VanDijkTrack

It’s summer now and we have holidays for 3 weeks. We already have visited a few attractions, had some barbecues with local people and enjoyed just hanging around our house with the bush garden and good weather.

At the Workshops Rail Museum in Ipswich (West of Brisbane) we could see many old trains, blacksmiths furnaces with demonstrations and last but not least a Thomas the Train exhibition. Thomas the tank engine was present with many of his friends. Even Sir Topham Hatt, The Fat Controller in person, the head of the Railway was walking around and told many stories about the trains.

Thomas the Tank Engine and many of his friends were present, like Donald, one of the two Scottisch locomotives. He has a twin Douglas. Both Donald and Douglas are painted black. In order to tell them apart, Sir Topham Hatt decided to give them separate numbers. Donald is number 9. He loves working and Sir Topham Hatt can rely on him to do just about anything from fixing track, rescuing other engines and even ploughing through snow. Sir Topham Hatt asked D199 to come to the Island of Sodor on a trial. D199 arrived with ideas about making the railway new and modern but had lots of trouble making friends because he felt he was better than the steam trains. D199 pulls the Knapford Express and the Express Coaches. Also George the Grumpie Steamroller was there, not being a friend of the Railway Engines. His motto is “Railways are no good”, pull them up, turn them into roads. He once had an accident with Sir Handel and managed to upset Daisy by threatening to build a road over her rails.

After the world of Thomas and the Fat Controller’s Engines we went a whole day shopping and bought lots of clothes. Clothing is relatively cheap here since you only need a shorts and a t-shirt 😉

We also went a day to Surfers Paradise at the Gold Coast. Friends from The Netherlands came for a few days to Surfers Paradise after having stayed for a while in Sydney. We spent the day together at a terrace, in a beautiful swimming pool at their hotel, the beach and dinner. Also Jorick and Nicole enjoyed it a lot and had their first (surf-)board experience on the waves.

In the same week we joined a meeting of Dutch children in the Queens Park Ipswich. It’s a beautiful park with different gardens, a Japanese styled garden, a large playground and a small zoo. Especially Nicole got frightened by the fake crocodile heads and could not appreciate the joke. 😉

We enjoy our holidays and get used to the heat. When temperature approaches 20 degrees we already perceive it as very cold. It’s all relative. However, wearing only shorts and a shirt each day for months is a strange experience.

When we hear and read about the weather in The Netherlands with all the ice skating fun we also get a bit jealous.

Kind regards,

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick

First of all: We wish you all the best for 2009 !
After setting up the Christmas Tree and the Christmas Carols it was fun to experience the way Christmas is celebrated here. We went for a day to the Brisbane Central Business District to look around. Already in October the shops were decorated for Christmas and started selling typical Christmas products. In the beginning of November Santa, led by his reindeer, is entering the city with the Christmas Parade(s) and there is also a multicultural Christmas Parade. In the weeks before Christmas a lot of activities and attractions are organized with fireworks every evening.

In front of the Brisbane Council we found a large Christmas Tree with a large “Christmas Tree Ball” and in the Queenstreet a Theater acts were performed and there was a Singing Christmas Tree with a choir integrated in a Christmas Tree.

In the Myer shopping centre kids could take a ride through the shop with a Christmas train, they could visit Santa and they could colour a picture with different colours of sand. Behind the windows sophisticated stories with Santa and his helpers were shown with mechanical moving puppets “How Santa really works”.

Several streets in the city were incredibly decorated. Contests are stimulating streets and individuals to decorate their houses and some homes are even open for the public to have a look inside.

At school Nicole got many Christmas cards from children in her class. Some of the with candy canes. Candy canes are very popular here and as a result we had a lot of them in the Christmas tree.
The day before Christmas Nicole found a Christmas Beetle in the garden. We had never heard about it, but here it seems a well know animal showing up around Christmas with golden shiny wings.

Also here Christmas is very much a family event. When Christmas finally was there we enjoyed to be invited by Dutch friends with young children. The kids could have a swim in their swimming pool and we had a Barbeque.

When Jan was walking along the house he suddenly heard a strange noise and then saw a snake hiding behind the basketball net. So he moved the basketball net to see the snake more clearly whereafter the snake fled into the garage. That was not a place to keep it, so some action was taken to remove it.

According to Dutch tradition we had a “Nieuwjaarsduik” (New Year Dive) on the 1st of January with other Dutch families. With a temperature above 30 degrees this wasn’t too bad, although the “Unox erwtensoep” was missing.

This high temperature during Christmas really was weird. It was unreal and didn’t give us the usual Christmas feeling. Anyhow, until now our (plastic) Christmas tree still didn’t melt.

From Australia we would like to thank you for tracking our news on the website in 2008 and staying in touch. We (kids included) really appreciate that. And again we wish you all a very good 2009 !!

Best wishes from Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick