Australia- otherwise known as Oz -
Oz is a fascinating country. A quarter larger than the land mass of the United States. About 1/10 the population of the US. The Eastern seaboard of the country is almost twice as long as that of the US.
In all honesty, much of the time Oz felt like home. The climate in Queensland (QLD), Scarborough where we spent the vast majority of our time is much like that of Florida. Hot and humid in the summer and cool / cold in the winter with bouts of rain mixed in. What we never had in Florida was the fire season. Oz at various times in its history has had extensive wild fires. The smoke fills the air adding a stench for miles around. Here they use km. They did after all join the 21st century years ago. :)
We arrived expecting to stay about 1 1/2 years. We’ve ended up here almost 3 years. We arrived with fires choking the wildlife and the people. We tied up in a marina for all of Covid. We witnessed two rain bomb events where flooding ruined many lives.
During this time we managed quite a few boat projects; redoing the entire refrigeration system, replacing the entire cooling system on the main engine, stripping all the exterior varnish and covering with an epoxy., adding AIS, replacing some critical standing rigging. Hordes of small projects that demand our attention were handled as the need arose.
We spent a great deal of time in Brisbane (Brissy) with tennis friends we made in the states. They have a 3 year old which we loved to play and hang with (them too) but Olympia was the magnet. We joined two tennis clubs-the Redcliff one was the key where we made many new dirt dwelling friends. We traveled to Sydney, Uluru, Toowoomba, Maleny, Bunya Mountain, Glass House Mountains, Mooloolaba, and Cairns. And finally, leaving this wonderful country; we’ve sailed the entire length of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).
One thing Oz has plenty of; adventures and places to visit. We couldn’t see everything, but we gave visiting this HUGE country our best shot.
It's Been a Long Time
Some adventures we crammed into a week or even a few days. Others we spent months working on. Many of the details can be found in our blog.The photos we took documenting this process will be culled and found here.