mom and dad came for a nice visit during the month of march. i was so excited they got to be here for all the festival madness... and, as usual, we packed a lot in. payton and i were actually able to go out (gasp!) and see a couple of different venues at the fringe festival. we saw circus oz - a circus of human acrobats who were pretty incredible to watch - and "axis of awesome" - our personal favorite. the name alone was an attention grabber and it had the same (but cleaner!) flavor as tenacious d. laugh out loud funny rock-comedy. we actually each bought a t-shirt we liked it so much!
we took nova to a couple of venues too, but there was one in particular that just had her riveted to her seat (my lap) for the entire 50 minutes. i was so proud of her attention span! it was a three-person troupe of acrobats from tasmania and nova clapped and stared and cheered with every performer prompt. i think we all enjoyed watching her as much as she enjoyed watching the performance...
one of the events that makes march so crazy here is the adelaide cup, a high stakes horse race. payton and i got to go and had the dumb-luck of stumbling into the VIP lounge where we watched the races in comfort under a covered patio overlooking the finish line. we did not, however, have the dumb-luck of actually winning any of our bets... nonetheless, for the last race of the day, we thought we should go down to the "general admission" standing only area and join our rightful brethren. turns out they were all drunk and stumbling around plastic beer cups and broken bottles that were strewn across the grassy area. shortly after arriving in their zone, we realized we wish we'd left our brethren to heave it out on their own... but hey, the horses were beautiful!
an adelaide festival feature is "the northern lights" where they project all these beautiful, colorful images on the old buildings along north terrace that house the state library, the south australia museum, the are gallery, etc. the images change every five minutes or so and it is a fascinating stroll.
more of "the northern lights"
we all took a week long holiday to tasmania, where payton and i decided that had we ended up in hobart (tassie's capital city), we might be tempted to stay a little longer. it is a lovely little city with the best bakery (whose name i've forgotten! horrors!) i've found so far in australia. tassie is beautiful country, hilly and lush. we spent a day exploring hobart and surrounds. we took a drive to port arthur penal colony which has the awkward contradiction of being incredibly beautiful but shadowed with an ugly and violent history.
family portrait at the penal colony! boats in the harbor are a little different today than they were in the prisoners' day...
the ruins of the prison, port arthur penal colony. the quality of the buildings was quite impressive. this whole area was a functioning town that included homes for guards and their families as well as free settlers.
very creepy, roof-less church at port arthur.
we went from hobart to bronte national park in the interior - our only "mountain" part of the trip, and the only part where it really rained and nova was disagreeable to a hike. but even in the mist, it was beautiful. then we went to the east coast to freycinet national park and wineglass bay. beautiful weather and beautiful scenery. the only way to get to wineglass bay is via boat or hike, so we hiked to the lookout then dropped into the bay for a picnic lunch. the weather was a bit cool for a swim, but perfect for hiking. so perfect, in fact, that nova hiked 3/4 of the kilometer-long trail back up from the beach to the look out; she hiked - at a surprisingly good pace - some 150 meters of elevation! and even then, when she finally stated that she was ready to get in to the back pack she sang almost the entire way back down to the car. then, of course, she sacked out like only babies and puppies can and was not to be woken despite transfers from pack to car seat to hotel bed.
mom and dad on the hike up to wineglass bay lookout
wineglass bay from the lookout
team gardner enjoying the sand of wineglass bay
nova with gran and grandaddy on wineglass bay
payton turned 32 on our trip to tassie, so i surprised him with a tour of the cascade brewery. mom and dad played with nova in the beautiful cascade gardens while payton discovered his new favorite aussie beer.
the lovely brewery nestled under mt. wellington.
mom and nova playing while mommy and daddy learned about brewing beer in large quantities and where vegemite comes from... (it is, in fact, the leftover yeast scraped from the brewing barrels)
we spent one day at brighton beach in adelaide where nova made fast friends with jack and anna. payton and i enjoyed a long chat with the parents while the kids played around, eventually to be interrupted by their screams of "we want chocolate ice cream" - so the bond was further cemented at the ice cream stand.
we love chocolate! (this makes me think of the scene in spaceballs where the stunt doubles accidentally get captured - and it's some bearded guy with a cigar that stands in for princess vespa...)
later, anna invited nova to her fairy birthday party. i'm so glad mom was there to dress her, as she otherwise would have been the very non-fairy dressed girl in shorts and a t-shirt. thank goodness for gran! nova, of course, loved it, and we have since been frequented with sudden presentations of nova in a tutu and fairy wings.
alas, all good trips come to a close. but first! mom and nova baked some australian animal sugar cookies and talked about all the things they'd do when gran and grandaddy return!
baking with gran
big girl, happy gran.
