After 10 days at sea, Mandolyn has arrived in Australia!

Do you come from a land down under? 

My sister Erika has often warned me:  “Never take your kids to Australia.  They’ll be lured in by those sexy Australians, and you’ll never see them again.”

Where women glow and men chunder

I think my kids are young enough that we don’t have to worry just yet, but I’m familiar with the threat.  In my twenties I lost three friends to the glowing women of the land down under, never to be seen again.

Thankfully, this is a two way street.  In 2014 we had some new neighbors move in on Salt Spring Island.  Danielle, a Canadian, and her Australian husband Rohan.  While travelling in Australia Danielle had managed to execute some kind of reverse snare maneuver and brought her sexy Australian husband back to Canada.

Our new immigrant neighbor was just learning Canadian back then.  When their son needed a bed, he bought a chainsaw and carved up a bed out of the forest.  The finished product still looked a lot like the forest.  When they got hungry he bought a crossbow, and on one occasion shot a deer through the window of his home office.  I guess this is how Australians believe that Canadians behave.  

We became good friends over the years as we introduced him to local traditions like Ikea, and grocery stores.

As luck would have it Danielle, Rohan, and their son Etienne set sail from Canada at the same time as us.  We’ve been in company off and on over the past 2 years, and we cleared through immigration in Australia at the same time. 

And now the tables have turned!  Everyone in Cairns speaks like Rohan.  There are so many Aussie accents, we might be at a ski hill.  Men are chundering left and right, and we rush home each night before the women start to glow.

Rohan is back in his natural environment while we navigate his homeland as foreigners.  He’s been helping us adapt to local challenges like free public bbqs, and wearing shorts all winter.

It’s pretty unreal that we’ve been out traveling for over two years and we still run into our neighbors at the grocery store (they do have grocery stores in Australia).  

We’ve also been traveling with another family on their boat Bumfuzzle for the past two months. Between the three boats there are five kids that are close in age, which is a pretty great situation for kids and parents alike.

From here in Cairns we plan to work our way towards Darwin over the next few months.