End of the road

Last wishes - walk in Kings Park and a bbq - fullfilled ....... thank you dinner for Jan and Brian at Fratelli's overlooking the sunset filled coast......sooner than seems possible I'm in the air seated next to a mum with two small children. Clearly sleep was going to be limited and if you can't beat them, join them. I have never sung 'the wheels on the bus go round and round' complete with actions on a plane before.

Then here comes Jo running down Brixton Hill,  arms open for a hug and Selam waiting at school and Nana is the right way up at last.

No woman is an island

For my last fling I’ve booked a cabin on Rottnest for five days.  It’s an island 45 minutes by ferry from Perth and it’s in the bone marrow of the city. No more than 15kms long, famed for bikes only – no cars here  - and for quokas. It was named for the latter by the Dutch who were the first of many Europeans not to comprehend that the place was populated before them and so to colonise it. Like mistaking Aborigines for not being people, they mistook the quokas for big rats and called the island ‘rat nest’. Quokas are small marsupials, running and hopping and carrying little joeys in pouches just like big sister kangaroo and wallaby.  Think very big brown cat with long tail that can run on two legs or four depending who is chasing it.

Anyway, everyone I’ve met in Perth has Rottnest in their blood.  Blotto on Rotto is the way that kids celebrate leaving school and the nostalgia about the place is probably about lots of firsts – first stay away from home in a state where kids don’t leave home to go to Uni, first romance/sex, first dose of nostalgia about school trips of yore….

It is beautiful – think white sandy beaches, turquoise sea and great coral reef for the snorklers.  I love it but I also think it’s weird. As I’ve cycled, swum and walked it I’ve conceived an idea that Rottnest is a one island industry comprising lots of small businesses all beavering (quokaring?) away at marketing us ‘our’ Rottnest.  It’s badged as ‘special’ and marketed by ‘I heart my Rotto’. There’s a ‘mall’ not indoor and nicely done but with Dome (coffee) and Subway franchises amongst a range of other retail opportunities - ‘wellbeing’ and clothes amongst them (temptation resisted).  Then, in a place to which nature gave everything you need to have fun,  there’s a family play park, an aqua park for little ones (inflatables in the sea), tennis courts, cinema hut, mini golf course, two or three pubs/restaurants, tourist train and round island bus, all making a buck or ten.  So, although I like it a lot, it’s not quite what I’d expected from the romanticised build up. 

The effect for me is a strange feel to Rotto: ‘the Prisoner’ and Stepford wives spring to mind but neither quite nails it or spoils it. The ‘settlement’ is uniformly yellow – a deeper tone than the surrounding sand but not as deep as my tan (hah!).  And there’s something spooky about the way it’s organised. Walking back into the settlement after last bus time I’m passed by and stared at from convoys of electric vehicles heading off on missions to make the place perfect for tomorrow. Seeing a man using a garden blower to get the sand off the concrete floor of a beach shelter was especially strange. I found myself thinking, as a small plane buzzed me out while I was out walking later than the norm, that RIA (Rottnest Island Authority) is only one letter different from the CIA. It was then that I knew that I’d been here on my own for too long. School friends Jan and Squidge are coming over tomorrow to share the cabin for my last couple of days. Probably just as well.

Postscript – I think the RIA have been reading this and I am under attack!!!!! Passing time before meeting Jan and Squidge, I cycled to Little Paraqueet Bay  - no brightly coloured parrot-alikes but swallows diving and swooping and, in human terms I have the place all to myself. Except for the invisible jelly fish that got me when I struck out for a swim. The RIA must be a pretty powerful force to render jelly fish invisible (or maybe it was a stingray firing from a distance).  Anyway it stung. I danced up and down in the ocean for a bit making sure that it had go me from outside my costume and was not contained within.  So here I am, waiting for my friends on the ferry with a large red welt across my belly and another lower down. Let’s just say that cycling back was not much fun.  Bastards are clearly out to get me.

Snakescript - aiding a sense of paranoia are the sign boards repeated throughout the island starting with the word ‘danger’ and ending in ‘venomous snake’. I have never had so much call for the word ‘venomous as I have here.  Signs were right though – cycling round a bend with Jan and Squidge behind me there was a whopper – a yard long, 2 inches thick at the business end, black as he ace of spades  and venomous as all hell. We saw its smaller cousin from the safety as a bus the next day.  These buggers are a protected species so the bus had to avoid running it over. We were very careful walking on metalled roads and did not venture onto tracks. Strikes me that riddling the place with venomous (that word again) snakes is an excellent way of protecting whatever secrets are held on Rottnest.  Send for St Patrick I say.

Working girl

Five weeks at University of Western Australia gone in a flash. Cycling around lovely river front (around because, in Perth the Swan River makes like a lake or the sea when the wind is up  or a swimming pool in certain jelly fish free spots.) On some days I walk to work through Kings Park looking down on my cycle ride views, seeing birdlife and hoping snakes won’t be out early in the morning. They weren’t.

Arriving at UWA’s gorgeous campus, flat white at Neds. Into the office to collect my blue clipboard, recording device and the interview forms for the day. The blue clipboard is how my interviewees recognise me. Off to the fabulous university club, where I have temporary membership and an account that I don’t have to pay. More coffee – I’ll sign for that please.

Asking people about their careers and lives is great – they love to talk and I’ve been told some things that, in some cases, no-one else at UWA knows. That’s a sad reflection on some of what goes on but I hear lots of good stuff too.  Then I have to type the stuff up – much less fun. Anyway, by the end of my stint I was giving other people direction around the campus. And I’ve met some great people who I hope will fetch up in Oxford sometime soon.

Finished my report with half a day to spare, grabbed the bike and did one of Perth’s most stunning  rides – 20kms around the Swan and Canning rivers. Resisted  swimming until I got to the beach at Freemantle. Swim, salt and pepper squid watching the sunset then back to Perth on the train.

Shit – forgot I was supposed to be packing my stuff to move out of my flat tomorrow.

A new pet

It's early morning and I am as yet without shoes or eye aids when, out of the corner of my eye I saw something black, about 6 inches long and no thicker than a pencil slither away into the laundry cupboard.

With stout shoes on and contact lenses in I bravely investigated and found my visitor curled up with the dustpan and broom. This time when he slithered away I spotted too tiny front feet and, importantly, there was no hissing.

Checking in with colleaagues in the office I learnt that this was most likely a skink - not it's proper name I suspect; that they are (a) harmless (b) helpful in that they eat mosquitos (c) creatures of habit so that when they take up residence they tend to stay. I have looked for Slinky as I named  him every morning since but he has gone - could be that he fled to a more congenial home when I turned on the washing machine he was hiding undr.

Best days out

These are from my second, longer stay in Perth (note refusal to use the word  ‘final’)).

Days out to country towns and beauty spots with Jan and Brian.  They are fond of antiquey shops and I’m happy to follow.  Lots of interesting stuff but, aside from being not able to carry it, a lot of it is very familiar in a nostalgic sort of way and I really don’t want to buy something brought all this way on a slow boat and take it back on a plane. I’d like a bit of junky Australian kitsch and have seen a koala salt shaker. Alas the pepper pot wasn’t with it.

Cycling the sunset coast home after a day on the beach – even if it did result in a re-invasion of the chest infection. Sundays while I’m working generally spent alone with bike, a beach and a book – chill out but with sunshine.

Saturdays not out with Jan and Brian exploring a different area of Perth – Leederville, Subicaco and others known for cafés and nice little shop for bowsings. On café’s, I’ve caught the habit of coffee being something you drink out rather than make at home. Skinny flat white all the way – a good one lasts all day – no need for top ups. On nice little shops, I have bought too many tops but have warned friends to put me under citizen’s arrest I they see me eyeing a pair of shoes – only one suitcase.

Fish and chips watching the sunset at Cottesloe wih Jen and Jode – and a bottle of wine.

Divided by a common…..

I seem to have lost the dictionary section of this blog. No matter, I have been collecting Aussie-isms:
For budgie smuggler see below (h oho).  Also spotted – a women’s magazine for Western Australia called ‘Sheila’. I am anxiously scanning the shelves for the brother mag – ‘Bruce’ but no luck yet.

I was reading the board outside the Indiana Tea Rooms in Cottesloe (so different from our own dear Cutteslowe) and famous in a Heath Ledgerish sort of way. Seeing if I could possibly afford anything they offered and noticed they were proudly announcing a new chef – Ben Cremates. No doubt pronounced differently but put me off – couldn’t afford it anyway.

Spot the difference

Andy, my host in Ballarat and a Brit who escaped long ago but returns a as visitor asked me on my last evening there about cultural differences  I’d observed between Australia and Britain., I had to think long  and hard because it really is like one of those spot the difference picture puzzles – the similarities strike first and it’s only when you concentrate that you begin to spot the differences.  Here’s a few:

Housing – although there are apartments in the city centres, most (white) people, seemingly regardless of social and financial status, aspire to live detached from neighbours on their own plot of land.  Sometimes there’s only a matter of a couple of feet between properties and fences are high and solid to provide privacy. Houses are all single storey, sprawling across the whole of the plot so that there is often little space between building and perimeter fencing.  Depending on the size of the plot, there might be a narrow flower border, some shady trees and plants in pots. Also possibly a small swimming pool or Jacuzzi tub.  But by and large, paving is it. I’ve met some people who are returning paving to garden and if you could grow avocados and melons why wouldn’t you.  Building materials differ too, with corrugated metal roofs on even on the houses of the well-off and extended well beyond the walls to provide shade. Older Victorian and Edwardian era houses often have beautiful metal ‘lacework’ forming part of balconies and porches and overhangs.  Fence material is usually another sort of corrugated metal, solid and square in section and I think sometimes called ‘siding’.  As well as being high enough to keep the neighbours at bay, I’m told that it is often sunk low enough and kept solid enough to keep the snakes out. Snakes might otherwise wander (slither?) in because all this desire for one’s own plot has resulted in big sprawling suburbs encroaching on brushland and therefore snakey’s home.  Suburban sprawl = high car usage = issues about carbon ,,,need I go on?

Anti-social behaviour – exists of course but for one thing you are much less likely to see people stuffing their faces anywhere and everywhere and leaving the resulting litter behind.  For example a quiet cinema without constant chomping and rustling was bliss.  Starving after a long Sunday bike ride I’d bought a pastry to eat on the train home (bikes are made welcome on trains).  The train was packed with young people coming back from the beach and I was the only person eating anything. Made me keep my pastry hidden in its paper bag as best I could while stuffing my face with it. There doesn’t seem to be any rules against it – just not done. Ditto sharing your music on the beach and failing to give up your seat to someone who needs it more. ( I’m 60 and allowed to be an old fart. )

Media – there’s  Kerry Packer of 20/20 cricketing fame as well as the Murdoch dynasty reducing the newspaper and other media business to drivel.  That said, I haven’t really explored newspapers apart from buying whichever one has a telly guide. Hmm if you think Brit TV is crap you’d sing its praises after a few weeks here.  Mainly foreign imports of popular ‘shows’ and spin offs like the inevitable quizzes. On the plus side a few well-worn British comedies are doing the rounds so I saw an episode of ‘Yes Prime Minister’ that I can’t remember seeing   before (the one about rescuing the dog on Salisbury plain).  Internet access is a generation behind the UK. If you think about the issues around universal fast broadband in the UK, then multiply them to how on earth you can expand broadband to tiny communities on this vast continent.  (Nice quote from an Aboriginal artist comes to mind: ‘you call it the desert, we call it where we used to live’.) But even in cities wifi in cafes and hotels is not the norm.  Where it’s good it’s very, very good – so at the University of Western Australia they’ve recognised that students (and me) spend a lot of time working outdoors so the Unifi wifi system is everywhere, four walls or not. It’s a lot less common to be able to book on the internet e.g. trip to Rottnest (more later) when I’ve been able to find out all about the ferry company on their website but have had to phone to make a booking.  My favourite media, books, are incredibly expensive new and about the same price as new in the UK in second hand shops. Today, cycling home, I came across, almost too literally, a man walking on the shared path who ignored my bell and nearly caused an accident not because his ears were full of i-pod,, but because he was reading  on his kindle. I don’t think the weather at home would be conducive to that. Enough media already!

If my ‘differences’ seem a little weighted in favour of the UK, please factor in the obvious positive differences  on the Aussie side – weather and the beaches to go with them; outdoor life well catered for –especially  cycle path heaven in Perth, swimming pool nirvana in Sydney.  Despite stereotype macho culture, more women in high places interviewed as CEOs and  politicians for example. Don’t know how much longer some of the leading women politicians will last though or how many are waiting in the wings with all those burly, budgie-smuggling men (think about male swimwear then move swiftly on).

60th birthday memory lapse

I’ve been told that I have to include two events from my birthday dinner at Mia Cucina. That they weren’t included earlier might be a function of the feverish lurgy, or more likely selective age and alcohol-related memory loss.  Here goes…..both were the result of a very large 21^st party happening at the restaurant the same evening. And both happened late on in the evening  – no surprises there:

Incident the first – my celebration was festooned with one large badge pinned to my frock and announcing that I am 60. The 21^st, on the other hand, was festooned, amongst other trimmings, with a large number of helium balloons. A young man of the party inhaled some helium and sang ‘happy  birthday’ to the young woman turning 21 in the falsetto voice that emerges if one inhales helium.  There are probably some nasty side effects because  apparently companies selling helium pumps require you to sign a declaration that you won’t do this before they sell you the stuff.  Ignoring his health and welfare, my guests dragged this chap to our table and insisted that he do it all again for me. Of course he didn’t know my name so several much deeper voices filled in the gap. I think my reaction might best be summed up as ‘bemused’.

Incident the second – this one was self-inflicted and therefore much more embarrassing in that way that makes you cringe when recalling it. For some reason I took it into my head that I had something important to say to the 21-year old. What it was has escaped, but no doubt it involved the meaning of life.  I do remember accosting her on her way back from the loo and imparting this wisdom.  I think she must have been as pissed as me because an embrace followed with the two of us swaying dangerously close to quite a lot of glassware. The saving grace is that I expect never ever to see any of these people again.

The cockroach

I’m staying for a few weeks in a semi-basement studio in Malcolm Street. I hadn’t realised that this is an exceedingly ‘good’ address’ until people started to comment on it. I had wondered what the rather large, grand building opposite me is – turns out to be the state parliament.

Cockroaches pay no heed to the fanciness of one’s address.  On a particularly bad morning of illness, I got up to find a roach on its back, dead in front of the sink.  It was a couple of days before I could face any clearing up, let alone disposing of my new house chum. When I came to it, somehow the roach had moved to the middle of the studio floor, still on its back.  I might have unknowingly  kicked it across the floor; on the other hand, when I looked closely, a couple of legs waved back at me.  Advice to squeamish – stop reading now.  I know that cockroaches are notoriously difficult to kill. I’m afraid I finished this one off with boiling water on its belly. Worked a treat and I have seen no relatives – yet.

On turning 60

A sub plot to being down under  at this particular time is that I have had my first ever sunshiny birthday on 10 February.  I reckon one in 60 is a must.  With Ray, my good friend from university days (40 years ago – imagine that!) who has been over visiting family, I cruised a drive-through bottle-shop (you can’t buy ‘grog’ in supermarkets – have to go to special places), swam in the ocean, had lunch at the botanic garden in Kings Park and dined on goat at harbour-side Mia Cucina in the evening with assorted other friends from various stages of my life.  They all seemed to get on well even though I was the only person they had in common and had more or less lost my voice. I  was also, as befits my age, able to fit in an afternoon nap.

 I was cheered when the doctor I’ve been seeing for my chest told me that I don’t look 60. This was in the context of needing an ECG to check out my heart on account of my great age  - mind you I am paying her.

Being ill is the same anywhere

For the last 10 days I’ve had the worst chest infection of my life, or at least since I gave up smoking and that was 15 years ago.  I usually get some kind of unpleasant virus in February and will have been heard to say if only I could breathe some warm air and feel the sun on my back I’d be better in no time. Doesn’t work I’m afraid, though I suppose that being ill where I can lie on the beach or in Kings Park with a book does beat duvet-snuggling with the heating on at home.

Another plus, as I seem to be in positive mood, is that I have been able to investigate at first hand the Australian health service, presenting at the UWA medical centre on the second day of my placement. They took one look and told me to lie down rather than sit in the waiting room. Once a nurse had established that there were vital signs and made me a cup of tea, I was seen by a doctor who was not only extremely  thorough but was concerned and caring enough to ring me the next day to check on me.

The antibiotics are starting to kick in and I’m hoping to stop coughing sometime soon – at least in time for my first interviews next week.  And I’m hoping that Oxford University’s travel insurance will cover the costs – makes you appreciate the NHS.

I also learnt that, because stupid parents are not having their children inoculated, whooping cough is back in a big way.  If you’ve never seen a child prevented from breathing by a continuous cough you can probably imagine it. (Not breathing is how they die.) Aged six I was that child and was relieved to be reassured that I was not having a repeat performance aged 60!

What's in a name?

I learnt a while ago, courtesy of a pub quiz f(r)iend, who will know who he is, that people who live in Sydney are called ‘Sydneysiders’. Coming across ‘ Melburnians’  (the name not the people) was boring in comparison but when,  alluding to state not city,  people who were not in fancy dress chose to describe themselves as ‘Victorians’ I was unable to suspend my preconceptions of long frocks and caps coupled with mutton chops and stove pipe hats for long enough not to giggle.

This has led me to enquire about state and city nick names. I have learnt that people in Perth are OK with being called ‘Sandgropers’ – the place is built entirely on sand – and that people from Queensland are not offended by ‘Cane toads’.

A bit off subject, but I have a quiz question of my own:  Is there any other nation which eats its national animals? The Kangaroo and Emu are both national emblems and dishes of choice for Australia.

Come up with another such gourmandising nation and a bottle of Australian red will be yours.

And here, in the small print, I’ll confess that whilst in Ballarat I ate Kanga one night and fed her the next day. Haven’t tried Emu yet.  

Ballarat

Next stop after Melbourne was Ballarat, known as a city and something of a regional hub in this part of Victoria but, honestly now, just a lovely rural town. My main purpose there was visiting friends Sarah and Andy who had moved into their new house just that day. It was good to have a bit of real life after the hostels , unpacking boxes and making breakfast for the workers.  Friends were on hand to help – Sue and Brendan had us all round for take away the first night,  and on day two Sarah and Andy’s vicar from where they used to live turned up with more stuff from their old house.  She was great –came with us on a visit to the wildlife park (complete with Koalas and Kangas) and told tall tails about fishing in a place where the crocs compete for your catch. Two things about Gail:

1.       When she told me she was ‘a keen fisherman’  I imagined for a moment she was after my soul rather than the crocs’ dinner.

2.       She had a very sweet tooth and I missed my opportunity to offer her ‘one lump or two vicar’.

Highlights of Ballarat, other than friends were:

·         Rural rides out to sweet small towns and a local spring with tasty water

·         Feeding wallabies and kangaroos

·         Seeing a koala move. They don’t much on account of having such a poor diet on eucalyptus leaves that they don’t have energy to do anything but sit on their branch.  Sometimes the eucalyptus ferments, causing them to fall off their branch pissed. Didn’t see that.

Michael Shannon exhibition at the Ballarat art gallery. Amazing. We don’t seem to see much Australian art in Europe which is a Very Bad Thing.

Training it

Realise I’ve blethered on about Sydney and Melbourne without connecting them via the 11 hour train journey between the two.  To start with it was strangely familiar – this was what we call an inter city 125 but with different upholstery.  Then the differences began to emerge:

-          Coffee made essential by the 7.45 departure, was real coffee not instant, made with a coffee bag that you could steep for as long and strong as you wanted.

-          Food was incredibly varied – huge choice including hot dinner which you ordered an hour in advance and then collected from the buffet. And so cheap – nothing over $10 dollars which is incredibly chap for here.

-          Baggage – bags were checked in and loaded to a baggage car which trundled along behind us with its two faithful servants just like used  to happen in the UK. Yes folks there was a time when the luggage spaces, aisles and everywhere else was not filled with falling baggage.

While I’m on with nostalgia, this trip was so cheap that I had thought about upgrading to first but decided the company would be better in cattle class. I struck lucky as behind me sat two old boys who didn’t know each other  but chatted happily comparing Aus with life in the UK. In the case of one of them, the passing scenery (and there is a lot of it)brought back memories of his Australian childhood. Wonderful stuff and all for free.

Wagga Wagga, which I’d rather childishly looked forward to seeing, was not much to write home about, not least because I wasn’t allowed to get off the train to take a photo.  Presumably losing a passenger in WW is a sacking offence.

Hostel life

Planning my trip I knew enough about dormitory sleeping – purgatory for me and my bladder  -  to book single en suite rooms at the backpackers’ hostels in Sydney and Melbourne. I struck lucky in Sydney where the management ran a tight ship and partyers were made to clear up and shut up at 11 pm. On the whole they complied and the only cockroach I saw was dead on arrival, probably because someone was paid to give the kitchen a good clean every morning.

Melbourne was a different story; doors to a balcony that ran the length of the top floor enabling the party people whose drug of choice I guessed to be Ecstasy, to play outside including outside my room. They also dominated the communal kitchen and dining area with a mega sound system.  One glance in the cupboards told me that I didn’t want to use the kitchen anyway and a diet of supermarket salads and fruit was good for me anyway. Didn’t see cockroaches though – probably driven off by the noise. My fellow hostellers were nice to me though and I was nice to them, while thinking uncharitable thoughts about the parents who were probably paying for all this. Advice to university admissions tutors – never believe what kids say about their gap years.

Booking, I’d congratulated myself on finding a place in Spencer Street, where my rail station for arrival and departure sits. Spencer Street must rival New York’s Broadway ‘s claim to be the longest city Street and I was at the far end on the wrong side of the tracks, almost next door to the remand prison and a hot walk from public transport. This might have contributed to my preference for Sydney over Melbourne, which has amazed most people. 

A day at the seaside

St Kilda’s is Melbourne’s seaside escape and my best Melbourne day of the three.  Rattle rattle rattle on the tram that turns into a light railway and half an hour later, trendy shops aside, it’s as if Melbourne never was.  It’s the sort of seaside resort that Britain excels at, but with sunshine not drizzle. Just another seaside resort except for the not very imaginatively named Little Penguin. These normally shy creatures have taken up residence in a kind of man made rockery built as protection for the harbour. I couldn’t hang around until after dark when they come out to play in hundreds but spotted a few hiding from the late afternoon sun in their rock city. A sighting that rivalled apple icecream at the end of the Victorian pier for my treat of the day.  Despite coming from an apple-growing nation, I’ve never had it before and can’t think why not.  Maybe because apples are autumnal and English seaside is not and I suspect he icecream has to be made and served fresh otherwise the apply bits – and there were lots – would go brown. It’s a theory.

Melbourne in three days

Day 1 - adjust to new location, suss out the transport and other necessities, visit key sights - made difficult by it being Australia Daybut nice of them to lay on a parade to welcome me.

Day 2 - Enough city already. Escape to St Kilda and the seaside

Day 3 - Explore laneways (trendy little shops and cafes. and visit sights not possible because of Australia day closures

Best bits: St Kilda, Ian Potter gallery with Austalian art of all sorts, fish lunch at Sea Salt caff in the lanes

That's it - done

Three days in Melbourne will be enough said my friend Sarah as she invited me to come to visit nearby Ballarat. She was right. After Sydney’s mellow charms - a ferry a day keeps the city across the bay - Melbourne was noisy, brash and charming in the way of an older teenager who can be ugly and rude one minute, beautiful and mature the next. On the downside they are putting up new buildings, especially in Docklands, which may individually have architectural merit but without thought to landscape so that you end up with a not very harmonious whole. On the upside, some of the Victorian buildings are fabulous excesses of a wealthy period when Melbourne rivalled Sydney as the colonial capital, a prize withdrawn and still resented by Melburnians. Then there is a huge amount of green space, there is St Kilda (more on that) and there is a fabulous welcome for visitors: a free tram and shuttle bus service was all the transport I needed except for St Kilda, and I could have been tempted by the Boris bikes if I’d been there any longer. They’ve been less popular than might have been because of the strict helmet law – you can now get a helmet for $5 from 7 11 shops and station vending machines. The tram company and tourist information both had people dotted around the city centre to pounce helpfully if you even opened a map.

Sidney in the sunshine

Apart from the odd heavy and prolonged shower Sydney has turned sunny and deliciously warm with just a cooling breeze. My last day tomorrow before heading on the train to Melbourne and I know I'll miss Sydney. I did all of the cultural/sightseeing I wanted to do on the earlier wet days, including catching up with the Picasso exhibition that I missed in London. Since then most days I'ce walked across a small local park to Central station, got a  city circle train to Circular Quay, caught a ferry accross the harbour and walked on coastal trails that I can hardly believe are part of a capital city. Most walks have had at least two swims. usually a good stroking swim in an ocean pool, netted off from the sharks followed later when I'm hot and dusty by playing with the waves on yet another fabulous beach.

Favourite days out -

Manly on the ferry, walk to the spit bridge bus back to town. i did this one last time I was here and it's just as good.  Loads of Eastern water dragons, which are rather startling large lizards about a foot long. the love to pose for photos and I will add one soon.

Paramatta by ferry. an hour long trip from Sydney harbour along the river. This was once the settlers' capital and the original governors' house is now a national trust property with reciprocal entry arrangements. Other than that Paramatta seems to be best known for its Westfield shopping centre where, wouldn't you just know ti, I bought some shoes...

Sunday with Kate, starting with couple of hours gardening in the local community garden she's involved in = veg in raised beds. Weird to see tomatoes and courgettes in January and the beans are nearly over - made me look forward to Easter and getting my garden going again. Kate has house sat in Wolvercote and  we renamed her community garden Wolvercote by sea. Then we went to the beach.

Coogee Bay women's pool followed by the cliff top trail to Bondi. Sadly too knackered to swim in the Bondi Icebergs poolwith its intimidating lap counting regulars, but I did swim at Clovelly bay on the way there

Been seeing friends too - Kate (of the community garden) and Margo from McQuarrie uni, Nick late of the Learning Institute and now at UTS, ex-colleage Jean who is thriving at UNSW and living enviably close to Coogie Bay, and Colleen and Mike, friends from long long ago and now mellow in retirement with five grandchildren. (My Jo's dad used to babysit the dads of those kids!). Every now and again, as with Kate's veg, I'm reminded that I'm in the other hemisphere - Colleen and Mike talking about putting solar panels on their north facing roof....

Swimming with burgers

It rains Sydney in the summer - a lot - heavily. Still warm though in the mid twenties and lots of people don't seem to bother with waterproofing just get wet and dry out again.

I'm in a hostel full of young Germans - probably eurozoners are the only young people who can afford to travel now. Glad to have a room of my own - no need to wait for the bathroom .or to use the draughty eating area courtyard for  computing like the dormers. I do share the kitchen with groups of huge men cooking improbable amounts of meaty food. Supermarket salads are keeping my costs down nicely , with the occaional treal like dim sumfor lunch in China town today.

On to the swimming: there's over 100 pools in Sydney and I can feel a mild compulsion coming on. Lots of free seaside pools but not recommended after heavy rain because of the wash down from the city. I've started with the North Sydney Olympic pool (not those olympics - it was built in the 30's to creat work, so like out own dear lidos. This pool is accross  the harbour by ferry from downtown Sydney and right next to the Luna Park amusement park - fun in itself but swimming with the scent of fatty foods is not great. Nor is the $3 additioanl charge for hot shower water or f the $2 not refunded for a locker. Probably not going to be my favourite pool.....

Australia's most dangerous

Return to Star Swamp.......where we saw the rainbow bee eater every time we walked in the morning. She (he?) sat high in a tree waiting for us to pass before swooping down right on target into the entrance to the burrow which is all of 3 inches diameter. Precision diving. You can sometimes see the chicks poke their heads out but we didn't......

Bown snake

......that may have been because of the proximity of huge numbers of big brown snakes for whom baby bid would make a nice snack.These buggers kill.  Jan and daughter Kate went walking without me one evening to find one a metre in lenth sunning itself on the track ahead of them. Even though I wasn't there - or perhaps because, the image is haunting me. Snakey didn't move in response to foot stamping and eventually sloped off only when rocks were thrown close to it......

Redback spider
.....one must be careful when selecting a rock to chuck at a poisonous snake because beneath your selected weapon might lie an innocuuous looking spider about an inch across with a dull red stripe if you get close enough to see it. Brian called me to look at the one that strolled accross the patio one evening towards my flip-flopped feet - then he stamped on it. Gardening has to be done wearing stout shoes and gloves. Brian reassured me that their garden fences are snake proof. Hmm no more flip flops on the patio.

A day at the races

Best day out from Perth was a day at Pinjarra races. Pinjarra is a country town about 80 K from Perth. Drive out got me to see the countryside - miles and miles of it - ditto suburbs all one storey cos there's just so much land. Pinjarra has country races so these beautiful horses are not up to the standard of the big national race tracks. But they seemed pretty damned fast to me. So...a day at the races involved finding a table in the shade - temperature now in the mid-30s and rising,,,,putting a bottle of white wine on ice and learning how to do the tote. Begiiners luck rules - I bet $10 in $2 bets on 5 races and won $13, Could be habit - forming.

Nana upside down

I've discovered that the purpose of blogging is to give you something to do in the early hours made avaiable  by jet lag......

A few days in London enabled me to explain to Selam, using her soft toy globe, that tomorrow Nana would be upside down. She liked that idea but didn't quite get the time difference thingy but I've encouraged her to say ;G'day Nana' when she goes to bed.

So after a whole day standing in snaking queues of humanity the final snake you have to travel to exit Perth airport spat me out to my waiting friends from school days, Jan and Brian. I'm staying with them for these first few days - both teachers and still on summer hols so we are having some days out. They live near a patch of nature reserve bushland - Star Swamp - where we walk in the mornings. Used to be kangaroos there but not now, We did see a rainbow bee eater- they nest in burrows on the ground and catch bees to  feed the chicks. No camera of course so I'll take it today and we'l never see one again.

BBQ yesterday with Jan's daughter Kate, her boyfriend and his family. How have I got this far into post without mentioning the weather?  Yes it's lovely and hot - 25 degrees. Must try to get a couple more hours sleep now.