I *heart* Old York

Several weeks ago Christian and I decided to go away for the long weekend. I understand that this is something that normal people tend to do rather regularly but we had never taken a mini vacation before. It just always seemed too much hassle to bother with, too hard to find a dog sitter, too many thing to do around the house...the list of excuses goes on.
But things have been a little rough lately and we decided that a couple of nights away would do us the world of good.

I suggested that we head down to Busselton, which is where we spent our honeymoon but Christian didn't really want to go that far away. Since we were dropping Molly off for a sleepover at my Mum's place which is already half way to York, we figured we'd give it a go. York is very small and fairly old (over fifty years!) so we knew there wouldn't be a hell of a lot to do while there but since the aim of the weekend was to relax, that was fine by us. I booked us in to the York Heritage Hotel and we were set to have a well earned break!

We arrived about midday and since we couldn't check in until 2pm, we went for a wander about and found our way down to the river. While it was very pretty to look at...

...you really wouldn't want to go swimming in in...


It was a rather overcast day and the river had lots of pretty reflections in it that looked amazing with the poles and ruins of old jetties.

One of the main attractions of the town is their swing bridge. Although the original was pulled down some years ago due to safety concerns (apparently bridges made in 1853 by convicts are deemed 'unsafe' by today's standards...) the new one stands at approximately the same site.
This is Christian looking utterly overwhelmed by the sheer excitement of being on the swing bridge.

After crossing the bridge we went for a wander down the track along the river. Lucky for us we had packed several changes of underwear because we were scared shitless by these terrifying beasts!

After lunch we checked into the hotel room and later that afternoon continued with our survey of the town. Many moons ago I did a post that included photos of some of the humorous signs that can be found in and around York. Yet again we came across some amusing ones...

I thought this was the best name for a junk shop.

In small country towns one must be flexible and adapt if one is to survive. This is especially true of small businesses. This shop sold lawnmowers, remote control cars and...

According to a newspaper writeup on the bulletin board of the town hall, this building is being developed into a collection of six small shops. The name generated much controversy and may explain why they still haven't opened yet despite passing the expected opening date.

Yes, the dog is pissing on the old man's shoes. For closeups of this sign and others for The Dog's Bollocks Emporium, see my FB album.

Times are tough at the moment in York. There was a crazy high percentage of homes and businesses up for sale; the bad economic climate has obviously had a hard effect on such a small community. Therefore one must do whatever one can to lure in a potential customer...

No exceptions!

When I had told people I was going away to York, everyone I spoke to told me I really must visit the new markets that have opened at the old mill. Apparently they used to have a market one day a month but now they have a permanent market every weekend. We thought we'd mosy over and check it out.
Turns out it's rather crap. Sorry York, I loved you and all but to draw in a crowd, you need more to tempt shoppers with than five dusty stalls in a leaky shed next to the mill that sell hand made tea cosies.

The mill building itself was much more interesting. The bottom floor contained a couple of furniture and giftware shops and Christian and I oohed and ahhed over a table that was made out of one piece of jarrah that would seat at least twenty people. It cost $25000 but really, what put us off buying it was because it just wouldn't fit in our dining room...ok...that's our story and we're sticking with it!
The next two floors held art galleries and we wandered about there for a bit but to be honest I was more interested in the wrought iron designs on the stair railings.




This is the mill from the outside. It looks rather rickety and that's because it is. Afterall, it is old (over fifty years!).



We had taken up the telescope so we could take advantage of the clear skies in such a rural location but alas, the Saturday was too overcast. We did scout for a good location though so the following night we would know exactly where would be a good spot to set up. It wasn't hard to decide upon Mt Brown. It's vantage point and open spaces were pros. However it was very cold...



That night we had an amazing dinner at the hotel restaurant (if you're ever in York you have to try the rosemary and sea salt potatoes at The York) and then we just chilled out in the room, watching telly and reading. We did discover the cons to staying at a hotel however when the noise from the bar downstairs got rather loud. Coupled with a rather rednecky rendition of 'Working Class Man' at 1am by a few drunk locals stumbling home, it was a bit of a disrupted night.

The following day we went to Gwambygine Park and did a small bush walk there and then spent the rest of the day antiquing and having a mosey around the rest of town. We had saved the Sock Factory for today so as not to over excite ourselves on the Saturday...

I was very tempted to buy a blue heeler hand puppet but Christian wouldn't let me so instead I bought two pairs of socks.
That night the skies cleared and we headed back up to Mt Brown to play with the telescope. We didn't stay for long because it was fecking freezing but we did stay long enough to find Saturn and her rings. We don't have the best lenses as yet so it wasn't exactly like looking through an observatory telescope but still, it was clearly recognisable as Saturn.

Oh, and Christian took a photo of the moon...


The following day we packed up and headed home, picking up Molly along the way. She had enjoyed herself at Mum's, a little too much. Mum is not immune to Molly's doggy wiles and played ball with her the entire weekend. Molly had trouble walking the next day...

We had a lovely weekend though and I'm hoping we can do it again soon :)

ETA - Blogger is being a bitch and isn't letting any of my links work :(
I shall come back tomorrow and try to fix them then. Apologies.

Attack of the GIANT spider of DOOOOOOOM!*

*No actual attack took place...

Today was an absolutely glorious day! It was only about 27C or so and the sun was out and there was a lovely breeze and so it was the perfect time to go for a walk down through Bassendean (a suburb very near me that sits on the banks of the Swan River).

I parked my car near the main road and headed off in the general direction of the river. There were lots of other people out and about and I would have probably walked right under the GIANT spider of DOOM if not for some cyclists taking photos of him.

He was perched in a tree right about the footpath. Isn't he awesome???


Complete with web and eggs!



I then headed down to Point Reserve, one of the many parks in Basso (I will take this opportunity to say that spell check has an issue with 'Bassendean' but not for 'Basso'...interesting). The entrance to the park has some painted murals depicting native fauna.

The Killer Kookaburra.


The Deadly Dragonfly.


The Bloody Bobtail.


A Fearsome Frog.


So there have recently been lots of floods over East and up North and I have wondered how likely it is that we will ever suffer the same fate. A newspaper article in the local rag I read a couple of weeks ago said that if the Swan did flood, experts expect Bassendean will be one of the worst affected areas.

I wonder how often this has come in handy in the past...?


There were a gaggle of geese frolicking around on the grass. As soon as I got within 20 meters of them, they formed up and started advancing on me, honking furiously.
I'm well aware from reading Footrot Flats that geese can be a (literal) pain in the arse so I high tailed it away from them.


"And don't you come back now!"


This pink and grey was much more sedate.


The river is rather pretty.


Just look how the morning sun shines off it!


Marvel at it's murky browness!


I rather liked this tree so I snapped a pic of it from the end of the jetty (contrary to popular opinion I cannot walk on water).


Finding my thimble sized bladder alarmingly full, I decided to make use of the facilities at Point Reserve. I had never ever before used a chain flush toilet.
I can now strike that from my bucket list.


I want this house! I'm pretty sure this used to be a church of some kind that is now being renovated.


Unless it's just a seriously cool house...


After about an hour I was making my way back to the car and spotted these magpies. Apparently there was good pickings along the wall!

Smorgasbord!


And lastly, for your viewing pleasure - ducks!

An unexpected trip to the zoo

Yesterday I had gone round to my visit my best friend and after watching the new episode of Big Bang Theory, we found we didn't really have much to do. I was being a bit of a grumble bum because I'd had a headache for two days straight and probably wasn't being the best of company and I soon found myself bundled into the car and on my way to a 'mystery location'.

The mystery was soon solved when we pulled up into the zoo car park and I became much less grumbly. I love the zoo! Christian and I used to have a zoo membership and we'd go all the time but life has become so busy lately that we haven't been for quite a while.

It was already about half past two in the afternoon so the crowds had mainly dispersed which was good but of course, being mid afternoon on a warm day, a lot of the animals were having a siesta. We passed enclosure after enclosure where all we could see was a distant lump of fur in a tree top (sun bears), a streak of orange against the far fence (tigers) or absolutely nothing at all (wombats, lions, cheetahs and otters).

Some of the enclosures were being refitted so we couldn't see anything (the crocodile Simmo was having his glass replaced and was supposed to be in his outdoor home...he wasn't so we trod carefully until we were faaaaaaaar away) and the dingo enclosure was empty after the death of their last dingo, Durka. I always love visiting the dingo so I was very sad when I learned he had died :(

There were however a few animals who were being very voyeuristic. The Little Penguins are always good for a laugh, however stinky they may be. The elephants were demonstrating how strong they are by carrying around big tree trunks. The orangutans were being very orangutany and usually I'm not a fan but they had babies and were being very cute. The Meerkats are adorable as always and were doing very cute Meerkat things. The rhinos started to get into a fight, there was some stamping and a few horn butts but they settled down eventually.
The most surprising of the day though was one of the hyenas. Usually you hardly see the hyenas as they're always bloody asleep. But one hyena was having a bath in the pond by one of the viewing windows. He was jumping around, splashing, scratching, looking very cute and then he would go bounding off, run all the way around the enclosure (which is pretty big) and then eventually he would come running back and jump into the pond with a huge splash. It made my day :)

I'm just sorry I didn't get any photos but as it was a surprise trip I didn't think I'd have any need of my camera. I did however go to the gift shop afterward; a place I normally avoid since I spend too much money there. I ended up leaving with a zoo calendar, a froggie cookie cutter and a spiderweb necklace. I plan to make froggie cookies soon so I shall get photos and post them here :)

Whiteman Park

I can't really think of much to post about today but since I want to try and keep up regular posts, I thought I'd post some pics of Whiteman Park. We were there just after Christmas for a bbq with friends and it was a glorious day :)

We always head down to the areas surrounding Mussel Pool. Honestly, when you drive into the park it looks bleak and barren and not really a nice place for a picnic, but once you get into the heart of the park, you come across places like this.



Scattered about the park are old farming relics such as tractors and machinery. They've also bought in an entire windmill.


The windmill isn't attached to a bore as far as we could determine (if it is, there's no taps or other outlet to access the water by) so this sign was pretty pointless...


Most of the trees had numbered metal tags on them. We have yet to determine the reason for these although some of our theories included : Dieback surveys, orientation marks and general tree species surveys. Next time I see my brother Scott, I shall ask him since he's a fandangled botanist and all!






Not the best specimen I've ever found but the best found that day. Our beloved Honkey Nut! When Boo and Mouse came a visiting, we made sure they collected some to take back to Scotland with them.


A chain that was around a tree log that was being held up by a big tractor.


Some of the frisky wildlife. I wonder if it was the same bugger who took a chunk out of my birthday cake when we were there last year...


That is all :)

A Christmas Adventure

As most of you know, I bought Christian a telescope for Christmas. We decided that on Boxing Day night we would have a play around with it and just see how it all worked. There's way too much light pollution from the city where we live so we figured we may as well head up to Mundaring since we were going to visit my Mother in Law anyway.
We went to North Ledge which has views out over Mundaring Weir and it was a pretty good spot but there were an awful lot of trees still in the way so we didn't have an unlimited view of the sky. But at short notice it was the best spot we could think of so we stayed put.

We arrived about half six so we still had an hour and a half of light left so I wandered about taking photos. It's such a pretty spot and it really bought back memories of when we took Boo and Mouse there when they visited us.

This was such a pretty flower. I loved the colours and also the feather type texture of the petals.


The view of the weir. I know it's probably just the wind but it looked like there was a current through some of the water.


The view out over the valley.

Pretty bush.

I liked this tree.

And this one.

As I write this, the colour of the white background of my draft page perfectly matches the colour of the sky. I can't tell where the photo ends and the page begins. I know it will be different once I've published.


The setting sunlight looked so pretty through this palm.
The valley just as the sun was dipping behind the hills.


This is the rock that we climbed all over when the Scots came to visit.


Once the sun had set, we went about putting the telescope together. I'd assumed we'd put it together before we lost the light but it was so windy that Christian decided it would be safest to do it at the last possible minute.

It didn't take us long and we were soon trying to find something in the sky to focus on. The star finder was ridiculously difficult to use and so we soon gave up, looking through the eyepiece and moving the scope about randomly. We soon discovered Jupiter and it's four biggest moons. It was very pretty and looked very much like this photo.
We had forgotten to see when the moon was rising that night and unfortunately it was rather late and so we didn't get a chance to have a practice on the moon. It seemed the most likely starting point for complete amateurs like us but I guess it shall have to wait until next month.

We had a great time but we had to leave rather early as Molly was being dogsat by Christian's mum. But we figured we'd give it a go the next night as well. And so yesterday we headed back to the same spot but much later than the first time. Unfortunately we had a few problems and didn't end up staying for long. Quite a lot of cloud cover came over while we were there which prevented a lot of viewing and also the telescope seemed to be rather wobbly. The previous night we hadn't noticed the problem so we're not sure if it's faulty, if we didn't set it up exactly right or if it's just like that and moves around quite a lot.

I guess we won't know for sure until our next adventure out. The night wasn't a complete loss however - we spied on Jupiter a lot more and could see a faint stripe under it's belly. That was pretty cool :)