Canberra's National Arboretum

Canberra's National Arboretum is a place we've been frequenting quite a bit lately. Stacy heads there often during the day with friends, and we've both taken Matty there for a bite to eat and for a play in the playground. Why do we frequent this place so much you ask? Well, because it's a pretty fantastic place.

First of all, the arboretum offers panoramic views over Canberra, Lake Burley Griffin, and the mountains beyond. The village center itself is a huge spherical-type building, with a soaring ceiling and a wall full of windows. A photo of this place simply does not do it justice. There is also a cafe and restaurant inside where you can order some coffee and food and enjoy it all whilst sitting at a table along the wall of windows overlooking the city. Perfect.

Finally, this place offers THE best playground ever. This "Pod Playground" features banksia cubby houses; acorn-shaped pods at various heights which are connected by rope tunnels and tube slides; and discovery trails and climbing nets. It is simply awesome!

The Arboretum - Photo credit: Brett Boardman

The Village Center - Photo credit: Surface Design

Inside the Village Center - Photo credit: John Gollings

The awesome Pod Playground

Another angle of the Pod Playground

One of the entrances to the playground

Skate in the City

For the past four years, Canberra has been celebrating the start of winter with a month long event called "Skate in the City".  This event consists of several "winter" activities that people can partake in, but is mostly centered around a mechanically cooled open air ice rink that features both cultural ice shows and general public skating sessions. The rink itself can apparently hold up to 200 people at any one time, though we'd hate to see it that full as there would be no room to move, let alone skate.

With a price tag of $17 a person, we decided to simply observe from the sidelines and wait until we move back to Canada where we can skate for free. We did get to enjoy great entertainment for a few minutes watching all kinds of Aussies using plastic penguins to help them keep balance though. Great laughs!

The ice rink

The "Snow Globe" - Winter Entertainment!

Sydney Vivid Festival

At the end of May (on Blair's birthday weekend) we headed into Sydney to check out the Vivid Festival of Light.  This festival, quite similar to the Canberra Enlighten festival that we posted about a little while ago, has been running for 6 years now. Every night from 6 pm to midnight over a two week period, Sydney's famous landmarks come to life with light and music. 

Here are some of the pictures we took!

We were also very fortunate, on the second night we were there, to be upgraded to a two-bedroom apartment in our hotel - which happened to come with a phenomenal Sydney Harbour view. We quickly invited some of our friends to join us in enjoying this fantastic view.

Here are some of the pictures we took from the living room of our hotel room!

And finally, after we got home, Blair spent a bit of time using photoshop to come up with this blended version of the Opera House. Pretty cool!

Canada

In April, we traveled back to Canada for a VERY awesome event - Andrew and Stephen's wedding!! We spent a fantastic 6 days in Vancouver catching up with family, attending the wedding, and watching Stacy's family meet (and get to know) Matty.

We were also very fortunate to have had enough vacation time to travel to Ottawa to meetup with some of our closest friends, and to then head onwards to Fredericton and Saint John to visit with Blair's family.

It was a fantastic two week getaway, one which only made us even more excited about moving home next year. We are very happy that Matty had the opportunity to meet so many of the people that mean so much to us.

Unfortunately, we won't be posting many pictures from this vacation (though we have hundreds). As a rule we do not post photos showing Matty's face on our blog. Furthermore, we will not be posting photos of our family or friends on here without their permission. :) 

So that leaves us with two photo to share - the first being a picture of us in Sydney before leaving for Canada with all the luggage we needed to take with us overseas. Who knew that such a little human being required so much "stuff" when they travel? ;)

The second photo is an accumulation of all the gifts Matty received from family and friends back home in Canada. This little guy is incredibly lucky to have so much love in his life. 

 

Darwin

Following Broome, we were off to Darwin (with a minor layover in Kununurra - a tiny little village with a population of 4575 in the middle of nowhere).

Darwin is known for its crocs, and was made "Hollywood famous" with Crocodile Dundee. As we have seen crocs many times before, we really didn't feel the need to see them again. Instead, we did a walking tour of the city and its wharfs (in 44 degree weather nonetheless), and spent the rest of our time relaxing on the deck belonging to our swim up room.

Darwin is a cute little place, frequented mostly by folks in the military. We're glad we finally had the opportunity to experience the city that many of our colleagues speak frequently of.

Swim up room!

Enjoying the pool

Other part of the pool

A typical Darwin mangrove

Down at the wharf

A plaque commemorating the bombing of the wharf in 1942

Roo, Croc, or Camel anyone?

The swimming lagoon - the only 'safe' place to swim in Darwin