Weekly Photo Challenge: Careful

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 / Christina B / 9 Comments

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Careful.”

Be careful when you want to touch the thorny devil. This little lizard’s unpalatable spines and camouflage (it can change its colour according to the amount of sunlight and surroundings) provide effective defence against predators. They are found in some arid parts of Australia and live in sand and scrub. We found this one on a sandy track north of Coral Bay (approximately 1200 kilometres north of Perth).

Thorny Devil found along the Ningaloo Coast, Western Australia

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy Place

October 10, 2015October 10, 2015 / Christina B / 7 Comments

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Happy Place.”

I have a number of Happy Places. Being out in nature away from the hustle and bustle of city life is the best thing for me. When I’m fortunate enough to go there, my favourite place to find peace and quiet is on my sister and brother-in-law’s farm in the Kalahari (Namibia), or Coral Bay or Rottnest Island (both Western Australia), all of them out in nature. When I’m not travelling I’m happiest at home in my own space, and my go-to place is my garden.

I have my own little quiet spot where I can enjoy the dappled sunlight and birdsong with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning or sit and read my book over the weekend and maybe enjoy a glass of wine as well, or just sit and be quiet in my happy place.

My happy place

Photo Challenge: Monochromatic

September 12, 2015September 12, 2015 / Christina B / 8 Comments

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Monochromatic.”

This week’s photo challenge asks us to share our monochromatic images. I’ve put together a gallery with images from Namibia, Perth, Coral Bay, Albany and Dongara.

Buoys at the Boat Harbour, Coral Bay, WA

Frangipani in my garden

Seal sunning himself at Sorrento beach, Perth, WA

Spreetshoogte Pass, Namibia

Sand dunes between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, Namibia

Old jetty at Maud’s landing near Coral Bay, WA

Shell in the sea at Turquoise Bay, WA

Jetty at Middleton Beach, Albany, WA

Wisteria in my garden

Black Swans (native to WA) coming in to land near Dongara, WA

Black Swans with landing gear coming out

The last in my series of the Black Swans (probably my favourite series of photos of birds)

Afrikaners in Perth

August 11, 2015September 4, 2015 / Christina B / 14 Comments

I’m very excited today. My post about celebrating our 10 year anniversary in Perth has just been published in the on-line edition of a South African magazine after I translated it into Afrikaans. This is the link:

http://www.sarie.com/lewe-liefdes/reise/suid-afrikaanse-gesin-se-lewe-australie/

The original English version is here: https://searchingforironman.com/2015/01/23/10-years-in-this-great-southern-land/

10 Years in this Great Southern Land

January 23, 2015August 24, 2015 / Christina B / 9 Comments

10 Years ago we boarded a plane from Africa and landed at Perth airport about 9 ½ hours later, walked out the airport into the late January heat feeling quite insignificant. The realisation that we knew no-one made this family feel a bit lost and it hit home as we walked into the “Arrivals” hall amidst people being welcomed and greeted by family, friends or business associates, not knowing anyone and subduedly making our way out the door to find a taxi. Arriving at our short-term rented apartment in the city the exhausted and jet-lagged kids fell asleep sitting up in chairs in the middle of the day while Ironman went out to organise a rental car and so our first week went by in a blurr of organising all the logistics of settling down in a new place with my husband having started his new job and the kids and I driving from one possible rental house to the next looking for one that would meet our requirements. We’d timed our arrival so the kids would be able to start the new school year which left us with 10 days to find a suitable school as well as a house to rent in the same suburb which proved to be a challenge in the middle of a mining boom and accommodation shortage but we managed to sign the lease for a nice house on the Friday afternoon and on Monday morning the kids started school on the first day of the new school year together with all the other kids. Two big and very important boxes were ticked.

As we’d said our farewells to friends in South Africa they would jokingly talk about the “honeymoon period” of a move to a new country such as we were doing being about three months, but having moved to Dubai just under a year prior and absolutely loving the adventure of that I felt like the honeymoon period was over when our plane landed in Perth. Being uprooted twice in under 12 months to move continents, settle down, make friends, ensure the kids are happy and doing well at school, finding substitute products in the shops to the ones you were used to, finding a hairdresser who cut my hair the way I liked it and all the rest of it, didn’t come naturally for someone who loves being in their comfort zone but I knew that this move was best for my family so I was determined to make it work. During our visit here in August 2004 while I was still grappling with the idea of having to move away from Dubai where we’d just settled a few months prior and the exotic adventure of which we were thoroughly enjoying I was under so much pressure from my husband to like Perth that I broke down in tears one day telling him exactly that: “You’re putting too much pressure on me to like it” but walking down Hay Street, Perth, another day during that visit I realised that I would be able to live in this city and that I would be able to make it work and knowing that was enough for me at that stage. I knew that the lifestyle would be better for the kids and the whole family in the long run.

Looking back, the first year was definitely the hardest but we made good, lasting friends who became our “Perth family” over time. We found the people of Perth to be very friendly, welcoming and accepting with a great sense of humour and got used to driving on the left-hand side of the road once again, everyone driving strictly at 100km/h on the freeway (after the manic speeds on the roads of Dubai), the green of the Eucalyptus which was very different to the bright and lively green of the oaks and plane trees in Stellenbosch which was one of the things I missed at first, the idea of not knowing when exactly we’ll see our family again, hearing many different accents around you every day, total fires bans during summer because of the extreme bush fire risk, and Vegemite. I only made one illegal U-turn (in my defence, I didn’t know it was illegal) and got pulled over for it by the police – much to my absolute distress, being someone who likes to do the right thing – but they accepted my explanation that in Dubai U-turns are the order of the day and a very large part of the traffic system. Having given up a work-life of accounts, financial statements, various types of tax returns, payrolls, monthly financial reports, spreadsheets and intricate cash flow forecasts built on different variables to being a stay-at-home-mum in exciting Dubai where everything was new and interesting and something as simple as picking up the kids from school was an excursion because of the distance, traffic and some crazy road users to contend with, to being a stay-at-home mum in a quiet Perth suburb where everything worked in an orderly manner as it should, it quickly felt like my world had shrunk to a triangle of going from home to school to the supermarket and back home and repeating the same day after day, and it didn’t take me long to feel a bit claustrophobic but after a weekend away in beautiful Yallingup and Margaret River after about four months I felt like my horizons had expanded and I could breathe again. With all of Ironman’s travels for work he didn’t experience this problem but instead found interesting places of exquisite natural beauty for us to visit as a family which we started doing as soon as time and budget allowed and before I knew it I’d fallen in love with the splendour that the Western Australian coastline and bush offers. The beautiful, clean beaches; colour of the water whether it be the crisp, clear Southern Ocean around Esperance and Albany or the warm, turquoise waters of Broome; the unique charm, beauty and magnetism of Rottnest Island that makes you never want to leave there; the red pindan sand of the Kimberley, age-old forests of the South-West and the vast open spaces. I love being in the countryside and still have the need to get out of the city every now and then and breathe some fresh air and I’m lucky to have the opportunity of so many great places to visit and many more gems of places yet to see. I discovered that one could actually live anywhere as long as your family was safe and healthy. I also realised that I only missed certain things (other than family and friends of course) about our life in South Africa when I actually stopped to think about those particular things (which didn’t happen every day), but when I did a deep yearning for some of those things and places would overcome me and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever visit a specific spot again and I’d miss the very distinct vibe that is so colourfully part and parcel of the rainbow nation and I learnt that a photo of an African dawn or sunset still pulls at the heartstrings like no other, but life keeps us busy and there was no time or point in longing for something that wasn’t a part of my daily life as it was at that point, dwell on it or mope about it. I have been very fortunate in that my family (near and far) are all in good health but we do miss them and have to remind ourselves that lots of people live far away from their families nowadays. We have so much to be grateful for living in a safe and beautiful place that offers the kind of freedom of amazing lifestyle that it does, and the privilege of so many opportunities. One cannot but love a country that offers you the opportunity to put on your shoes and head out for a safe morning walk on your own on a quiet country road you’ve never been on and to just follow the road to see where it takes you and to keep going to see what awaits around the next bend and then as a bonus to stumble upon views such as this:

View towards Yallingup, Cape Naturaliste Peninsula

A landmark moment in my memory was the first day of the kids’ second school year, one year after arriving. After having gone through so much change during the preceding 24 months and constantly feeling like I was doing something for the first time and still learning my way it hit me on that day and I thought: “I can do this. I’ve done it before.” Such a simple thing but it meant so much at that stage. After a while we started to feel like we’re not the newcomers anymore and that we really belonged here and embraced many things about the Aussie lifestyle such as gas barbeques (after having used coal for our braai all our lives) which meant that the barbeque was ready within minutes and also that I was able to cook something on the barbie without fuss when the man of the house was away; blower vacs (a blower and vacuum combo perfect for the garden); having a bread machine and making our own preservative free bread within two hours or less; the concept of “suck it up” (just get over it); driving for hours and then looking at the map and realising that we’ve only covered a small portion of this vast country, and to say “No worries” (no problem), to stop calling a traffic light a robot as well as lots of other descriptive sayings and acronyms. We wrote the citizenship test and became citizens on Australia Day in 2009; I’ve swallowed a fly – I think that should count for at least a 50% credit towards the citizenship test – and had many more near-misses like that; started a book club together with friends which has become a close knit group of us who treasures and looks forward to book club night on the calendar every month; I’ve given up the stay-at-home-mum status and took a part-time job in 2008; I now struggle to say phone numbers in Afrikaans which had been my first language for 30 odd years (I now feel like I have two first languages); come to appreciate the Freo doctor (cool sea breeze) on a warm summer’s arvo; we’ve enjoyed lots of sunset barbies at the beach with friends; have an annual “moving to Perth” anniversary dinner with friends who arrived within a week of us and whom we met at school on the first or second school day; done many a road-trip and love the vast beauty of this great southern land but I still catch myself sometimes as we drive home after a long trip away nearly saying we’re going back to the Cape (Cape Town) and not Perth, it must be so ingrained in me, and also discovered that it’s still heart-breaking when the Springboks lose a test match. Especially in Perth. I have a number of favourite places in WA though, from Denmark to Rottnest Island, Coral Bay and Broome, and love each one too much to choose it above another. After 10 years in Perth it’s fair to say that our experiences living in both South Africa and Australia (and throw in Dubai for good measure) have all shaped, formed and influenced us as people and I wouldn’t change it for a thing. This child of Africa will always have an unbreakable bond with Africa but is undeniably also Australian and loves living in Perth. Fair dinkum.

Rottnest Island

Coral Bay

Broome

Our local coastline with view towards Hillarys Boat Harbour

Perth city view from Kings Park

On The Road Again

September 22, 2014February 2, 2015 / Christina B / Leave a comment

We love going on road trips, whether it be for a day out, a weekend away or a holiday break, it’s great to escape the city for a bit, take the open road and breathe some fresh air, and there’s plenty of open road in this vast country. I remember our first trip to Esperance, some 800km from Perth on the south-east coast of Western Australia, when I looked at the map after we’d travelled for more than 8 hours and saw that we’d covered but a fifth of the distance that Western Australia measures from north to south, and even less of the distance from Perth to Sydney, which made us feel quite small by comparison. It’s great to see the lie of the land and get a feel for it though – something you’d never be able to experience if you travelled in a big aeroplane – and some places we’ve seen in Western Australia are remarkably similar to southern Africa.

Our kids are used to it – have been since they were babies – and modern technology such as iPods and iPads help make the journey shorter for them (when they get tired of reading). As they get older they try and avoid the daytrips (long car journeys that start and end at home in the same day and have no objective other than looking out the window in their minds, even if there’s a nice lunch being promised at the halfway mark) and make their own plans for the day while we go out and appreciate the scenery and a day out.

As a child we used to spend some of our winter holidays in Namibia which meant about a 2-day drive from Cape Town and I still remember driving along in our yellow VW Kombi with the windows rolled (yes, manually rolled, my children) down as we headed north into the warmer weather, reading, looking out the window or sleeping, eating naartjies (mandarins) and biltong, and not getting bored (or maybe I forgot that part). My ironman husband did the road trip thing a bit differently in his youth and cycled from Pietermaritzburg to Cape Town (some 1500km) together with some mates and his dad in a backup vehicle – that’s ironman addiction tendencies showing up quite early but strangely enough this story was only regaled after we were married – but at the end of the day we both enjoy taking the open road. It’s a great feeling when you leave the city behind, head north and start reaching the warmer weather and wide open spaces and it’s almost easier to breathe the further you go and leave the stress and concerns of your normal routine behind.

If the trip involves a camping holiday it means, by default for me, a series of separate lists of things I have to buy/pack/prepare/remember as I can’t stand the thought of forgetting something I’ll need, for instance my coffee filter like that one fateful time! Before we set off on a long trip I usually run around like a road-runner bird with about a hundred last-minute things to do like pack the frozen meat into the camping fridge, check that the boys have packed everything that they’re responsible for, make a flask with coffee for the road, prepare snacks – good old (Afrikaans) “padkos” or road food, directly translated, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it – and check all my various lists!

Once we’re on the road the kids (have to) take care of their own in-car entertainment on our trips but since my husband is not a good passenger – doesn’t like sitting still at the best of times – he ends up doing most of the driving (by choice) and insists on choosing which music we’ll listen to. This in itself is not a problem but when he starts to sing or whistle along off key and tone deaf I have to beg him to stop. Some people can’t stand the sound of a fingernail being pulled along a blackboard. I can’t stand off key singing along to music. It feels as if it goes straight through my spine, so then he stops singing for a bit but after a while he gets bored and starts singing again without realising and I have to remind him again of the ban on singing. If I’m in luck there will be a football or cricket match on while we’re driving and we can listen to the commentary, which eliminates the need (and impulse) for singing should boredom set in.

As a result of my compulsive list writing habit I haven’t forgotten many things over the years but I did once forget my little make-up bag, or rather I remembered it late just as we were about to hit the freeway and we had to turn back home to get it. It’s not that I wear a lot of make-up but there are a couple of essentials I couldn’t do without for a whole week without some sense of humour failures but oh boy was I unpopular that particular time for adding 10 minutes onto a 10 hour drive! In contrast my husband never makes any lists and always packs at the last minute (like a packing superman) but usually forgets something at home and we’ve had to turn back to fetch a running-GPS charger or make a separate trip to the closest town to where we’re camping for him to buy a pair of running shorts because he left his at home and other times he’s had to buy a hat or a tourist-type singlet in Coral Bay to use as a running shirt but the most important thing that ever got left behind was the tent pegs. Yes, kind of an essential item.

The “Running Shirt” bought in Coral Bay one year

Now I never pack the tent and its necessary paraphernalia – that’s man-land in our house – but everything we need is listed and before we leave I read everything out that the boys had to pack and it gets ticked off the list but somehow the two boys in our house managed to assume that the tent pegs were inside the tent bag without checking and the previous time it got put away it clearly wasn’t put away in its rightful place (man-job) and we got to Coral Bay (a 12-hour trip and 2 hours away from the closest town), started to set up the tent and then realised that we had no tent pegs. There was some furious (and loud) searching for a few minutes at which point I quietly sat down in the shade and decided that this problem was not mine to solve! The boys set off to the local shop and thankfully some other poor family probably had the same problem sometime in the past and the entrepreneurial shop saw it as an opportunity and they were able to buy some tent pegs. Holiday rescued!

All the planning, preparations, packing and possibly forgetting something is well worth it when we get to our destination though – which will soon be warm, sunny and laid back Coral Bay – and we love to be on the road again…