The Swan Valley

it as a lovely winter morning on saturday when i got a text from my friend amanda wondering if i was interested in visting the swan valley in the afternoon. being that it was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, i couldn't pass the offer up. we picked up another of her friends in perth, then drove off to the swan valley. i sincerely thought this was going to be a long drive, but turns out it's about 15km out of the city, surprisingly close really.

the swan valley is a lot like south western ontario's wine region. vineyards abound, back roads leading to more vineyards, random shops, tourists, etc. in fact, had it not been for driving on the left and strange aussie street names, i might have forgotten where i was.

driving around the 30km loop of vineyards, we decided to make a few random stops. first, and most importantly, was the margaret river chocolate company. delicious, fancy chocolats, with some "chocolat chip" things in bowls for us to test. unfortunately, it's not like at the hershey factory. you can't actually walk through it. and there is no store with discounted "seconds". instead, it just smelled and tasted yummy. i bought john some dark chocolate (to go with his red wine) and one with chili in it. apparently they're quite good.

our next stop was a bit off of the beaten track. we went to a place called "the maze". it's being renovated so that it's more exciting then it as previously (apparently anyhow). it's a large area that consists of 4-5 mazes, disc golf, mini putt, some animals (more on that in a sec) and a small cafe. we explored the mazes. some where none to fascinating (think "hedge maze" where the hedges were rotting and you could walk through wherever you want) but a few had us stumped for a while. the one that annoyed us the most was bales of hay low to the ground with instructions that say "you can only turn right, no u turn and no walking backwards". it took us a while to figure out, but in the end we made it safe and sound. *phew* a good thing too, cause it was getting dark and it would've sucked to get lost in the maze... ;)

in between a few of the mazes, we flukishly went to find the koalas. turned out that they are only "on display" for a little while at a time, a few times a day because they need to sleep a lot. they only eat eukalyptus leaves and therefore need to sleep to maintain their energy (i'm so educated on them now). luckily, we arrived to the koala area about 5 mins before the next "show". if i hadn't known that the 2 koalas were real, i would never have guessed it. they looked like stuffed animals. but they eventually woke up and man! are they cute. the koala lady even brought the male out for us to pet. they're not quite as soft as you would expect but still cute. and really, all that matters is that i got to pet a koala. (which aren't native to WA) a little bit of education: they are not called koala bears...australia doesn't have any bears, so don't make that mistake. and they are also known as drop bears because they fall out of the trees alot. ha! i would pay good money to see that. or i'll just go to the eastern states and wait near a tree until i see one.we also saw a few peacocks roaming around as well as some kangaroos. but the 'roos were fenced in, so it wasn't quite as cool as when they're in the wild.

we left there and headed off to find a few vineyards. we stopped at 2 of them and enjoyed tasting some wine and eating some cheese and crackers (i use the term enjoy loosely. i, obviously, don't enjoy it. but it was fun anyhow). i bought john a bottle of red (to go with his chocolate) but since he's in exams, i don't know if it was a good purchase yet or not.

our last stop for the day was a distillery. which happened to distill rum. woohoo! the first thing the lady told us when we went in was how it was different from bundaberg (dirty ashtray), thank heavens! we enjoyed a fresh mojito with the superb tasting rum while watching the sun make its way down the sky. as it was starting to get a bit cool, we packed it in and drove back into the city. an enjoyable day, to say the least.

yesterday was much of the same weather and i spent the better part of the day outside weeding and cleaning. amanda and i went down to point walter, which isn't too far from my house and happens to be quite a nice point on the river. we got there in time to enjoy a chai latte on the grass with the sun beating down and then walked out along the large sandbar that heads practically half way into the river. a good way to end the weekend i'd say.

xo

Aussie Rules

Let me tell you about the most ridiculous, but fun and exciting, sport i've seen in a long time. it's called australian rules football. for us non-australians, it would be referred to as aussie rules. to australians and/or people living here, it's called footy. plain and simple. it's as big as north american football and way, way cooler. in fact, i actually enjoy watching this sport. i wasa lucky enough to go to a game to see the West Coast Eagles. they happen to be last year's champs, so tickets are hard to come by. luckily, a friend of a friend has season's passes and was unable to attend.

the game is played on a pitch that is 1.5 times larger then your typical soccer pitch. but it's in the shape of an oval. there are four posts at each end, 2 tall ones in the middle and 2 short ones on either side of those. the object of the game is to kick the ball between the tall posts (for 6 points) or knock it through by hand (1 point), kick it through the short post (1 point) or hit the posts (1 point).

no more then 18 players per side can be on the pitch at one time. the only way to move with the ball is to kick it to your team mates (where the ref whistles to stop the play, but the whistle is mostly ignored and play continues on. it's wierd), kock it to another player (you can't actually pass it, you have to hit it to them) or run with it (but you have to bounce the ball every 15 meters at the most). the ball that they use looks like a rugby ball, but it probably a slight cross between the rugby ball and the american football.

the game has 4 quarters of about 20 mins each with no stop time. but the clock is technically "stopped" when the play stops, so the quarters can run up to about 30 mins or so. i think these guys may be the fittest athletes i have seen. they run the entire game but still have to be pretty strong because footy is very much a contact sport. tackle tackle tackle, in just about any way shape or form to get the ball. between quaters, the guys stay on the field and discuss with the team. at half time, unfortunately, they go away for about 25 mins. nothing happens at half time except a bunch of little kids playing on the pitch. that's not very exciting.

superficially, aussie rules seems to equal no rules, but really, there are many. almost like lacross... you know, you can't pull the other player's shirt, but feel free to cross check him in the back with your stick. well, it's kind of like that in footy as well. lucky for my friend and i, the man beside us was helping out a bit, then lent us his son's headset so we could hear the commentary and actually try to understand what was going on.

as far as i could see, there were 5 refs involved. 3 on the field and 2 on the side. there were also 2 "goal" refs who have these hand signals and flags to say that a goal has been scored. the refs on the field are in pretty fantastic shape as well. the only other people on the field are uhm, i'll call them runners. they are people dressed in fluorescent yellow (and i would want to be as well!) who run onto the field with info for players from the coaches. only one per team is allowed on at a time.

it's a fun sport to watch and we're definitely becoming big fans. if you want to read more about it you can probably look on wikipedia. needless to say, it was good times to see the game.

xo