By Neil I must confess that I’m a bit of a heritage geek, with an especial love for built heritage. I can’t really explain it, but I have always loved old buildings; the architecture, the texture of materials used, the smell and the stories they can tell, or you imagine. I was fortunate as …
City of Onkaparinga Libraries
By Rachel On Thursday I had the pleasure and privilege to spend the day with the Associate Director of Public Library Services for South Australia visiting four City of Onkaparinga libraries: The Hub (a joint use secondary school/public library); Noarlunga (a joint use post-secondary/public library); Seaford (a joint use secondary school/public library); and Aldinga (a …
The Adelaide Horse Trials
By Rachel I still think it's fascinating how the centre of Adelaide is surrounded by parkland and am amazed by the events that can take place in the midst of the city because of it. Case in point, last weekend the Adelaide Horse Trials happened here, three days of dressage, show jumping, and cross country. …
Canadian in Adelaide
by Neil It is 18 degrees today in Adelaide, yesterday it was 35 degrees and 36 the day before. It’s November and I’m Canadian. The incongruity of Christmas displays and people in summer clothes is seriously messing with my children’s heads. Living in Adelaide is a bit of an adjustment, but it is what we …
Melbourne Cup day
By Rachel Melbourne Cup day - who knew that a horse race would be such a big deal! I'm guessing that it's an event across the country as Melbourne is an 8 hour drive away from Adelaide, but there were still signs in pubs and restaurants recommending that people 'book a table' for the Melbourne …
The green and rolling hills of New Zealand’s north island
By Rachel Looking back through our blog posts I feel like we short-changed New Zealand. We spent two weeks there and saw beautiful landscapes. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest - lots of gray, rainy days - but it was green, it was rolling, and when the sun came out the ocean was blue as …
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Waiheke—why not?
by Neil When my parents made the decision to emigrate to Canada in the mid-1970s, our other option was Australia. After visiting New Zealand, I’m now of the mind that they could have split the difference by moving to New Zealand and getting the best of both worlds. Don’t get me wrong, I love …
Reflections on the Cook Islands
by Neil Reflections on the Cook Islands Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands is a rare slice of paradise at first glance. I could see myself living there----almost. It is a place of contrasts that juxtaposes the idyllic with the distasteful. Christianity arrived relatively late in the Cook Islands, with the first missionaries arriving in …
The Cook Islands National Library
By Rachel As a librarian (and because it was just down the road from where we were staying), I had to check out the national library. It is important to say, before I go on, that the Cook Islands covers 2million square kilometres of ocean and has a population of only 25,000 spread over 11 …
Accessing the internet
It is one of those things we take for granted in Canada – that wifi hotspots are nearly ubiquitous, open, and freely available. Not the case everywhere. A bit of a wake-up call for us when we got to the Cook Islands! There were wifi hotspots but they were hotspots for a fee, and they …
A year of discovery 