Aussie Bushfires

Many of you have written to talk about the bushfires that started in Victoria over the weekend. Thank you all for your interest and concern, we're as-yet unaffected by the many blazes currently burning around the state. It is really hard to know what to say at a time like this - Australia has never seen such devastation either man-made or natural in the past 200yrs. For those folks that would like more information or that want to get more in-depth reports, our primary news source online has been The Age - one of the main Melbourne newspapers. The general stats are that over 500,000 acres have been or are currently burning, over 1,000 structures (homes, barns, cabins) have been destroyed and 181 lives have been confirmed lost. The current estimate for total loss of life is expected now to top 300 as more areas are investigated and homes and cars discovered. Many many more animals, wild and tame, are also impacted and nobody has been able to put a number on that yet.

We've both signed up to give blood in the coming weeks once the blood banks have an open appointment, and we're going to be looking for ways we can donate time as well. If anyone is interested in supporting the victims, a fundraising effort has begun and I'm sure donations of any size are appreciated. Many of the Australian banks have opened fundraising accounts, some accepting donations include Commonwealth Bank, Bendigo Bank as well as the Australian Red Cross. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the firemen still out there battling, with the survivors and their families and friends, as well as with those that are still in the path of these destructive fires - we encourage everyone to please think of and pray for all of them as well.

Another form of Cricket

One of the things that Josh will miss most about Australia when we make our way back to Denver permanently will be the amazing array of sport to enjoy in person and on TV. One that he has really begun to follow is the sport of Cricket. Starting with matches his first year in Oz, he has now been able to get Kristi hooked on the sport as well! We've now been able to see every version of international standard cricket available, 20/20 (Kristi), OneDay (Josh and Kristi) and Test Cricket (Josh and Kristi on Boxing Day). We haven't been able to see a Beach Cricket match yet, but don't expect to see much of that in chilly Victoria. (Maybe up on the Gold or Sunshine Coasts). Each is a different flavor based on the same rules and guidelines, and each has a different set of tactics to be enjoyed. 20/20 is great for its 'smash and bash' style of scoring and risk taking, Test Cricket is amazing to watch for the patience and planning required to be successful while One Day is a polite mix of both - more risk required than Test, but more tactic required than 20/20.
Though not one of the more famous matches of the season, Josh was able to get some special tickets (a Melbourne Cricket Club member hooked us up with Visitor passes) to see Australia take on New Zealand in the second OneDay of their series. New Zealand had won the first in Perth and the Aussies needed to exert some dominance to get back into the match-up. Expectations were low given the Aussies are in a rebuilding period, but most locals were hopeful for a victory on the hallowed soil of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Kristi and Maria again started the day off since they were able to leave work a bit early, and Josh and his colleagues joined at the end of their workday (still a bit earlier than normal). We really had a good time in the Members section of the MCG, even with the dress code it was a fantastic setting with amazing weather and an entertaining game to watch. In the end, Australia's batting just didn't set the bar high enough and New Zealand was able to chase and gather the victory with 6 balls to spare. We may not make it to another match during our time in Australia (though Josh is still holding out hope for Beach Cricket at some point) but our sporting days will continue with at least two more AFL matches planned and the possibility of seeing the Australian national soccer team take on Japan in a few months! As usual, our excursions will be posted here (though also as usual we may be a bit behind) so keep an eye on the blog and Flickr for the updates.

Australian Open 2009

We've gotten a couple of queries about the Australian Open 2009, and yes we did go to 'The Tennis' and had a great couple of experiences. During Kristi's first week in Australia back in 2007 she was able to score a grounds pass and go watch the tennis while Josh was at work. This year we went a step up and bought tickets to Rod Lave Arena for a set of night matches during Round 2 of the tournament. We were hoping to see some of the big names like Nadal, Federer, Murray, Rodick, Williams.....instead we saw a couple local names which was sort of a disappointment but also provided some pretty good tennis. The first match was Jelena Dokic vs Anna Chakvetadze - Dokic was the Aussie, unranked and hadn't played in the Aussie Open in 8yrs but she put up a great fight and came out ahead. The second match was another Aussie, Bernard Tomic vs Giles Muller from Luxembourg. Tomic was the youngest man to ever win a match in the Aussie Open, but he was definitely young and didn't have an answer to the massiver serves of Muller. Its hard to win a match when the opposition is drilling 210+km/hr serves past you. Everyone was really supportive of the Aussie and it was a great experience for him to play on the centre court but he went down in 4 sets to Muller. Dokic ended up making it all the way to the quarterfinals of the tournament which was a fantastic effort so it was exciting to be able to say that we actually watched her early matches. Keep an eye out because she really seems to be putting together some good games and has started out 2009 really strong.

Our next experience with 'The Tennis' was on finals weekend, when they took the second court at Hisense Arena and turned it into a concert hall for two days during the mens and womens finals. One of our favorite Aussie bands was on the stage for the last day and the concert tickets also got you into the tennis area to be able to watch the mens final on the bigscreen outside the main court - music and sport on the same ticket, what a deal! The mens final ended up being the match that everyone wanted, Nadal vs. Federer so our inexpensive concert tickets ended up getting us into the main event and the buzz was really electric. The first act of the concert was teen sensation Gabriella Cilmi (pronounced Chill-me) who put on a decent show with some of her popular songs and some popular covers. Soon after though was what brought us there in the first place, The Cat Empire! This is the kind of band that Josh and his friends would have put together back at Luther, with some amazing horns, super-awesome drums and a middle-eastern/latin flavor for rhythms and melody. In short, these guys are danceably awesome. We had a great time grooving along with them and their hour on stage passed in the blink of an eye. Once the band left the stage, Nadal and Federer were starting their warmup so it was time to stake a claim to some space on the ground in front of the bigscreen with 4,000 of our closest friends. Every point was hard-fought and everyone in the audience outside gasped and cheered with the hits and misses going on inside the stadium. We didn't end up staying the entire time and watched the last couple sets from home with Nadal outlasting Federer in the 5th set.

The tennis this year brought some great stories, such as Dokic and Tomic, some great matches like the Nadal/Verdasco slugfest and the music that went along with it was the icing on the cake. The Americans also performed well this year with Serena Williams taking the women's title, the Williams Sisters taking home first in the womens doubles, and the Bryan Brothers winning in the mens doubles. It will be hard to beat the experience and we can't think of a better year to have experienced everything the Australian Open had to offer.

Lake Mungo

Our third Australia Day in Melbourne brings the first true long-weekend of the year. We found out somewhat late that Josh wouldn't have to work so we decided to take the opportunity to explore another part of Victoria - North! We had read and heard about another World Heritage-listed park near Mildura and thought the middle of summer sounded like a perfect time to visit the outback desert. (Please note the sarcasm!) Amazingly we found accommodation and flights without too much trouble and were on our way!

We left on Saturday morning, arrived easily in Mildura, found our rental car, stopped by the visitors centre for some maps and food suggestions, and began our exploration. First stop was one of the many tasty-looking roadside fruit stands where we found fresh grapes, plums, and rock melon (cantaloupe). We then hit the grocery on our way out of town to pick up other breakfast, lunch, and snack supplies for our drive to the park - Wilandra Lakes National Park. The most famous part of the park is Lake Mungo, an ancient dry lakebed where one of the worlds oldest human specimens was discovered in the 1970's. Lake Mungo is also home to the Walls of China; earth formations created over thousands of years by wind and weather eroding the ancient lakeshore. During mid-summer there are not many visitors as the temperature is generally above 40C with prevailing westerly winds. It didn't get that hot for us but we did try to either stay in the shade or the car when possible during the day. With not many tourists around, the wildlife was everywhere and we were able to see plenty of grey kangaroos, a few large red roos, and were also surprised by wild emus and lizards! We hadn't seen wild emus or red roos and happily took more than a few pictures to remember them. The only wildlife that they said lived in the area that we didn't see were echidnas - not surprising given how long it took us to see our first echidna (1.5yrs!) We did also see the expected domestic cattle that now graze just outside the park, and yes we took pictures of them too. :-)

Our first day was spent mainly on the road as the 110km trip from Mildura to Lake Mungo includes 90km of washboard dirt roads. We took it slow and safe, making it to our accomodation (just outside the park) with enough time to explore the visitors centre and surrounding buildings as well as scope out the Walls for future sunset pictures. The sunset at the Walls of China is one of the main attractions and we were able to enjoy the experience both nights we were there. Not quite as amazing as Uluru or the Bungle Bungles, but an outback sunset always seems to provide us with great light for photos. In the sunset, even the local outhouse becomes more interesting!

The second day we packed a lunch and took off on a self-drive tour of the park. The 70km route is intended to take 2.5hrs, though with photo stops and walks it took us closer to 4.5hrs - the views and wildlife were worth the extra time! After that much time on dirt roads though it was time for a nap to recharge before the second sunset in the park. We took some different perspectives for the second sunset but it took some major restraint to not take more pictures of the outhouse on the way back the lodge.

We headed back to Mildura for Australia Day - not realising how quiet the town would be on the holiday we ended up doing quite a bit of window shopping before lunch as the shops were all closed. We drove along the river to one of the local wineries - the area is known for high quantity not quality when it comes to wine, but it was a pretty view and was air conditioned so fit the bill perfectly for the afternoon. We also made the side-trip to Orange World and had a great chat with Mario about Mildura oranges and sucked down one of the best glasses of orange juice that either of us has had in quite a long time. We now know that Australian oranges that are green on the top are actually ripe, just protecting themselves from the hot outback sun - like sunscreen for oranges! We ended our Australia day with a great meal at the Mildura Brewery - watching tennis and cricket on the big screen TVs with a cool beer, steak, and prawns. We flew back to Melbourne on Tuesday morning, stopping briefly at home to clean up and then heading to the office to face one of the hottest weeks Melbourne has had in over 100 years. We're still working on getting all the pictures up to Flickr - they should be there by next weekend, so keep checking back if you get the time!

UPDATE - the pictures are up on Flickr now (have been for a while if you already looked) so check them out when you get a chance. Plenty of Aussie wildlife to see!

Twenty20

While Josh was away training in the US, Kristi had the opportunity to go to a Twenty20 cricket match between Australia and South Africa with Maria, a good friend from work. Twenty20 cricket derives its name from the basis of this style of the game - that each team is only allowed a single inning of 20 overs. As such, it is a much faster game than the Test Cricket that we went see on Boxing Day. The game only lasted about 3 hours and was much more action-packed. The excitement of the night was that a new player, David Warner, came out with gun's a blazin' and made 89 of the 182 points scored by Australia - it was quite impressive! (Unfortunately, the next game he came out and only scored 7 before he was taken out...apparently too much pressure!) We had a wonderful evening and, since Maria is a serious cricket fanatic, it was great fun to watch and learn a bit more about the game!

Back and with Mac

Josh here with an update on travels. It has been a whirlwind of a couple weeks here for the Aussie Kails, we returned from Lord Howe on Jan. 3 and I took off for a week of training in wintry Chicago on the 4th - not much time to pack or adjust and a lot of time in an airplane seat. The trip back provided a great opportunity for a brief Kail gathering in Chicago since it meant "only" a 6hr drive for the Iowa and KC Kails. Mom, Dad, Tim and Rachel met me at O'Hare where not surprisingly one of my bags was delayed and ended up on the next flight - luckily that was only 45min later! The big secret of the trip was that I had brought along Dad's Christmas present - a new guitar made from Australian woods. It didn't take long for it to get tuned up at the baggage claim and strumming to start. Throughout the rest of the night it would make appearances as songs came to mind or were requested by the rest of the group. I also got to experience the massive amount of choices involved in the salad buffet at Sweet Tomatoes, we're not in Melbourne anymore Toto! Though not long enough, it was fantastic to see the family again and catch up, share pictures and stories and start to plan the next visit for Mom and Dad in May.

Once it got to the point that I couldn't keep my eyes open it was time to get checked into training at the 'Q Center' in St. Charles, IL. For being a massive campus, it was very empty as not many people were taking training this time of year. It was nice to get reconnected to folks from the US and the course was helpful in reminding me of some of the 'things to think about' once I start looking for the next promotion in a couple years. The training also reminded me that I am US Lactose Intollerant - apparently something happens in US cheeses and milks that my body doesn't like. I can eat almost any cheese in Oz that I like, but one slice on a sandwich during training kept me up half the night with stomach cramps! Which brings up another point - I never actually adjusted to US time, was never hungry at the 'right' time of day and had trouble sleeping nearly every night. It did make re-adjusting to Melbourne easy, but made it a bit tough to get through the week in Chicago.

Last but not least on the whirlwind was a quick visit to Denver! (For those keeping track: 6hrs with the Kails, 5 days in training, 23hrs in Denver) Heidi picked me up at the airport (and for once all my bags actually arrived) and we headed to Stapleton to do a quick look at our house (and wine cellar) and then meet up with Carmen, Jim and Shannon for dinner. Though not without dramas in actually getting a table, the restaurant was nice, the wine was good and it was so awesome to catch up with everyone. I really enjoyed seeing Shannon again after 2yrs - so much has changed and I'm really looking forward to her Australian visit in March. The other news of the visit was collecting all the various Christmas gifts and purchases that we had received/made during the holidays. The largest purchase being a new laptop - a Macbook! I'm super-excited about this change especially since our old laptop in Melbourne has a screen that no longer holds itself up, has no working CD drives and only works on USB1.1 rather than USB2. Some of that means nothing to many of you, but the bottom line was that it was time for an upgrade. We've now had a bit of time to transfer pictures and music over as well as explore the different touchpad functions, programs and set-up. Thus far it has been a steep learning curve, but I'm still optimistic that we made the right choice. We've already edited a video even - look out Brother Tim, I'm hot on your tail in the video space now!!

So to wrap things up, I'm glad that I was able to squeeze so much into such a short amount of time but it also really makes me look forward to being home-home when our time in Australia is done. It has been a wonderful experience that I would never trade, but I do miss family, friends, mountains, and home.

Holiday Travels

With mandatory breaks from work, we took the opportunity and expanded our Australian travels to Lord Howe Island located off the coast of New South Wales. Known for bird and coral life, no mobile phone coverage and having more bicycles than cars, we were really excited to explore this World Heritage-listed place.

Our first stop was Sydney for a stopover before an early flight the next day. Having been to Sydney a few times we didn't have anything specific to see or do, so we relaxed around Circular Quay and the Botanic Gardens, ending up at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The current Monet exhibit was a great way to escape the heat and humidity and get a bit of culture at the same time. After the gallery it was time to head off to dinner and a movie at one of Sydney's popular tourist and local attractions, Govinda's. To make 'dinner and a movie' easy, Govinda's puts on a large vegetarian buffet, and then also show movies above the restaurant. The buffet was full of tasty Indian foods, the movie was unique (Burn After Reading), and the futons were comfy - overall a memorable experience.

The next morning brought our flight to Lord Howe, and after a bit of repacking to meet the 14kg/person limit on luggage we went to meet our little aircraft. No dramas on the flight and before long we'd landed on the island, met our host, and hopped into the van to take us to our apartment accommodation. We stayed at Leanda-Lei, which just happened to be associated with one of the boat tour operators on the island, allowing us to quickly plan out some activities for the week including a turtle cruise that afternoon. We spent the middle of the day exploring the area on foot, ending up at the lagoon to meet our boat to snorkel and search for turtles. The turtle cruise was a great success with many of the massive reptiles spotted (and of course photographed) proving that it is a big plus to have a local guide that knows where each turtle likes to hang out. Our first snorkel experience was also amazing with the amount of colorful corals around and also seeing both an eel and a nudibranch. The area was so full of marine life, it was definitely an indicator of how much more we would see throughout the week.

Our second day on the island brought the biggest challenge - a climb up Mount Gower, 855m of rock that defined almost half of Lord Howe Island. We booked in with Jack Shick, a 5th generation islander, to take us up and down the mountain on the 14km return hike. Jack was great both in terms of knowledge of the terrain and island history. He also turned out to be quite the photo-buff and gave Josh a few more tips to consider for his photography. The brochures and websites about the hike failed to mention exactly how challenging the 'moderate-hard' walk would be, but had we known that it involved sheer cliff faces and using ropes to pull yourself up steep and slippery inclines, we may have reconsidered having the walk on our itinerary. As it was, by the time we realised the difficulty we were too far in and had to continue to the top to get a rest. The view at the top was amazing and the clouds parted to show the full island beneath us with some spectacular colors in the lagoon waters. We enjoyed our sandwiches and pretzels, psyching up for the challenging descent. Taking our time and staying as safe as possible we picked our way back to the bottom - proud that we'd made it, but also pretty well tired and sore.

After a challenging day on dry land, we decided it was time to spend a day with the fishes and starting out feeding some of the semi-tame Kingfish found at Ned's Beach. These are not small fish, but they've learned over the years that if they hang out in the shallow water people will wade in and feed them bread. Not wanting to disappoint, we brought along a few slices and had a blast watching these massive fish go chasing after little bread morsels. Josh took the camera and got a couple shots underwater as well, though it is easier to see the size of the fish from Kristi's above-water photos. We had time for a quick snorkel around the reef at Ned's beach and then it was time to get ready for the afternoon's adventure - fishing! Leanda-Lei had organised a boat for some of their guests and we got to go along with a view towards catching our dinner. Having never fished in the ocean we didn't know what to expect except sun and water. With 5 fisherpeople aboard, the guides had decided that we would use hand-lines rather than poles for fishing. This allowed everyone to be fishing at the same time without getting into each others way and causing tangles. First stop was south of the island towards Ball's Pyramid where Josh got the first bite AND the first fish (not on the same spot). The first bite ended up being a small shark who proceeded to bite through the line once he got close to the boat, and the first fish was a good sized kingfish that proceeded to ruin Josh's shirt by bleeding everywhere. At least it was only the shirt being the biggest casualty of the day and nothing more serious. After moving to a different fishing spot the bites really started to be fast and furious with Kristi taking home the honors of both the biggest shark hooked (1.5m long Gallapagos Whaler Shark) and the biggest fish (another bigger kingfish) for the day. Our fishing buddies also had some good luck bringing in quite a few of their own Kingfish, a few Trevally, and a Bluefish. It was a great experience for our first ocean fishing trip, and fresh caught and grilled Kingfish is a treat that we enjoyed for two dinners and two lunches!

After all the excitement of the first two days, we spent the rest of the week either in the water scuba diving, snorkeling or kayaking, or on land traipsing around the island watching the various birds go about their lives. Josh was extremely happy to be back under the water and the diving was excellent with plenty to see including more turtles, sharks, eels and of course urchins. The dining on Lord Howe was actually very impressive and we enjoyed a few very nice meals out on various verandas with a pleasant breeze and the night sky. After a quiet New Years Eve we spent a glorious calm New Years Day with a morning scuba and an afternoon of reading books in the shade of pine trees overlooking the lagoon. We very much enjoyed our time on Lord Howe Island and by the time we got home we felt rested, relaxed and ready for a fun-filled 2009.