Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all - may 2008 bring much joy and prosperity to all!

We are doing really well here in Sale, Australia. There was some nasty medical politics initially which seems to be settling down, but apart from that, the people have been wonderfully welcoming and friendly.

Sale is a small town of about 13,000 people; it has all the amenities that one needs but is a bit short on some unique and interesting shops. There are plenty of other towns close by and Melbourne is only a 2 and a half hour drive away. The sporting and library facilities are excellent and the tennis and pool complexes are huge and impressive. The girls are at a private co-ed school - Gippsland Grammar - and are for the most part happy and settled. It has been interesting to compare the standards with EL schools: the girls are ahead of their Aussie counterparts in English and the arts, but behind in maths and science. They work more days a year here, but seem to work generally at a slower pace. The facilities at the schools are excellent and many classrooms have their own interactive whiteboards, and all have computers with internal networking. The kids all used to have their own laptops, but the school has moved away from laptops at school as it proved difficult to control what the kids were up to; instead, there are designated computer rooms around the school including the maths and science labs. Our girls are more articulate than their peers and also more polite; the Aussie kids swear a lot, but then so do most Aussies! The kids here seem to do more for themselves without control/involvement from the teachers; for example, the end of year plays would have production, sound and lighting all managed by the kids themselves, so the standard in the junior grades is not up to the standards we were used to at Clarendon.

The music here is also interesting: all children have to try a variety of instruments and many more are encouraged to perform in concerts regardless of their standard: very good for the children, but very tedious for the audience (especially as we as a family don't know the children yet) We don't as yet have a formed opinion regarding the education here, but I would definitely say that the EL schools compare very favourably with Gippsland Grammar in many ways.
Something that is very different here is the safety of our children: the school takes great care on outings with all arrangements, and that has been a huge relief to me compared with SA.

The country itself is also so safe, and where we live, we have no gates or fences or bars. I don't keep my doors locked at home and don't mind whether the car is locked or not. This aspect of our lives has been the biggest in terms of differences: we feel safe and secure at all times, and the girls are free to ride or walk down the road to visit friends, or to go to the shops on their own. I find this such a huge relief and appreciate the freedom we enjoy because of it.

The Aussies are also better off financially and the Government here encourages people to save and provides tax breaks accordingly. Tertiary education is also far more affordable as the kids can get interest-free student loans which they only start paying back when they start earning. Also, if they take a gap year after school and show that they are able to support themselves by earning AUS 18,000 in the year, they are given preferential student fees because as a group they have been shown to be more likely to succeed at their studies. There is of course also no affirmative action here and also plenty of scholarships around.

The only big downside here is the flies: it is unbelievable how many of these critters there are here and we can't believe that no-one has found a solution to the problem. There are some almost fly-free days, and then others that are so bad that you are afraid to speak outside for fear of sucking in a couple!

We have bought a lovely home on 2 acres just out of town and are looking forward to moving there in less than a month. We have also just bought a beautiful horse for Gabi; for those of you in the know, the horse is a 13 year old,14 hand chestnut gelding called Tambo. He was a brumby - a wild horse - who was caught near here near the Tambo River (hence the name) at the age of 4 years. He is a real beauty and Gabi is in her 7th heaven. We have made friends with a racehorse trainer Marion, through her daughter, Courtney - Courtney and Gabi are great friends; Marion has walked us through this whole process and it was she who found Tambo for us; she has known Tambo for 5 years so we are really very lucky. The house we are moving to has a large paddock for Tambo, and we will be putting in a ringyard for Gabi to practice in. Chloe is getting a puppy - a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, and Jaime will be getting a kitten. There is a chook pen (hens), so the Painters are going farming!

In the meanwhile, Mark is working hard to support us all and is enjoying his job. A helluva lot more civilised than EL with good nursing and lots of support. He does a lot more calls here but they are far more tame than the calls in EL. He does miss East London and his patients at Frere but knows that work at Frere would probably have been the death of him, one way or the other. I, on the other hand, am still embroiled in the registration process; bureaucracy here is every bit as bad as it was in SA, which is a surprise to me, so it's all moving very slowly. I'm not worried at all about the slow pace because there is more than enough sorting out to do with everything else and it's school holidays anyway. The longer I'm not working, the more reluctant I have become to start again!

Jeanne-Marie

A horse named Tambo; by Gabi

The other day we went down to Briagolong to see a horse called Tambo. We are looking for a horse to buy and our friend told us about him. He was born as a brumby and he was caught when he was two to three years old. He is very sweet and obedient. A brumby is found in the outback here in Australia. Another word for a brumby is a mustang if you are wondering. If I get him we’re going to have to get a round arena so I can ride him in.


Tambo is a chestnut pony and has a white star on his forehead. We’re going to keep him in a stable and a paddock. We are going to make a stable for him out of a shed at the back of the house we bought beside the shed. You won’t believe the sheds here. Some of them are bigger than the house. The house we have bought has an “L” shaped paddock around so that is were I am going to keep him. We haven’t got any tack yet but when we get Tambo we will buy some tack for him. I haven’t decided what color tack I want yet but that will come later. Here are some pictures of me with Tambo.

Jaime at Surf Life Saver camp: a diary

Tuesday, Dec 18, 2007

I've just got back from a long HARD day at the beach, in Seaspray (the beaches name)
It was VERY tiring!!
And cold
And windy
And ROUGH!!!

This is the second day of the camp as I couldn't email you on the first day because I slept over at one of the girls holiday house.
I decided to come home because...

a) there were 5 of us sleeping in one of the bedrooms
b) there was only 1 bathroom between 7 of us (besides an outhouse)
c) I was VERY tired

We started out the first day with learning all about saftey and well being (you know a safe work place all all that sort of stuff), then surf awareness and skills (how to identify a rip, what to do when a big wave comes ect) and basic first aid. That took ages to get through!! We've even got a text book and a work book (like the ones that we have in school). The camp is run by about 5 eighteen year olds who are really nice. I stayed with 3 of them: Morgan, Dan and Lochlan (pronounced lok-lin) at Morgans holiday house. Her sister, Anthea is in my grade and doing the camp with me. After a lunch of sausages, we had to go into the freezing cold, rough surf. Unfortunately. I put on my wetsuit and went down to the beach. We then headed out into the surf. Which was rough. Very rough (I think I've made my point by now). Every single wave was at LEAST 2 meters high. And I was the smallest person there. We swam past the breakers and a little bit past the sandbar so that we didn't get hit by every wave. They taught us about staying a float and body surfing and some other stuff I can't remember. After that we went back to shore (catching a wave while we were at it). By then I was FREEZING!! Even in my wetsuit. We then had to go on the boards (which were foam, but still WAY bigger than a boogie board. I was so scared about being 'dumped'. That's when a wave crashes on top of you and you get smashed on to the bottom of the sea (which is about a meter). But it's still a bone-jarring jolt and takes about 10 seconds to get out of the wave! I haven't been dumped (yet) though. Anyway, back to the waves. The waves just keep on coming and you can never find a break in which to paddle as fast as you can to get beyond the breakers. If a big wave comes, and you are on the board, you have to this special roll thing. You have to grab on to the handles and roll the board (with you on it) so that you're submerged under the board and water. When the wave comes, you just go straight over it! It worked pretty well, until a HUGE wave decided to break right on top of me. Let's just say I went flying! I caught a wave back to shore and survived that ordeal (pretty much) unscathed.

The next day I had to wake up extra early because Morgan had to get to the club house an hour early. In the early hours of the morning all 12 kids and 5 eighteen year olds went for a three kilometre run on the soft sand of the beach to a place called the shark pole (don't ask me why it's called that) It was pretty fun, but tiring. We also had the pleasure of seeing a lot of blue bottles (some with meter long tentacles!!). The wind must have brought them in from somewhere along the coast. Now we know what we're swimming with! We were planning to do a run-swim-run exercise that is required for our exams (did I tell you we have those as well?). The surf was so rough today (apparently yesterday was one of the better days) that we had to swim in a lagoon called the 'creek'. It's not a very pleasant place and when it's not connected to the ocean, the water looks like Coke and when you kick it, it turns yellow. I think fishermen chuck bits of fish in it and (apparently) once a person caught a white tip shark in the ocean, saw it wasn't an edible fish, and chucked it in the creek where it was left to decay. It certainly smells like something is dying in there. And it stinks like sulphur towards the middle!) AND it's all soggy and disgusting at the bottom (and warm). We had to swim 200 meters in that!! And run to the sea and back, but that swimming was pure torture! And after that, we had to perform conscious and unconscious rescues with a 'tube' . We spent the rest of the day performing CPR on weird manikins (we nick named ours Michael Jackson since it had a white face and black body). We also played radio hide and seek which was very fun!

Saturday, Dec 22, 2007

I've just finished camp (for good this time!!). It's been a long, hard week and I'm glad to say that I passed!! I'll just finish what I started in the previous email...

On the third day of camp (which was a Wednesday) I had to do the same sort of stuff which I'd done on the previous tow days. Except in the morning, we did a 5km run on the road at about 8 in the morning. And I didn't have any takkies, so I had to run in SLIPSLOPS!! We also did a run-swim-run (each of them 200 meters long). We learnt how to carry people properly from the water if they had a suspected spinal injury and how to use oxygen. We also did some other stuff on that day, but I can't remember it right now!!

The next day we did a 500 meter run on the beach. That was pure torture. I think they made the distance shorter because everyone was so puffed from yesterday's run that they couldn't do the run-swim-run properly!! Anyway, I hurt my foot on that run (the one on the beach) and I couldn't do today's run-swim-run!! Luckily. The surf was MASSIVE!! It was bigger than the other three days put together! I had a compression bandage on my foot, so I couldn't go on the sand. From where I was sitting on one of the decks, it looked like they were all drowning. Which they seriously were! Chelsea, one of the girls, got a cramp in her leg and couldn't breathe properly, so two on the other girls stayed with her. They were just past the breakers and the IRB (Inflatable Rescue Boat) had to go save her. The other two were starting to get tired so one of them struggled back to shore and the other hung on to one of the life guards tubes. Everybody needed saving at the same time and luckily everyone got back safely to shore. The came in earlier than expected because of the rough conditions and a there was a lightning storm arriving. A few hours later, when the storm had subsided, they made ME go out on the boards and practise catching waves in! I had one life saver on either side of me but it was still very scary. Especially since going out on the boards is not my strong point. I get really scared because you're not able to dive under the waves on a board. Anyway, I got through it. Then everyone was gathered up and when had to go do some MORE board practising in the Creek. It wasn't as bad as the last time I went in because the part of it was opened up into the sea so some of the smell had gone. And it wasn't as hot at the bottom. We paddled up the Creek for a bit and did some races and relays. Did I tell you that the Creek is actually the dead end of a river? Well now you know! I went home that night and was very grateful for the hot shower and warm bed I had! I also found out what happened to my foot. I had sprained it and strained it and it was bleeding under the skin! It's still swollen

The next day I had to get up at six 'o clock (as usual). I caught the bus along with nearly all of the other Seaspray kids. We went to a different beach that day called Woodside. The surf there was not NEARLY as rough and was such a pleasure to save lives in! The biggest waves that broke were at the most a meter and a half high. We spent the whole day doing recalls of all the stuff we had done in the camp. There were seven sections and my first two were in the water, thankfully. The weather just got worse and worse as the day went on and the surf bigger and bigger. But when I was in the water it was lovely. I even managed to catch a HUGE wave on a tow meter long, fiberglass board WITH an unconscious patient in front of me!! I was basically hanging off the end of the board!! That was a pretty fun day!

Unfortunately, the Woodside surf club (and people) are not as nice as Seaspray. They're pretty cold and mean and the club looks like it need a makeover. If we just had their beach, Seaspray would be perfect!!

That night all the girls slept in a ten-man tent. It rained. And it rained and it rained and rained. Really hard in fact! You couldn't even hear yourself think over the sound of the rain! At least the tent was water-proof! We got woken up (as usual) at 6. but this time WITH THE EVACUATION ALARM!!!! It comes out of a loud speaker and it is really LOUD!! Most of the girls were still asleep, but luckily I was awake. But it was still pretty frightful!! We had done most of out practical assessments the previous night (like our CPR and written exam). Today we had to do the physical stuff like tube and board rescues and the run-swim-run. I still had to do the run even with my soar foot. I made it in 6 minutes 25 seconds. We were allowed 8 minutes to do it in. And I walked the 100 meters at the start and end of the race. At the start of the day, the surf was brilliant, the biggest wave only being half a meter big at the most and they only broke one at a time on the shore. But, as usual, the weather got worse and worse. Again, we only just finished everything in time. And again another lightning storm came.

It had started to rain and one of the camp leaders, Shaun, had lost his poor dog. Someone had unclipped him off his chain in the middle of the night and let him run free. He hadn't slipped out of his collar, and the rope wasn't frayed, so that was the conclusion we came to. We searched for about half an hour until we found him, sheltering under one of the cars, since there was a down pour of rain. I was still in my wetsuit, so I was toasty warm. We then went back to the club house and were presented with our uniforms (you can see some pictures of me in my uniform on our blog. They are so cool!! And after that, I went home, looking forward to a nice relaxing three days before Christmas. It was SUCH a fun camp, and I'll probably do it again next year!!

The New House

It happened quite quickly in the end. There was already an offer in on the house so after another quick look, we made a slightly higher offer. This was upped by the other party, we matched it and because our offer wasn't subject to the sale of another house (thank goodness our SA house has sold!!), we were told that ours was accepted, and we were now the proud owner of a house - you can view more pictures of it here.
It's in a little town called Longford, which is a 5 minute drive from Sale. It's quite rural as you can see from an aerial photograph we took when we went for a flip earlier today with some friends.



It's on 2.4 acres of land - enough for a horse, Gabi assures us. Which makes it's proximity to the Pony Club very useful as well. Also, for those interested in golf, as Mark hopes to be one day, the proximity to the golf course is also alluring. One of the problems it that, when there is too much water, as was the case earlier this week, the road to Sale gets submerged. Which means having to drive to Sale via Rosedale, a town about 20 minutes away - making it a 40 minute drive to work. Flooding only happens every couple of years - mind you, it has happened twice so far this year. The previous time was about 10 - 12 years ago.

This is what the road looked like a few days ago - viewing it from the Sale side!


We're only planning to take possession of the house in about March, as we have a 6 month lease on this house and the current owners need a bit of time to start building their new house somewhere else.

The weather was absolutely stunning when we woke up; no wind, nice and warm. So when Angela Todd phoned Jeanne-Marie, offering that her husband (Wayne) fly us around Sale and surrounds in their 6 seater Piper Cherokee 6, we jumped at it.

We had a look around Sale, at our current house, at their house (where Gabi waved at us safely from the lawn), and then on to our new house, and a quick flip to Seaspray which is on the coast. It was very smooth flying, even when JM had the controls. We then had a lovely lunch with them before coming back home. Mowing the lawn, washing the cars etc, would have to wait another day!

Photo essay: Australia

Time has just flown since we arrived here; we've been wanting to update the blog, but never seemed to get around to it! In the event that this never happens, I thought we could show a few photos of our time so far in Australia. For more photographs, you can visit our photo site.

Cousins reunion: weekend in Sydney with Joe and Sheila

Our rental home in Sale, trying to water the newly established lawn.

All the girls have had a 'camp' out - Jaime was the first and has written about it on a previous blog.

One of our first duties was to kit the girls out for the Gippsland Grammar School.

Mark's little run-around, a Toyota Yaris, 1.3l AT which does about 7 litres/100 km in town.

	Jaime and Chloe at the end of the rainbow. Our experience of weather in Sale so far, has been one of unremitting wind (first 6 weeks) then rain (next 2 weeks). I guess that's better than 10 years of drought.
	All dressed up!
	The (Horse) Races are a big social event in Sale - JM ready to join the ladies for a little fun at the tracks!
	Scenes of domesticity
	Jeanne-Marie's runaround - a Kia Grand Carnival 3.7l gas-guzzler
	Cold windy day at Seaspray, 25 mintues from Sale on 90 mile beech
	Inherited furniture looking wonderful in the dining room. And who's that on the computer?
	A day with new friends at their cottage in the bush - children rafted down the river to meet us for lunch; it took them 3 hours to do about 3 kms as they had to carry the inflatables a good deal of the way.
	Mary avoiding the flies!
	The 'barbi' in the bush

Yes, we know we must fill you in on details of the school, our new friends, and the saga of the Paediatrician Who Won't Just Go Away. But we'll leave that for another time...

Jaimes camp out

On Tuesday morning I had to go to school with four days worth of stuff and more. I packed it in one of those weird hiking bags (mine was almost bigger than me!!!). Anyway, I went to school and had to put all of our tents and food into a huge trailer. Then we were off. Two hours of driving in a big bus watching We got there (eventually) and had to be split into groups. And then had to walk 4 kilomters with our heavy backpacks on our backs. My group had four girls and eight guys (a bit much for my liking). We then had to set up our tents while the other group set out on a canoe-ing (how do you spell that???) expedition. Us girls (being smart) put our tents up on a steep hill (what thats where we were told to put them. Anyway, being the overcast, cold day it was, the group leaders decided it would be smart to make us go build a raft and make us paddle to the other side of the jelly-fish infested lake. The girls built one side. The guys built the other. The girls side floated. The guys side didn't. The girls side sunk when the guys decided to jump on it. The girls gave up on the guys and swam back to shore. The guys followed. The guys then had to go back to the other side of the lake because thats where the raft was. We all ended up freezing our butts off, but it was fun!!! Anyway, then we had supper (they call it "tea" here). And then we went to bed. Did I tell you that there are no toilets. Or showers. There was a long drop (that was actually a short drop). So we called it the short-long drop. It was basically a hole with a deckchair on it, with another hole cut into that (the deckchair, that is). I used it once in 4 days. In all other cases, I did a "bushey". Pretty fun.

Well I didn't. I stayed up most of the night because I was un-comfy.

The next day, we went bush walking. Eight kilometers of bush walking. And bush wacking. That's when you go through the bush (which consists of Eucalyptus trees) on no trail. I got a bit scratched. Then we went canoeing (don't judge my spelling!!!). But not before we had had a filling breakfast of rice crispies and powdered milk. I was paired with Alexandra. The only problem is, canoeing isn't her forte. In other words, I paddled EIGHT kilometers upstream with her dipping her paddle into the water every now and then. It took us two and a half hours. Anyway, when we got to the other campsite, we had to set up camp AGAIN!!! The kitchen wasn't as good as the other campsite though. We had to make our own supper. We made mac and cheese on some sort of gas cooker. With powered milk and cheese sauce of course. We sat around the camp fire for a bit then. Here comes the scary bit. I heard rustling in the bushes and shone my torch there. No one else was paying attention to it so I got up and went over there to take a closer look. Something rustled in the trees and jumped into my torch light. It was a...

POSSUM.A brush tailed one to be precise. Anyway, I was going to go to bed (actually my sleeping bag) when to my horror I found out that I'd left my SLEEPING BAG at the other camp!! So I slept in the dirty clothes I had been wearing that day. And no I wasn't cold, I was hot (and still am he he he).

The day after that, we packed up camp and headed back downstream to the other campsite. But not before we had had a filling breakfast of POWDERED mashed potato (I just had cereal again). It only took ME an hour to get back this time. Reunited with the second half of my class, we had a scavenger hunt. Oh, how much fun. Then we sat around the campfire and listened to a guy called Scott (who is known as Skit to everyone, Skittles to me) talk too fast. Oh yes, the boys also were trying to burn each other's socks, shoes and limbs in the fire.

The day after THAT, was a packing up day. We just, believe it or not, but rather do, packed up!! Oh, I forgot to tell you. Some time before this, one of the girls , Chelsea, tripped over a nearly-invisible tent line. I ran after her to see if she was OK, but then I also tripped over it!! Pretty funny, huh?? Anyway, after we had packed up we had to walk the 4 long kilometers to freedom. And then had to sit on a 2 hour bus trip with 13 year olds that hadn't washed for 4 days!!! Not too good. Then my mom came and got me and I was

CLEAN at last!!!!!!!!

100 Points

Life gets more complicated, the more you live it. Packing up from South Africa really drove this home to me. We’d accumulated junk, some of it was boxed for the move back from Canada and was not unboxed by the time we moved to Australia. A windsurfer, last used in 1989, went to Canada in 1991, returned to South Africa in 1998 and remained, still unused, in our storeroom in 2007. The big clear out started months before the move, boxes of stuff were set aside for redistribution around Mooiplaas. Accounts had to be closed, changes of address sent. The papers in the office needed pruning – the shredder, overheated, would stop working after about 45 minutes. Scan important papers, keep only the certificates, shred everything else. Destroy, at long last, those tax forms from 1982.

As the plane took off from East London airport, I felt as though we were leaving a web behind, the slate was now clean. Surely we could live a simpler life down under?

“Australia has managed to get bureaucracy down to a fine art,” Les McBride, our recruiting agent, told us after arriving in Melbourne. “You’ll need your original medical degree certificates, passport and visa, original certificate of intern training, a photograph and certificate of good standing from the South African and British Columbian Boards for your meeting tomorrow with the Victorian Board of Medicine”. Oops: the intern training certificate was in the container – I’d carefully packed the others in our suitcases – and the container would only be arriving a few weeks after we’d settled in. Fortunately the registrar was not too pedantic; he probably had a certified copy in my file and did not need to see the original. Twenty minutes after the interview, I had my Victorian registration certificate: I can practice medicine in this state.

We only spent the first night in Melbourne, and left almost immediately after that interview for Sale, two-and-a-half hours by car towards the south-east. We’d visited here in December last year, the countryside was parched from a massive drought and there were huge fires in the mountains; the one afternoon the sun was but an orange orb in the sky, obscured by the smoke and ash. Now, the countryside was lush and green, a result of the flooding previous month’s floods.

Peter Craighead, the hospital CEO, had managed to secure a house for us to rent at the last minute, and together with some of the other staff at the hospital, moved some beds, linen, crockery and cutlery, washing machine and television. Originally from New Zealand, he understood the urgency of my need to watch the World Cup better than the local Aussies, who are currently under the frenzy of the Australian Football League finals and just aren’t interested in rugby at all. The house is brand new, the garden non-existent with a lawn that’s sprouting like stray hairs on an old man’s head.

The Melbourne hotel and car rental almost completely depleted our funds, as we’d not received any income from the month in Canada. One of my first duties on arrival in Sale was to sign the contract and get a $10 000 cheque out of Peter for relocation expenses.

Then comes the time to weave another web. I started at Telstra; we’d figured out that a home phone, cell phones and internet access was essential.

“We need ID,” the lady behind the counter told me. I had that covered – I had my passport, but no, that is not enough. “You need 100 points,” she said, “a passport gets you 60”. There are a whole lot of other documents that can get you points – Aussie drivers licence, credit card with a photograph on it (has anyone anywhere got one of these?), birth certificate, rates and taxes accounts are just a few of them. I returned with 2 passports, my entry visa, my SA drivers licence, my International drivers licence, my employment contract, my rental agreement, but no; not good enough.

I gave up on her. Next stop, the bank.

“You need 100 points,” the bank lady said. After a quick look at my passport and visa, she said that that was enough: recent arrivals only needed those documents to open an account. So I opened and account and deposited the money.

I tried another Telstra dealer.

“100 points. That’s easy”, she said. Click, click, click, she entered my passport, credit card and drivers licence onto the computer, and gave me 2 cell phone contracts, a date for the installation of the home phone and internet connection.

We need cars. After much research and bargaining, we decide on the Kia Grand Carnival for the family (a 3.7 litre V6 gas guzzler) and a Toyota Yaris for me (1.3 litre, just has to smell the petrol). We need financing – need I say it again, but they needed the documentation for the 100 points. To get the cars registered, I need a client number from VicRoads and VicRoads needs 100 points from me.

Even the video store wants 100 points – passport and rental agreement.

I had to go back to Melbourne a few days after arriving in Sale: I had to return the rental car, the immigration people wanted to let me, with another thousand people, stay in the comfort of their waiting room for a few hours before putting an official visa in my passport, and I had to attend a Medicare briefing in order to get Prescriber and Provider numbers. The prescriber number allows patients to get subsidised medicines from their pharmacy, and the provider numbers allow me to charge medicare for seeing their patients. The numbers take about 2 weeks, so I would work in the hospital without seeing private patients in the rooms until those numbers arrive. I caught the train back to Sale that evening from the Southern Cross Station, the same station where just 24 hours later, little 3 year old ‘Pumpkin’ would be abandoned by her father a few days after he murdered her mother in New Zealand.

Train travel is just so relaxing, it takes about the same amount of time as a car. As it pulled into the Sale station, I could feel myself tensing up, thinking about 100 points and my rapidly complicating life.