As the weather chills here in Canberra, my thoughts turn to hot coffee on frosty mornings. And I’m fortunate—spoiled even—because Australia has wonderful coffee and great cafés. The experience, though, is somewhat different than in the United States.

Many cafés in Canberra offer outdoor seating. 

Customers order at the counter, and a server will bring your food and drinks out to the table.

At my local café, the young man behind the counter always greets me with “Hello, lovely” and a big smile. While that greeting is unique to him, nearly every server I’ve met in Australia has been polite, friendly, and talkative.  

“How ya going?” is his next question. This universal Australian greeting threw me at first. I felt as if I should answer: “I’m going here, and then I’m going to the store.” The question means: “How are you doing?”

Then he’ll ask: “What are you after?” which also puzzled me as a newcomer. I wanted to point to the person in front of me in line and respond: “I’m after her.” What it means is: “Give me your order.”

My local café has a wide range of coffee drinks available, the same as in the States. One oddity here is that decaf costs more. Which is illogical to me, because thinking about it, decaf is actually LESS coffee. Some cafés also carry more exotic drinks like turmeric lattes and beetroot lattes.

The next coffee decision is whether I’m drinking it at the café or leaving with it. It took me the longest time to remember to ask for “takeaway,” not “to go.” The only response “to go” gets is a blank expression.

“You’ll have it in a tick,” the young man promises next, which means quickly, or in a short time.

After I say, “thank you,” the response is “that’s all right,” as if I had apologized for something. The phrase is Aussie for “you’re welcome.”

After I pay, he’ll say “Ta,” which means “thank you.”

No tipping is expected, although I am starting to spot tip jars sprouting up on counters.

When I finish, I just leave, as if from a restaurant. Café customers do not bus their cups and plates. The only place here where I have ever bused my own plates is Ikea’s in-store café.

​Overall, going to a local café in Australia is a lovely, soul-affirming experience—and I get coffee too.

Although this strange animal looks like an alien hybrid of a porcupine and an anteater, it’s neither a rodent like the porcupine nor a typical mammal like the anteater. This is a short-beaked echidna, found in Australia and New Guinea. Echidnas, also called spiny anteaters, are monotremes, a mammal that lays eggs. The only other egg-laying mammal in the world is the platypus.

The mother lays an egg, and it’s incubated in a temporary pouch. Once the egg hatches, the baby echidna—called a puggle—stays in the pouch and laps up milk from special glands called milk patches. Unlike other mammals, echidnas do not have nipples. The puggle stays in the pouch for about two months, when it begins to grow spines. The mother then moves it from her pouch to a burrow and cares for it the next seven months. Echidnas nest in burrows that other animals have left behind or they can sleep in hollow logs, rock crevices, under bushes, or in piles of leaves.

Echidnas use their narrow snout, which functions as both a nose and mouth, to search out ants, termites, spiders, worms, and other larvae. They capture their food with a long, sticky tongue. They can forage up to 18 hours a day and are most active from dusk until dawn.

Their spines are a specialized kind of hair and are used for defense. When attacked, they will curl up like a hedgehog. They can also use their powerful claws to bury themselves in the ground to get away from an attacker.

Here are five more fascinating facts about echidnas:

1. Echidnas are named after a creature in Greek mythology, who was half woman, half snake, probably because they have both mammalian and reptilian characteristics.
2. Their sticky tongues can be almost seven inches long.
3. They are the most widespread of Australia’s native mammals and can live anywhere from snowy mountains to deserts.
4. In colder areas, they will hibernate, waking every 2 to 3 weeks.
5. While their lifespan in the wild is about 15 years, echidnas can live up to 50 years in captivity.

So while I very seldom see one of these alien-looking animals, I know they’re in the neighborhood not too far away, munching on ants and other insects every night. 

The power of water does weird and wonderful things to the southern coast of Tasmania. Strong winds from the southwest create pounding waves that attack the rockface and erode the coastline. In addition to the Tesselated Pavement, three other sites on the Tasman Peninsula illustrate the remarkable power of water: The Blowhole, Tasman Arch, and Devils Kitchen.

Before looking at The Blowhole, here’s a primer on how water forms caves. Imagine the sea as it crashes against the base of cliffs. The waves carry sand and rock debris, which act like a big horizontal piece of sandpaper, cutting a notch into the vertical rockface until a crack or joint is reached. Compressed water and air wedge in the crack, forcing the rock apart. Continued erosion makes a cave longer and wider.

The Blowhole was a sea cave and tunnel until the roof at the back of the tunnel collapsed. The result was a broad arch with a blowhole behind it.

Eventually, the water will cause the rest of the arch to collapse as well so that it looks more like the next formation.

Devils Kitchen was likely a sea cave and then a tunnel. The waves over many thousands of years have eroded the rock, causing the roof to completely collapse. The water follows its inexorable path, cracking joints to create new caves in the rockface.