Moving Off, Moving On
14 November 2010 | Ballina, NSW
Christine
We've moved off the boat and onto land. The last few days were similar to times we've moved out of one house to another. Stuff just keeps appearing out of the hidey holes and boxes and more boxes are required. We are shipping the lot home and the day of reckoning will happen back in Seattle in a couple months: Where to put it all?! Meanwhile we've paired down to a duffle bag each and we'll spend the next month and a half travelling to all the places I remember dreaming about as a child: Tasmania, the South Island of New Zealand (Southland, they call it), and Stewart Island (even more South than Southland.)
As Eric wrote, it was bittersweet to leave the Jenny P. We were cramped as a family of 5 with kids who just keeping growing bigger! And being on a boat is like living on a farm - you just don't sit back on the front porch and sip your tea while the sun sets behind your amber waves of grain. It requires constant tending and mending - that is if you expect your boat to actually leave its berth. Jenny P represents so many memories we've made over the last 10 years - not to mention the epic journey we just completed - that we all shed a few tears as we each gave her bowsprit a kiss and said, "Farewell."
While in Brisbane it wasn't all boxing and cleaning - we made sure to carve out some fun time as well. We spent 2 days at the Australia Zoo (home of the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin.) The kids are busy writing up their impressions which we'll post shortly, so I'll keep my summary short: the most up close I've ever been to so many interesting animals and yet the most bizarre cult of personality experience I've had to date (I have not yet been to Graceland so I'm holding out for that comparison.) The Zoo is half animal-fest, half shrine to Steve-o. But the real weirdness is in the use of their kids as consumer products: on t-shirts, in books, in Free Willy movie sequals, handbags, even a Barbie figure. It was strangely embarrassing and they aren't even my kids. The Zoo portion was stunning and it made me wonder how our own Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle might rise to that level of animal/people interaction - how much more satisfying a visit it could be!
We also went to a cricket match at "The Gabba," Brisbane's main cricket field. Eric printed the rules from Wikipedia and we read them as we sat in the stands on a beautiful sunny day. Some fans in front of us realized we were American and trying to get a handle on the game, so with typical Aussie generosity, they spent the next hour pointing out subtleties in action and strategy that we would have otherwise missed. I'm not usually a sports fan, but Cricket really is such a civilized game that I could've stayed for the remaining hours and hours of the match and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The kids became restless after holding it together for almost 3 hours, so we decided to call it a day.
We are now nestled in the "bush" - about 3 hours South of Brisbane on a horse ranch called "Tassiriki." The ranch owners lived and worked in Vanuatu for years in an area called Tassiriki, "place of calm waters," that is how the ranch gets its name. And calm it is. We sleep in a little cabin with bunk beds and an efficiency kitchen and a front porch. Of course, it also has a substantial bbq grill so we've had wonderful family dinners on the picnic table outside with the horses neighing and the friendly dogs making the feed rounds with their owner in the early morning and again in the evening. The kids have had an hour lesson each, four days in a row. They've become quite confident on their pony "Nugget" and today Sophie and Eric are taking a 2-hour ride together (with guide) along the ocean shore. The quiet of the farm is heavenly.