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Forgive me dear reader for I have sinned. It’s been over a month since my last confession. I’ve been a bit busy this past month and after fulfilling the time quotas I have for being annoying to my better half, taking naps, inhaling popcorn and generally being lazy, there’s often no time for writing. But here I am, back to tell you about the time I went to Metcalfe and discovered The Cascades. I say “discovered”, but I don’t mean in the sense that a great explorer might have discovered an uninhabited island. Oh no....it was very clear someone had been here before me. Picnic tables!  Well, this is mighty purty!
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Right, well it's officially Winter. Ugh, I can feel my insides getting colder already. Garden wandering again....this time in Mount Macedon. You'd think by the number of posts on this blog that contain trees, leaves, flowers and other bits of organic-based tat, that I actually enjoy gardening. I don't particularly, and I know stuff-all about it, but I hated the back dirt we used to have so I thought I'd have a crack at growing stuff. I do like the fruits of my labours when I can walk out the back and pick some basil and capsicum, et viola! I'm halfway to dinner! This guy was so perfectly formed, it was almost a crime to eat him so I photographed him for prosperity. Or to show off.  Some people just eat them What's next I hear you ask? Well....it's Victoria Fossil Cave at Naracoorte in SA! Yaaaayyyy!!! [And the crowd are going wild!] Yes, it appears that many moons ago, in the time before The Internet, people actually socialised with each other, and went outdoors and explored stuff. And some guys explored so much that they eventually found a cave with loads of fossils in it, and they got all excited and shouted “Victoria!” instead of “Eureka!” and that’s how the Victoria Fossil Cave was named. Possibly.  Well, this looks nice... The other week I took myself out of the People’s Republic of Moreland and ventured to The Coast. Being the pale skinned, sun allergic tragic that I am, this isn’t something that happens often. Or at all. But I was bored of watching hipsters drink coffee and eat watermelon, and some members of my family had stupidly put themselves within driving distance, so I set off to annoy them for a couple of days. Kennett River is about two and a half hours drive from my place. Unless someone decides they want to pull up a sizeable chunk of the Great Ocean Road in the guise of ‘roadworks’, in which case it takes about a week. Fortunately, I had brought pumpkin seeds and crisps, so I wouldn’t starve. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who likes crisps. Well, that's not strictly true:
Did you know Halls Gap has a zoo? Well it does, and it's definitely worth a visit. Go now. Well, at least go when it's open. And you have a spare couple of hours. It's got about 150 different species and lots of them are free range (not the ones that will kill you..obviously) and you can hand feed some of them. Went to the zoo to check out the new Lemur Island where King Julien and his minion lemurs are free range but oh so aloof! Lots of them were hanging around looking like they’re doing yoga or directing traffic or just plotting the demise of the entire human race.  WTF are YOU lookin' at?!?!?  Humans on all sides...just ripe for attacking People often given their pets odd names. If I had a cat, I'd call it Ferris Mewler. Does that make me odd? These are Bestie's fur kids. Check out their names and judge for yourself.  Duke Nukem*  Falkor* *Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Me and Nic Granleese (www.nicgranleese.com) went on another walk around Melbourne one morning on a reccy for an upcoming job for a utility company. It didn't rain.  Birds get thirsty too This is Silva, an Australian Fur Seal, at Melbourne Zoo. Silva’s keepers explained that she’d lost her partner of many years and in order to combat depression, they were trying to keep her busy by teaching her to paint.  "If you'd just autograph it here, Ms Silva..." A ramble around Melbourne Zoo on a stinking hot March day, hanging out with friends, eating ice cream, bonding with a seal - what's not to like about that?  Whatchoo lookin' at? After spending a couple of hours by the pool drinking cocktails, Flashie and I had an idea that we might hire a driver again the next day and nick off to the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary. Because who doesn't love a Sanctuary in the middle of big cat country? Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but the Sanctuary is apparently a jungle resort set among rollings hills, and the area is supposedly frequented by panthers, leopards and swamp lynx so hopefully we wouldn't get ambushed by a trilogy of felines with a hankering for human kibble. We filled up with a decent breakfast and headed out towards Ponda and into the mountains to have a walk around the Bondla Zoo Circuit. It’s not a big place; you can get around it in an hour easily enough but calling it a sanctuary is a fair stretch.  "That human over there looks tasty.." Dawn/sunrise beach happenings. Yoga, running....some people are just too energetic in the morning. It's easy enough to be upright at dawn when the weather's warm but I can't see the appeal during winter. Wait, but it's winter in Goa now! Perhaps I wouldn't sleep at all if it was summer time. I walked for 2 and a half hours so I had two breakfasts that morning. That’s normal, right?? If you had a competition for best big temple-like structure in Hampi and it was judged by monkeys, which one would win?  "Oooh...what are they building over there?!?" I have to confess, I totally love the ramshackle corrugated tin number. A for effort, surely?
Rabbit (in the shade), fairy wren (in the scrub), echidna (in the bush), duck (in the pond). This poor turtle was trying to cross the road towards a swamp on a 35+ day and it was being dive bombed by a magpie with a bad attitude. I considered his options for as long as it took to take his picture: magpie’s lunch, squashed by a bus full of tourists (there was one coming) or human intervention?  "It's not bad enough that the road's scorching and this leaf is really heavy...and now the paparazzi turn up." Every autumn, the CERES Community Environment Park in East Brunswick has a Harvest Festival which involves lots of fresh fruit and vegies, demonstrations of all things green, musicians and storytellers, roaming chooks, face painting (not just for kids!), a cake competition, people riding tall bikes, compost making activities (mostly for kids) and the odd pig.  No explanation needed Before uni started again and before my French buddy Eva left to go travelling her way back to Europe and beyond, we went to the Dandenong Ranges for the day. With the same intention as our trip to the 12 Apostles last November, we just rambled and photographed whatever we wanted to, just for the hell of it. And we fed cockies!  Ere! Have you got food? |
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