The Refuge

Started work late so could finish late and go straight to the Somerville to see Le Refuge.

I had my eyes closed for the first few minutes of the film as I don’t like needles. It was difficult to know when to open them as I don’t speak French, so I just listened until there was some dialogue recognising that using the needle either required much concentration and or was a private activity. But once the sharp bits were out of the way, I enjoyed this film immensely.

It is a sad story, but a feeling of hope and transformation unfolded from the miserable beginnings of drug use and bereavement. The characters were believeable, and apart from the ‘Mother’ likeable. The film ended unexpectedly, which was a delightful twist, and it did leave me wondering whether there was going to be a sequel.

The evening could be called ‘The Refuge’ too. It was wonderful to be able to just turn up and enjoy the film, company, food and wine. D brought the wine, and H and E brought the food. It was a great end to a busy week.

The ride home on our bikes was great. It was quiet along the cycle path, and the wind was with us most of the way.

going for five

Today was the fourth day in a row that I have rode my bike to and from work. Eight kilometres there and eight kilometres back.

Tomorrow, I’ll be riding to work, then to a film, and then home.

Admittedly, the Somerville is only ten minutes ride from my current Friday job. But if I ride home from the film, then I will have rode my bike for a whole week. Go me!

back in the saddle

I haven’t rode my bike for a couple of weeks for various reasons; holidays and hot days being the main ones.

H has adjusted my saddle tonight and I have had a test ride. Hopefully, we have got it right now. I have been experiencing a sore neck and shoulders after riding my bike, enough to worry about it and nearly get to a physiotherapist. Except, that if I don’t ride my bike and do a few stretching exercises it comes right after about a week.

Tomorrow I will be riding to work, then meeting up with H and a friend at the Somerville for this week’s Festival Film – In a Better World, then riding home.

It is going to be cooler tomorrow, only 25 deg C, so the ride in the morning and evening will be pleasant temperature wise. We should zoom home as the winds are forcast to be a moderate South/South West.

dolphin encounter

Although we had watched the dolphins from our balcony at the resort, and at other times in the water when they were fishing amongst the sea grass, we went to see them one morning on cue.

The dolphins at Monkey Mia swim up and down the beach, but some come in to the shore at a regular time to be fed by DEC staff.

The recent close encounter with the Monkey Mia dolphins heightened my sensitivity to reading about the wildlife in the area of the West Atlas oil rig spill.

“There were times when we were literally in a sea of oil from left to right and as far as we could see ahead of us – it was heavily oiled water and it was sickening because in this we were seeing dolphins surfacing,” — Dr Gilly Llewellyn, Conservation Manager, WWF-Australia on ABC Online.

The oil spill is 200 kilometres off the Kimberley coast. Would more people stand up and take notice if the oil slick came into the shore?

Lining up to view the dolphins.

from the air

A real treat was to take a 30 minute air charter with Margaret of Shark Bay Air over Denham and Francois Peron National Park.

Denham has a wind farm, so I had to have a picture of that. Interestingly, the resort at Monkey Mia does not get power from this, but from a huge noisy generator that also runs the desalination plant.

The contrast of the red dirt and cliffs with the blue of the sea and lagoons is breathtaking.

The gypsum claypans or birridas were once land-locked saline lakes. There are a lot of them and quite intriguing. Some look like scars on the landscape, and others look very regularly shaped as if they were carefully planned and built.

Little Lagoon and Big Lagoon are two flooded birridas. Again, the contrast of the colours was amazing, white, aqua, and red.

We didn’t spot any wildlife, but they would have to be pretty big to be able to spot from the plane anyway.

Thirty minutes is not a long time in the air, and we were soon on the way back to the airport over the historic Peron Homestead.

pelican

We have pelicans in South Perth, but I went all the way to Monkey Mia, Western Autralia to take a picture of this one.

I was supposed to notice the dolphins, but I didn’t feel part of the ‘Dolphin Interaction Area’ that morning and sat off to the side on the beach.

Like the dolphins, the pelicans keep to the schedule such that the DEC have to have a pelican decoy. It was quite humorous seeing the patient birds line up in a very orderly fashion for the bucket handler. Actually, they were much more polite than the line up for our own breakfast at the Boughshed Resturant after the dolphin feeding finished.

Suprisingly, people left the ‘Dolphin Interaction Area’ as soon as the DEC people finished their formalities. The dolphins were much more visible without the line of people on the shore.

not bad for a paper Aussie

Bold is been there and done that.

1. Heard a kookaburra in person. Visit the Somerville Theatre during the festival. Not only will you hear one, you’re more likely to get your picnic swooped out of your hands.
2. Slept under the stars
3. Seen a koala. These are not cuddly, really!
4. Visited Melbourne
5. Watched a summer thunderstorm
6. Worn a pair of thongs. Current pair are blue with white spots.
7. Been to Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). Walked round once, and climbed twice.
8. Visited Cape York. Would have except the cyclone made the roads a bit wet for our car that was not insured for ‘off-road’.
9. Held a snake. I think it was a Carpet Python. Was told not to pick up the Brown Snake.
10. Sang along with Khe Sanh. It’s what you did when Cold Chisel played in the pub.
11. Drank VB. Prefer Coopers these days.
12. Visited Sydney
13. Have seen a shark. In Dongara on a field trip, got one caught in our net – twice. Only a little Grey Nurse. Just a bit longer than the broom stick I was told to hold to keep it at a distance.
14. Have used Aussie slang naturally in a conversation
15. Had an actual conversation with an indigenous Australian (Aboriginal).
16. Eaten hot chips from the bag at the beach
17. Walked/climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Got out the car to stand at one end and have a look, that’s all.
18. Used an outside dunny, and checked under the seat before sitting down. Didn’t have a seat.
19. Seen Chloe in Young & Jackson’s.
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus
21. Been to Sydney’s Mardi Gras
22. Have gone bush-bashing. It is how I learnt to drive.
23. Taken a sickie
24. Been to see a game of Aussie Rules football. ‘East Perth’ came to Newman.
25. Have seen wild camels
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Had a Tim Tam Slam
28. Ridden in a tram in Melbourne
29. Been at an ANZAC day Dawn Service. Prefer to think of all that stuff on the 11th November.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Held a wombat. And worried that it was going to piss all over me.
32. Been on a roadtrip of 800km or more
33. Seen the Great Australian Bight in person
34. Had a really bad sunburn
35. Visited an Aboriginal community
36. Seen a redback spider. I think they are really pretty. Only squash them if I think the cats are going to be near.
37. Have watched Paul Hogan
38. Seen Blue Polls in person
39. Wandered barefoot in the bush/outback
40. Eaten Vegemite
41. Thrown a boomerang
42. Seen the Kimberlies (used to seeing it as the Kimberleys).
43. Given a hitch-hiker a lift. I’m not usually the one driving.
44. Been to Perth
45. Have tried Lemon, Lime and Bitters. Used to be my drink of choice if didn’t like the house wine or not drinking beer.
46. Tried playing a didgeridoo
47. Seen dinosaur footprints. Went looking for them in Broome, but didn’t see them.
48. Eaten Tim Tams
49. Been to Darwin. Before Cyclone Tracy.
50. Touched a kangaroo. Dead and alive.
51. Visited the Great Barrier Reef. It was here that I decided to give skindiving a go, and decided it wasn’t for me.
52. Listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson
53. Killed a Cane Toad. The ones we could step on, but the big ones we grabbed by the hind legs simply tossed out the pool. They were better swimmers than we were.
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre. Most memorable film at the drive-in was ‘Jaws’. It took me a long time before I would go open swimming.
55. Have read and own books by Australian authors. Tim Winton is my current favourite.
56. Visited Adelaide
57. Know the story behind “Eternity”
58. Been camping
59. Visited Brisbane
60. Been in an outback pub. Is there anything else in the outback?
61. Know what the term “Waltzing Matilda” actually means
62. Gone whale watching. Being so close you can eye each other is a pretty amazing experience.
63. Listened to Slim Dusty. Inadvertently.
64. Own five or more Australian movies or TV series. I go out to the theatre or borrow DVDs from the library.
65. Sang along to Down Under
66. Have stopped specifically to look at an historic marker by the side of the road.
67. Eaten a 4′n’20 pie
68. Surfed at Bondi. Haven’t surfed at any beaches. Surfing is in the same list as water skiing and skindiving.
69. Watched the cricket on Boxing Day. There is usually nothing else on the telly, but I usually get books for Christmas anyway.
70. Visited Hobart
71. Eaten kangaroo. Tending to do it more frequently.
72. Seen a quokka
73. Visited Canberra
74. Visited rainforests
75 Used a Victa lawnmower.
76. Travelled on a tram in Adelaide
77. Watch canefields burning. Only smelt them.
78. Used a Hills hoist
79. Visited the Olgas
80. Used native Australian plants in cooking.
81. Visited the snow. Not in Australia.
82. Chosen a side in Holden VS Ford. Holden
83. Visited the desert. Lived on the edge.
84. Been water skiing. Need strong knees.
85. Read The Phantom. Wasn’t aware that this was a particularly Australian thing, but yeah, one of the few comics that came into the newsagent in Newman.
86. Visited Parliament House. Old and new.
87. Gone spotlighting or pig-shooting. Bunnies and roos.
88. Crossed the Nullarbor. When it was dirt.
89. Avoided swimming in areas because of crocodiles. I don’t want to get close enough to tell the difference between a saltwater or a freshwater crocodile. But I remember swimming in Katherine Gorge with crocodiles, but I was not convinced it was ok.
90. Listened to AC/DC. Still have the cassettes.
91. Called someone a dag
92. Voted in a Federal Election
93. Have been swimming and stayed between the flags. Also make sure that there are people further out than me.
94. Had a possum in your roof
95. Visited the outback
96. Travelled over corrugated roads. Even been on what is called Corrugation Road.
97. Hit a kangaroo while driving. Don’t drive at hoppy time.
98. Been well outside any mobile phone coverage. If I had one, I’d leave it at home.
99. Seen an emu.
100. Have woken to the smell of bushfires

From dalekboy via Planet UCC.

in transit

Today I found out from Under Mouse Arrest that Perth is to be the first Australian city to be included in Google Transit, a trip planning service offered by Google.

Recently, I used the Transperth website to plan trips to Perth International Arts Festival events. It mostly worked. I knew at what time to catch the bus and where, and even found out that if I got off on St Georges Tce a few stops early the fare was $1.50 (2 Sections) instead of $2.20 (1 Zone).

Trip planning was always done ahead of time as the Transperth web site is slow, and it does take a while to navigate around the maps and suggested routes.

I have previously used Google Maps to find routes from Perth, for example, to Koorda or Bremer Bay. But being able to do this around the city would be terrific, particularly if the Google service speeded the task up and included the public transport data.

Somewhat related, Uncle C started to send coordinates via SailMail. Then stopped due to technical difficulties. But hopefully when he starts again I will be able to use Google Maps to chart his progress across the Pacific.

not parking

I very rarely use the car to get to uni, and today I was reminded why. It’s because you can’t get $^%&* parked.

Yes, it is only the second week of first semester, but I don’t feel that parking on Tuesdays is going to become any less congested. Tuesdays means lots happening in the Guild Courtyard, on the Oak Lawn, and with DJs in the Tav why would anyone leave campus for the day once you were there?

Similarly, when I then drove to the local post office as I was already in the car – I could not get parked. Well, I could, in the Coles Supermarket car park. There were a lot of spaces.

I peeked into Coles on the way past to the post office and there were queues at each checkout. I just wish those that shopped at Coles parked at Coles, so the rest of us can get on with enjoying the local shopping precinct while continuing to ignore them.

The problem that I have with parking at Coles is that the supermarket will be able to claim that they are providing the required car parking, when their shoppers are not actually parking in the car park that they have provided. I wonder if anyone has done any research into the number of Coles shoppers that have 4WDs and or cannot successfully park in the tight parking spaces provided by Coles.

Hint for South Perth shoppers: There is always car parking at the Coles Supermarket. If you are not shopping at Coles, then the only drawback is having to hold your nose while you go down the stairs (or in the lift) until you get past the ‘roast chickens’. Ugh!

WA on Show

Lots to see and not see at WA on Show.

There were a lot of displays suggesting that regions of Western Australia are places to go with things to do. For example, the Mandurah Crabfest is on next weekend. I thought it may be a good idea if you were looking for a reason to try out the new bit of train track. The reason I noticed the display is because they had a light blue/beige scooter which is a prize for a competition during the Crabfest. I thought it would be just right for popping to the shops when I couldn’t be bothered getting into clothes suitable for riding my bicycle.

I thought that the Main Roads Department’s static display of historical posters was the most interesting. For example, there was a great photo of a Volkswagen Beetle going through a very rocky river bed. Made me wonder why we needed all these slick bitumen roads for the increasing number of 4WDs.

Although I was resisting collecting pamphlets and show give-aways, when we stopped to ask questions or fill in a competition entry (bikes and weekends away being the most popular), we were plied with the ‘stuff’.

Some of the stuff was quite useful, such as the sachets of sunscreen, pens, and travel tags. But we were on our way to the Music Box with plans to dance and didn’t want to be carting stuff around. So I found a phone booth on the walk up St Georges Tce, and left the show bag there thinking that anyone that went to use the phone would have more time to fossick through the bag and take anything they found useful.