but then it wasn't that much more expensive either.  So after some deliberation over a free coffee that Telstra provided, it seems bribery does work after all.  It didn't take long for us to decided that free to air TV in Australia is so bad it was worth giving it a go, we can afford it, and it is only a year contract, after which we could always cancel it again.  Our final stop in Northcote that day was to a shop on the high street called 'the Book Grocer', a café/book shop.  Books in Australia, like everything it seems, are disproportionately more expensive here than they are in the rest of the world.  A new paper back, for example is likely to set you back around $20.  In 'the Book Grocer' however there is not a single book over $10!  We splashed out on 3 new books, which should help me through my long daily commutes to and from work.  It is always nice to come back to Northcote, it was my first home in Melbourne, and I do miss living there.

That night Barnadi was working, but I wasn't and as the pharmacy in Epping hasn't phoned me to ask if I can do any shifts since before Christmas, I think I can officially say I no longer work there.  So free to do as I pleased I joined a group of friends from work in the CBD for a night of Karaoke to celebrate one of the pharmacists' birthday.  FM Karaoke on Bourke street takes the form of a small downstairs bar with several rooms upstairs for hire by the hour.  The majority of the songs available are Japanese or Korean, and the English songs are typically at least 20 years old.  After a slow start while we waited for the Birthday girl to break the ice by choosing her first song, the pace quickly picked up so that by the end of the two hours there were still a lot of unsung songs waiting in the playlist.  I joined in a lot of the singing, but my one 'piece de resistance' was going all out on Elton Johns 'Your Song', in the Moulin Rouge style.  It may have been a little over the top, but I decided if I was going to sing badly, I may as well go all out rather than settling for the flat monotone adopted by those who can't decided on a key that will allow them to hit the high and low notes and so end up somewhere in the middle.

For our Sunday recovery, Barnadi and I joined a couple of my friends from work, Cameron and Kirsten, down in Richmond for Brunch in a place called Top Paddock.  The place was packed and had a waiting list of people to get in, this made Barnadi a little grumpy as it was getting close to 11am and he hadn't eaten yet.  The queue moved relatively quickly however and it wasn't too long before we were seated inside.  I ordered a dish of white anchovies with egg on sour dough toast, and it was definitely worth the wait, a very tasty if not slightly unorthodox breakfast.  On our way home we couldn't resist popping into Pet barn where we purchased a couple of new squeaky toys for Goofy.  He'd managed to remove the squeakers from all his old ones.  Goofy starts puppy school this week and we are hoping this will help him to calm down.  It's a shame there isn't a kitten school for Jessie.

Danau Toba

Sam my friend from Uni and his girlfriend Athina the Greek from Scotland have left Australia, leaving behind a washing machine and some rock climbing gear to remember them by.  They moved to Australia soon after us, but they have now headed out on an epic trip back to Europe starting in Thailand following the Silk road all the way to Athens.  However they will be back, as their employer has given them both permanent contracts starting in a years time so this will not be the last we see of them and their washing machine will not have to live in our shed forever.  The three of us had a little goodbye dinner at the Moor's Head on Thornbury High street, Barnadi was working so unable to join us.  The Moor's head specialises in inauthentic Lebanese inspired pizzas using lots of hummus and pumpkin.  Sam offered to pay as a thank you for looking after their stuff while they are gone, but as he had forgotten his PIN number it turned out dinner was on Athina.

The next day Barnadi and I started our own trip although not as epic, we headed out to Indonesia with our friend Rae and Stuart.  Leaving Goofy and Jesse in the capable hands of Adam and Coralee.  Our flight got delayed and so we arrived in Jakarta later than planned. Even though we were late Agus, Barnadi's brother in law, who was meant to be picking us up was nowhere to be seen.  The lift was eventually co-ordinated when Barnadi managed to get his phone working and called his sister to find out where Agus was hiding.  We then headed straight to Barnadi's sister's house where we spent our first night.  Rae and Stuart had a nap, Barnadi went with Bariah his sister to have his fillings replaced (Bariah just happens to be a dentist), and I stayed back and played with Barnadi's naughty nephew and niece. 

We arrived in Jakarta in the middle of the rainy season which after a week of 40+ days in Melbourne made a refreshing change.  It did cause a lot of flooding in Jakarta, and not a day went past when the word 'banjir' didn't feature in the news headlines.  We managed to avoid the worst of the flooding as the very next day we had a ride to Bandung.  Bandung is the third largest city in Indonesia and is located in the mountains of West Java, it is also a good base from which to visit some of our favourite sites in the area, Kawah Putih a large sulphurous volcanic lake and Tangkuban perahu a large dormant volcano with a huge steaming crater on the top, and a smaller side crater full of bubbling pools, some cool enough to paddle in, others so hot you could boil an egg in them.  Bandung is also known as the Paris of the east, although how the connection was made is not entirely clear.  Like most cities in Indonesia it is dirty and polluted and old architecturally important buildings are left to go to ruin while new ugly and poorly constructed high rises take their place.



Tangkuban perahu

From Bandung we then headed to our house in Puncak where we spent a relaxing few days doing very little, kept in most days by the rain.  Barnadi and Rae filled the time with cooking while Stuart and I filled it with eating.  The few excursions we did manage were short walks to some of the local temples, the markets and the botanical gardens in Cibodas.  Our time in Puncak had to come to an end, and we were picked up by Toni, Barnadi's brother, who drove us back to Jakarta. 

After a couple of nights in Jakarta we managed to escape again this time to Sumatra and lake Toba.  We were not travelling alone as Bariah, Agus and their two children, Samantha and Suren came with us.  Agus is originally from Sumatra and the whole family return every year to visit his family for Chinese new year.  Agus's family own a taxi company and so when we touched down in Medan airport a couple of cars were waiting to take us directly down to Lake Toba.  The journey took a lot longer than the 2 hours Agus insisted, and the constant cutting in and out of lanes round blind bends made it a less than relaxing trip.  When we arrived at Parapat, on the banks of Lake Toba, the sun was setting and we still needed to get a ferry across to Samosir island to the resort Barnadi had booked.  The car ferry which was meant to run every hour had decided that because it was quiet it would wait until 9pm before it ran again, if it was going to run at all.  It turned out there was also a passenger ferry, and although it wasn't scheduled to go where we were heading, a little extra rupiah and they were willing to take a detour.  So we temporarily ditched the cars grabbed our cases and boarded a passenger ferry, stepping over the buffalo carcass slung across the deck, we begun to wonder if we had made the right decision.  As the boat pulled away and the disco lights started to flash and loud music started pumping it really was the strangest boat ride I had ever been on.

We docked directly at the resort Mas cottages just outside Tuk tuk, and were shown to our rooms.  The resort had two types of rooms; standard rooms, like in any hotel and traditional Batak houses.  Although we were originally planning to stay in a traditional Batak house, they were far from bug proof (mossies being the biggest worry) and they had no hot water, so disappointingly we resorted to a standard room.   When the sun rose over the horizon the following morning, the previous days long and excruciating journey melted into insignificance.  It was all worth it.  The vast expanse of the lake, the  imposing surrounding mountains and the pink fluffy clouds above made the location so picture postcard perfect, it was hard to believe it could all be real.

Lake Toba

The next few days were easily the highlight of the trip, lazy days swimming in the lake and exploring the local historical sites, such as the stone chairs and kings tomb.  Rae got down to business haggling over old textiles, but that was about as energised as the trip became.  The town of Tuk tuk itself is very much a tourist hot spot, crammed with over sized hotels, souvenir shops and restaurants advertising the availability of magic mushrooms, we were lucky that our own resort was far enough out of Tuk tuk to not have to get involved in that side of things.

Lake Toba itself is the largest volcanic lake in the world, covering an area over 1700km2, that's 1000km2 bigger than Singapore.  The Volcano underneath has been dormant for the last 40,000 or so years, it's last eruption however is thought to have been the largest volcanic eruption in human history.  Volcanic ash from the eruption has been located as far away as Malawi, and a layer 6m thick has been located in parts of India.

All good things must come to an end, and we had to face the long drive back to Medan, after 1 night there we continued a journey home with a change of planes in Jakarta and Bali before finally arriving back in Melbourne.  It is sad how quickly a holiday can feel like it never happened once back into the normal routine of work.  It was however good to get back to see Jessie and Goofy, and see how much bigger they had grown in only two weeks.

Resolutions

2013 was an emotionally mixed year, but focusing on the positives; we got our own house, I got a perminant contract at work and we got our cat and dog.  As we begin our third year in Melbourne we can honestly say we are well and truly settled.  So what is next for us? After all you've got to have a plan, and the new year is a perfect time to set yourself some new goals.  Barnadi is now obsessed with the idea of owning a second home by the sea, my goals are a little simpler in concept but equally unlikely to achieve before the end of he year.

Resolution 1: Become fluent in Indonesian.
Languages have never been my strongest point, I even struggle with English most of the time.  I have been attempting to learn Indonesian now for years, and have still made very little progress, but as we visit Barnadi's family at least once a year, I feel it is time to make a more concerted effort.

Resolution 2: Write a novel.
As I have previously mentioned, I am disturbed by how my imagination has declined over the years.  Saying this I still have lots of ideas for stories buzzing around my head just waiting to be written.

Resolution 3: Do more housework.
Nothing more to say.

Resolution 4: Start running again.
Since running the Bristol half marathon I have not really maintained any form of exercise.  It is time to change that, having Goofy is bound to help this one.

Resolution 5: Learn to cook again.
Having a great chef as a husband has left me completely incapable of preparing a meal for my self.  This urgently needs to change.