Yes, We Have No Turkey. Would You Like a 'Roo?

Aussies don't do Thanksgiving. And given the price of turkey here, I don't blame them. VERY expensive. Plus, the Pilgrims never made it quite this far anyway.

So with our Thanksgiving day, we did something different. Instead of gorging on the bird and searching in vain for an (American) football game on television, we went out to Namadgi National Park, about 30 miles south of Canberra, and looked at some very cool old Aboriginal rock paintings.

And we looked at kangaroos. Lots of kangaroos. Easily over a hundred kangaroos, in ones and twos, and some in big clumps.

They stare at you with their beady little eyes as you walk past, ears perked and rotating to keep on you even if they look away for a minute. The joeys (it's spring, and the babies are big) also look out of the pouch at you, except one that we saw standing outside the pouch, with its head IN the pouch!

Occasionally, they make a weird cough/growl noise at you. You can get kind of close - we were within five feet of one 'roo and joey, mostly because she was behind a bush as we rounded the curve in the trail.

But you know, those big male kangaroos look tough, with big nasty claws. So we kept a distance. And when one male took a step towards us, we started off down the trail again just in case he got antsy.

They may be cute and vegetarian and all - but they're still way bigger than me.

Save Our Sheep!

Glancing at the weather forecast for Canberra at Weatherzone, I noticed this little warning:

NSW/ACT - Sat 21:58 EDT
Sheep Graziers Advice for the ACT. Cold, wet and windy weather is expected, possibly leading to sheep losses in exposed areas.

That's a reminder that even if you are in the capital of Australia, there's still a lot of sheep out there!

Flashbacks, Courtesy of Def Leppard

Earlier this week I went to a concert with some friends here in Canberra. A Melbourne band called the Galvatrons were the opener (sounded like they were channeling Van Halen - specifically "Jump"). The group I really went to see was Cheap Trick. And the headliners, Def Leppard.

Funny, because this is the second time I've seen Def Leppard in concert because they happened to be playing on a three-band ticket featuring a group I really wanted to see.

The first time? 1980. Heavy Metal Sunday at Hara Arena, an ice-hockey rink in Dayton, Ohio. Tickets were $6.50. Headliners were Judas Priest, on their British Steel tour. The special guests, the band I wanted to see, were the Scorpions. And Def Leppard, a bunch of young kids from Sheffield, England, who had just released their first album, were the warm-up act.

So the concert was kind of a flashback for me. I kept on casting my mind back to that earlier concert, to the friends that I went with, high school buddies, some of whom I'm still in touch with, some that have headed off to places like Texas and New Mexico and I've lost contact with. Ah, nostalgia.

Def Leppard themselves were quite different! In 1980 they were unknowns; I'd heard one song by them on the local rock station. By now of course, they've become rock veterans. They had their period in the mid-1980s where they were arguably the Biggest Band In the World. You couldn't turn on rock radio in 1083 without hearing Def Leppard - their video for "Photograph" even knocked Michael Jackson's song "Beat It" off of the #1 Most Requested on MTV.

Now they have a new album out - and they played four or five songs off of it. But much of their show focused on the classics. The crowd was interesting, too. True for other long-lived rock bands I've seen like Pink Floyd back in 1994, there was a mix of young people - teens, college age - who seemed to react more strongly to the new stuff. And there were the over-30 crowd - many SIGNIFICANTLY over 30, by decades - who didn't know the new songs but were there for "Rock of Ages" and other old classics.

And I have to say, even though I was really there to see Cheap Trick and Rick Nielson's five-necked guitar, Def Leppard blew them out of the water. They still have it. Joe Elliott really knows how to work a crowd. They never missed a beat. It was a great evening, all the better for including pleasant memories.

More Dangers from Australian Wildlife

The Australian magpie is an interesting bird: Australian Magpies are common and conspicuous birds, found wherever there is a combination of trees and adjacent open areas, including parks and playing fields. They are absent only from the densest forests and arid deserts. Groups of up to 24 birds live year round in territories that are actively defended by all members of the group. The group depends on this territory for all their feeding, roosting and nesting requirements.

And yes, they DO actively defend their nests. During nesting season (now), it is common to be "swooped" by these birds. Usually you hear a "clack-clack" noise and a whoosh as the bird flies perilously close to your head. If you're lucky. If you're UNLUCKY, it will actually hit you and peck you. Especially if you're on a bike, they REALLY seem to dislike cyclists.

Anyway, it's not just a nuisance, it's a threat. Witness what happened to this old lady in Newcastle.

An 84-year-old NSW woman has lost her lower left leg after suffering a rare soft-tissue infection caused by a magpie peck to her ankle.

Ouch. I told you it was dangerous here.

Happy Family and Community Day?

One of the nice things about being overseas is getting Australian holidays. Australia, being a federal country like the US, also has state and territory holidays. And I'm enjoying one of those today, here in the Australian Capital Territory.

Family and Community Day.

How BLAND can you get, right? As far as I can tell, this is mostly celebrated by piling the family into the car and joining the community at Batman's Bay or Eden or Ulladulla or some other beach town.

Oh, and the fact that F&CD happens to coincide exactly with the Melbourne Cup - Australia's top horse race of the year, watched by some absurd percentage of the population - which is the occasion for a state holiday in Victoria? Purely a coincidence, I'm sure.

So Happy Family & Community Day! Go tell a family member or a community member that you are happy for them, too!