Farewell Australia - July 2014

Our departure from Australia was a bit more sudden than we were expecting.  We had been talking for months about what we wanted to do, and what would happen if Oz offered Ryan a full-time contract.  We weren't sure we were ready to commit to another 2 or 3 years in Australia and the process of applying for permanent residence, but Ryan also loved his job and didn't really want to have to look for another one.  So, when the time eventually came and the offer was made, we were surprised for there to be a third option: take a summer position in Canada before ending employment with Oz.  That sounded perfect (though in retrospect it was a terrible decision...) so we took the offer and began the process of moving back to Canada.

Ediacaran fossils at the South Australian Museum.  They're what we were supposed to see in the Flinders Ranges had we made it past Slippery Dip.  They were in the museum the whole time, but it took us until the very last weeks to visit.

Packing in and of itself was quite the adventure, not to mention selling everything on Gumtree.  We were paying per kilo, so we had to assess which things were cheaper to replace than to ship, and which things we really wanted to take home with us, regardless of price.  After arriving in Australia with two bags each, we left with two bags each, plus 12 boxes.  

We also couldn't leave without throwing a killer party on June 21.  We invited everyone we knew, cooked a ton of food, and spent our life savings on a delicious gluten-free cake.  The best part was sharing what was left of our awesome wine collection (there were some seriously nice ones left), and our hard liquor.  The wine was gone surprisingly early (even though there were at least 13 bottles left), so the mixed drinks got kind of interesting after that.  Another great part of the party was the list we came up with of "Weird and Wonderful Australian Nuances" so we would never forget some of the odd parts of living down under:

-they say "ice block" instead of popsicle
-in New Zealand they call a cooler a "chilli bin"
-their shopping cart wheels go in every direction, making them much harder to push straight
-everything is smaller (sink, fridge, stove, etc.)
-people wear shoes in the house
-"fortnight" can also be said as "Monday week" (or whatever day you're talking about)
-babysitters aren't part of the main culture
-they print pictures on their toilet paper (we preferred the ones with coloured bubble pictures)
-gas=propane, car gas=petrol
-crikey, reckon, rubbish, no worries mate, trolley, lollie, heaps good
-thongs means flip flops
-the words bull, ball, and bowl all sound the same when an Aussie says them
-we never understood their phone number format.  Sometimes it would be 6 digits, but the spacing was different every time, and if two numbers in a row were the same they would say "double six" instead of "six six"
-good nic=good condition
-suss=suspicious/sketchy
-the smell of the flowers and the gum trees was amazing
-"no dramas"
-"take away" instead of "take out" for fast food
-"car park" instead of "parking lot"
-"move house" instead of just "move"
-Textas=Sharpie marker
-math class is "maths"
-autumn, not "fall"
-the telephone poles are made of cement, not wood
-"bring a plate" instead of "potluck"
-all of their power outlets have on/off switches
-sauce=ketchup
-pastie=meat pie

So after the hangover had passed and all of the boxes were packed, and we made one final trip to Henley Beach, Ryan officially flew to British Columbia to start his job on July 1, 2014.  Fittingly, on Canada Day.

Last visit to Henley Beach.  Where it all began.

Of course that meant I was left behind for an extra week, until July 11, to tie up all of the loose ends.  We hired a professional cleaner to clean the house (so we didn't get screwed like the last time we moved), but we STILL got scammed out of money because I accidentally had an extra rent payment go through that they refused to give back to me.  I also spilled water on my laptop the day before our insurance ended, so luckily I managed to get the money to buy a new one.

And while all of this was going down I got to stay with my lovely friends Janah and Luke.  Thank goodness I was around friends, because it was pretty hard to leave the amazing city we called home for almost three and a half years.

Those years changed our life like we couldn't have imagined.  The adventures were unmatched, and our friends and co-workers helped shape who we are now as adults.  As I write this, just over two years later, Ryan's parents are about to go back for a visit so we're feeling extremely nostalgic.  I'm missing the koala I used to pass in a tree on my walk to Greenhill Family Chiropractic, being woken up by parrots, sun drying tomatoes in the actual sun, and spending a lovely day at our favourite wineries in McLaren Vale.  But I also don't regret moving back.  Now we're back to living close to our family and friends, we got married in our favourite town, and we have an adorable puppy.  Everything happens as it should, and we will always remember those years in Australia with a fond smile and a twinkle.

Last view of Adelaide.

First view of Toronto.  Welcome home.

3 Business Trips to Sydney

One of the best parts of working with Brett and also being an entrepreneur is all of the business travel I get to do.  I managed to find myself in Sydney 3 times, Perth once, Melbourne once, and the Gold Coast once, all for business.  In this post I'll tell you about my 3 trips to Sydney.

May 17-19, 2013 - MINDD Forum 

This was a holistic conference all about brain health, with a distinctly Paleo spin.  There was a stream for practitioners, a Paleo stream, and one for parents.  I obviously attended the Paleo stream lectures, and I also managed our booth for The Business of Wellness Coaching.  Brett was the MC so I got to tag along and meet all sorts of interesting people.  The highlight was definitely meeting Nora Gedgaudas, author of Primal Body, Primal Mind (and one of the speakers - top left in both pics).  We were at the conference pretty much the whole time, so no sightseeing on this trip!

June 21-23, 2013 - Parker Chiropractic Conference with Greenhill Family Chiropractic

Brett promised us if we met a certain practice goal he would take the whole team to Sydney for a chiropractic conference.  This time we had a little extra time for sightseeing since we were staying at a hotel right at Sydney Harbour.  We had beautiful weather, the speakers were great, and it was a ton of fun to go on a team trip.

John Gray - Author of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus

June 13-15, 2014 - Millionaire Coach Intensive with Taki Moore

My last trip to Sydney (again without Ryan) was a personal business trip to learn more about how to make money as a coach.  I have to say, of all the trainings I've ever attended, this has been the best one.  Taki Moore is brilliant, and the people I met were awesome.  To this day I'm still in touch with Emma Franklin Bell, who I bonded with because neither one of us were making enough money yet to join Taki's high-level mastermind!

Again I had very little time to explore, but during the lunch break on the first day I walked as fast as I could so that I could get to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  It's something I wanted to do during every trip there, so I wasn't going to leave Australia without doing it!  I didn't get all of the way across, but that's okay with me.

On the last night before my flight I had dinner at the Sydney Harbour restaurant (the same one we went to when mom and dad visited), and just enjoyed my last hours there.

On my way to the train station I passed this guy playing amazing jazz music.  I spent my last $10 on his CD with the intention of giving it to my dad as a souvenir when I got home.  However, since I'm oh-so-gullible, sure enough when I got home to listen to it the CD was blank!  Bummer!

Sydney was an incredible city with SO much to explore.  We never made it to any of the outskirts - especially the wineries and the beaches.  Next time!

Hamilton Island and The Great Barrier Reef - June 7-11, 2014

When you think "Australia" one of the must-see attractions is, of course, the reef.  Ryan and I assumed that at some point we would meet a visitor there, so we never actually planned our own trip there until right before we moved away.  Of course that meant the season wasn't great, leading to probably our worst (and one of our most expensive) trips.  We chose to go to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays because we thought it was the closest place we could find to snorkel from shore.  Boy were we mistaken!  

We should have known that leaving for the airport at 4am was a bad start, but the views on the way there were so beautiful that we temporarily forgot our exhaustion.

Unfortunately, by the time we landed the weather started to come in, but we had an awesome apartment to stay in with a great view and some interesting visitors.  We booked our trip out to the reef for the next day, did some exploring and grocery shopping, and had a delicious dinner at a Thai restaurant.  Hamilton Island isn't very big, so the exploring didn't take long!

Hearty breakfast before heading out on the boat.

As you can see, the weather was pretty nasty!  We got on a huge boat headed to "Reef World", and rightly chose to sit outside in the "wet seats" because they were at least in the fresh air.  I had been taking ginger tablets for a few hours before hand, and surprisingly, despite the 2m waves and the 2 hour trip, I was only minorly nauseous even though many people were throwing up inside.

When we arrived at Reef World (a permanent dock at the reef with a canteen and change rooms) we got our gear and got ready to go.  One lucky part of the day was our turtle sighting from the underwater observatory, but we never saw him after that.

The reef itself was neat, but not nearly as vibrant as we were expecting it to be (I think these pictures have enhanced the colours).  The water was murky and there weren't very many fish, but the giant purple clams were super cool.  It was also amazing to imagine how massive the reef really is.  Even the part we saw was bigger than anything I had seen before, and it stretches hundreds of kilometers.  Of course we were in an especially high-traffic area, so I'm sure many parts are way more incredible than what we saw.

My seasickness started to get the better of me after 45 minutes, so we got out and unfortunately I didn't recover enough to go back in.  It was also really cold, so it would have taken some extra coaxing!  We had a meagre lunch (I couldn't eat much) and tried to warm up and de-nauseate before getting back on the boat.

By the time we left the weather had gotten much worse, which unfortunately meant a rougher and longer ride home.  We didn't go on the upper deck this time, but instead stood at the back "out of the rain" hanging onto the railing.  The waves threw us around A LOT, so I tried to look on the horizon with focus of steel while Ryan held on to me and tried to stay standing.  The crew did their best to bring around ice cubes for people to suck on, which actually helped, but even many of the crew was throwing up.  I can't even imagine what it would have been like inside the cabin!  I just kept chewing on raw ginger, sucking on ice chips, and focusing hard.  Then, finally, we arrived at the dock after what felt like days later!

Needless to say it took me about 24 hours to feel better again, so dinner and the next day weren't very eventful.  Since it was raining anyway we just stuck around our apartment, played games, and relaxed.  Technically we could snorkel right off of our beach, but that clearly wasn't going to happen!

On the 10th, the day we were due to leave, we checked out and went to the airport, but our plane couldn't land on the island due to the weather.  For hours we waited there watching planes try to get close only to turn around again.  One or two managed to land, but not ours.  Eventually they cancelled everything and told us we were "stuck" on the island for an extra day, all expenses paid!  They booked us into a different hotel, gave us a meal voucher, and told us to come back the next day.

It's funny, because that bonus day was actually our best day of the whole trip!  I had gotten over my seasickness (which actually came back when we played mini-putt in a lake...) and we just made the most of it.

There was a mini-putt course we had wanted to try, and when we went to check it out they told us we could play for free because it was flooded.  They weren't kidding!  Beautiful course though, and a ton of fun to play with your ball underwater.

Then we went and sat by the pool for a few hours drinking cocktails.  It wasn't at all warm and sunny, but that actually made it fun in its own way.  We got a little tipsy, talked about our hopes and dreams, reminisced about our time in Australia, and killed time before dinner.

The next day the weather cleared up and we were able to fly home without any further complications.  It wasn't exactly the reef trip we were expecting, but we certainly have a lot of stories to tell!

NZ - Dec. 14-15, 2013 - Thermal Wonderland, Hobbiton, Mini Golf, Last Day

As our incredible New Zealand trip came to a close, we still had a few pretty major things to see before our departure.  As usual, we were up at 6:30am for one last dip in the hot pools, packed up like a well-oiled machine, and we were out of the site by 8:45.  Just down the street was our first stop for the day: Thermal Wonderland.

Even for first thing in the morning, the place was PACKED because everyone wanted to see the Lady Knox geyser eruption.  We grabbed our front row seats by 9:30am and eagerly awaited the 10:15am eruption with hundreds of other people.  They had added some soap to the water so we could see the bubbling beginning of the eruption easier, then for about 30 seconds it shot 15m into the air.  It was tough to see through all of the steam, but the geologists among us loved it.  Me, meh, I could take it or leave it!

We spent the rest of the sweltering hot morning wandering around the rest of Thermal Wonderland.  Again, lots of neat things for the geologists, and lots of really different colours that you don't usually see anywhere else.

This picture doesn't capture how highlighter green that "water" really was.

The coolest part of the whole park was Champagne Pools.  It was beautiful, and surprisingly deep.  The steam was even a different colour!

Photo credit: Ryan P

Photo credit: Ryan P

The FUNNIEST thing happened in the parking lot as we were leaving.  The whole trip we had been seeing these Wicked camper vans everywhere, and Ryan R thought it would be great to get a picture of him posing with one with a Jackie Chan guy on it.  So he did...but as he was posing the girl who was renting the van showed up and got into the trunk.  Ryan had no idea she was there!  We all had a really good laugh over it, and we did get a fantastic picture.

Photo credit: Kat

We had one last picnic lunch in Kuirau Park (in the centre of Rotorura), then we packed up and did the 1 hour drive to Hobbiton.  We JUST made it at 4pm before they closed, and managed to get on the 4:20pm tour.  As luck would have it, we were all alone!  We got on a gigantic bus, and had a private tour of the beautiful grounds.

Our guide was a young guy named Taylor who actually played one of the baby hobbits in the movie.  He was really great, but despite his best efforts he couldn't keep the chinese tour group behind us from getting in our way.  He also showed us the last living sheep from the movie, which was really rare to see (though easy to spot, because it has a black head).  I was amazed how cool Hobbiton was, because I didn't really care about any of the movies.  I couldn't get over how beautiful and adorable the gardens were, and how they thought through every detail to make it look completely believable. 

Photo credit:Kat

Photo credit:Kat

Photo credit: Kat

Photo credit: Ryan P

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

The grand finale of the tour was an ale or ginger beer (for the driver...me) at the tavern.  They had really done a good job of it, especially because the inside wasn't in the movie so they just made it special for the tourists.  I really loved all of the notices they had up on the walls.  Ryan R especially loved the bathrooms and was super curious if the woman's bathroom was the same as the men's :)

Photo credit: Ryan R

And with that, our last day came to a close as we headed to Opal Hotsprings for one last night in our tents.  We cooked an easy dinner of soup and salad, drank more delicious wine, and Kat and Ryan brought out their Scotch as we played some final board games until 1am.  Turns out, Scotch, even when mixed with water, does NOT sit well with me!  Thank goodness it was our last night there, because that was way more drunk than I had been the entire trip.  

The next morning we were all a little tired, so we had a slow start and didn't get everything packed up until 11am.  Luckily it was a sunny morning so everything dried, and we cleaned off our tents as best we could for our international flights.

Back near the airport we had passed a super awesome pirate and dinosaur mini-putt, and since Ryan and I can never resist a good mini-putt that's how we killed some time before Kat and Ryan's flight.  (On our layover back to Australia Ryan and I went back there to play the dinosaur round, that's how fun it was!)

Photo credit: Ryan R

Photo credit: Ryan R

Our goodbyes weren't that sad since we were going to see Kat and Ryan again at New Years back in Canada, so we dropped them off to continue their trip on the South Island, and then we headed back to our original hotel to get all of our stuff organized.

Probably the saddest goodbye was to our trusty treasure chest that held our food the entire vacation.  Way more fun than a regular bin!

It was a bit complicated, because we ended up leaving all of our camping stuff at the hotel, flying to Canada, then coming back to the same hotel to pick it all up on our layover before heading back to Australia.  We killed more time by going to see the second Hobbit movie in theatres and wandering around the mall before a delicious dinner and a good night sleep.

We had a really awesome trip back to Canada for Christmas.  This time we mostly just saw our families, and then headed up to Sauble Beach for the annual New Years cottage party with the U of W geology crowd.  I did forget never to pull over onto the shoulder in the winter in Canada, so I managed to get the rental car stuck and had to have Jeremy pull me out of the ditch.  Ryan and I also picked parsnips under two feet of snow at my parent's house.  We had tons of fun in the snow since it was such a novelty for us again.

On our way home we were lucky to make it out of Canada because there was a huge snowstorm that closed the airport right after we left.  When we arrived in Australia after a horribly delayed flight we were exhausted and completely forgot to declare all of our camping stuff that we had picked up in New Zealand.  We got a really serious talking to by the security people, but luckily we got through without a fine.  Stupid mistake, since we're always really honest about what we declare, but at least they thoroughly cleaned our tent for us!

Well, those were some pretty epic posts that took me OVER TWO YEARS to finally write, but I'm so glad I did.  It was really fun to relive everything, and dream of our next adventure.