Cricket & Surf Rescue & Moustaches

Yeah, the moustache is now gone! But before he shaved it off, we made sure we took a photo for posterity. At left is a group shot of the Movember gang. They received donations from students towards prostate cancer as well as raising awareness. All for a good cause, but I'm still glad to have it shaved off :-)

Sorry for the reduced postings - but we're spending more time at home with wrap up activities and local socializing, so not so many photos.

However, as part of our wrap up activities, there were a couple of photo venues Mike still wanted to capture - and we managed to fit them in this past weekend.

With 'footie' finished for the season, cricket has now taken over the sporting world here in WA. On the tellie this past Saturday afternoon, the only shows on were a choice of either cricket or the world championship of Women's Netball. Neither sport would even appear in Canada - so it was quite a unique experience. If you aren't familiar with netball, it's kind of like basketball, but no dribbling, no jumping, free access to shoot the ball and no backboard. For us basketball fans, it's not very enticing I have to admit.

On Saturday, Mike attended a cricket match of one of the teachers - actually not the whole match as it does go on for an awfully long time - but part of the match at least. From the photos you would almost think it was a game full of action!

We had attended a performance of the school play a couple weekends ago, and this past weekend we had more social dates.

Friday evening Kyle was bowling with friends, and Saturday evening Mike & I had dinner at Richard & Phillipa's (fantastic lamb roast dinner).

And we even managed to rise early enough on Sunday to head up to Fremantle to catch their hosting of the Surf Lifesaving Competition. This was the other local activity Mike was hoping to catch before we head out, and this visit was much more successful than our failed attempt a few weekends ago!

Many local Surf Lifesaving teams competed in a whole range of age groups. The events included individual and team competitions. There were running races on the beach (individual and relay both photoed here), swimming races, board races, boat races, and even tug of war for the younger crowd!


Kids start at a very young age and it's a very impressive program. The members are all extremely fit, and it's obviously a very popular activity with kids and adults of all ages. I can't really say we have anything like this in Canada, although ski patrol programs would be the closest thing.

And one final photo to finish with - a shot of a bobtail skink from the local surrounds. Mike comes across them every now and then, and finally had a camera handy on this occasion!

The Melbourne Cup

Tuesday was the running of the Melbourne Cup. This is a monumental event here in Aus - running since 1861. It is the most famous Tuesday in Australia, and an actual public holiday in Melbourne. The whole country stops at 3pm AEST to watch/listen to the event - Kyle even got to watch the horses run during his sport class today. In a country of 18 million people, they expect 160 Million to be bet on the race. That's almost $10 for every single Aussie!!!! They do love their 'punting' (betting) down here!

The Melbourne Cup is also an 'urban fashion show', especially known for the women's hats. And they are not only worn to the actual race, but on the day where ever you may be. This years event was jeopardized by the equine flu which has been widespread and devastating to the racing industry/horses down here. But despite the ongoing lock down in the stables, the race was run - although there were no horses in the parade for the first time ever.

A few of the teachers are Pinjarra are photoed here in their race day get ups (either their own or borrowed - you guess which of the 3 is wearing an outfit on loan!). And not to miss out, Anthony Pittman (host of the last party we attended) has created the Official Pinjarra Cup including Race Book - in which he states "If anything written offends it was totally unintended but those people should dry their eyes and toughen up". The Pinny Cup consists of 2 races 'run' by a group of fictitious horses from Pinjarra HS. 'Maple Syrup' (Monty's horse as you may have guessed) was listed as:

"Out of Dud Exchange and by Walshy's Pad. A long horse
who doesn't like carrying weight on his long frame. This overseas invader
hasn't had success on Australian tracks and will be a long shot, may just screech past them on the home run."

Each race has 6 horses and they included 'Algebra Sinner', 'Dancing Queen', 'Bookman Magpie', 'Gun Pouch' and 'Office Chicks'. There even was official commentary of the running of the races.

In the first race Bookman Magpie came from the rear of the pack to take the lead towards the end of the race. Then right near the finish, jockey Guillam fell off the horse. And in the end, this allowed Canada’s Maple Syrup to win the race (yeah!) followed by Pickers of the Bunch and Dancing Queen.

In the second race, Office Chicks appeared to have won the race but were later disqualified for whipping their horse leaving the win to Algebra Sinner. Two very exciting races!

And a couple of other random notes....

You will now notice that Daylight Savings has come in to effect down here and it has finished in the North - so we are now 14 hours ahead of Southern Ontario. And if you want to start a heated debate down here just ask someone what they think of DST. It is in it's second year of a 3 year trial right now. The pressure is on to put it to a vote tomorrow with the strong expectation that it would be voted out overwhelmingly. They really don't get the concept very well.... people constantly refer to the 'real' time and have to clarify they mean daylight savings time when making appointments. Our hike even started an hour later since we were in DST - quite funny really. No matter what they say, I like the extended daylight in the evening myself.

On a final note, November is 'Mo'vember down here. It is a fundraising month for Prostate Cancer. Men grow their mo'ustache' for the month to raise cash. Mike had hoped to do the full beard since he really does not look that good in a mo, but that was voted down. So he's going for the Frank Zappa look with a minor goatee as well as a moustache. It was quite by chance that Mike decided to copy Frank Zappa. In looking for a photo of him on the internet, Mike discovered that Frank actually passed away due to prostate cancer at age 52. So it was quite an appropriate choice. We'll include photos once the facial growth is worthy.