ice skating

yes. ice skating. i have a client who is a competitive figure skater in perth (actually, i have 2!). when she first told me, i struggled not to laugh. "figure skating? in perth? how did you ever get started in that?"

a few weeks ago there was a small competition being held at the ice arena (they always specify "ice" here. to me, it's just an arena. or a rink). my young client invited myself and a colleague along to watch.

on our drive the rink i realized just how bizarre it was to go watch a figure skating competition in perth. we slowly drove around trying to find this place. it's in a middle-of-nowhere industrial park. not one sign points to the rink (so australian!) until you're pretty much in front of it. we knew we were in the right place when we spotted a gaggle of girls in sparkly spandex standing out front, practicing jumps.

walking inside, i instantly felt at home. there's something about the smell of an arena that just takes me back to the good times at the Bob Turner or Water St. i eagerly anticipated my cheap hot chocolate from the machine and sitting under a small heater. alas, i was disappointed. first, they had a barrista-style coffee machine, with a hot chocolate running at 4.50$! (and not even having soy) pfffft. i'm at a hockey rink people! hot chocolate costs like 2 bucks. tops. and it's made with hot water. and tastes kind of nasty, but mostly nostalgic. 2nd strike- no heaters to be found. luckily they did have fries and gravy- not quite a poutine, but close enough.

claire and i settled in to watch the routines. naturally, our client was going last. right before the synchronized skaters... the what?! i had no idea you could be a synchro skater. we decided to stay and watch the disaster unfold.

i don't know what i was expecting really, but it was terrible! the skaters were amateur, of course. but they were generally awful. it was all we could do not to burst into laughter at times, but sitting with all the parents sort of made us think twice. also, we were sitting directly below the guy with the video camera. every single person fell. at least once. and not just an "oops, i tripped" fall. nope! a big ol' face-plant-missed-the-jump-landing-style fall. thankfully my client was actually good. though even she fell a few times. at least her jumps took her more then a few centimeters off the ground.

now, i know i'm being a bit arrogant, but as a canadian who's been on skates since age 3, i'm pretty sure i could have done better then some of the competitors if you'd give me a few weeks. and i don't even use figure skates. i had expected a slightly higher quality of competition, given that my client is the 2nd or 3rd ranked junior in the country. clearly, i was mistaken.

last, but certainly not least, the synchro skaters were up. we decided to stay only for one routine as it was getting late. there were about 20 girls on the ice, in the worst outfits i'd ever seen. they ranged in age and body size from teeny-tiny to significantly-large. whilst they warmed up and skated around the rink, one tripped (to be fair, she was 1/2 the size of the rest of her line) and bam! like dominoes. one after the other, they all fell down. i think 15 of them hit the deck. and i could barely hold in my giggles. i know, it's rude, but it was just too funny. they did their lackluster routine without too many hitches. but then again, they didn't do anything remotely challenging- no jumps, no lifts, no spins, nothing. just skating in a circle or 2. which actually looked like it was challenging enough for them.

we left when that routine finished and promptly burst into laughter in the car. it was an interesting event to witness in perth. i still have no idea how kids would get into figure skating here. i think we only have one rink in the whole city.

needless to say, i became very aware of why australia doesn't medal in figure skating at the olympics.

xo

the hinterland

the hinterland: also know as the interior, the mountains, inland, etc. the hinterland in australia refers to the non-coastal area west of brisbane and the sunshine and gold coasts. we spent 3 days in the hinterland.

the first day involved an hour drive or so to mount glorious. i mean really, with a name like that how would you not go visit? the drive out of brisbane was fairly easy and rather scenic- winding through "mountain" roads, seeing much lusher forests then we have in WA and greener greens too! the rolling landscape of the hinterland allows for some pretty awesome views as you drive. arriving at mount glorious, we were somewhat uhm, disappointed. there wasn't really any hiking to be done on site and only a picnic area to hang out in- one with great views mind you. so we quickly hoped back into the car and found a random trail a few kms down the way. the walk was nice but nothing extraordinary. we then hoped back into the car and headed to mount nebo (neb-oh? neb-ou? knee-boh?. no idea). again, nice views and a nice short hike. we headed back to jaime's for the night.

the next day we grabbed our overnight bags and drove out to the glass house mountains. i'd been told they were pretty amazing and definitely worth seeing. the drive was also just over an hour from brisbane and we passed the famous "australia zoo", run by the irwin family (of crocodile hunter fame...). the mountains come as a surprise because the drive is rather flat. out of the corner of your eye you see a large rock-like structure jutting out of the surrounding farm-land.

apparently the glass-house mountains are over 25 million years old and are the remnants of large volcanic mountain-type things. the soft sandstone surrounding them have eroded over time and left these popping up in the landscape.

jaime and i decided to try some hikes around them- we managed to hike around the base of one of them (a short 3km hike). i was rather excited at the thought of running into some koalas- there were signs saying to look out for them, up high. i kept stopping to look but alas, none sighted. we had hoped to clamber to the top of the first stop but the sign suggested that you might need some light rappelling gear and a knowledge of australian rock formations (neither of which we had). we got into the car and eventually made our way to a few other of the mountains.

in true australian form, the visitor centre had minimal info about the walks and at no point did they mention that the 2 hikes we were most interested in doing were in fact, unsafe due to rockfalls. so after driving around and looking for entrances to random locations (which we did successfully but only after a surprisingly long time!) we drove up to a sign saying "no hiking". thanks for nothing visitors centre. thanks for nothing. as we headed out to maleny, the quaint village we'd be staying in for the night, we did see 2 wallabies by the side of the road. it was almost worth the driving. almost.

maleny is exactly what you expect a small mountain-town to be. sort of like merrickville actually. we settled into our lovely hotel which had amazing views of the rolling hills and valleys, watched the sunset from our deck before heading into town for some dinner.

the next day we managed to find not one, but 2 nice hikes through the rainforest, which were part of the "great walks of the sunshine coast hinterland". the baroon pocket dam was our first stop- the walks here were much nicer. very rainforesty and lush. we heard the most amazing bird (i'm trying to post it's sound on video...). we then scooted over to mapleton falls for one last hike before stopping for a snack, then hitting the coast for the drive back to brisbane.



i'm looking forward to exploring the rest of the hinterland next year!
xo