Trip to Lancelin

Colourful golden blooms on the trees on the road to Lancelin.

Terry is stopping to check the surfboard is secure. It was very windy along this road.

I thought I saw a mountain in the distance. There are not really mountains in this part of Australia. They are more like hills.

It is very dry here.

Braeden, Blaise and Derek, ready to surf at Lancelin.

A large cuttlefish bone. It was longer than my sandal.
If you look back on my blog and look at the pictures from the aquarium you can see a live cuttlefish.

Terry relaxing on the beach at Lancelin.

Linnea after her walk on the beach.

Do you see how clear and clean the water is?

Blaise surfing.

Braeden surfing.

Derek surfing.

A closer picture of Blaise surfing.

Beach in Lancelin.

Lancelin beach. On the left are four-wheel drives that people use to drive on the beach.

We didn't bring a four wheel drive so we parked in the carpark.

On Friday, Nov. 19th we took a trip to Lancelin. It was a chance to get out of the city and show Derek a bit of the countryside. It was a very hot day, 39 degrees celsius, a great day to be at the beach. Terry and I even got in the water to cool off. Lancelin is a one and a half to two hour trip north of Perth. It has good waves for surfing and it has a gorgeous white sand beach. Derek and Blaise rented longboards and Braeden brought his own surfboard. The boys had a great day surfing. Terry relaxed on the blanket and I enjoyed a long walk on the beach. The sand was so soft and the water was so clear. There were times when I was the only person on the beach. It was really peaceful.

All Things Australian

Meat pies in the oven at home.









Derek, Terry, Blaise and Braeden getting ready to dig in to their meat pies. Derek and Blaise were working on their tans, thus the oily chests!

Double coat Tim Tams are chocolate coated cookies, they are delicious!

Cordial is a concentrated juice/beverage that you mix with water. Flat Mrs. Abbott loves the Mocha Chill which is chocolate and coffee milk.

Here is Rice Bubbles or what we would call Rice Krispies. Nutr-Grain is what the boys like to eat and Flat Mrs. Abbott likes the fruit yogurt and muesli. Muesli is like granola without the sugar.

The grade ones in Mrs. Bouma, Mrs. Ryder and my class have been asking Flat Mrs. Abbott questions about life in Australia. I took a few pictures to show them the foods we like to eat here. Australians also have their own slang and even though we have lived here before we are still learning new words. Thanks to the Rydings, the family we are exchanging homes with, we have an Australian slang dictionary to help us figure out what people are talking about!

Here is some Australian slang and some information about school in Australia.

G'day is a pretty easy one it means good day.

How are you going? This is the same as asking how are you doing?

Heaps of fun. We would say lots of fun.

Last weekend my friend Jenny asked me to meet her at the groin on the beach. Huh? I'm sorry Jenny, I don't know what you mean! It turns out that a groin is what we would refer to as a breakwater. Good thing Jenny could explain it to me, I didn't have to look that one up in the dictionary.

A mate is a friend. We learned this time that a cobber is another name for for a mate or friend.

The other night we were watching the news on tv. A man was accused of hooning. Can you guess what hooning is? It means to drive recklessly. This guy was the mechanic at a shop and he took a customer's lamborghini and went hooning down the freeway at over 150 kmh.

When students graduate from high school they are called school leavers. We call our school leavers, graduates.

In school instead of saying you are in grade one you would say you are in year one.

If you are in Kindy here you are 3 or 4 years old. If you are in pre-school you are 5 years old.

Footy is the word to describe Australian rules football.

A capsicum is a pepper, such as a red pepper.

Bathers is the word for a bathing suit.

A bottle shop is a liquor store and petrol is gas.

A biscuit is a cookie.

If I said "go and put that rubbish in the bin", I would mean "go and put that garbage in the garbage can."

People in Australia use the word reckon a lot. We would say I think it might rain today, whereas Australians would say I reckon it might rain today.

On the news the announcer would say "sport is coming up next", in Canada the news announcer would say "sports is coming up next".

When saying the date, in Australia they would say November thirty. We would say November thirtieth.

I think the thing we have noticed the most about our language differences is that Australians like to shorten words, for example, choc muffins, instead of chocolate chip muffins or air con instead of air conditioning. It doesn't take long to start adopting the Australian lingo. It certainly saves time!

Flat Mrs. Abbott visits Perth City

Flat Mrs. Abbott in Perth.















The Abbott boys love meat pies!
















It's Christmas time in the city.

















Perth is decorated for Christmas




























Huge Christmas card in Perth.


















Derek and Blaise in front of Christmas tree in square.



















Blaise, Linnea, Flat Mrs. Abbott, Terry and Braeden in front of Christmas tree in Forrest Chase square.















Western Australian Museum entrance.













An aardvark. Aardvarks live in Africa. For some reason this museum has animals from other parts of the world, not just Australia.












This is what an early known horse looked like. They originated in North America.















A skeleton of an Indian Elephant. Indian elephants are smaller than African elephants. They rarely reach 3 metres in height and weigh about 4 tonnes. They live for 60 -70 years.











The skeleton head of a camel or dromedary. Flat Mrs. Abbott thinks camels have very big skulls.
Because camels can carry heavy burdens and endure harsh conditions, camels were domesticated early. Camels were introduced to Australia in the early 19th century and later went wild in the central desert regions. You may remember that I said on an earlier blog that last time we were here we went up north and saw camels in the wild. They can live for up to 50 years. I'm glad I'm not a camel or my time would be up in a couple of years.








Camel or dromedary skelton.

Can you guess what type of animal this skeleton is?

If you guessed a koala, you are right!


Koalas are herbivores. Herbivores are animals that only eat plants. They have strong jaws for eating vegetation (eucalyptus leaves).

This is the skeleton of a Hairy-Nosed wombat.
Do you remember the picture from the last blog of the Hairy-Nosed Wombat?

On Tuesday, November 16th , Flat Mrs. Abbott joined the Abbotts and Derek on a trip into Perth City. We are living in Carine, which is a suburb of Perth. To get to Perth we have to drive south on the Mitchell freeway for about 20 minutes or so to get there. We have also taken the train in to go to the city.

It was another warm day on Tuesday. The city is decorated for Christmas and I got a picture of us in front of the huge artificial Christmas tree on Murray Street. I think the square is called Forrest Chase.

We did a bit of shopping, Mrs. Abbott decided to buy a sunhat instead of wearing Braeden's baseball cap. It covers up more and hopefully it will keep the flies off her face.

While Blaise, Derek and Braeden continued looking in the shops, Mr. and Mrs. Abbott and Flat Mrs. Abbott went to the Western Australia Museum. We saw all kinds of animal skeletons and learned more about Western Australia. There was a whole section about the aboriginal people and how they were treated by the British when the Brits arrived here and for years after. Aboriginal children who had a white father and an aboriginal mother were taken from their mothers and put in a place with other children and were taught by nuns how to speak English and the Christian religion. They were not allowed to speak their native language and were not allowed to see their family. It was very sad. It reminded me somewhat of how our aboriginals in Canada were taken away to residential schools. Hopefully we can learn from the past and not repeat the mistakes we made.

Kangaroos, Koalas and Wombats, Oh My!

Terry is starting to feel better.

Braeden and his friend James. We met James when we lived here in 2004. He lived down the street from us and we enjoyed the time he used to spend at our house.

Caversham Wildlife Park is in Whiteman Park. This is where we met the kangaroos, koalas and wombats.

Kookaburra. This bird makes a laughing sound. We used to hear them in the early evening at our house in Floreat. I haven't seen any in the neighbourhood we live in now.

Grey-headed flying fox. A type of bat.

Pink Cockatoo

This kangaroo was chill'in in the sand on this very hot day.

Kangaroos do not sweat but lick their paws and lay in the shade on hot days to stay cool.

Red kangaroos relaxing in the shade.

Red kangaroo digging in the sand so he can lay down and cool off.

Joey having a drink from its mother. A joey is a baby kangaroo.

Derek feeding a red kangaroo.

Braeden feeding a little kangaroo.

Mrs. Abbott feeding a red kangaroo. The kangaroos were very gentle when they took the food from your hand.

A joey.

Derek and Braeden feeding a kangaroo.

Blaise petting a kangaroo.

Red kangaroo.

Derek has made a few friends.

Quick, take my picture!

White kangaroo and Blaise.

Linnea pets a red kangaroo.

Terry feeds a red kangaroo.

A white kangaroo.

A Gang Gang Cockatoo

A Barking Owl.

Red=tailed Black Cockatoo.

Blue-tongued Lizard. We were allowed to pet it on the tail. It felt hard and scaly.

A joey and Blaise.

Derek, Blaise, Big Bubs the Hairy-Nosed Wombat and Linnea. Bubs had coarse fur.
A wombat is a marsupial. It is a mammal with a pouch.

Koalas hugging a tree. Because koalas are nocturnal (they sleep during the day and are active at night) they were not awake when we visited. They only eat eucalyptus leaves which don't have a lot of protein so koalas don't have a lot of energy. They spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping and the rest of the time they spend eating. Koalas are not really bears. They are marsupials. They have a pouch that is differnt than a kangaroo's pouch. The koala's pouch appears to be downward facing just like the wombat's pouch. A kangaroo is also a marsupial. Kangaroos have a top opening pouch.

A baby koala. Baby koalas are called joeys just like baby kangaroos are called joeys.

Linnea petting Barney, the koala. Koalas have soft fur.

Koalas do not live in Western Australia. They live in the eastern part of Australia.

Linnea, Terry, Barney, the koala behind Blaise, then Braeden and Derek.

Echidna sleeping in a tree hollow.

Common brush-tail possum sleeping.

Red-tailed Black Cockatoo. This bird got very excited when we came by and starting flying towards us hitting against its cage.

A calmer Black Cockatoo.

A peacock.

I believe this is also a Blue-tongued Lizard.

Johnstone's crocodile.

Red Fox

Big black pig at Molly's Farm.

Turtle.

Camel. We saw camels in the wild when we were in up north in 2004 on the way to Karijini National Park. Camels are not native to Australia. They were brought here many years ago.

Tommy, the forty year old donkey was very friendly. I think he was hoping we would feed him.

Derek and Tommy.

Billy goat.

A Blue-tongued lizard was on our front step when we got home from the Caversham Wildlife Park. He looked just like the one we had touched at the park.

Another view of the lizard.

It has been a fun, hot week here in Perth, Western Australia. Terry is starting to feel better so we are able to get out and do more things together. On Sunday, November 14th we met our friend Jenny and her son James at Trigg Beach. Terry was able to come along and enjoy a sunny morning at the beach. It gets windy and hot in the afternoon so we met them at 8:30 in the morning. The beach was busy with lots of children taking surf lifesaving lessons.

On Monday, November 15, 2010 we took a 20 minute drive to Caversham Wildlife Park. Last time we were in Perth we went to this park twice because we liked it so much. We were excited to introduce Derek to this park because finally he would get to see and touch a kangaroo! Flat Mrs. Abbott was pretty excited as well to see kangaroos. Caversham Wildlife Park is within a state park called Whiteman Park. Whiteman Park has a train ride, a water park and a cafe as well as lots of bushland and trails to walk along. However, it was a hot day, about 34 degrees celsius and the water park was closed so we just took in the wildlife part of the park. The park is arranged so that animals that come from the same part of Australia are in cages or pens beside each other. There is also an area where we saw farm animals and nearby a few camels. Last time we were here the boys were able to ride the camels for an extra fee. They do not offer camel rides anymore. There was a show put on by the workers of the park where we met Big Bubs, the hairy-nosed wombat as well as a lizard with a blue tongue, a baby kangaroo as well as a number of birds. When we visited the park in 2004 we were able to hold a hairy-nosed wombat and a common wombat. The workers said that Big Bubs is too heavy for people to hold. She was pretty big, alright.

When we arrived at our home in Carine we were greeted by a blue-tongued lizard on our front step. I quickly snapped a picture before he scuttled away into the bushes in the front yard. It was the same type of lizard we had just touched at the wildlife park. Dave, brother of the owner of the house we are staying at, told us there was a lizard living in our yard and had asked if we had seen it before. This is the first and only time so far that we have seen the lizard.