Here in Australia (at least I think it’s all of Australia), school is set up into four terms. Between each term you get a two or three week break, and the summer (which wraps up Christmas) is about 6-7 weeks rather than the 9ish weeks we get in Canada. This year, Geelong Grammar School (GGS) had a super short Term 1 – 7 weeks.
We've been trying to see different parts of the country over the school breaks. Obviously, Australia is big, and to see the whole thing with the time we have and three young children just is not possible. Plus, we would just be driving and zipping around all the time rather than spending time in good places and getting to know good people.
So, break number one is almost over and we are back from our travelling. Lots of time on the road and some kids who simply did not want to be in car seats anymore… and to tell you the truth, their parents sort of feel the same. Plus, we have our first Canadian visitor arriving tomorrow! Kelsey Sage wins the prize – travelling down from Queensland where she is doing a gap year as an intern at a school near Brisbane. For those who don’t know, Kelsey was a Grade 12 student at Brentwood last year. I had coached her in rowing for a few years, I taught her Advanced Placement Comparative Government and Politics in Grade 12 and her mom is my boss (Head of Rowing) and a co-coach of mine in the girls programme. We’re excited to have Kelsey with us for the week and hope we can show her the best of Geelong and its surrounding area.
Back to the travelling. The first part of our trip took us to Portsea. Portsea is across the bay from us (if you look at a map, Melbourne is at the top of Port Phillip Bay, Geelong is on the west side, Portsea is on the east side, way down near the tip). We had visited the area very briefly in the summer, but this time had been invited to stay at a cottage in the heart of the peninsula with the Borthwick family. If you remember, Andrew was the handsome guy in the wetsuit from my Year 10 camp post.
We arrived in Portsea on the Monday afternoon to sunshine and warm weather. Andrew, Anna, Ella (7) and Luci (5) greeted us with tasty sandwiches and we soon made our way across the road and down to the beach. What a glorious couple hours spent playing (sort of) beach cricket, running about and doing some swimming. We then went back to the house for a delicious BBQ dinner. After the kids were in bed Andrew and Anna taught Ulrika and I to play Settlers of Catan. This seemed like a wonderful idea at first, but it was soon apparent that Andrew had a score to settle with Anna (a Catan-shark according to Andrew) and he slowly beat us all into submission and won the game. I was terrible.
We've been trying to see different parts of the country over the school breaks. Obviously, Australia is big, and to see the whole thing with the time we have and three young children just is not possible. Plus, we would just be driving and zipping around all the time rather than spending time in good places and getting to know good people.
So, break number one is almost over and we are back from our travelling. Lots of time on the road and some kids who simply did not want to be in car seats anymore… and to tell you the truth, their parents sort of feel the same. Plus, we have our first Canadian visitor arriving tomorrow! Kelsey Sage wins the prize – travelling down from Queensland where she is doing a gap year as an intern at a school near Brisbane. For those who don’t know, Kelsey was a Grade 12 student at Brentwood last year. I had coached her in rowing for a few years, I taught her Advanced Placement Comparative Government and Politics in Grade 12 and her mom is my boss (Head of Rowing) and a co-coach of mine in the girls programme. We’re excited to have Kelsey with us for the week and hope we can show her the best of Geelong and its surrounding area.
Back to the travelling. The first part of our trip took us to Portsea. Portsea is across the bay from us (if you look at a map, Melbourne is at the top of Port Phillip Bay, Geelong is on the west side, Portsea is on the east side, way down near the tip). We had visited the area very briefly in the summer, but this time had been invited to stay at a cottage in the heart of the peninsula with the Borthwick family. If you remember, Andrew was the handsome guy in the wetsuit from my Year 10 camp post.
We arrived in Portsea on the Monday afternoon to sunshine and warm weather. Andrew, Anna, Ella (7) and Luci (5) greeted us with tasty sandwiches and we soon made our way across the road and down to the beach. What a glorious couple hours spent playing (sort of) beach cricket, running about and doing some swimming. We then went back to the house for a delicious BBQ dinner. After the kids were in bed Andrew and Anna taught Ulrika and I to play Settlers of Catan. This seemed like a wonderful idea at first, but it was soon apparent that Andrew had a score to settle with Anna (a Catan-shark according to Andrew) and he slowly beat us all into submission and won the game. I was terrible.
Day two brought a visit to Point Nepean and Fort Nepean, found on the very tip of the Mornington Peninsula. This area has huge historical significance. As mentioned earlier, Port Phillip Bay serves as the water access for Melbourne to the ocean. There is a huge amount of boat traffic in and out of this area. The gap between Point Nepean and Queenscliff on the other side is only a few kilometers wide. This makes Point Nepean a geographically strategic point from which, with the help of a few large mounted guns, you can control the flow of boat traffic into and out of Melbourne. In the mid-to-late 1800s, Australia (which was a British colony at the time), felt threatened by the Russian aggression in the east and decided to start to militarize their major cities to help deter/defend themselves from the Russians. Though the Russians never came, the guns at Fort Nepean claim to have taken the first shot (a warning shot) by the British Empire in WWI when stopping a German supply ship from leaving just minutes after war was declared. Over the years the grounds have also served as military barracks as well as a quarantine station for processing early immigrants to the area all the way up to the post-WWII Italian population. A beach at Point Nepean also serves as the place where Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming in 1967, never to be found again. Most believe he drowned (the swell there is intense, so it doesn’t surprise me) but there are all sort of conspiracy theories, including the idea that he was nabbed by a Chinese sub and taken back to China. Weird theory, but I guess the “truthers” need to have their day in the sun no matter what year it might be.
We then headed into Sorrento (just one town down from Portsea – and you can’t really tell when one starts and other stops) for coffee and vanilla slice. The place we went advertised that they had “award winning” or “famous” or something of the sort vanilla slice, so we just had to try. I must say, they weren’t lying. For those in Canada, vanilla slice is like a mutated (in the best possible sense) non-bake vanilla cheesecake. Though that description doesn’t do this one justice. Dang, it was good.
Anna then coaxed me and Ulrika into a 6-7km run. Now, Anna doesn’t do this run often (she says once every 18 months or so), but I’d say the run was actually somewhere around 9km. Using my everyday geography skills (ask my Year 11s; people use their geography skills all the time without knowing it) I started to figure that her distances were off part way through the run. Unfortunately, I’d been running at a 6-7km pace for the first 5km of the run, so I was a bit knackered by the end. I’m not sure if she was trying to get back at us for the Catan game the night before, but she claims it was an honest mistake. I will give her the benefit of the doubt this time because we had such a great time and the run was beautiful (at points following the ocean along a trail on the top of adjacent hills). Plus, I had to run off the slice to make room for the fish and chips to come!
That night, we ate fish and chips on the back beach of Portsea. The weather was cool, but the sunset was gorgeous and the kids had a great time playing in the waves. When we got the kids home, they were wet, cold and knackered, but had just enough energy to listen to Andrew read them a story. Once in bed we had round two of Settlers. Anna and Andrew were then so focused on revenge that I was able to slip up the middle and steal the win. There was lots of luck in the win, but I’ll take it. As my parents will attest I hate losing at board games, so it was sweet to be victorious despite having little skill or understanding of the game. Beginners luck…
That night, we ate fish and chips on the back beach of Portsea. The weather was cool, but the sunset was gorgeous and the kids had a great time playing in the waves. When we got the kids home, they were wet, cold and knackered, but had just enough energy to listen to Andrew read them a story. Once in bed we had round two of Settlers. Anna and Andrew were then so focused on revenge that I was able to slip up the middle and steal the win. There was lots of luck in the win, but I’ll take it. As my parents will attest I hate losing at board games, so it was sweet to be victorious despite having little skill or understanding of the game. Beginners luck…
The next day we had breakfast and left the Borthwicks. We certainly came away feeling very refreshed and with a great deal of love for Andrew, Anna and their girls. They are a special family, and to have opened their door to us like that (and made their holiday that much squishier), they are obviously a generous one as well. We feel so blessed to call them friends and hope to spend much more time with them in the future (including during his future exchange to Canada… it’s now even more firmly ‘in the pipeline’ for a few years down the road).
The first few days of holidays were so good we were worried that the rest might be a bit of a letdown. We were wrong, but more on that in another post…
The first few days of holidays were so good we were worried that the rest might be a bit of a letdown. We were wrong, but more on that in another post…