Great Ocean Road & the Grampians

 

Last December, we decided to do a family vacation over 2 weeks in Victoria, Australia. This time our itinerary took in the famous penguin parade on Phillip Island to the south of Melbourne, then connected to the Great Ocean Road (GOR) by way of a remarkably efficient (and safe) car ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff.

Along the GOR, we went as far as the seaside town of Warrnambool before turning inland into the mountain region called the Grampians. The beauty about self-drive holidays is the ability to stop anywhere along the way to take in the wonders of Nature. Thus, we were lucky enough to spot wild koalas in the tree canopy on the Otway Cape and a koala mother & baby(on piggy-back) crossing a country road en route to Halls Gap, Grampians.

After hiking the Grampians, we had an interesting one-night stopover in Ballarat on our way back to Melbourne. 30 years ago on our honeymoon, we had no luck panning for gold. This round, we learnt the right technique and caught gold fever in the old mining town on Sovereign Hill. We also had time to gawk at real gold artefacts in the amazing Gold Museum.

Glacier National Park, Montana

It must have been the call of the mountains again. This year, Theresa & I decided to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary by doing a drive-cum-hiking trip in Montana & Wyoming. Starting out in West Glacier, we drove 2000 miles over 3 weeks through some of the most scenic byways in North America.

June is early summer in the northern hemisphere. We wanted to see gushing rivers & full waterfalls from winter snowmelt, spring flowers & wildlife, while avoiding the summer crowds. Conversely, we were expecting unstable weather.

Guess we lucked out ! Have a look at our picture albums (links in the sidebar). The heavens looked kindly upon us as we chased the sunshine & hiked to Avalanche Lake (at left) & Running Eagle Falls (on the right).

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming





Yellowstone. Imagine a super-volcano with the world's largest collection of geysers & thermal features. Bison "jams" holding up traffic. Hundreds of species of flora & fauna inhabiting a vast, wild landscape.

Ancient tribes of Native American Indians had discovered this magical place 11,000 years ago & it became the first national park in the world in 1872. This June, we joined early-season visitors in celebrating the great outdoors in Yellowstone.

We last visited the Park with our boys then aged 10 & 12 years old, in the year 2000. There was a great fire in 1988 and a quarter of a century has since passed. We are happy to confirm for everyone that the lodgepole pine forests have regenerated very well. Such is the wonder of  Nature.

The Grand Tetons, Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park lies just south of Yellowstone. Yet it has a dramatically different geography. Lofty peaks seem to rise vertically up from the valley floor & dominate the landscape. Tectonic plate shifts over a 40-mile long fault line is still dropping the valley & pushing up the peaks.
As a result, there are numerous scenic lookouts like the Snake River Overlook and challenging trails like our hike into the Cascade Canyon.

"Buffalo Bill" Cody, Wyoming

We planned to explore the nearby scenic Chief Joseph & Beartooth Highways, by staying 3 nights in Cody. As things panned out, we also found time to visit the impressive Buffalo Bill Historical Center & the re-constructed Old Trail Town (do visit picture albums in sidebar).

Cody started out as a small frontier town. It was named after William Frederick Cody, who envisioned it as the perfect eastern gateway to Yellowstone. Larger than life, he was credited with romanticising the American Wild West through his famous travelling shows.

Theresa & The Crimson Sunbird

In July last year,  while hiking our usual forest trail in MacRitchie, we encountered a magical bird of Singapore - an adult male of the Crimson Sunbird species, Aethopyga siparaja.  He posed for us for exactly 1 minute in a shrub of tapioca plants, while delicately sipping nectar from the tapioca blossoms.

Resplendent in his scarlet red, black & grey feathers, speckled with white, some even declare that he's the national bird of Singapore. Indeed, it was fortuitous that we spotted him just a month before our National Day.

 

Yesterday, after lengthening our route to a grand total of 15 km over 4 hours, we were rewarded towards the end by another sighting of Mr Sunbird.

For this, full credit must go to my wife, Theresa. Just as every marksman is well-served by an eagle-eyed spotter, on numerous outdoor adventures, her keen eyesight & woman's intuition have pointed my camera in the right direction. On occasions, she has even taken over the camera, freezing her own breathless moments of beauty like this yellow Oriole & pretty Honolulu blooms in & around our garden-in-the-sky.

Anyway, after hiking the same trail almost every Sunday since climbing Mt Kinabalu together in 2010, we're grown to appreciate the simple joys of Nature. Rain or shine, my trusty Panasonic camera is always with me, for just such moments that take our breath away.

Spirit of Clubmed on Bintan Island

It's amazing how a short ferry ride across blue-green waters can transport you from Singapore to a tropical island paradise. For romantic couples as well as families with children, the Clubmed resort on Bintan Island tries hard to maintain that image.

Over the years, it has somehow managed to fulfill that promise for us. Our 2 sons will always remember our previous family vacations filled with sea, sun & indoor sporting activities complemented with good food & wholesome entertainment. Most times, success must be credited to the Clubmed culture of a young & vibrant team of "GOs" or gracious organisers, and a village chief, who leads by example!

Last weekend, Theresa & I sneaked off to Clubmed Bintan by ourselves, where Mike & his wonderful team gave us our best vacation ever. Theresa was particularly impressed by Syera who served us in the Boutique gift shop. She also led in a traditional dance the first night & proceeded to charm us into modelling their latest sportswear on stage the second night.

On the third night, we were destined to be re-acquainted with their resident musician, Buddy. In celebration, we teamed up to sing a duet as guest entertainers after the usual night show. For Theresa, it was also her chance to take on her stage name Sayuri, singing in public with live accompaniement for an appreciative audience ! After warming up the mike, we were in the mood for some freestyle dancing well past midnight.

Amongst the many talented GOs, we will remember Marco fondly, who loved being in the limelight as the new in-house comedian, alongside Clubmed's resident clown Tam-Tam, who just happens to be the Restaurant Manager in the resort. Talk about wearing many hats ...

Life's A Scenic Adventure

Earlier in March this year, we did more adventuring in Kinabalu, hiking its cool trails around the Park Headquarters with its pleasant temperature range of 15 - 24 degrees C (all year round). There was no pressure this time round to summit the mountain & we planned our hikes to last from 2 to 4 hours. Theresa & I enjoyed the scenic Liwagu Trail the most as we started it upriver near the Timpohon Gate & followed its steep-sided descent to the HQ. Even though we finished it mid-afternoon in drenching rain, we were prepared with raincoats & headlamps, which made it all the more exciting! If you click on our Picasa album in the sidebar, you can see what other adventures we enjoyed in Sabah.

Family Time

When our boys were growing up through their childhood & teenage years, my wife Theresa & I aspired to keep 2 simple promises. A happy home to grow up in, and a broad education.

As a family, we were privileged to have lived abroad in Boston in the last year of my specialist training with the National Skin Centre, Singapore. While I did lab research at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Theresa, with initial help from visiting grandparents, gave Calvin & Daryl a carefree childhood. There were no classes in Montessori "early education", or special Math & Science "enrichment". Instead, there was lots of learning through play & each weekend, we planned for little driving adventures in the beautiful New England countryside.

Back home in Singapore, they had more contact time with doting grandparents while we introduced them to creative art, drawing, piano music, swimming, martial arts and all manner of ball games. There was time to fly kites & model aeroplanes and lots of freeplay inbetween. Honestly, on thinking back, parenthood was a truly enjoyable time for us.

Having appreciated the great outdoors in America, we've also taken the boys on leisurely family vacations back to various parts of North America. Of course there were the enchanting excursions to man-made theme parks like Disneyland & Universal Studios but we specially enjoyed rustic road trips through giant redwood forests and across great deserts, to see spectacular mountain ranges, canyons, geysers, rivers, waterfalls & lakes. I didn't realise then that the mountains were beckoning to Theresa. She had always harboured a secret childhood passion to climb a mountain peak & only years later did it become a reality.

Today, we're glad to see Calvin fulfilling his ambition to become an architect in Melbourne and Daryl finishing an exciting officer cadet training course in the airforce. Whether it be Theresa summiting Mt Kinabalu in 2008 & 2010, Calvin aceing his architecture programme or Daryl aiming to be a pilot-officer, I sincerely believe it's what the good professor, Randy Pausch prescribed in his Last Lecture (please see my previous post), chasing our childhood dreams.

It's nice that Theresa & I now have more couple-time for our own pleasurable pursuits. Like Latin dance, movie dates, regular nature hikes in MacRitchie forest and planning for more adventuresome trekking abroad. We'd like to think of Life as one great scenic drive; taking the time to smell the roses along the way, making happy memories together. Call it our joie de vivre.

Crossing The Threshold and Celebrating Life

One weekend in October 2011, we celebrated a double-birthday with a difference. It was our younger son, Daryl's 21st, coinciding with grandma's 80th on exactly the same date, the 21st of October. An auspicious double celebration indeed.

For Daryl, it was crossing the threshold into adulthood. After graduating from Singapore Polytechnic with a Diploma in Communications & Media, he has since enlisted into the Army, while Yihan, his girlfriend is furthering her studies at the local University.

For us, his parents, we're happy to have given him a happy, stable home to spend his childhood, and in his adolescence, the space to cultivate meaningful relationships with people outside the family. Given his gregarious personality & multiple talents, we believe that he will follow his passion & fulfill his ambition in Life. Time for us to sit back & give him emotional support and financial aid as needed for his higher education.

For Grandma (Theresa's mother), it's a significant milestone to have come this far & be able to see Daryl grow up into a man. In the evening of her Life, she has accepted the wisdom of Velveteen Rabbit, celebrating Life & grateful for what she has. For us in Asia, we try & have parents & grandparents close by & in this respect, Dominic (Theresa's brother) is truly a filial son, attending to most of her needs. Blessed is he.

Chamonix - Mount Blanc in the French Alps

Chamonix was everything I imagined, and more. We wanted to hike the trails in autumn, hoping to see a snow-capped mountain or two. They were all there plus living glaciers, in glorious sunshine and then in our last 2 days, we had freezing rain which magically turned into snow !

We did 2 major hikes; first a high valley hike from the Plan d'Aiguille to the Montenvers Hotel, overlooking the Mer de Glace on Day 2, having seen it the easy way on the previous day by cogwheel train.

On Day 3, we drove leisurely over to nearby Annecy Lake, then on Day 4, we blew our last sunshiny morning on an arduous (and somewhat dangerous) hike to Lac Blanc (main picture). I wanted to spend more time up in this heavenly place but the cloud system had begun to move in. So we beat a careful retreat down to the Col des Montets mountain pass, where our rental car was parked by the roadside.

Day 5 was all rain & allowed us to rest & recuperate. When we saw the thermometer dip towards zero Celcius, we decided to re-visit the Col des Montets & saw our first snow flurry, yay. That night, we had a cosy Michelin-starred dinner right in our hotel (the Best Western Le Morgane). On our last day checking out, we had one last foray up the mountain pass & were rewarded with the first real snowfall of autumn !

Paris in the Autumn 2011

 

24 years ago, while in London for business, we decided to spend a quick weekend in Paris. Even with fickle weather & a little point-&-shoot camera, it still made a romantic first impression, leaving us wanting for more. Thus it was a natural choice for my wife when she developed travellers' itch soon after we successfully settled our elder son in Melbourne earlier this year. I quickly made plans & envisaged us spending a week of romance in Paris plus another week exploring the French Alps.

In line with my philosophy of travelling light, I took the opportunity to buy a new pancake lens for my Panasonic G camera system, the 14mm F2.5. It turned out to be a great wide-angle lens for lowlight indoor shots as well as a compact prime lens for landscape photography while on the move hiking the mountain trails.

This time round, the weather was fabulous. Autumn was showing in the changing leaves & the cool crisp air made walking a joy. We didn't miss the crowds of summer & were thrilled to have blue skies every day in Paris!

Each day was filled with sensuous sculptures & exquisite paintings inhabiting magnificent palaces & grandiose museums. Of course there was the compulsory Eiffel Tower climb & we even cruised the River Seine in the glow of the evening light.

The Dance Of Life Comes Full Circle

Here's an amazing assembly of our dance classmates with their newborn babies, all within a span of the past one year. Imagine the joy of dancing giving forth to new life !

Over 2 years ago, when we had newly joined Teacher Jennifer & George's ballroom dancing, I blogged about the Wu Li or Joie de Vivre observed in the couples on the dancefloor. As they practise their moves to perfection, there must be some kind of magic in dance that gets the mojo going.

And wouldn't it be interesting if the next generation of babies grew up to be musically inclined, swaying rhythmically in time to catchy tunes, anything & everything from samba to swing waltz ! I guess only time will tell ...

Reunion and a Season to Enjoy

Last weekend was a great way to reunite with many of our classmates from the medical class of 1981. It's an incredible feeling to be in the lovely banquet hall of Rasa Sentosa Resort, amongst friends you remember from 30 years back.

We may have changed in outward appearances but there was a slideshow of old photographs to bring back warm recollections of the Spring of our lives. We should feel so lucky to have had 3 decades of life's experiences since then.

Theresa & I especially feel lucky to have shared the journey thus far. So much so that we decided to sing Jason Mraz's duet of the same title, as part of the night's lively entertainment. The next morning, those of us who stayed overnight availed ourselves of a leisurely breakfast while the weather stayed fair for us to play a casual game of table-tennis outdoors.

As we enter the Autumn of our lives, we must remember to go easy on ourselves and to protect our skin from too much sun. Learn to delight in congenial company & to take our time to enjoy Life's journey. After all, there's no point in rushing, when we already know the destination :-)

Wildlife From Koalas To Pangolins

Now that we are back in safe & boring Singapore, we have started doing our regular Sunday hikes in MacRitchie again. Lo & Behold, a few weekends ago, I was surprised by a rare adult Pangolin crossing my path along the Treetop Walk, just after the turnoff to MacRitchie Nature Trail.

Even though you see a shaky, handheld pix taken at iso1000 in the early dawn-light, it is still better than nothing ! The conservationists amongst us are fond of using "cute" animals like the Pangolin & the Koala to promote their cause, neglecting to mention the less glamourous critters that go extinct every year in our fast-diminishing forests & jungles. But we really need to remember to balance our need for fossil fuel & human habitation against the fragile intertwined fates of every living thing on Earth. Sustainability is the new buzzword.

Sea, Sky and the Great Outdoors

After settling Calvin in, we decided to drive from Melbourne to Sydney, to visit Theresa's relatives living in a nice northern suburb called Chatswood. And in sync with our love of the great outdoors, we chose to "take the scenic route". Over a span of 12 days, we drove the Great Alpine Road, then up the Sapphire Coast towards Sydney, turning inland into the fabled Blue Mountains before staying the last 3 days at The Rocks, right in downtown Sydney. How best can we describe all that we saw adequately? In pictures of course, pictures that paint the wide-open skies, the startlingly blue seas, the beaches, forests, rocks and flora. There were seagulls aplenty but knowing that Australia has all manner of poisonous snakes, spiders & the great white shark, we avoided activities like bushwhacking & body-surfing ! However, Theresa, imbued with the Kinabalu spirit, simply had to add the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb to her climbing experiences.

Comfort In The Company OF Friends

In a strange, far-away land like Australia, there's a sense of comfort & security when you leave your first-born to study there in the company of good friends. My childhood friend, Alan Francis and his wife, Jenny certainly made Calvin feel "at home" in Melbourne @February this year. They took us walking around Williamstown, hiking the nearby Truganina Wetlands & eating in the Vietnamese enclave of Footscray.

When we drove off on our Great Alpine Road adventure, we knew that Calvin had found his second home.