Weekend 11th & 12th June Aussie
weekend, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi
Well we are into holiday countdown mode. Only two weeks to
go until Summer holidays and the start of an 8 week break from school and the
next part of our grand adventure. However that doesn’t mean that things have
slowed down in the Nightingale household. Michelle is up to her neck in reports
and vows never to complain about the reporting system back in Australia, a
refrain we are hearing from most of the other exchangee’s.
Last weekend was spent at the home of Stephen, Patti and Alia
Cibich, a family from Adelaide, who are currently living on the shores of Lake
Simcoe about an hour and a half North of Toronto. Ourselves, the Barnards,
Fermiers and Ken and Francesca were all invited up to stay on Saturday night.
So we headed up after lunch Saturday through another of the torrential summer
storms that seem to magically appear where ever we go. Being right on Lake
Simcoe the Cibich’s place comes with its own dock and a runabout so the a few
people went off exploring the bay while the rest kicked back and relaxed Aussie
style with a few beers. The kids feeling brave went for a swim, there’s no way
you could convince me the water was warm enough for swimming. Lake Simcoe is a large lake and one of the
largest to completely freeze over in winter, so the guys had their own ice
skating/hockey rink, however the downside is that the area is isolated so it
was easy to get snowed in, Stephen having to be towed out of his own driveway
because of the ice.
Once everyone had had their fill of the boat it was on to
more serious events like a game of back yard cricket (oh how I miss cricket,
don’t think I’m going to be able to sit down and watch baseball) No idea what
the score was but we did manage to add a couple of extra dents to Ken’s car.
After the cricket it was dinner time and we had a good old
fashioned Aussie bring your own BBQ and sat back to enjoy some music from back
home until someone brought out the fireworks and guess who volunteered to set
them off?
Sunday morning sitting down for breakfast we spotted a mink
race under the dock, sorry girls we didn’t catch it and even if we had it would
have taken a large number of his friends to produce anything suitable to wear.
Mid morning Patti, Stephen and Alia took us all down to a
disused railway line close by that has been turned into a nature trail, it was
along this track we came across our first snakes. They were Garter snakes, non
venomous and quite attractive, by the end of the walk we must have seen a half
dozen or more, we also saw a couple of beaver dams but alas no beavers.
After lunch it was back on the road so all the teachers
could get back home and into reports. All in all a very pleasurable and
relaxing weekend thanks to the Cibichs.
