September and October News

School Holidays is all of a sudden a problem for our household as Carina is no longer at home to look after and entertain Michael. This sort of caught me unawares, just like the time he got sick when I had to take off work to look after him the very first week she started studying. Sometimes I take things like this for granted. Michael spent a week with aftercare where they did some interesting stuff and the second week I took leave and stayed with him.

We had a long weekend and were lucky to be invited by the Bosch’s from Gawler to join them for 2 nights camping at Coorong. The Coorong is the wetlands area where the Murray River runs into the ocean. It was so relaxing as there is absolutely no amenities; just a stretch of sand next to the ocean. We made really big fires which burned the whole time. Had a proper braai on Saturday and I made lamb neck Potjie the Sunday afternoon. I was a bit stressed as the potatoes went AWOL but all ended well after we eventually found the potatoes just before I was ready to take the pot off the coals. We had really nice weather with no wind, which is apparently not the norm for the area. I duly found this out sometime in the morning hours of Monday when my Gazebo decided to fly away and relocate itself on Chantelle’s tent.

I used two old doors that I found in the “roadside store” (people leave stuff they don’t want beside the road in front of their houses) to build a table for the Model Trains. We have laid out the tracks and will start soon with the scenery (trees, buildings, cars, animals and people). Hope this will keep us busy for some time.

I was planning to join the Army Reserves as one of the advantages was that we could get a concession for Citizenship and get it within 6 Months instead of 4 years. I went for the aptitude testing with a bunch of kids only to be told that the requirements changed a few weeks ago and that I now need to be a citizen to be considered for defence jobs. The recession has resulted in them being flooded with applications and they can now pick and choose. They have to specially nominate me for a job and explain why a citizen cannot do it.

I eventually succumbed to the pressure and also bought a portable chemical loo and tent so Carina can enjoy some comfort on the camping. Still find it hard to understand why she needs this when we have done several hikes through the Fishriver Canyon where you had to a “plasie”.

We ventured into the outback a bit this weekend and visited Loveday 4x4 adventures near Barmera in South Australia. It is on the Rivier Murray. They have a track that they do some serious offroad racing with some of these monster trucks do serious airtime. We camped right on the river with 8 South African families from the Vassitklub of Adelaide. I became a true member this weekend. We once again made nice open fires for the last time till next Winter and did proper braais. The temperature soared to 43^oC on Saturday and it would have been a perfect weekend it it wasn’t for the flies. Anyone that spent time on the border will know what I’m talking about. They literally swamp the back of your shirt and take turn to try and fly into your nose, eyes or mouth. Carina and Chantelle sewed netting around their hats ala Out of Africa and Jane from Tarzan style. I found a little reprieve by wrapping the beach umbrella’s sleeve around my head. I am now seriously considering getting a Camping Trailer as it will reduce the packing-unpacking by half.

August 09 News

We have finally received Permanent Residency in Oz! It is a Company and State sponsored visa, meaning I have to work here for 4 years and I can only work in South Australia. I can apply for Citizenship after 4 years but in our case in 3 years time as the part year counts as one of the 4. We have also received Medicare Cards which provides virtually free medical care in state hospitals. We will also apply for financial support for Michael which equates to them paying us to send him to school and sadly that I don’t earn enough money!
Carina started studying as an Old Age Carer. We always joked in RSA that she will have to look after us old ones one day and now I am just making sure she will be able to do a good job. The studying has resulted in quite an adjustment for the men in the household. Michael is really missing his mom in the afternoons and I miss the cooked meals and clean house! The system here is amazing: they pay for her 30 week course as well as $$ for every hour spent studying! It is not much but it covers the house rental for the month. There is also no commitment to have to work for them after the studies are over.
I lodged my first TAX return here in Oz and got quite a few $$ back, paid into my account within 8 days! Still waiting for my money from 2 years ago in RSA. So we spoilt ourselves with a coffee table, dining table and chairs as well as recliner chairs for the TV room. I am tired of waking up in front of the TV with a stiff neck, shoulders and cramps in my legs from falling asleep on the 2-seater cane furniture. At least now I can sleep in comfort.
Work is looking a lot more positive and the prototype work we did will now move to a full-scale development. Hopefully I will also be in a position to visit the family in Canada when the project kicks off in the next few weeks.
We were looking at buying a house as the rates here are very low compared to what I was used in RSA and repayments are close to what we are paying in rental. We are also not allowed to have pets in the rental house. Unfortunately we have discovered the “other little costs” like insurance, water, Rates & Taxes etc are a bit too much to handle now. We will also miss our neighbours terribly! Wish I could sell my house in Cape Town but I believe it will be a year or two before the housing market will recover.

July 09 News: Mt Hotham and Canberra

We managed to get everything in place for our Permanent Residency (PR) Visa or so I thought: Federal Police Clearance required on Form 1101 which the case officer eventually sent me as I just could not figure out what to do. Heard today (2 weeks later) the instructions on the form were outdated: they returned our forms as the cost increased by $7! So we wait another month for bureaucracy to run its cause!

Our ski holiday in Mt.Hotham was very nice. I somehow missed the WOW factor of it all, maybe just like I don’t get the joy of fishing. Michael and Carina struggled in the beginning but really enjoyed it in the end. We had brilliant sunshine days after good snow falls and experienced heavy snowfalls on the last day.

The Canberra sights were also very good and I enjoyed driving in the city: the streets are well laid out and wide and traffic was easy (the politicians were on leave!). Parliament house and the War Museum were definitely the highlights although we spent the longest time at the Science centre.

The IELTS exam was something else to experience: 900 people in one hall and everything running with military precision, with a spread of about 70% Asian, 29% Indian and 1% Europeans. Carina beat me at listening and talking! I am still amazed but congratulations to her. My Writing and Reading skills pulled me through to have the higher average though! So now we are officially English literate.

I also collected “Beetle Baily” in Wagga-Wagga and what an absolute gem I got. Apart from a few small electrical problems with Hooter, Indicator Lights and the bumpers which took the brunt of Amanda’s driver learning experiments, everything else is in excellent condition. I started it there and drove it all the way to Adelaide (900km). I fixed the wiring problems and had him inspected (road worthy test) and transferred without any problems. Will slowly start replacing stuff but there is no rush.

June 09

We managed to get everything in place for our Permanent Residency (PR) Visa; Filled in another 20 page questionnaire, got my Military Release Papers from SANDF (very relieved it actually materialised), Local Police clearance and the medical exam. We write the English (IELTS) test on Saturday and then when the results are received it should take a short while before we have it.
We started using the public transport to get into town for the medical exams and stuff as it is so fast and you don’t have to worry about finding parking in Adelaide. The parking cost more than the train ride!
Carina has been undergoing interviews and assessments to enlist in Frailty Care. It is amazing that they will pay her to attend a course and practical training without the requirement to work for them after the course is completed. The only drawback is that it is on the other side of Adelaide and there are no freeways to get through town.
Alex has been over twice now for sleepover weekends. He is a very delightful boy to have around and fortunately he and Michael get along very well. We were visiting the neighbours one evening and they had a pillow fight which resulted in Alex’s little finger being broken. The Time for Kids representative was not too impressed with this though as we thought he only sprained it.
Michael turned 9 and we purchased him a Nintendo DS and several games. All the mates and Alex has one. He is so engrossed in the games he is hardly watching TV!We have slowly been getting ready for the ski holiday in Hotham in July. Our neighbours who we will be sharing accommodation with have handed down ski pants, gloves and jackets for Michael and Carina. We are pretty excited about the holiday and just hope we don’t break anything. We will be leaving on Saturday 4 July, straight after the IELTS exam and we will sleep over along the way.

May 2009

Ann and her daughter Rebecca visited us for a weekend while they were in Oz. We did a tour of the Barossa and visited the Gorge Wildlife Park. It looked like they enjoyed their visit and it was great to have them and talk about South Africa and my previous workplace.

One of our SAFFER (South African living in Oz) friends sent me an SMS one Sunday to say they will miss me on their 4x4 outing. I had to do some garden work as they didn’t approve Filemon’s visa. A few hours late Pieter phoned me and I was sort of annoyed that he had to rub it in. Alas, they were stuck in a mangrove swamp and needed a snatch rope and some assistance. Fortunately my neighbour had one that we could borrow. When I got there the Toyota was lying on it’s chassis in stinking clay. I helped as much I could and left at sundown just as a new towrope arrived. They eventually got him out but he was stuck from 11h00 till 18h30!

We had our first outing with Breakaways 4WD club to Deep Creek. It was wet cold but very nice. Made my first outdoor fire and had a proper braai on wood coals in a year. We could see Kangaroo Island. Check the photos on Picasa.

I also bamboozled Carina into not complaining too much when I bought a 1975 VW Beetle from Wagga Wagga. Yes there is such a town here. Wagga is a crow and the repeated word means place of many crows. I will be picking her up when we return from New South Wales from a snow ski holiday in July. I cant wait. My first two cars were Beetles and I also had a Beach Buggy and Baja Bug in the middle stint somewhere. I am planning to turn it into a Beetle Cabrio “Muscle Car” when the engine expires one day.

Carina had a successful interview and will hopefully be starting contract work caring for kids in the near future. It will be good for her to do be involved with kids again after the Moms&Tots experience and it will also give us opportunity to meet some more Ozzies and maybe make some friends.

Michael had a school camp on a farm for a few days where they experienced cows being milked, made butter, did horse riding and other educational stuff. From his babbling and pictures it looks like they had a great time on the farm. School otherwise is just a boring experience for him and he regularly has some pain to prevent him from going to school.

People really congest our road by parking on both sides of the road, leaving a single lane for traffic (I suppose because they still can here without it or parts of it being stolen). I suppose it was just a matter of time before an accident and last Friday night at midnight it was time for a major crash of a drunk, unlicensed woman to plough into the neighbour,s cars. It was a commotion of Police, Fire Truck and tow truck till the early hours of the morning. Tasha got her first car a few months ago and it obviously her pride and joy and this was the second time someone hit it while it was parked.

We had Alex for a one day visit and it went extremely well. He and Michael get along well and we will be organising a sleepover for the middle of the month.

April 2009 News

The two big news items this month is that we have applied for Permanent Residence (PR) and I bought a dual cab 4x4.
I bought what I could a-FORD and yes, I have finally gone off my trolley and bought a Ford! Mind you Fords are quite popular here in Oz and are the 2008 V8 Supercar champs and leading the present series. I must say that I am presently surprised with my UTE (that is Ozzie for bakkie). The models are essentially the same as in South Africa but the trim levels are a bit different. Only two levels here and mine is the base one: 2003 Ford Courier Dual Cab with 85000km, steel rims, rubber mats, crank handles for the windows, radio-tape and central locking using the key in the door, not remotely. It has an additional spare wheel, canopy, roof racks, Roobar (Bullbar), spotlights and snorkel. It still makes my heart bleed because if I convert the money I got for my Nissan Hardbody 4x4 DC, this is what it bought me (4 years older, 2x the km’s and the base model with a lot less power)! But at least I can now venture into the outback to explore a bit off the beaten track. Fortunately the endangered birds and sea life have evolved incredible survival skills and decided by “majority democracy vote” to nest and breed on beaches where cars can’t go in Oz and the South African Shoreline so we have some beaches to play on with our 4x4 toys.

The company nomination for PR was approved and Carina handed in the visa application forms on the 28th. We still have to write the IELTS exams on America Day and I must get my Military Release Documents before we can complete our application. We should get PR in a Month of two.

Carina decided to take the train in to lodge the application and when she got to the station I received a frantic call: “HELP, I got stuck in mud at the station”. I explained how to lock the front hubs and select 4x4 and then there was this amazed and excited shriek over the phone as she just drove out of trouble. She is now so impressed with our Ford!

We attended the Barossa air show and it was the typical rural affair on a dirt runway with model planes, aerobatic planes and other thing that burn petrol like vintage cars, old Lister Engines and tractors from yesteryear and some serious off-road vehicles to promote a mud, dust and music weekend in the outback some 3 hours from Adelaide on the Murray river. I decided to give the bike a bit of run through the hills while Carina and Michael joined our Polish friends Thomas, Isabella and Philip in their car. The girls and boys were treated to a short helicopter ride and we had a picnic lunch. The bike ride was enjoyable but it just again emphasised how balanced and good my Honda CBR-600 was as they Hyosung is very unpredictable in corners. The windy roads are also very narrow and you have to do a left cornering move as close to the white line so that you don’t hit your head on the railing.

The cost of skiing in NZ was a bit much so we are now going to join up with our Hungarian neighbors and we booked a house for July. We will be 8 people and the snow has already fallen heavily in that area.
We met grandpa Sydney and Alex, our Time for Kids boy on Wednesday evening. What a delightful fellow he is and before long him and Michael were playing like old pals.

We will be fostering Alex one weekend per month. Time for Kids is an organisation to give kids exposure to different households and give parents/grandparents/carers a break if they are struggling to give the required “time” to these kids. It is typically for kids growing up with grandparents or in a large household with overworked parents or where another child takes up all the attention of the parents due to illness or disability. It will also provide Michael with a mate for the weekends and hopefully the two will get along very well in the long term and he can become a regular addition to our family over more weekends. We are very excited to get to know Alex and hopefully we can influence each other in a very positive way.
The month ended pretty gloomy with another batch of posts being made redundant at work.

March 2009 News

As a consolation prize for not attending the F1 in Melbourne, I attended the Clipsal-500 Super V8 racing on the Saturday and watched on TV the Sunday. It was really good to experience the noise and smells of screaming engines and tires. It is basically Ford vs Holden and Adelaide is Holden country due to factory here. It was strange to witness the fanatic support of the various camps. Next year I will ensure that I pay the extra money to get onto a stand as they occupied all the good spots.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first F1 race of 2009. It just showed again that some guys simply have the ability to design a race car: well done Ross Brawn and may you sweep the tracks again. Adrian Newey’s cars confirm this point with the performance of the RBR compared with the Renaults. It is a pity and “jungle justice” that teams employ boy racers which get carried away and crash cars in the first corner and on the last laps of a race. It was great to notice the effect of the KERS devices and its use and application will obviously develop through the year.

I attended a meeting of the Breakaways 4WD Club of South Australia. I think it will be a good way to see the country and meet Ozzies with similar interests as me. What caught my eye on their website was the campfires and potjies. They turned out to be of similar vintage as me. The meeting was again a rather strange experience as the meeting was more formal than the ones we conduct here at work. The chairman formally opens the meeting, welcome the guests, apologies are tabled, the previous meeting’s minutes are accepted and actions from the minutes are discussed and so forth. We then break for tea and biscuits. Afterwards the previous trip reports are presented and future trips are discussed. The financial report is presented and expenses approved. A raffle for camping goodies is held before the meeting is formally closed. Now I just need to get the 4x4. The next trip is a week trip up the Lake Ayres which has filled up from rains in Queensland. This happens once a decade so it is a really rare event.

The company has lodged their application to sponsor me for a Permanent Visa! Now we are just waiting for their approval to come through before we lodge our application. It will make it easier for Carina to enlist in courses and find work. I have also learned that I can probably join the Reserve Force and shorten my required time to achieve Citizenship!

Febrary 09 News

School started after a very long break. The last week of holidays Michael expressed the need to go to school to see his mates! It didn’t last very long and he isn’t so exited about going to school any more. Every morning a new ache or pain is presented as an excuse to not go to school.
Carina made and covered new cushions for our Cane furniture. It really looks lively and is comfy to sit on again. Working with the machines also inspired her to make some clothes for herself and stuff for Di’s bedroom as a birthday present.

We have now concluded our main Project and apart form a few small scale projects; most people are preparing proposals and generating system process documents. It really feels strange to not be chasing some unrealistic deadline!

Wynand and Marlene returned from their trip the “republic” (for those that were in the army) otherwise know as the RSA. Although they enjoyed their trip, everything seemed very expensive, except eating out and booze! They confirmed that we did the right move to come here (for whatever that’s worth).

I was planning to attend the opening round of the F1 as tickets are really cheap at the moment. We were planning to all go and stay with Carina’s niece but they are moving house at the time so the whole thing has fallen through. The world wide recession may see the collapse of this extravagant circus and it will be a shame if Michael never experienced the roar of a F1 race. The Ozzie race is also under a lot of pressure and may not be around much longer.

January 09 News

We don’t celebrate X-Mas. We believe it is a pagan tradition in a “Christian wrapping”. He warns us in the Bible not to partake in pagan traditions. Christ was also not borne on 25 Dec and he did not instruct us to celebrate his birthday, rather we must celebrate his death and resurrection.

Our neighbours across the street, John and Di, invited us to join them for New-years party. We had a nice dinner despite Di nearly breaking an arm and leg while falling off a step and spilling a patato dish. Tea (evening meal) was followed by games on their Wii. This was really great fun and everyone participated. Michael obviously was the best and showed the “old people” up. At Midnight we watched an impressive Adelaide Fireworks display from our balcony.

We then decided on the spur of the moment to go camping at West Beach with Rosy, Paul, Jazmin and Abby. After pitching the tent we discovered the trees under which we huddled was covered seedpods with extremely fine hairs which had the same effect as carbon fibre. I lost my first encounter with the harsh Ozzy sun and got burnt badly. We did fishing and swimming in the sea. The kids did some rides around the park with Pedal Cars. It is unfortunately very close to Adelaide International Airport. The noise started just after six when the first planes took off and which also woke the local birdlife, especially the Rainbow Lorikeets which ate the nectar from the flowers which then became these spiky seedpods. There was also another bird, the Common black bird which makes noise like a RSA grouse. All in all it was a very different experience from our previous camps which were quiet and out in the sticks. The aeroplanes, cars, cyclists, scate boarders which passed in the road wasn’t good for peaceful sleep. I started work before the time was up so I commuted for a few days from the campsite, apparently the typical Ozzy way of holidaying.

We again forgot our anniversary (17 years), just like last year. Last year we were travelling from Witrivier to Warmbad when we remembered. This year we were driving from the campsite to the shops when Carina again clicked on what day was coming up. Di and John visited to share the day and we made stir-fry on the camp’s BBQ’s after a nice swim.

The project was finally and officially terminated early. My section finished off our work at the end of Jan.

Tuesday, 13 Jan 2009 was the hottest day I have ever experienced at 41oC. I rode to work on the bike but the afternoon was like being in Hell. The wind felt like a giant hair blower was switched on somewhere. The heat from the tar, the wind, from the cars in front and the bike’s engine on my bare legs was nearly unbearable at stages. This morning all our plants’ leaves were drooping. They have recovered well though and we have chillies and capsicums.

Last week made that day seem like a holiday when we had 4 days of over 41oC and night time temperatures only going to 35oC. It is actually so hot that the body becomes confused between hot and cold. Riding on the motorbike with bare arms I actually got goose bumps in the heat!

The week of the 40’s. In most of Victoria and southern South Australia, the temperatures recorded were the highest since 1939, and Adelaide and Melbourne both missed their 1939 records by a few tenths of a degree. Melbourne had three successive days over 43C, and Adelaide had four. More than 20 people died as a result of the heat. Queensland on the other hand received 1100mm for the month, its average annual rainfall after just one month which is also twice Adelaide's average annual rainfall.

We have access to so much fruit that Carina entertained herself by making Jam, Chutney, Ingelegde Vrugte and more.
The week of the 40’s. In most of Victoria and southern South Australia, the temperatures recorded were the highest since 1939, and Adelaide and Melbourne both missed their 1939 records by a few tenths of a degree. Melbourne had three successive days over 43C, and Adelaide had four. More than 20 people died as a result of the heat. Queensland on the other hand received 1100mm for the month, its average annual rainfall after just one month which is also twice Adelaide's average annual rainfall.