Walking in the rain

The first bushwalk of the season attracted a big group yesterday: 22 people (i.e. 2 over the limit for gatherings). We spread out well over the tracks in Kings Park: a very easy walk for those of us whose joints had stiffened up a bit during the lockdown. The weather forecast was wrong and we got absolutely soaked in one shower after another!

After a short shelter in this gazebo, we pressed on. It was a good test of our wet weather gear.

Only a few wildflowers were out so early in the season, but the heavy rain will surely encourage a lot more. This a “Cockies Tongue” or Templetonia Retusa:

In the Botanic Garden there is a section devoted to plants from the Kimberley. I was happy to see one of my favourites, a Birdflower:

This is a Wickham’s Grevillea:

We even managed to find another gazebo to eat our picnic lunch and finished off with a piece of the most delicious “impossible cake” provided by Carla, full of lemon and coconut. She wouldn’t give us the recipe, saying she made it up every time.

We walked 7.6 kms.

Dentist

When you are pain you need to see a dentist asap! Over the weekend I was suffering from a fragile tooth that had been extensively filled last August. I worried that it might be hard to get an appointment. I suddenly had a brainwave to look for an online booking and discovered one vacancy at 9.00 am on Monday morning. At the surgery I found out they had been virtually closed for 3 weeks when they were under government orders to treat only specific emergencies. My dentist, Helen, had taken the opportunity to repaint the walls. Well, my problem proved to be an infection in and around the tooth, which was cleared up miraculously within 24 hours with antibiotics. I was lucky it could be dealt with so quickly, but I imagine that tooth will have to go sooner or later and the next step will be an implant. If this had happened a few weeks ago, I would have been desperate!

Another problem ship has docked in Fremantle. This time it's a vessel from Kuwait, part of the live sheep trade for the Middle East. Six crew have tested positive for the virus and have been put into hotel quarantine at the Novotel in Perth, while the other 42 crew remain aboard the ship. The fate of almost 60,000 sheep being held in a Baldivis feedlot is now in limbo. This situation might make people consider whether its time to ban this live sheep trade altogether.

Going places

Killed a couple of birds with one stone yesterday. First on the agenda for going places was a flu injection. A “clinic” for seniors had been set up in one of Crown’s unused underground car parks. I thought there might have been a queue, but I only saw about 3 cars and at least 10 staff. It was also freezing after a bitterly cold night. I felt sorry for them. I don’t know why more people weren’t taking advantage of this: it was a really convenient way of avoiding a GP’s busy waiting room with all the potential germs. The government is keen to avoid having hospital beds taken up with flu patients.

Next, I made a long awaited visit to the hairdressers. My hair had got so long and awful during the lockdown that I’d only gone out wearing a hat. The salon was fairly busy, but on entry there was hand sanitizer plus a temperature check. Between clients, chairs and benches were sprayed and cleaned. They were doing all they could. If there was a Covid outbreak in one hair salon, they knew that they would be closed down and the whole industry might suffer.

So, I came home with a beautiful hair style and a stiff arm: in time to meet my Woolworths delivery man! But W.A. has only 3 active cases now, touch wood.

Regional borders 2

Today most of our borders in W.A. are opening up. The only parts we cannot drive to are the hatched areas on the map below:

Another interesting comparison map appeared in the weekend paper. It shows we are free to move around in an area as big as Spain!

For our Sunday excursion, we went to Cottesloe where we experienced long queues to buy a coffee as everyone had the same idea. We took it across the road and sat ourselves behind a tree for protection against the sea breeze:

It’s amazing how many people are out and about at weekends as if it’s important to “get out of jail” and get some fresh air. The sea was quite rough by Cottesloe standards and there were big piles of seaweed that the storms had brought in:

For dinner we picked up a special take-away from Kailis, the second we’ve had from them during the lockdown:

(Only one bottle of wine - red or white!)

As from today, restaurants can now open for 20 people at a time.  I definitely need a rest from cooking.

Regional borders opening

Next week, we will be allowed to drive to the south coast if we wish. But the weather is cooling down and people really want to go north to follow the sun. This is not an option as the government wishes to protect vulnerable remote aboriginal communities.  Our next door neighbour is a Qantas pilot on reduced hours. She told me that the only work she had was flying FIFO workers to the mine sites up north. I told her when all the regional borders opened, we would be on a flight to Broome!

W.A. has now only 7 active cases in the state and the last person in ICU has just recovered. Today I ventured out to a supermarket for the first time and JL paid a quick visit to Bunnings. Both places were relatively quiet and it was easy to keep our distances. Now, I really really want to get my hair cut!

My afternoon walk in the sun was pretty nice as usual:

Every day JL has been plotting the curve of the virus. He loves numbers and graphs, so he was at pains to improve on those published in the press:

Fraud

I've just finished reading Snowdrops a novel about corruption and fraud (among other things) in Moscow: a great recommendation by Rachel. 

It prompted me to relate my own story of a fraud trial in Perth in 2015. For the first time ever, I was called for jury service and the long trial stole more than a month of my life. The accused (Mr X) was an American university lecturer in Marketing, working in Perth at UWA. He somehow convinced a small start-up company that he could help them develop their product, which was a papaya (or pawpaw) based cream. In particular, he promised to get this through the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia and - even better - through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in America. If a herbal remedy can gain approval by these regulatory bodies, it has a much better financial future!  Mr X was employed as a Consultant for 9 months, and received large cheques for his services. He claimed to have contacts within “Big Pharma” in America.

There were 19 counts of fraud and each one was presented in great detail. One day I actually dozed off, it was so boring. But it was also unbelievable that the small company had been so gullible and that he had got away with it for so long. I really woke up to the situation when part of the evidence was a huge "Literature Survey" in 3 volumes. This was simply a collection of photocopied documents with no comments or conclusions. To be of any value, it required some evaluation of relevant research in the area. As a retired academic myself, I could immediately smell a rat! This was no Literature Survey. It had no value without any recommendations. When the Prosecution made no mention of this, I was alarmed.  Should I tell them? Was this even legal? Then there was a lot of purely anecdotal evidence about the beneficial use of the cream in aged care homes for preventing and treating bedsores, but no scientific testing or clinical trials had been done. There was no quality control built into the manufacture of the cream, to ensure that each batch would be the same.

We heard that the two directors of the small company also started to get suspicious and decided to do some detective work themselves. They flew to America to track down the supposed offices and HQ of Mr X’s business. The address turned out to be a Retirement Village for Chinese people. It transpired that Mr X’s wife was Chinese American and so were her parents. They were now living in Australia and liking it here!  But they had all moved to Queensland to get away from the scandal. The wife was called in as a witness by video link, and she admitted that their marriage was “a work in progress”. 

After 5 weeks sitting in the jury box day after day, it finally came to an end. We gave him the benefit of the doubt in one case and declared him guilty on the other 18 counts. The sentence was handed down a few weeks later: 3 years’ in prison. But I suspect the worst punishment was yet to come. Non citizens who are convicted of a crime carrying more than one year’s prison sentence face deportation. He would have to go and all his dependents with him!

John Forrest N P

We had another lovely day out yesterday with a picnic in the National Park. This was always a favourite destination for our bushwalking group and I’ve been there many times. I’ve never seen it so crowded, though: the good weather and Mothers Day attracted huge numbers.

When we arrived at the entrance gate, we found ourselves in a queue of about 10 cars which had come to a full stop. The ranger was going from car to car, explaining that the park had reached capacity and we would have to wait, but he couldn’t say how long. Most people drove off, but JL showed his disabled sticker and we were allowed in. There were indeed a couple of disabled parking bays so we were in luck:

We walked down to the stream, where lots of new signage had appeared:

In the early days, the train line brought crowds from Perth for a cheap day out. Now the line has been torn up and it became a really popular “rails-to-trails”.  It was one of the first bush walks I discovered when I moved to Perth. The trail is on quite a high embankment at this point:

This old railway bridge was declared unsafe, so a new pedestrian bridge was constructed alongside it:

JL managed a short walk near the water, where he remembered that a damn had been built in the old days to form a swimming pool:

A day out in the sunshine did us good. Watching all the other picnickers and hikers enjoying themselves, it was easy to forget about the virus for a while. As we drove away at about 3.00 pm, we noticed a mob of kangaroos. They had gathered for what must be a regular feed outside the ranger’s office:

Many were either very well fed or had a joey in their pouch, but I couldn’t see one peeping out.

Online shopping

I’m a big fan of online shopping, especially now when I can’t go out.  I buy lots of e-books from Amazon and occasionally clothes from Lands End or M and S. I’m also a good customer for knitting wool from LoveCrafts (previously LoveKnitting) in the UK.

Six weeks ago, just before lockdown got underway, I ordered some wool, thinking to knit a jumper that would keep me busy for a while. It still has not arrived! I’ve emailed them several times, but all I get is a standard message full of apologies. The annoying thing is that they are still sending out promotional e-mails and accepting more orders. I know that Australia Post has been inundated, with very few interstate flights to carry cargo.

I decided to complain to my credit card company. I filled in a form with all the details and was amazed to receive an instantaneous refund. There was no way it could have been checked by a human eye! It did take ages to locate the form on the website, though.

Feeling magnanimous, I decided to donate the cash to a worthy cause. Many albergues and B&Bs on the Camino are struggling now as there are no pilgrims to help defray their costs. The Stone Boat is a special place at Rabanal. I was heading there last year till my knee problem flared up. Maybe next year... The owner has set up a GoFundMe so I sent her my wool money. She posts atmospheric black and white photos on Instagram.

The Stone Boat GoFundMe

Meanwhile I'm using up all my spare wool and have just produced a Mother's Day pressie in reverse for C who has been delivering lots of shopping for us:

Bells Rapids

Today we unlocked ourselves and went for a picnic up the Swan Valley. Our chosen destination was Bells Rapids: a million people in 4WDs and their dogs had the same idea. But it was easy to keep a social distance, as there were lots of parking spaces near the river bank.

This spot is famous in August when crowds come to view the annual white water race known as the Avon Descent. In winter, the river and waterfalls are spectacular but today the river bed was practically dry after weeks without rain:

This bridge is a prime viewing spot.

I walked back to the car on the other side. I left JL reading the paper and took his stick as some steep bits were very slippery. My curly stick was much admired:

The next photo shows one growing out of a grass tree. It is not known why the normally straight spike goes curly:

This is what the bridge and rapids look like in full flow:

Lots of dangerous rocks to capsize boats!

Nice night for a BBQ

A still night with no wind means it’s a good time to fire up the BBQ on the balcony. It’s time for our once-a-week red meat day. We also tried carrots which had been parboiled then placed on the grill to soak up the juices. Delicious! JL likes his chops well done so cooks them twice as long as mine.

Earlier in the day I walked by the river and saw a swan family enjoying themselves: