April has been a busy month in the Zupan household with lots of great food, wine, fun, and adventure. I feel like I blinked and it disappeared but in looking at pictures to pull this blog together, the start of April feels like it was months ago already! I suppose it was a little bit since I decided to squeeze Easter into this blog which was the last few days of March.
Like most holidays here, Easter is a seafood extravaganza (and coincidentally Gman’s birthday) and Rob didn’t disappoint! We also used the holiday as an excuse to use up our last bottle of Clamato (sniff!) that Hugh and Justine shipped over for us when they moved here. And of course, Easter wouldn’t be complete without a little Lindt chocolate. When we lived in Canada, Rob’s mom always gave me a dark chocolate Lindt bunny for Easter and Rob’s kept that tradition going. You might also have spotted a few Cadbury eggs mixed in there. The floor I work on at the university had a bit of an Easter celebration this year which included an Easter Egg and even an Easter hat parade which apparently a bit of a tradition here. The hats were all homemade and elaborately decorated but typical of me, I didn’t even think to pull my camera out.
You might have noticed how green the grass is in these pictures. Rob doesn’t do much with this grass because we’re planning to take it all out soon as part of a backyard reno, but the rain we’ve had these past few months has made it very happy! I think we’ve had more rain here in the past 3 or so months than we’ve had in all the previous years we’ve lived here put together. While we still don’t tend to get entire days of rain, when it rains, it rains! The picture below on the right is of our little fruit orchard behind our house. Notice how high the water is on the bench? You can’t tell from the picture, but the water little rushes through this area when we get lots of rain. Fortunately, it disappears quickly when the rain stops.
Not long after Easter, I had to go to Sydney for work. About 2 years ago, I started doing some contract work for Speech Pathology Australia which requires me to review other speech pathology programs in the country for accreditation purposes. It’s a big responsibility and I’m always acutely conscious of the pressure the university program feels in the process, but it’s been a really positive experience so far. I learn something new with every accreditation I participate in and am getting to know some wonderful people across the country. Each accreditation also includes a site visit which means I also get to travel to some cool locations. This was the view from our ‘office’ window for the few days I had to work in Sydney.
Rob flew into Sydney a few days after I did so we could enjoy a long weekend exploring the city. I had been to Sydney once before prior to moving to Australia but Rob hadn’t had the opportunity yet. He managed to get a great picture of the harbour while flying in. Can you spot the Harbour Bridge and Opera House?
After the rain we had in Queensland, we were thrilled with all the glorious sunshine Sydney turned on for our visit. We were staying in Darling Harbour so took full advantage of the board walk there and pretty much spent most of the days we were there walking and taking in the views.
Rob was pretty disappointed in his first glimpse of the Opera House and was much more impressed by the Harbour Bridge. Apparently he expected the Opera House to be much larger. I’d seen it before, but was still pretty amazed by how beautiful it is! The area is also arranged so that even when there are tons of people around, it doesn’t feel chaotic. There are seats built into the railings all along the water – a perfect place to enjoy a drink in the sunshine!
When I had been to Sydney last, I took a tour of the Opera House and I’ve always remembered it as one of the most memorable things I’d ever done. The tour gives you a close up look of the stunning architecture, and access to some of the concert halls but most interesting, is the story which includes how the Opera House was imagined and built, but also the history of the Gadigal people whose Country it sits on.
During our tour, the guide took us into a concert hall where the Sydney Symphony Orchestra were rehearsing for that weekend’s performances where they would be playing the score to Singing in the Rain while the film played on a large screen in the background. We were only able to view a few minutes but were completely captivated. Lucky for us, Rob managed to purchase two of the four remaining tickets for the next night’s performance and they were fantastic seats! What an amazing experience!! We couldn’t take photos during the performance, but did manage a few before the show started.
Heading down to the Opera House for a performance also let us see the area at night. It’s super pretty at night and still tons of people around. We also managed to find a great whiskey bar for an after-show manhattan on our way home.
On our way out of the whiskey bar, we came across this Spanish restaurant which had some live entertainment. The guys were on a stage about 4 feet in the air and needed the bartender to bring a ladder out so they could get down. We only caught the last few songs of their gig unfortunately but it was great to see how much they were enjoying themselves. It was hard not to smile watching this singer perform.
Before heading to the Opera House for the evening show, we spent the day wandering the local market and the Botanical Gardens. We even came across the Canadian Embassy – it was locked 🙂
We decided to spend our last day in Sydney visiting Manly Beach. Getting there included a 20 minute ferry ride which gave us the opportunity to see the harbour area from a different perspective.
Apparently, Manly is one of the few remaining areas that still has a Little Penguin colony. They come to Manly each year between May and February to breed so we were a little early to actually spot any. The colony there is quite small too (only about 60 or so pairs) so we may not have seen them even if we did have the timing right. The Manly area was really pretty and you could walk across the peninsula from one beach to the other in just a few minutes. The beach we arrived on was quite small with a only a few people there but wow, so so many people at the larger beach on the other side. The beach was gorgeous and we found a quiet place to view the start of the sunset, but it made us realise just how lucky we are to have the many, many nearly empty beaches to enjoy here in Yeppoon.
On our way home from Manly, we were able to see the Opera House and Harbour bridge as the sun was setting. The lighting was lovely. We decided to walk the boardwalk on the way home too so we could take in the rest of the sunset.
The next day, we were off to Adelaide for a conference I was presenting at later in the week. The conference was held at the National Wine Centre which sits inside Adelaide’s Botanical Gardens. It was a gorgeous location and on the first evening, the conference puts on a great ‘Food and Drink’ event on its outdoor terrace with live music too.
I was pretty much working the entire time we were Adelaide so Rob had to keep himself busy. He’d had planned to go on a wine tour to McLaren Vale but unfortunately the tour was cancelled so he filled his time with Pickleball instead. Here in Yeppoon, we have 14 purpose-built outdoor Pickleball courts which gives us the privilege of playing pretty much whenever we want to and for as long as we want to. In the larger cities, you need to put your name on a wait list, to play for specified (quite limited) time period, on indoor courts that are pulled together with tape and portable nets, usually on a basketball court. Rob said that it was super loud and a completely different feel in terms of how the ball moves. I think he enjoyed the experience of playing somewhere different but it definitely highlighted how lucky Yeppoon is to have such a great facility.
The last day of conference ended mid-day which gave us one afternoon and evening to enjoy the city together. We took full advantage starting with lunch at a gorgeous wine bar.
One of the best things about travelling in big cities is the number of great places to eat and being able to go see live music. After our lovely lunch (and maybe a small nap!), we went to a fantastic restaurant for dinner and then headed to the jazz bar Rob had found online. It was a tiny bar in the basement of a building in a back alley. How cool is this entrance? In the end, the band that night was not a jazz band, but a psychedelic one. Perhaps the people wearing 3D glasses should have been a bit of clue? It’s not really our kind of music but they were good at what they do and we still had a great time.
A few days after getting home was ANZAC Day (and my beautiful nana’s birthday!). We headed downtown for the ANZAC parade and ceremony and then over to the local RSL (Returned and Services League) for some drinks and live music with friends. We’ve actually never thought to go to the RSL before but our friend Anthony was playing drums so they invited us to come out. It was great fun and you can see how popular a place it was in the picture with the blue tent.
Well, that was April for us. A complete whirlwind but a month filled with fun too. Thanks for reading everyone (I bet you thought it was never going to end!). Until next time…