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Last month we decided to take advantage of Scott not working with a budget-friendly trip to the Mallee. We left on Sunday afternoon after pickleball and drove north to Swan Hill.

We stopped at an Ibis Rookery along the way. It had an excellent bird hide. We saw a lot of ibis and cormorants. Like.. A LOT. There were also a lot of mosquitos so we didn’t stay too long.

A cool sunset. I thought it kind of looked like a bird as well.

Big Cod in Swan Hill.

Singing Honeyeater

The next morning we got tradie bacon and egg rolls for breakfast and then drove to Goschen, which is just a little bushland reserve recommended to me by one of the Birdlife photographers. We saw a couple new birds: White-browed Woodswallow, and White-winged Triller. And a lot of flies.

Then we continued on to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, which is near Mildura, where we camped for three nights. It is a nice park, desert-y, but with water. It was pretty quiet, with tons of birds and reptiles. And wild goats!

Our campsite was right on Lake Mournpall, which had a lot of jumping fish in it, which entertained us in the evening. We also spent a lot of time walking, birdwatching, reading and knitting.

My DIY Detachable Lego Fly Deterrer actually worked pretty well, except for when I accidentally swatted a brick into my nose. Did I look stupid? Yes. But did it work? Yes.

Warepil Lookout Mallee sunset. Very flat land.

A visiting family.

I think these are called Shingleback Lizards. I called them Road Sausages. Or Turd Lizards. They are so stumpy!!

There was a little scenic nature circuit that you could drive around. We saw this cool Lace Monitor and lots of birds.

One day we did the slightly longer Lake Loop walk, which started off pretty fun because it’s a little bit free-form as long as you find the next sign post.

But I got pretty tired by the end because parts of it were a bit flooded and it was hard to find the next post. And the last hour or so was walking through all this stupid loose branches filled with burrs, on top of sand.

We drove out to the Hattah Outback Roadhouse for ice cream and a shower after that. I couldn’t believe the showers were free! It was very needed and appreciated.

The astro conditions were perfect so we saw some pretty good night sky. Unfortunately the aurora alarm didn’t go off while we were there… we were planning on driving back to the lookout platform if it did. Not sure we’d be able to see anything since we were quite far north anyway though? But there certainly wasn’t any light pollution.

Splendid Fairywren. So pretty! We saw a bunch of these on our walks.
A fluffy Mallee Ringneck. There were lots of these around the campsite but they were hard to get a good picture.
Cute Galah couple.
Peregrine Falcon wayyyyy up at the top of a big dead tree.
Apostlebird. I think these are special to the area but they were a bit nasty imo.
Wish I had gotten a better picture of this Bearded Dragon.

The weather was absolutely beautiful for our whole trip until the last day. We managed to pack up camp before the weather turned, but it was a long dreary drive back to Melbourne.

We broke up the drive by stopping lots of times.

  1. Lake Tyrrell. Cool to see the big pink lake, and a new bird (Bluebonnet), but it was very chilly so we didn’t stay long.
  2. Sharp’s Bakery in Birchip for 10/10 vanilla slices. They really did live up to the hype (has won best in Australia a couple times). Perfectly crisp pastry, smooth custard, and the perfect amount of icing. My controversial opinion is that vanilla slices should be half as tall, but I know that most Australian’s would disagree.
  3. Wycheproof Bakery for a panini for lunch.
  4. Bendigo Woollen Mills to replenish the yarn stash. Scott got some cotton to make another amigarumi, and I got some variegated wool that I’m not sure what to do with yet.
  5. McDonalds drive through for some fries because I was dying of starvation.

It was a great trip! We were actually supposed to go the week before but the forecast was HORRIFIC so we postponed one week and that worked out perfectly. Scott and I both ended up with covid but thankfully it didn’t come up until the last day of the trip too. We saw so much cool stuff, but no budgerigars or pink cockatoo so now I want to go even deeper into the Outback!

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The next few days were fun and chill. We headed back to Squamish and hung out with Rosemarie and her friends. Interfered with Lauren’s routine. Played a lot of board games and pickleball. Liz and Tom came to visit. Met up with Brian and his gf. Scott organised a trip up the Chief gondola. Helped prepare Rosemarie’s house for even more visitors.

Then dad and Diane arrived! Diane had never been to BC so we immediately took her up to the tippy top of Whistler. They were saying the lifts might close because of lightning threat but we got lucky and had no issues. It was a fun, tiring, day. We even saw a brown black bear.

Then we spent a few days on the Sunshine Coast. Getting everyone to the ferry was stressful and getting everyone off the ferry was stressful. But it worked out. The airbnb was nice and we had great weather, saw lots of pretty BC views, saw some seals/sea lions and woodpeckers. Had some family meals. Always nice to see Lesley too.

Finally it was time for Scott and I to go home. :(

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When we first booked this Canada trip we thought we’d only be able to see Rosemarie on the weekends so Scott and I booked a three day kayaking trip way up at the Northern end of Vancouver Island with North Island Kayak.

The weather and water conditions were perfect. No rain at all. Mostly sunny with one moody misty morning. At some points the water was like glass! I kept yelling out “How is this the ocean???!!”

We saw tons of humpback whales in the distance from the campground but didn’t end up seeing any orcas. The orcas were behind schedule… yay climate change.

The other people in the group were friendly.. we had a Brit couple, a Swiss girl, an older Canadian man, and our guide was a young Canadian dude. We didn’t have to do any of the cooking or cleaning, and our tents were already set up for us with humongous elevated sleeping mats. It was all very luxurious.

I lost my mind a little bit when I found out they made dairy-free Nanaimo bars for me.

My arms definitely got tired, but thankfully Scott is a machine and just kept paddling, while I took FREQUENT breaks. Basically we’d do about one to two hours of kayaking at a time, broken up by meals and snack breaks. And it was at a verrry relaxed pace. Over the three days we went the entire way around Hanson Island.

One of the most memorable parts for me was when we kayaked through this little crevice at low tide. The rock walls on both sides were covered with super droopy sea anemone and urchins that were now out of the water. The looked like snotty testicles. Never seen anything like that before!! We went through twice. That’s where we saw the giant morning sun star fish as well.

While we didn’t see any orcas or bears we did still see tons of wildlife. I loved when the eagles flew over us, and kayaking past the rock sausages (seals).

BC is great.

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You’ve probably already seen most of these pictures on Instagram/FB but I still wanted to recap the trip again for posterity. It was super fun!!

July 12th was a mammoth day. I went to the gym, then knitting club (Scott came too! The old ladies thought that was a hoot), and then we headed to the airport the cheapskate way via walking+train+train+bus. There was a horrifingly outgoing singing tween at our gate who of course ended up directly behind us on the flight. THANK JEEBUS for headphones omg. I requested vegan food on the flight to avoid dairy and it was ok! Lots of snacks! I only ate one of my emergency pepperoni sticks. (However it sounds like Qantas does it better than Air Canada, from Rosemarie’s report.) I quite enjoyed getting my food first too. I watched three movies and slept a bit.

We arrived in Vancouver still on July 12th, picked up our rental car, which was thankfully not as tiny as I paid for. Stopped at Duffins Doughnuts as per tradition but accidentally got PLAIN DRY old fashioned doughnuts, rather than PLAIN GLAZED old fashioned doughnuts which made me very sad. Thankfully the sadness was short-lived because we had THE BEST YAM ROLL OF MY LIFE in North Van at a randomly picked sushi restaurant. It had two layers of yam!! Everything else was great too. We over-ordered because we forgot how cheap Vancouver sushi is. Then we finally arrived in Squamish and hugged Rosemarie and finally got to lay down horizontally and sleeeeeeeep.

We crammed a lot into the next day as well. No meal left behind, so breakfast sausage and bagels for breakfast, Kululu for lunch. Check check check. Rosemarie and I went to the gym. We hit a wiffle ball around. And tried to stand up paddle board but it was too windy. Scott made it exciting by dropping our waterproof camera into the lake and later finding it.

The next day was big as well. Sense a theme here? We all got up early to catch the ferry to Nanaimo and then drive the rest of the way to Victoria. It looks like a highway on the map but actually it has 900 stoplights and isn’t the most fun drive. We ran a few last minute errands and then finally made it to Leslie and Kyla’s out-of-towners BBQ at their house. It was the first time the Ace Gang had been together in like a decade. It was so fun to hang out with Cassia, Helenka, and Leslie. And tons of others I hadn’t seen in ages like Catty, Monica, David, and their families. We used to spend so much time together.. it still feels so comfortable to hang out even now. We had hotdogs and sorbet and then later a few of us went out for sour beer slushies in the city.

PS Happy 13th Anniversary to Scott and I.

July 15 – Wedding day! We went out for brunch with Cassia and Helenka, then Rosemarie and I got blow outs while the others went sightseeing. We got Korean-Chinese dumplings for a pre-wedding snack and then we headed out to the venue. The ceremony was in a very pretty garden. Again it was fun to hang out with old friends and get pictures of everyone dressed up all fancy. Dinner was delicious and the wedding cake was lactose-free!! Scott and I bailed a little bit early because we are old lol. But Scott got MVP status because he still went to pick up Rose and Lauren later. Best bro-in-law.

We still hadn’t managed to play any pickleball yet so we squeezed it in before post-wedding brunch. Canadians are so lucky that there are free courts everywhere!! Minus one star for these courts being a bit slanted, but plus one star for having a splash pad right next door to cool down! Brunch was massive and it was great to spend more time with Jinnie, who I’d not actually spent much time with in person ever, but still feels like a long-time friend. Rosemarie and Lauren had to head back to Squamish after lunch, and Cassia, Helenka, Scott and I spontaneously decided to check out Butchart Gardens. I thought it was nice but expensive!! On the way back we heard that Leslie and Kyla were having one last gathering by the water near their house so we dropped by to chill and eat more wedding cake. Then finally Scott and I got takeaway Red Fish Blue Fish which we ate in our hotel bed before passing out from exhaustion.

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Microwaved saline bags make great heat packs for when you wake up on your birthday with crippling neck pain.

My first macrame. Except not really, because it’s basically just making giant friendship bracelets?? I was awesome at those back in the day.

I made a wall hat holder. Rosemarie said it’s ugly AF. Thanks sis.

I still made her a headband. It’s knitted in English rib and it’s super squishy.

Unpictured stuff:

  • We went to a potluck high tea at Bis’s house. Scott and I brought sandwiches… egg, chicken, and ham and cheese. We still have a big tupperware in the freezer filled with crusts. I didn’t take any pictures but it was fun!!
  • Crammed in 85 appointments before we left for Canada. Good news, my ears are fine, my teeth are fine, my hands are slightly less shakey, my allergy shots are ordered, etc. Feels good to get all sorts of stuff like that sorted out.

Then we left for Canada! More posts coming…