Field Report: My Parents Visit 2018 Part I

[aggienaut]

Presently driving along (well, dad is driving) through central Tasmania, here looking like open parkland on gently undulating hills, on yet another beautiful sunny day. Every day I plan to update my blog before my infamously terrible memory gets too far behind, but we're just too busy and I'm diving too tired by the time we call it a day or.. the Olympics are on. Normally we don't watch much television but the Olympics have always been an exception, so my usually wide open evenings are taken up with cheering for Norwegians or Swedes or Americans or more obscure countries I have some connection to.

Anyway my parents arrived on Friday, February 9th, about two weeks ago now. We were going to come to Tasmania halfway through that first week but discovered the ferry over was booked out entirely until over a week later -- Sunday night of the following weekend. And even then we'd have to be in separate cabins

But in the mean time, on Day 2, Saturday, February 10th, we walked a segment of the rail trail from nearby Colac town that heads ultimately into the deep forests down near the coast, where the narrow guage rail used to be used to extract timber. This was a lovely walk of about 5k through the middle of forested land. We also tried to eat at the Botanical Garden Cafe in Colac, which I'd heard was one of the few places worth visiting in said town.I was shocked to find that even though it was the middle of the day on a Saturday afternoon in summer the cafe was closed. It's hours are 10-4 Monday through Friday ?!?! This despite being located on a promontory within the botanical garden just beside and overlooking the large Lake Colac. Seems like weekend afternoons in summer would be their best time!! I've noticed some other places around here with similarly bizarre hours.

Saturday evening we went down to my friend Udis billabong and threw some chicken on his "grillabong." Sadly the weather turned await cold just as we were starting that but it was still enjoyable. I believe we saw around 30-40 kangaroos this day.

Day 3, Sunday - mom and dad both swam in a race at Indented Head, about an hour and a half from my place out on the Bellarine Peninsula. Mom swam the 500m race and dad 1200m, from the beach, out and back. I was perfectly satisfied to stay ashore

Monday through Friday I worked and they seemed perfectly happy to occupy themselves removing my cobwebs, removing mold from my bathroom ceiling I0hadn't even noticed, getting my knives sharpened (I had noticed my main kitchen knife had become more likely to bludgeon soft fruit to death than cut them), and other such things.

On Thursday I met them for lunch at my favorite cafe near work, the Black Pearl Cafe, run by my friend and neighbor (block over neighbor anyway) Joe, who happened to be in. Mentioning to him my lawn needed mowing (and I still have no mower) he readily volunteered to come over after I got off work. Sure enough he came over and we blasted through my yard with0his complete set of lawn care tools, Just after I'd mowed over a small depression in the ground I saw a scaly black back that looked to belong to a thick snake, causing me to jump back in alarm since we do have mostly very deadly snakes here. Then I saw an arm on it which meant it was a blue tongue lizard, which looks very much like a short snake w legs. I was now very concerned it may have been mangled by the mower but that didn't seem to be the case after examination. I coaxed it into a cardboard box and put it on the veranda to be out of harms way for the remaining mowing.

Worked till four on Friday and then my parents came by and headed from there to go to the east side of the bay for the weekend prior to the Sunday night ferry departure. There we saw penguins and things but I'm gonna save that for another entry because I'm missing the views here!!

Comments

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good time being had....

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Quite so!!

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Isn't it lovely to have parents who will do the chores you don't get around to (or don't see)?
I speak from the experience of a parent who willingly does these things.
:)
Your parents are very active! Good for them!
It sounds like a good time.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah it was heaps of fun!! And yeah they're very active! Can be hard to keep up!

[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

You have nice parents. Mine never came to visit, and wouldn't have done any of those things had they come. But such is life.

I can't wait to hear about the penguins. I like penguins.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Aw ):

[pundigrion.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fun trip for them!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

They claim to have had fun! (: I wonder if my mom will post to LJ about it.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Ooh...is that a challenge? I'll probably end up relying upon YOUR reports for data!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I better hurry up and get them out then!

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Did you go to Phillip Island for the weeny little penguins that come in from the sea at dark? I did that about four years ago!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I did!! (: (:

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

It was so fun, right? My friend haldane took me there.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeeah! It was funny every time in announcements or notices on site they mentioned "protecting our little penguins" or "the migration habits of our little penguins" or something at first I thought they were being all cutesy and endearing, and then I'd remember that that IS the technical term for them (:

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

When I was in Australia I found the hours kept by restaurants to be bizarre as well. We made the mistake of not getting lunch sufficiently close to noon one day and discovered that by 2 PM the restaurants were all closed until dinner time. When we were in Daintree (far northern Queensland) we had to be careful about going to dinner at the appointed hour because the restaurant closed pretty quickly and there was no place else to go.

Your parents sound like a lot more fun to be around than my parents.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's pretty standard here that places are open 12-2 and 6-8. I am very often hungry outside those narrow windows but in the country here you're flat out of luck!!! I think it might be because of the high pay they have to pay the kitchen staff, so they reduce their hours to a bare minimum.. which must in turn be hell for people who work in the culinary industry, getting paid four hours a day in two hours shifts.