VanDijkTrack

Today we made a trip to Dayboro and to the Abbey Museum in Caboolture.
Dayboro is a small village around 45 km north-west of Brisbane. It’s a nice small village known for the Dayboro Rodeo and other events as Dayboro Day Festival, Dayboro Show and Dayboro Markets.

View on Bushland and a few Farms

View on Glass House Mountains

The trip to Dayboro goes through bush land and so now and then some farms show up.  Especially from the higher areas you can have nice views on the Glasshouse Mountains National Park with several mountains, old vulcanos arising out of a flat landscape.  We’ve been there before and this Park gives excellent opportunities for walking over the many  tracks available.

Sign Crash Zone

Next to the road we saw a sign that wasn’t very encouraging: “TAKE CARE Crash Zone next 2 km”, but driving fast shortens the time period of high risk 🙂

Dayboro camp oven of first settlers

This says it all

When approaching Dayboro we saw a sign for a historical location and being a tourist, we went to have a look. To follow the signs we had to take some small roads and finally we found some old black burned stones with a sign “This is the site of the camp oven used by the Anderson family – first settlers in the area before 1907.)
 
This again showed the reality. This country has a long history with the Aboriginals but the (European and other) settlers have only a history of a few hundreds of years and that’s already leading to some confusion.

Suddenly a Lollypop Man showed up

Leaving the Camp Oven with the Historical Park, we took a very quiet sandy road. At those times we are happy that we have a 4WD car. Then suddenly out of nothing a “Lolly Pop Man” (that’s how a traffic controller with a slow/stop sign is called sometimes) showed up.  We didn’t expect them here in the middle of the bush without nearly any traffic, but it seems that they are everywhere. They asked us if we had seen the big snake, as long as the road width, crossing the road, but we didn’t. Then we could continue our journey.

Abbey Museum Caboolture

From Dayboro we went to Caboolture to visit the Abbey Museum. This museum is really unique for Australia with a lot of historical items from Europa, and Egypt. We really can recommend this place if you pass by.

Abbey Museum Caboolture

Fascinating how such a high standard museum can be located in such a small village. It was a great opportunity to walk through the periods of European history with Nicole and Jorick. We also had a look at a church nearby with many old “glass in lead” windows and other religious ceremonial items.

This is also the location for the yearly Abbey Medieval Festival. Unfortunately next time is not earlier then July 2009.  

Italian restaurant Caboolture

In Caboolture we had a conversation with an older man about the characteristics of Caboolture and living there.  he was born there and we signed up his words: “you have to hang your hat somewhere”.
We closed the day with a diner at an Italian restaurant (Jorick’s favorite).

Some things from daily life:

Watching the frogs

Mound of Brush Turkey getting larger

Daily life just goes on but with many new experiences that are typical for Australia/Brisbane. Everyday we watch the Brush Turkey mainting his mould. Incredible how busy he can be the whole day. We are now removing many brushes, plants and paths with small stones from our top level garden. So often the Turkey and we are working together side by side. And when it comes down to the essence live the differences between him and us are small.

One of many

Iguana

Jorick and Nicole love the Frogpont(s) and like to watch (and catch) the little tiny frogs. Also many other animals and insects show up.  Recently Nicole found an Iguana as shown in the picture at the right (puzzle). Many different reptiles become  active now the temperature is rising. Jorick enjoyed a visit to one of his friends from his 1st pre-school here. And again together we have visited the “Dutch Playground Group” which was fun. Periodically one of the many Parks in Brisbane is selected where tens of Dutch families with children meet. The children have a play together in the playgrounds that are nearly everywhere and the parents can have a chat in Dutch which sometimes is a relief.

Having a barbie in the evening

Nicole and Jan a la Renoir

And of course at least once a week we’re having a barbie (BBQ). Everytime that’s a nice experiences with the many sounds from the Rainforest.

That’s it for now.

We are happy that we can stay in touch with many of you in different ways. Thanks. 

Cheers,

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick

After 5 months in Australia it’s now mid winter. This week is very cold. Maximum temperature during the day is sometimes below 20 degrees and at night incidentally below 5 degrees. Maybe it doesn’t sound that bad and of course it’s relative, but we don’t have a central heating system in the house which isn’t isolated as it is usual; in the Netherlands. So in the evening we have to use the wood burner and/or the reversed air-conditioning. The differences in temperature are sometimes amazing. Last week, early in the morning, we noticed some ice on the windscreen of the car and the next day the temperature was 27 degrees. It seems that the oranges and lemons in our garden don’t really care. They just keep growing initiating battles between the Possums and us to conquer the full grown fruits.

This is the time of the year for garden changes. That’s why we are removing many plants, stone tracks and large stones to extend the lawn. This will give the children more space to play on lawn. Buffalo grass is the type of grass we have and is doing well in the local weather circumstances.

Although we didn’t discover any dangerous animals (spiders, snakes) around the house, removing the plants,
brushes and stones will reduce the chance of meeting them close the house significantly and will make it a safer place to play. We created a sandpit and got sand delivered to fill it up. The children use it frequently now. In the bush Jan made/improved some tracks with the brush mower. This makes it easier to walk around and spend some time jogging.

Our first feedback on the snake skin found on the lawn was that it would be of a brown snake. We didn’t like the idea, so we brought the skin to the Queensland Museum for examination. Based on the shape of the skin segments the experts said it was a harmless non-venomous “Green Tree Snake”. That’s good news. With the cold weather the animals are not very active. This keeps the spiders and many reptiles away. Nevertheless, we still see several Lizards, and the Bush Turkeys are still ruining our garden. When we are working in the garden and sweating, the laughing Kookaburras are watching and laughing at us. When we remove plants small animals show up and Kookaburra know how to catch them rapidly. They eat lizards, frogs, (small)snakes, worms and insects and their sound is looks like laughing. (player at bottom of page)

During the winter holiday we all took a week to relax after a busy period. We were invited for a BBQ at the Alma Zoo which also gave us the opportunity to see some special animals. Alma Zoo is only around 15 km from our home, giving us the opportunity to visit the animals there so now and then.

In Redcliff we enjoyed the beach. It’s a long beach with many seats, BBQ’s, playgrounds and other facilities. It’s a great opportunity to relax for people of all ages. We were not very lucky with the weather since it became clouded as soon as we arrived, but still it was nice to stay In the Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art we went to the exhibition “Picasso and his collection” showing his personal collection and sources of inspiration. Brisbane was the first time that this collection was shown outside Europe, so we took the opportunity. To see some of the paintings click. here.

  In the Queensland Museum we looked around (and got our snake skin examined by local experts). The children enjoyed themselves in the State Library where they can do a lot of creative activities with local teachers helping them. They love it.

During the holidays Nicole went for a week to Vacation Care where she could play with other children.

Since we left our 2 and 3 seater in NL, we also went looking to buy new ones which we did. It will be delivered in September.

After the holiday Jorick started at his new pre-school “Little Genesis Early Learning Center”. It took some time before he got used there, but now he is enjoying it. Last Saturday he went playing with a friend from his previous pre-school and both of them really loved to see each other again. Jorick recently started with private English lessons form the same teacher that has helped Nicole. It shows that Jorick still finds it difficult to express himself in English, so that’s why we expect that these lessons will help him further. At least he loves to follow those lessons.

Nicole has catched up so well that we reduced her number of lessons and are considering to stop it. She is doing very well and surprises everybody with her language skills.

On the 31th of July it was Nicole’s birthday. She got a Barbie doll house, a cat that can move and several other toys. In the morning we had breakfast with cake (what a bad parents we are) and at school she pointed out some sweets. On Saturday the 2nd of August was her party. She invited all the girls and a few boys from her class and some
other children she has met here. In total around 20 children and some parents, so it was fun. In effect she got a lot of presents as well which kept her busy (unpacking and) playing for days. Anita had prepared a creative session where everybody could make his own flower. The flower could be completed by doing several activities during the treasure hunt and finally they found the treasure with bags of sweets. It was fun.

Last Sunday we have visited the Doulos in the Brisbane harbor. It’s the oldest passenger ship that’s still operational. It was launched in 1914, making it 2 years younger than the Titanic, and will be decommissioned in 2010. It was bought in 1977 by OM with the mission “Bringing knowledge, help and hope“. The ship is run by volunteers and on the ship is a large bookstore with relatively cheap books, so we couldn’t resist buying some books and we had an on-board tour. We still enjoy living here and are looking forward to spring.

Wish you all the best.

Kind regards,

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick