Living in OZ....

Living in OZ...

It’s Christmas in Australia!  And yet the hot tropical sun peaking through puffy white Cumulonimbus clouds reminds us that we are in a subtropical climate.  Its hot when the pure sun pops out!  There is constant moisture rolling across the sky in varied cloud formations sometimes a thunderstorm with lightning forms, but always a changing skyscape.

Could be a storm...or not...clouds pass through everyday

We walk a lot  to Scarborough or Redcliffe. We don’t have a car. We take the bus if we need to. It’s just like sailing…a slow process and every errand takes longer. We know the route to the shopping center, we know the bus drivers.  We are part of the daily round of young, old and disabled.  We comment on how friendly the drivers are and how clean the buses are kept.

Santa pictures on the beach in Redcliffe

We brave the “Super Mall” on a  Saturday packed with Holiday shoppers! This is a friendly reminder of the reason we went sailing in the first place… the ocean is far, far away from  “this madness of people”!

Christmas shoppers in "Super Mall"!

Delicious bakery goodies!

One day we rent a car to see more sights…up into the mountains we go along an old logging road, Hwy 58.  We stop for lunch along with many other “Sunday-out-for-a-drivers” at the Old Crown Hotel in Dayboro, built in 1813.  It’s over 100 years old and a landmark to the original pioneers that settled this area. “Timber-getters” they were called and they stripped the land of all the hardwoods, leaving the cleared lands open for the next wave - cattle and dairy settlers.  What remains are clear open green rolling hills dotted with dairy ranches.

 A Sunday drive to the Crown Hotel in Dayboro.

I feel like the travel writer, Bill Bryson exploring the country backroads...anyone else read his hilarious accounts of traveling in Australia?!

Ocean View Winery on Mt. Mee

Next stop is high up  Mt Mee  to the estate bottled Ocean View winery  overlooking beautifully landscaped gardens and grapes with  a distant ocean view.  These grapes grow in stressed climate conditions so the flavors were bright and green; crispy whites and tannin laced reds. Unique flavors I'm not accustomed to. Not bad, just not Sonoma County styled.

Ocean View Winery. Note the net covered grapes...

Horses resting while riders taste wine

A favorite pastime hobby for Australians is the collector “muscle car”.  We passed a touring club  out for a Sunday drive and was amazed at the  pristine 57 Chevy's, Mustangs and yes...Datsuns!

Oldies, but goodies! Who knows what this one is?

 The Aussies love their clubs, too! Every few corners is another "club" with legal gambling, horse race betting and "pokies"...you know, you poke the slot machines with money!

Vroom!

Pokies is slot machines...and every club has them

We’ve decided these Aussies are truly genuine and nice people.  Everywhere we go, even the bus driver will take the time to explain or enlighten about their ways and go the extra mile to help you. This is refreshing.  The early pioneers where a salty batch of ex-convicts and their descendants are just as tough and opinionated as their forbears.  On that  subject, we are in a “white” land.  There is not much diversity.  We’ve met some pretty opinionated people who will tell you they would like Australia to stay “white”…so that's a little unsettling...

I picked the following off  Wikipedia...

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_history_of_Australia

"White Australia Policy"
The White Australia Policy, the policy of excluding all non-European people from immigrating into Australia, was the official policy of all governments and all mainstream political parties in Australia from the 1890s to the 1950s, and elements of the policy survived until the 1970s. Although the expression 'White Australia Policy' was never in official use, it was common in political and public debate throughout the period.[8]
During the 1970s and 1980s around 120,000 southern Asian refugees resettled in Australia. During that twenty years, Australia first began to adopt a policy termed "multiculturalism". The rapid increase of Asian immigrants was also due to the abolition of the White Australia Policy in 1972."

Interesting... seems Australia just "opened its doors" to immigration only recently and some people still vote for the"closed door" policy.  We haven’t been to any big cities, like Sydney, yet.  We hear its more culturally tolerant and diverse.  I hope so.

Unique Postal delivery vehicle.

A unique sight is the postal delivery man as he scoots around to each mail box on a Honda 50 motorcycle dressed in bright fluorescent green uniform, his helmet adorned with spikes so the birds don’t  dive bomb his head.  Funny.

What a fun job!

We are ‘killing time” in Scarborough while the sale of our boat, Wizard gets finalized.   (Yes…we sold Wizard for those of you who don’t do facebook. ) We knew that Australia would be the end of the line for us and are quite happy to have found a buyer so quickly.  The new owner will sail Wizard around the Queensland coast and moored off of Russell Island...in other words, Wizard is "out to pasture".  I don't think she will be cruising open ocean, again. She has made two South Pacific cruises, one before us and one with us!  That's at least 20,000 miles!
Here's our listing  http://farine.net.au/sail/sb373/Choate-Peterson-40.html

Wizard sailing in La Cruz, Mx

Its all working out as planned.  We’ve been here one month and were successful in selling the boat. But, now we're bored. Time to move on.  There’s only so much to see on foot.  We begin our car travels after Christmas on Boxing Day, December 26.  We leave Wizard behind in the Land of Oz.
And continue our adventures down the coast to Sydney...

Good-bye Moreton Bay...

Wizard stays in the land of OZ!

Good-bye Wizard!