Sunday, January 20, 2008

Like a Japanese Tourist

I've got a rather large photo post for you lot today, mainly due to me playing tourist this weekend. I'd gone up to visit my Mum on Saturday and while I was up the hill Jo and I decided to take a run out to the weir. I took lots and lots of photos, and was so excited by some of the content of these photos that Christian asked me 'Are you a bloody Japanese tourist???'.

Not quite Christian but I do get excited about things that you have obviously become apathetic towards.

Shall we begin?

First of all I've got a few pics that aren't from this weekend but from last weekend. Their purpose is to show you my new hair colour because that's the most important bit, yes? ;-)
This is Jess, Clelie and I from Clelie's leaving do at the Riverbank Winery.

Not the best job of portraying the red in my hair but for some reason Mouse seems to like drunk Nettie photos and this is a very drunk Nettie photo. Taken at Mel and Jann's engagement party last weekend.

Ok, onto more exciting photos.
Jo, Darce and I had parked at the main carpark of the weir and were a bit annoyed to find that the usual crowd of roos weren't hanging about. I've lived in the hills since I was a kid and I never stop getting excited when I see kangaroos. I'm such an unobservant person that I tend to miss a lot of stuff that goes on around me (just ask anyone who has ever tried getting my attention while walking past me in a shopping centre) so when I do actually see wildlife, my excitement levels go through the roof.
Anyway, we'd left the carpark and were walking down the millions of steps to the weir wall when we detoured through some gardens into slightly uncharted territory.
Which is to say that we'd never ventured that way before.
We stumbled upon a toilet block and while Jo took Darce there, I wandered over to a huge granite outcropping and was going to take some photos of South Ledge off in the distance.
I heard a crash in the bush and turned to see this fellow staring warily at me.

Looks a bit shocked, doesn't he?
And there were more!


Jo and Darce came out of the loos and I gestured to them to be quiet and scoot carefully up onto the granite. They crept up and we spent a good ten minutes just watching the roos. After a little while the roos let down their guard slightly but always kept one eye on us. I think they were quite happy when we scooted down off the rocks and left them be.

We walked down onto the weir wall itself and took a stroll out to the middle. The day had started off quite overcast and windy, though still warm and the water was quite choppy.

Darcie made it as far as the pump station in the middle of the wall but then freaked out and wouldn't go any further out. I agree with her sentiments regarding this. The first bit up till the pump station is concrete and very wide. You feel relatively safe. The rest of it is a narrow wooden walkway with gaps through which you can see the huge drop beneath you.
I don't feel safe at all walking across it.

While Jo escorted a panicking Darcie back to the safely of solid ground I noticed these doors on the pump station. I rather liked them so I took this photo.

We started to climb down some more steps to the bottom of the weir wall but halfway down we thought we'd check out a track we'd never followed before. It led around the side of the hill and took us out to the bottom of the granite outcrop we'd seen the roos from. We spotted them again, this time slightly uphill from us and had another peek before carrying on.
After a while we came across these ancient stone steps leading up the hill. They must have been built back in the days when the weir was first built and was a popular picnic spot for the citizens of Perth. Of course back then it was a full day trip to visit the weir as the journey was made by train.

The stairs wound all the way up the hill and for some time followed the pipeline.

After we'd finished at the weir we took a drive up to South Ledge. I have only been to North Ledge before and wanted to see what the views were like from the other side.
At South Ledge they've made a viewing platform they call Golden Views, since water is more precious than gold in these parts.

The view of the weir from the platform.

They have these funny little totem pole things at the entrance to the platform and they have the most wonderful carvings on them.



After we left South Ledge we headed back into Mundaring and got some lunch before heading off to Sculpture Park. I'd been meaning to drop by there and get some pics of some of the sculptures there for The Worst of Perth as many of them are quite hideous and creepy.

These are the weird little clone tourists that have been there for years. I remember when they first went up, you'd drive past thinking that they were real people standing amongst the trees but upon closer inspection you were scarred for life by their creepiness.

They're quite small and Darcie looks huge next to them. I'd asked her to pose beside one and she just stood there, looking a bit worried. When I asked her to put her arm around it, she shrieked and moved away several steps. It took a bit of convincing but she finally snuggled up to it and eventually found it quite funny.


Darcie of course demanded payment for the previous photo and that was to let her take a photo of me with the creepy clone woman. I actually look tall! Yay!

One of the other sculptures there has been made into a bench that you could sit on if you found cement to be soothing to aching joints after a long walk.
A bit weird, but arty yes?

Errr, maybe not from this angle.

This is the angle you see from the road if you look far enough back into the park. My gutter mind makes me laugh at it every single time.

And that's about it for now. I'll have another post for you soon as I've promised Neo I'll get my own list together. Till then, take care :)

4 comments:

LaMa said...

Uhm yeah, that last picture.... :-p

Tah said...

That bench thing is, um, interesting. I was going to ask exactly what the "bench" was doing with it's hand while its head was thrown back with an apparent look of ecstasy. But after seeing the last picture I decided not to. ;-)

Mouse said...

I love the hair - and you do look very drunk in that photo!

Amy said...

I love the hair :) That's kinda like the colour I was thinking of dying mine.. it suits you.

Weird bench!