Canada Pt 3: The Island

After saying goodbye to Rob in Whitehorse, Paul and I had a long day flying to Vancouver and then back up to Port Hardy at the north of Vancouver Island.

We spent the night in a delightful B&B called Chocolate and Serenity. The host made her own chocolates in a commercial kitchen in the basement, and so our room came with a bowl of gourmet chocolates. Our host said she had a bear in her back yard three days ago, so we were hopeful of seeing one, but unfortunately we didn’t.

Our highlight in Port Hardy – apart from the chocolates – was seeing two bald eagles quite low in a tree. When we stepped a little too close, they took off simultaneously and flew down towards the water, so we got a good look at them. There was another pair flying around, and two young ones in a nest behind our B&B.
The next part of our trip was the one I was most looking forward to – a 4-day whale watching camp. We were picked up from Telegraph Cove in a water taxi. It was extremely windy that day – apparently highly unusual – and the water was quite rough. After a 25 minute trip, we were dropped onto the beach at our camp.

The camp accommodates just 10 people in 5 canvas tents on platforms, looking out to the bay we were in. We had actual beds in our tent, but nothing else apart from deck chairs. It was basic but comfortable. (The long drop toilet was not so flash). All meals are served “family style” in an open-air dining room. There was even an outdoor shower with a view!

We were served lunch and then taken on a short walk on the trail to a couple of lookout points. The island was only about 1km by 1km and the trail did not go all the way around the island.  So unfortunately for Paul, he had to resign himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to get 20,000 steps in on these next few days. It was too rough to go out that afternoon, so we just relaxed in our tent. I did some yoga on the deck, we snoozed and read.

The next morning we got up early for our first whale excursion. It was foggy, and thankfully the water was very calm, so it made for a very atmospheric setting.

It didn’t take long to find humpbacks. In the calm, quiet waters the sound of them breathing through their blowholes travelled really clearly, and at one point we were surrounded by humpbacks in all directions, just our boat in the fog, with whales surfacing and blowing all around us. It was magical.

The best photo I could manage

We went back for breakfast – pancakes – and then heard on the radio that there were orcas not far away. Of course, I really wanted to see orcas for myself, as they are one of my favourite animals. But even more, I wanted there to be orcas for Kev, a fellow Australian on the tour who had planned his whole 6 week Canadian trip around this part, as he also loved orcas (possibly more than me!). But Kev had never seen them before, whereas I have several times.

Thankfully, we saw three different pods, including a bull with a massive dorsal fin. They weren’t doing anything particularly interesting, just gliding along, but at one point one did surface enough that we could see the white patch around its eye. Kev and I were very happy. We also saw a sea lion that had caught a fish, and two bald eagles that were fighting over something in mid-air.

Later that day while the rest of the group went out fishing, Paul and I went kayaking with our guide, Kelly. At one point there was a humpback that seemed quite close to us, so that was pretty awesome.

The next day we had a clear day and made several more excursions to see both orcas and humpbacks. We also had some Dall’s porpoise surfing on the bow of our boat, which was fabulous because you could clearly see them in the water below.

A real highlight was watching a humpback who appeared to be lolling about on a piece of kelp on the surface. He was rolling around, waving his fins. Very cool to watch.

On our final morning it was foggy again, and we could hear humpbacks but couldn’t see them. But the highlight of the morning – and actually, for me the whole trip – was being surrounded by about 400 dolphins leaping, jumping, backflipping. Everywhere we looked, 360 degrees around us, there were dolphins. And they also surfed on our bow and did leaps right next to us. It was an incredible experience, one I will never forget.

We said goodbye to our hosts and had a calm trip back to telegraph cove, where the group had lunch together. We then parted ways and Paul and I headed to Port McNeill for the night.

The next day we took a bus to Campbell River. I spent the whole time looking for bears because a taxi driver had told us that he often saw them on the side of the road. We then picked up a hire care – an absolute beast of a truck – and drove to Tofino, a picturesque town on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Tofino is a popular little town surrounded by rainforest, wild surf beaches on one side and calm inlets on the other side, in the Clayoquot Sound. We stayed in an AirBnB that had a lounge and kitchenette, a hot tub and amazing views over the water. As well as a delicious breakfast, including pastries fresh from the bakery!

We spent our time doing lots of little rainforest and beach trails. I also got two yoga classes in and Paul some running.

It was quite foggy most days. Our host told us that they called it Fogust instead of August. It was incredible to watch it slowly creep in towards us. So we would be on the beach but not really able to see the water unless we walked right up to the edge. But we did also get some clear afternoons and fabulous sunsets.

Now, by this point we had been in Canada for two and a half weeks and had not seen a bear. Back when we were in Banff, Paul said he wanted to see a bear while we were out walking. I said “careful what you wish for” to which he exclaimed “I DO wish for bears!”. So we were pretty keen, and decided to book a bear watching trip.

We went out on a boat with 10 other people and cruised the inlets at low tide when the bears come to the water’s edge looking for crabs. We were delighted to see several bears, with glossy black coats, foraging amongst the rocks. They were not at all bothered by the boat, and as they were right on the water’s edge, we were able to get way closer than you would ever want to get to a bear on land. We could hear him pick up rocks and put them back down. Some birds followed behind, opportunistically riding on the bear’s efforts. At one point a bird got too close to the bear (or to his crab) and the bear quickly turned and snapped grumpily at the bird, who hopped back in a hurry. Another memorable experience.

Later that morning as we were driving down the highway, a black bear ran across the road in front of us. He leaped the concrete barricades and ran into the rainforest. We couldn’t believe our eyes. Paul remarked “Nearly three weeks without a single bear, we pay $250 to go and see them, an hour later one crosses the road in front of us.”

On our way out of Tofino we went for a beautiful walk in Ucluelet called the Wild Pacific Trail. The trail wasn’t wild – it was well maintained in amongst the rainforest – so I think the reference was to the Pacific Ocean being wild, because that’s what the walk overlooks. All along this coast are piles of massive pieces of driftwood. I’m talking logs that you could build a house with!

We spent our final evening at Nanoose Bay. My old housemate in Banff, Susan, and her husband JB, own a trailer there, and kindly offered it to us.

The best bit was that Susan and JB were there too, as it’s a long weekend in Canada. So we got to have breakfast with them on our final day in Canada on the final day of Summer. Then Paul and I made our way from Vancouver Island to the airport in Vancouver via ferry, bus and sky train.

As usual, I think I spent more time planning this trip than I actually spent on the trip itself, but it was worth it. We have had a wonderful time, seen so much, had amazing experiences with nature and wildlife, caught up with old friends and made new ones. This visit has only reconfirmed my love of Canada and I am already dreaming about when I can visit again.

 

Canada – week 1

Thirteen years after I last visited Canada, Paul and I landed in Vancouver for a three week visit that will take in the Rockies, the Yukon, and the Island.

Out first two days were spent in Vancouver, catching up with friends and doing lots of walking. Paul set an intention of walking at least 20,000 steps per day. I declined to commit, instead saying I would walk as few or as many steps as were required to see and do what I wanted to do.

I caught up with Katherine, who used to work at World Vision with me, a Vancouver native. It was great to get a local perspective on the city. It was also good to be driven around by Katherine for a few hours so we could grill her about the road rules in preparation for picking up a hire car.

 
We had dinner with Michael, a dear friend from my year living in Banff. It has been 13 years since we saw each other so we had a lot to catch up on. I told Mike I was old and boring now, to which he laughed that he had travelled to Mexico with me and that I was definitely not boring. I had to remind him that what goes on tour stays on tour.

 
Our next two days were spent driving from Vancouver to Lake Louise. Unfortunately, with literally hundreds of fires burning in British Columbia alone, the air is thick with smoke haze. On the highways we caught glimpses of imposing mountains, but much of the drive was a white-out, as if we were in a fog.

 
We stayed at a traditional B&B on Shuswap Lake in Sicamous on the way. Meant to be the houseboat capital of Canada but there weren’t too many boats on the lake – well if there were I wouldn’t have seen them anyway.

From Shuswap Lake we stopped at a waterfall, and then I spotted a sign to a wolf sanctuary that I had been to with Sharon and Justin in 2005. Paul didn’t want to go in – he’s afraid of dogs so apparently wolves were next level! I recall that I paid a fair bit of money in 2005 to have my photo taken with a wolf, which enabled me to pat him. I can’t remember exactly what I paid but it’s now $380 so I just paid the $12 to look at them in their enclosures and hear the conservation talk. Sadly, it’s legal to kill any wolf found outside a national park. Apparently the Canadian Government is culling wolves in order to protect a dwindling caribou population. Which has led to situations where hundreds of wolves have been killed in a park that sustains only 3 female caribou. Seems kind of crazy.

We walked around Emerald Lake which was a short and pleasant stroll around a stunningly clear lake. Visibility was pretty good here so we could see the surrounding mountains.

We arrived at Lake Louise late in the afternoon. We briefly went down to the lake, and then took a picnic dinner down to Moraine Lake, which is one of my favourites.

The long summer days keep confusing me, as I think it’s around 7 or 8pm when it’s actually 10pm. Which leads to actions like ordering dessert at 10pm at night before you realise the time.

We got up early and went back to Lake Louise itself, and hiked up the Plain of 6 Glaciers to a swiss style tea house. Apparently they do two food drops by helicopter each (summer) season. And we happened to be there for the second one. It was quite fascinating to watch. 

We had hot chocolate at the tea house and then sat and contemplated the glaciers. Again, we had good visibility, so the views were spectacular. Thankfully, we beat most of the crowds who were heading up the path by the time we were coming down.


We headed into Banff, where it was starting to get hazy again. But as soon as I caught my first glimpse of Rundle Mountain, tears sprang to my eyes. So many memories, such a significant period of my life spent in this town.

There are a few new buildings, but the town is largely unchanged from when I lived there. It is the peak of the busy summer season, and there are people and cars everywhere. I was reminded of how frustrated I used to get trying to run an errand down Banff Avenue and having to dodge tourists who would stop obliviously in the middle of the path.

Once again, we did a lot of walking – along Bow River, out to Vermilion Lakes, up Tunnel Mountain. We had a drink at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, a place that taps into every girl’s childhood fantasy of being a princess. Paul went mountain biking, I did a yoga class. We had dinner with my old housemate Susan and her husband JB, which was fabulous to catch up. I also saw some of my old workmates who still live in Banff. We spent our final evening soaking in the outdoor hot springs.





It was a different experience to be there as a tourist, of course. But I still felt a strong connection to the mountains around me.

The Third Act (NZ part 3)

From Hokitika (where we couldn’t get into any restaurants so bought food from the supermarket and made use of our hot plate and microwave) we drove across the South Island. We headed through the Marlborough wine growing region, which looked magnificent with the varying shades of autumn on all the vines. Some of my favourite brands of Sauvignon Blanc are grown here so we made a few stops.

We spent the night in Picton before heading off on our next four day hike in the Queen Charlotte Sound. Unlike the Milford Track, this time we were staying in hotels along the way, and were having our packs transported by boat whilst we walked.

This part of New Zealand had copped a lot of rain recently, so the first day was quite muddy. I was glad for my new hiking pole! The first day was only around 7km, so we arrived at our first hotel in plenty of time to crack the bottle of sav blanc I had purchased at a winery, together with some cheese and crackers. I would never have justified the weight of a bottle of wine if I was carrying my pack, so this was decadent.

The second day was largely along the edge of the coast. Even though there was some up and down, including a reasonably steep climb, it wasn’t a taxing day. The company that we booked through provided a packed lunch each day, which was always a highlight!

On the second night we stayed at a resort complex where we hired a kayak and went for a paddle around the cove. The resort had a clifftop hot tub that was open to anyone, so we made good use of that.

Clare had warned me about day three: 24kms of relentless up and down. Given that my knees were already still feeling sensitive, I opted to take the water taxi instead. This meant that Paul could run it, not slowed down by me.

It was meant to take 8 hours for the average walker, and due to the short days at this time of year, most people were out early. I got to take my time, have a latte, and wait for my water taxi. The trip was very scenic, with some spectacular homes perched on cliff faces.

I had the resort to myself, overlooking the water. The sun was streaming onto the balcony so I took my time unpacking wet shoes and bathers to dry out, inspecting the room, putting the wine and cheese in the fridge etc. I had been there about 15 minutes when there was a knock at the door: Paul had made it in under 3 hours! Hours later we saw fellow walkers dribble in. One group, a mother with her two young adult daughters, took over 13 hours, so I was very happy I had made the decision to catch the boat.

I was anxious about the final day – no doddle at 20kms with a steep uphill climb and a longer descent. There was a low lying fog, but the weather was warm and sunny, so once we reached the peak the fog had cleared and the views were superb.

We had a lot of different vegetation and scenery as we passed through farmland, beech forest, and along the water’s edge. My knees held up ok, and we made it in pretty good time. We and the rest of the group were waiting for the boat to collect us, and were all slightly worried about the three women who had struggled the day before. They made it with 15 minutes to spare and were very relieved. They said they had barely stopped for lunch, photos or toilet breaks!

Our final night was in Picton, and the next morning we flew to Wellington. I had a day there, so we wandered around the town and checked out the botanical gardens. Then Paul and I departed separately – me back to Australia and Paul on to Auckland for the World Masters’ Games.

In summary, it was a wonderful trip in a spectacular country. Not physically relaxing but certainly mentally relaxing and wonderful to spend solid quality time together.

Visitor Parade

One thing is guaranteed when you move State: you can expect visitors. Keeping me connected to friends and family. Bookings for 2017 are now open!

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End of Year Report Part 3

Speaking of self-sufficiency….

Since moving down here my main source of income has been yoga. It’s been a fabulous learning experience to set up my own business, create a brand, and establish a yoga community.

I have made some lovely friends and have a nice group of regular yoga students across 2 venues and 7 classes per week. I have also run two retreats – a Day Retreat for local Tasmanians and a Weekend Retreat for a bunch of former workmates and friends. (This video is of me practicing, which I created to promote my retreats. Even creating this video was a learning experience!)

I have also connected with the local yoga teaching community, including assisting another teacher on her retreat and volunteering to assist on the State Committee for Yoga Australia (the peak yoga body). They have been a welcoming group.

However, one of the biggest drawbacks to being a sole trader is the isolation. I really missed having work mates that I can learn from, bounce ideas with, and generally have human connection to.

I approached a local recruiter, who had a few contacts in the Not For Profit space. He said he would ask around, and fortuitously phoned the CEO of a well-known health charity just as they had a vacancy come up. I went through a competitive interview process and was fortunate enough to secure a part time role.

There’s a really nice synergy between their work to promote healthy lifestyles and my yoga teaching. My job will put me in direct connection with Tasmanian supporters, a fabulous way to meet people and further integrate into the Hobart community.

My greatest challenge now will be to find a balance between working, teaching and running my business, all whilst having time to enjoy living in this beautiful State.

End of Year Report: Part 2

Part 2: Self-Sufficiency

Living the dream always involved growing my own vegetables and being a little more self-sufficient. No easy feat for someone once dubbed the packet mix kid, who took her expertise in frozen meals to the extreme when working for Heinz as the Marketing Manager of Frozen Meals!

I was initially duped by the easy abundance of our strawberries – planted by the previous owners. Last summer, prior to me moving in permanently, our house mate Clare said the strawberries were so prolific that she had to freeze some for smoothies and make jam because she couldn’t eat them fast enough. But the rest of my home gardening experiments have been hit and miss.

The successes

Once the strawberries stopped producing, I decided that they might need pruning. Every question I have in the garden requires reading or watching an average of 7 articles or YouTube videos to determine what to do. Such was the case with pruning strawberries. I pruned them right back and laid fresh mulch. For many months it looked like I had gone too far, for there was no sign of growth.

The strawberries after pruning

But come Spring and an abundance of rain, and the leaves started to grow, flowers appeared and now the first strawberries of Summer 2016 are appearing. I look forward to picking my own breakfast each morning.

As with our strawberries, we were worried for a while about our raspberries. Clare pruned the raspberries severely and they too looked dormant throughout winter and early spring. They did not produce much last summer, but we now realise that a) they didn’t get enough water and b) they are an autumn bearing variety (according to Dave, the previous owner). With this year’s unseasonal rains, plus some chook poo from Clare’s parent’s chooks, the leaves are now growing rapidly and the first signs of berries are appearing.

Funnily enough, most of our other successes in the garden have been with things that the previous owners planted. Coincidence??!! We have thriving herbs – mint, oregano, sage, parsley and rosemary. Sage butter vegetables have become a favourite!

The previous owners had also planted some flowers in the vegetable garden. There is a magnificent rose bush that is currently providing colour and shade in the cat cage. There was also a bush that I had previously considered pretty ugly and contemplated digging out. I am glad I didn’t – in Spring it has produced the most beautiful pinky-red flowers that close up at night and bloom in the sun.

My only reasonably successful vegetable that I can take credit for was the broccoli. Each plant produced a nice head in the centre stems, but the subsequent off shoots were pretty spindly and turned to flower. (Which I decided made great house flowers and discovered that Aardvark liked to eat them! Weird cat).

The failures

We made the novice mistake of assuming that if a seedling was for sale in Bunnings, then it must be the right time to plant them. Back in early Autumn I planted broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and Brussel sprouts. Apart from the broccoli, we got negligible results from the carrots (most were inedible) and nothing from the cauli or Brussel sprouts, which both started to form and then went straight to flower. Subsequent research indicated that most of these vegies should have been planted in January for harvest in autumn. Lesson learned. Ask an expert.

The other big failure has been the compost. We just aren’t very good at it. Primarily we treat it as a convenient way to get rid of our fruit and veg scraps, important when you don’t get garbage collected and have to take your own waste to the tip. So we add the scraps regularly but aren’t very good at adding the corresponding dry material nor at turning the compost. We have two separate compost containers. One was a fancy tumbling one that we bought at Bunnings and which I proudly assembled. The biggest problem with this one is a tendency when turning it for the door to fly off and all of my compost-in-progress falling to the ground. After the third time that happened, I just stopped using it.

The other container is in our second vegetable garden where the raspberries grow. It is a square-ish shape with a lid on top and little doors down the bottom that you can open to access the compost from down low. However these doors have fallen off and the compost material is spilling out. It doesn’t help that this grosses me out to see food scraps spilling out onto the ground, but to make matters worse there are two resident rodents using these doors as access their own personal supermarket. Needless to say, I am less than enthusiastic about this compost container. If I thought he would be fast enough, I would take Zebu up to the garden with me. Because rodents attract snakes, and there was an unconfirmed sighting of something black and slithering among the raspberry bushes recently. More encouragement.

Gardening of the non-edible kind.

Whilst we live in Paradise, it takes work to maintain. Paul has done an incredible job of keeping the lomandra at bay, a tough blade-like grass that grows in clumps all over our property. He has cleared a wide circle around our house to reduce fuel load, moving from cutting by hand to whipper-snippering. Rain or sun, he is out all weekend, every weekend – cutting, raking and wheelbarrowing grass uphill.

We also had some landscape gardeners plant a heap of new native plants around the house. Because the wallabies, pademelons and other unknown perpetrators eat everything, we have a mixture of plastic bag plantations and ugly chicken wire protecting the plants until they can get established. This should take about 12 months. Again we have had mixed results here, with some plants being destroyed and others now starting to thrive. I look forward to what summer will bring. But not if it’s snakes. 

End of Year Report: Part 1

I have been a bit slack with my blogging so present you with my 4-part End of Year Report as we rapidly approach the end of 2016…

Part 1: Catastrophes

It was always our intention to convert Aardy and Zebu to indoor cats from when they arrived in Tasmania. But my desire to keep my cats happy, combined with my intolerance of their whining, won out against my wish to be a responsible cat owner and conservationist. Hence the previous post about failed cat leads.

Therefore, they had autumn and winter outside rights. On days that I was home, I let them outside for a few hours in the morning, and then they seemed content to spend the afternoon sleeping. We tied tracking devices to their collars which gave us some sense of their whereabouts if they were within close range.

Zebu with cat tracker and two bells

But spring and summer mean snakes, so we decided that the time had come to make them inside cats. We slowly started to decrease the time that they were allowed outside. Then Zebu had to have most of his teeth removed, as they were causing him pain. They had been rotting for a long time: we had tried expensive oral care food and special liquid to put in their water. (Which was meant to kill the bacteria in their mouths). So, he was sore and stoned for a while, and happy to be inside.

On one of his last free roams, Aardy came home with a sore and limp tail. Yet another 35 minute drive to the vet, to find out that he had been bitten by something. The vet suspects either a devil or feral cat. So, I had two drugged up cats in convalescence at the same time. One of the impacts of Aardy’s drugs was constipation, so I had to take him to the vet for an enema. Oh the indignity of it all! However, he was very happy once it took immediate effect.

We decided that this was going to be the line in the sand, and outdoor rights were cancelled. Once their respective pain started to ease, they became very restless. The cat cage AKA the vegie garden started to get more use, especially if I am outside with them.

But they are exceptional escape artists, and one day Paul and I were sitting on the front deck when we heard a meow from above us. Aardy was peering down from the roof. He’d breached the roof of the cat cage somehow, and could get onto the roof of the house but wasn’t sure how to get down. Here’s how we got him down.

Paul has been trying to make the cat cage more interesting, building platforms and things to climb on. But I can’t help feeling that Aardy is depressed. Zebu is expressing his frustration by regularly attacking his brother, who is still recovering from a wounded tail. Aardy spends a lot of time sleeping, now rivalling his brother in the sleep stakes. I imagine Aardy’s inner monologue sounding more and more like Henri every day.

She works hard for the money

Recently I worked as a Field Officer in that 5 yearly exercise we do in Australia to record all of the houses and the people in them. You know, that one run by the people who count beans in Canberra. Who promised us that the website wouldn’t crash under the weight of Australia’s entire population logging on in one night. (As an employee I need to abide by social media policies so you won’t find any keywords in this blog! I have also signed strict confidentiality contracts, so I won’t be revealing anyone’s private information as I don’t fancy a stint in jail.)

Firstly, my motivation. My secondary motivation was to earn some income. Let’s just say that currently I am teaching yoga for love, not money. For the lifestyle and the flexibility, but certainly not the fortunes. (The only way to make a fortune in the yoga industry is to turn out hundreds more yoga teachers each year through your own teacher training programs, flooding the market with way more yoga teachers than there are classes to teach. But I digress). But money was only a secondary motivation because I didn’t earn much more than a 17 year old would flipping burgers.

My primary motivation was an opportunity to get to know my community a bit better. And frankly, it was a good old sticky beak. I was required to drive down every road, track and driveway in my town, and visit each and every house, caravan or otherwise live-able shed, tent or temporary structure.

This is what I learned.

1. There are two types of rural properties: those that pick things up and put them away and those that have crap lying everywhere. Cars, equipment, building materials, rubbish, cars, tools, discarded toys, and did I mention cars? What do people do with all of those old cars?

2. The people in Canberra have no idea what it takes to visit a rural property. It was supposed to take 5.68 minutes per property. (And 7.24 in urban areas. Why urban areas would be quicker is beyond me). Here’s how the typical visit goes: Drive up to the gate. Get out of your car and open the gate. Get back in and drive through the gate. Get out and close the gate. Get back in and drive up a very long, very steep, very rutted driveway: very slowly. Some of these driveways are 1 or 2 kms long. Watch out for dogs, sheep, goats, pigs, cows or horses. Oh and chickens and geese and ducks that run up to the car. Get out, knock on the door. Maybe have a conversation, maybe they’re not home. Enter your data into your app. Get back in. Drive slowly back down the driveway. (Woe the occasions where the gate is at the top of the driveway and there’s no room to turn around. My reversing skills have improved!) Get out and unlock the gate. Drive through. Shut the gate. Now could you even read that in 5.68 minutes????

3. If you want to hide out, Tasmania is the place to do it. Steep gullies, thick bush and virtually inaccessible tracks make it an ideal place if you have something to hide. Not that I’m saying that there were people who wanted to hide.

4. There is a paranoia out there about what the gov knows about us. Do your tax online and you will soon discover that they already know everything. And my generation and younger (and some older!) give more information to Google and Facebook every day than they do to bureaucrats every 5 years.

What I enjoyed about the role was the opportunity to drive down every road in my area, see the best views and the fanciest houses, and meet some lovely friendly people. What I enjoyed least was getting bitten by two separate dogs on two occasions and now being terrified to enter someone’s property if they have a dog. Your dog can bite me but don’t worry, I can’t tell anyone you have a vicious dog or I could go to jail for breaching your confidentiality.

Would I do it again? Let me see, do you want fries with that?

Snow in the bush

Last night I sat watching TV with two heaters on, wrapped up in blankets and with two cats on my lap. I had gotten home late from teaching and was only planning on being up for a short while so I didn’t bother to light a fire. The wind was howling fiercely outside and I was a little bit spooked as I was home alone. Suddenly the power went out and the cats and I were plunged into pitch blackness. Luckily I has just purchased a new torch.

The automated voice at the end of the power company’s phone line informed me that power outages had been reported in our area and that it was unknown how long it would take to restore. So I figured there was nothing left to do but go to bed. I decided to let my two guard cats sleep with me, partly for extra warmth: it was forecast to be a very cold night.

Whenever they predict snow around here, I always just assume that it will only fall on Mount Wellington. But the forecasts were for snow to fall down to 300m. I don’t know how high above sea level we are on our little hill, but my fitness app tells me I usually gain over 200m when I walk down to the water and back.

When I woke up, I still had no power and my mobile phone battery had died. No power meant no phone or internet and as our water pump must be electric, I couldn’t even flush the toilet. So far I am still getting water out of the tap so it’s not dire straits yet.

It seemed calm outside, which I sensed was the ubiquitous calm before the storm. I decided that my first priority was to light a fire, so I put my dressing gown on over my pyjamas and a fleecy jacket over the top of that. Just as I stepped outside I realized that a light snow had started to fall. I quickly went to gather some firewood from our wood pile, and by the time I did that the flurries became heavier.

I was so excited that I ran to get my cameras to record the scenery. It felt like Christmas in Europe, except in a quintessentially Australian bush setting. Whilst I was out running around in the snow (I had lit a fire and put some clothes on by this time), Aardy was meowing in distress in his cat run, and I could see the poor thing trying to clean up his toileting business and getting very confused by the snow.

The snow eased and the sun came out briefly, already starting to melt the snow. And then a second flurry started to fall so I decided it was time to come in and sit by the fire.

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Without being able to turn the fan on the heater, it wasn’t particularly warm inside when the “apparent” temperature outside was about 1 degree. At 12pm, just as I was contemplating heading to Paul’s parents’ house, the power came back on and I was returned to modern civilization.

 

Cat Tales

Nobody enjoys moving. It’s a tedious process. We all have our different approaches. Like my brother, who packed his house in three 12-hour days straight. Not me. I’ve never been a last minute packer, whether that’s for a weekend away or to move house. For which I’ve been packing for weeks.

I decided that the first step to moving permanently to Tasmania would be to fly our two cats, Aardvark (Aardy) and Zebu, first. From the time we adopted them to now four years later, they have lived in inner city Melbourne. Patrolling a suburban block of about 100 metres in length, with free rein to roam outside during the day. They are going to have as big an adjustment as I am to rural Tasmania, where they are going to be contained for their sake and that of the native wildlife.

Having only ever been in a cage and in my car to visit the vet, they spent the 30 minute drive to Melbourne airport howling in symphony. Thankfully, I was unable to hear their reactions to a plane even though I could see their cage being loaded and unloaded.

Boarding the plane

Their first couple of days in the new house were pretty subdued. Even more nervous than usual at foreign sounds – and in this house there are a lot of new sounds for everyone to get used to. But after that they started to get more exploratory, and soon they were climbing the rafters – literally.

Their “cat cage” is our vegetable patch, already very well animal proof to keep birds, possums and wallabies out. We assume that it will be just as effective at keeping cats in, but the biggest issue is preventing them from using our vegetable beds as their toilet.

I had a couple of ideas for how to do that. We kept a small bed empty except for the dirt for their toilet, and had prepared the other beds by covering them with pea straw. My hope was that this would prevent them from digging through to the dirt, and had been told that this had worked in Paul’s sister’s garden.

Unfortunately idea number one failed. Zebu was adept at clearing a nice little hole to get to the dirt, doing his business, and then covering it back up with pea straw. So it was on to idea two – putting bird netting over the beds. My theory here was that they wouldn’t enjoy getting tangled up in the nets. Well, here’s how idea number two played out.

So if anyone has any successful examples of how to prevent your cat from peeing in the vegetable garden, please let me know.

On a closing note, it seems that the circular garden bed doubles as a good boxing ring.