Australia’s Winter Olympics

So the Winter Olympics are over for another four years.
Australia had its best performance ever, winning three gold, two silver and a bronze.

In the Paralympics Australia won one silver and one bronze.
A lot of people around the world are a bit surprised that the ‘sunburnt country’ would even be participating.

Do we even have snow?

Ski resorts are primarily located in the New South Wales (NSW) Snowy Mountains and the Victorian Alps, operating during the Southern Hemisphere winter (June to October). 

Key resorts include the massive, multi-area Perisher and steep-terrain Thredbo in NSW, alongside Victoria’s Mount Hotham, Falls Creek, and Mount Buller.

Australia first competed in the Winter Olympic Games in 1936 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and has participated in every games since, with the exception of the 1948 Games in St. Moritz.

In the early years, Australia's athletes did poorly with only two athletes placed in the top half of their events before 1976.
Australia won its first medal, a bronze, in 1994 in the men's 5,000 metres short track relay speed skating event. Zali Steggall gained Australia's first individual medal in 1998, when she won bronze in the slalom event. 

In 2002, Steven Bradbury won the 1,000 metres short track speed skating and Alisa Camplin won the aerials event, making Australia the only southern hemisphere country to have won a gold medal at a Winter Olympics until 2022.

The Bradbury medal is an epic moment in the history of Australian sport and has achieved immortality by spawning the phrase in the local vernacular ‘doing a Bradbury’.

The primary Australian Winter Olympics training facility is the Geoff Henke Olympic Winter Training Centre at the Sleeman Sports Complex in Brisbane, Queensland. 

Opened in 2020, this world-class venue allows freestyle skiers (aerials/moguls) to train year-round, featuring a 37-metre high steel structure with seven jump ramps landing into a heated water pool.

The National Snowsports Training Centre in Jindabyne offers high-performance gyms, acrobatic centres and airbag training for ski and snowboarders.
Perisher and Thredbo Resorts have on-snow training bases.
Buller Air Zone located at Mt Buller, offering trampolines and airbags for aerial training.
AIS European Training Centre (Italy) located near Milan serves as a vital base for athletes during the European season.

Australia is very serious about their winter sports’ success.

Australian Currency

Australia transitioned to the metric system primarily between 1970 and 1988, with the main phase-in period occurring from 1971 to 1976.
However in February 1966, we changed our currency from pounds shillings and pence (£.s.d) to dollars and cents. 

A big publicity plan was instigated

That was sixty years ago!

Time flies.

£A1 became $A2.
That meant who whole lot of new notes and coins.

Below are the latest.

A two-year period was established, during which both decimal currency and the old currency were legal tender.

Despite the planned two-year transition, the new currency was adopted rapidly, with roughly 85% of the old money removed from circulation within a few months.

Eventually the dollar and two dollar notes were replaced by coins in 1984 and 1988 respectively.The one and two cent coins were done away with in 1992.

Australia was the first country to introduce polymer (BOPP plastic) banknotes,

The first note was released in 1988 and a full transition completed by 1996. 

Developed with the CSIRO, the national Australian research agency, these notes are durable, recyclable, and secure, featuring clear windows and advanced counterfeiting protections. 

They last significantly longer than paper money, making them cost-effective.

Over 45 countries now use polymer for some or all of their currency, including Canada, the UK, Singapore, New Zealand, Romania, Philippines, and Vietnam, due to the increased security and durability.

The Australian Magpie

The Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) is a black and white passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea.
There are nine recognised subspecies.
G. tibicen tibicen is a large subspecies found in southeastern Queensland, through eastern New South Wales to almost to the Victorian border.
It is coastal or near-coastal and is restricted to east of the Great Dividing Range.

That’s the one we have here.

The adult magpie is a fairly big bird ranging from 37 to 43 cm (14.5 to 17 in) in length, with black and white plumage, gold brown eyes and a solid wedge-shaped bluish-white and black bill. 

The male and female are similar in appearance, but can be distinguished by differences in back markings.
The male has pure white feathers on the back of the head where the female has white blending to grey feathers. With its long legs, the magpie walks rather than waddles or hops and spends much time on the ground.

It is a very accomplished songbird having an array of complex vocalisations as well as the ability to mimic  various sounds.
We get serenaded from morning to dusk on most days except when it’s really hot and they retire to the shade of the trees.
It eats both animal and vegetable matter with the bulk of its varied diet made up of invertebrates.
They frequent our composting vegetative matter on our garden and follow me around while I’m mowing picking up the disturbed insects.

Our guy

It is generally sedentary and territorial throughout its range.
Common and widespread, it has adapted well to human habitation and is a familiar bird of parks, gardens and farmland in Australia. 

This species is commonly fed by households around Australia, but in spring and occasionally in autumn a small minority of breeding magpies, almost always males, become aggressive swooping and attacking those who approach their nests.

Research has shown that magpies can recognise at least 100 different people and may be less likely to swoop individuals they have befriended.

We have never been swooped.We consider our small flock of around six to eight birds to be part of the family now.

Australia Day 2026

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

  The wide brown land for me!

                                                                     -Dorothea Mackellar

The day celebrates the formation of modern Australia when the British landed in what is known now as Sydney Harbour to establish a penal colony in 1788.
It’s a day of some controversy with aboriginal people calling it Invasion Day.
They had been here at least 40,000 maybe 60,000 years.
This somewhat divides the country and there’s always a discussion about alternative dates.
We don’t participate in any related activities in deference.
We are just happy to live in a country far removed from all the crap going on elsewhere in the world especially in North America, Europe and the Middle East.

Prosecco

We like Prosecco rather than Champagne or other sparkling white wines when it comes to bubbles.
It’s not only the price difference that is attractive but the light dryness with just a hint of fruit.
The wine is made from the Prosecco grape also known as Glera, a white variety of Vitis vinifera of Slovenian and Italian origin, possibly from the traditionally Slovenian-populated village of Prosecco on the Slovenia-Italy border, now in Italy.

The bubbles are produced by use of the Charmat Method not the more expensive Méthode Champenoise or Méthode traditionnelle
The Charmat Method is a way of making sparkling wine where the secondary fermentation ie. creating the bubbles takes place in large, pressurised stainless-steel tanks instead of individual bottles.
It involves adding sugar and yeast to a base wine ie. a previously fermented wine, in a sealed tank, trapping the CO2 for effervescence, and then filtering and bottling under pressure.
This results in fresh, lively bubbles and prominent fruit flavours.
The wine is very popular in Australia and is made from locally grown Prosecco grapes.
The first commercial vineyard in Australia was planted in 1999 and its first vintage was produced in 2004. It is now grown across 20 Australian wine regions.

The Italians are not happy that our locally produced wine is called Prosecco. 

The UE renamed Prosecco to Glera in 2009 to make room for the protection of ‘Prosecco’ as the name of the Italian geographically protected wine as in the map above.

The change was supposed to reduce the ability of other producers (in Italy and overseas) to label sparkling wines made elsewhere as Prosecco by using the grape variety's name.

In 2013, the Australian wine industry successfully challenged an EU application to protect Prosecco as a GI in Australia, with Australian Deputy Registrar of Trademarks verifying that Prosecco is a recognised grape variety in Australia.

The name change has been rejected by wine producers outside Italy in addition to Australia.

Having said that we only drink Italian Prosecco.
We have tried at least 10 from the DOGC and DOC areas of the region.
The one we have settled on is above.

2026! Happy New Year