Escape!

It’s W A Day celebration, postponed from earlier in the year when the field was too muddy after a lot of rain. I knew it would be noisy. A couple of weeks ago, there was an Indian Festival and I was tormented by loud music from their speakers. I complained to Victoria Park Council in no uncertain terms, and received a ridiculous reply, suggesting I install double glazing! So, I’ve escaped to Mandurah to Seashells, a favourite spot.

Preparations early this morning.

There is also cricket at the Stadium (a test match, Australia vs India).

Mandurah is a relief:

How to consume this without making a mess?

My bedroom at Seashells.

My view from 111.

Riverside Bushwalk

Preliminary Information:

Meet:         Car-park on the foreshore opposite the river end of Cunningham St UBD 307, N12

Details:       The walk is to Heathcote Reserve (Goolugatup) and is approx 8km return. The walk follows the river foreshore along the shared access path and across some grassed areas. We pass Applecross jetty with lovely views of the river before wandering up to the reserve which is on the hill overlooking the river.  The building/heritage precinct area is very interesting to walk around.  There is plenty of bird-life along sections of the foreshore so you may wish to bring binoculars.

Numbers are dwindling on these early morning summer walks: we start at 7.30 am to beat the heat. Sunday morning was actually quite chilly, with a stiff breeze as we assembled in the carpark. I managed to leave my phone behind, so all the photos are courtesy of MMcH:

Shadows of the Six

View across the river

Birds

An angel on the foreshore?

Our good deed for the day: a little lost dog was found running back and forth on the boardwalk near Applecross Jetty. We read his collar and phoned his owner who was driving along the road in a panic, looking for him. The two were soon re-united.

Then we climbed the steep slope up to Heathcote Reserve and enjoyed a coffee at the top.

The area was named after George Gage Heathcote, son of Admiral Sir Henry Heathcote, a midshipman on HMS Success, who is said to have been the first European to land there. It was one of the landing and camp sites of Captain James Stirling during his exploration of the Swan River in April 1827.  Later, Heathcote Hospital was built, designed for mental patients in recovery.

We noticed that a separate building, the old nurses quarters, has been renovated - no expense spared - and is now on the market for over $3 million!

Short Stories

I entered the West Australian annual short story competition. I submitted three stories. I didn't win! I didn't even make the top 50. For one thing, they were too short. They also needed work. I'm going to try again next year.....

I'm posting them here for posterity. We can learn from our failures and move on!

Rain in Spain

Big fat drops begin to fall and are soon bouncing off the pavement. It wasn’t raining when I left the hotel but it is now, with a vengeance. I’m on holiday in Malaga, Spain on the Costa del Sol and this is not the weather I expected. No Sol today.

I’ve booked online to see the Picasso Museum and I have a slot between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. So have lots of other people, it seems. There is a long queue and everybody is getting wet. The queue moves slowly; in fact, it hardly moves at all. I’m tempted to forget the whole idea, but I’ve paid 12 Euros for a ticket and I’m still annoyed that I couldn’t work out how to get the Seniors Discount. I realise that I’ve plenty of time to wait out this shower, so I take refuge under the awning of a bar. Others crowd in too.

With nothing else to do, I start up a conversation with an American couple who are already sitting down and drinking a cafe con leche. The woman says “Where are you from, honey?” When I tell her Australia, she says “ You speak good English, doesn’t she, Joe?” I don’t know how to respond to this.

The rain gets heavier and water is now flowing down the street, threatening to engulf our improvised shelter. My feet and sandals are soaked. Two German guys join the crowd squashed under the sagging awning. One says “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” with perfect annunciation. His partner, Gunther, says “Professor Higgins again. He’s always doing this.” The American woman asks if the Professor is an expert on Picasso. I smile conspiratorially at the Germans.

Gunther has acquired an umbrella for 5 Euros, the last in the shop apparently. He decides to re-join the queue regardless, as the rain shows no sign of abating. I ask if I can join him under the umbrella and he agrees. Helmut, his partner, will get a phone call when the queue reaches the museum entrance. As we shuffle forward under his umbrella, Gunther remarks “This would never happen in Germany. We are better at organising such things.” I think he is probably right.

As we start to inch forward, I finally think of a response to Nancy, the American woman. “Actually, I speak better English than you!”

Where There’s a Will

“We reserve the right to contest the will,” announced Phil’s e-mail. Good luck with that, I thought. I had paid good money for advice from a top lawyer in Perth and I knew that the will was watertight. Phil was just saying that to upset me. He was being totally obnoxious. With a great deal of restraint, I decided to ignore his words.

My partner JJ and I had been together for 20 years. Most of the time we’d been perfectly happy. The only flies in the ointment had been his kids who didn’t like to see their father with another woman. He should remain faithful to their mother, even after she had died of dementia. They didn’t understand that he would have been really lonely rattling around in his house by the sea. He couldn’t cook. He couldn’t do anything, except for his job as a consultant civil engineer. He needed someone like me to look after him.

I finally responded to Phil’s e-mail, asking for 3 copies of the death certificate. I needed to go to the Lands Registry to get confirmation that I was now the owner of the house by the sea. I was shocked to receive the copies. There was no mention of me in the space for a de-facto partner. I had been written out of history! How was this possible? What could I do about it?

When people are really nasty, it’s probably best to turn the other cheek. What would JJ have done? He was a mild-mannered man who would never hold a grudge. On the other hand, I am a big grudge holder. I felt like getting my revenge on Phil and plotted the best way to achieve this. Then I realized that my anger was directed at the wrong person. Phil’s sister Sheila was obviously the one behind the death certificate. She was just that sort of person.

Sheila owned a beautiful holiday home down south. JJ and I had been there only once, when we had been asked to remove our shoes before walking on the polished light oak floors. I read up on different types of scam. One involved the sewing of prawns into the seams of curtains. I liked that idea, but the stink would only be short lived. Then I read about a scam where someone sold a property that they didn’t actually own.

I secretly made friends with Sheila’s cleaning woman in order to gain access to the house. I posed as the mother-in-law and knew enough about the family to make this credible. I approached a real estate agent in Singapore that dealt with overseas properties. Slowly it all came together. The rich Singaporean buyer finally sent me a bank draft and that was it! Deal done.

I’m just about to board a plane for Brazil. I’m travelling Business Class. I don’t think there is an extradition treaty...

My Best Friend

Marg: My best friend at Primary School was Gillian. We often played together in her garden after school. She lived in a big house on the main road. Her mother was a bit of a fuss-pot though. She made Gillian take a spoonful of Scott’s Emulsion every day. This tasted revolting apparently, but Mrs Dawson seemed constantly afraid that Gillian would get sick. I never saw Mr Dawson. He owned the bakery in town and had to get up at 3.00 am to light the bread oven.

Gillian: My best friend at Primary School was Marg. I never went to her house, though. I thought maybe they hadn’t much money and she didn’t want me to see it. But she had something I really wanted: a little sister. She also had grandparents. Her grandfather was a friend of our Headmaster. One day, during exams, I saw Mr Webb pause by Marg’s desk and put his finger on her paper. I’m sure he was pointing to a mistake she had made. I was shocked! I never said a word about it to anyone.

Marg: Gillian never called Mrs Dawson ‘Mum’. She always used her first name, Muriel. I later discovered that Gillian was adopted and this explained a lot.

Gillian: When we went to High School, we were no longer in the same class. This confirmed something I had always known: Marg was cleverer than me. She and her group were reading Anna Karenina : it was the fashion at the time. I couldn’t get into the book at all.

Marg: Gillian was secretly in love with a Canadian boy who was here on exchange. At first, I thought that this was her escape route: to go back to Canada with him. But she came to realise that there was no future in it. Muriel would never let her go.

Gillian: Marg is applying to Melbourne Uni, but first she plans to have a gap year to go travelling. She will get a job at Woolies for six months to save some money. She told me she was going to the travel agents to ask about tickets on the Trans Siberian Express. ‘Come with me!’ she begged. ‘I can’t’ I replied, ‘I’ve got to take Muriel to the hairdresser.’

Jacaranda

November means a few favourite things. The shops are suddenly full of mangoes at bargain prices. A few years ago, we were in Kununurra and they were literally dropping off the trees. There was no-one to pick them and the local Coles Supermarket was having to bring them in from elsewhere.

 

All the Jacaranda trees are in flower: a beautiful blue/purple. When I was a lot younger, I read about all the Jacaranda trees in Marrakech and resolved to go there when I grew up. I think there was a Somerset Maugham story entitled Jacaranda but I can’t find it now.

Also in flower are Star Jasmine plants, used as ground cover at Burswood. They give off a lovely scent as you walk around.

Today is Melbourne Cup (“the race that stops a nation”). I’m not into racing or dressing up in fascinators, so I’m just staying at home.

PS. Two days later and someone sent me this:

The Elusive Numbat

The caretaker of Dryandra told me that it was a really bad idea for us all to shine a torch into the hollow log to see the numbat. At this time of year, in the breeding season, there could have been babies inside. The mother might have then considered the hiding place unsafe and moved them elsewhere, which itself was quite a dangerous thing to do.

This is what we were hoping to see. They are an endangered species, active during the day, so they rely on their stripey back to act as camouflage. Numbats have long, slender sticky tongues (approx 10-11 cm long) that they use to flick into narrow cavities to collect termites.

Later that day, we spotted another one scampering around in the bush. I managed to film a short video which is on my Instagram.

Official report on the weekend
 

More on Dryandra

The back verandah was an ideal place to have dinner, watching the sun setting, as the kangaroos entertained us in front.

Unfortunately, the magpies in the area joined us in an attempt to steal our food. At one point, 5 of them were threatening to do just that. Someone had left a yellow frisbee on the table, a handy defensive weapon for us!

View from the verandah.

Next morning, we were off in good time with Kevin in the lead. First, we learned a lot about mallet trees. In the early days, the bark was used in the tanning industry, so the trees were extremely valuable:

Mallet bark.

We were also intrigued by the lichen on some of the other trees:

It’s now quite dry in the area, but the lichen survive with dew on the trees.

Next, a few wildflowers were spotted:

Fringe lily and two tiny bee orchids.

Cowslip orchids.

Trigger plants.

Kevin spotted a numbat running along in the bush, about 50 m away. Great excitement all round! It rushed into its hiding place in a hollow log. Kevin shone a torch inside the log and a few people managed to see it: not easy, as you had to lie down to look in. I only managed to see two little white eyes, which seemed to be trembling with fear, perhaps:

After that we stopped for another photo opportunity in an area covered in everlastings:

Close-up of everlastings, or paper daisies.

A group of fringe lilies.

A very unusual white fringe lily.

We had lunch on top of Contine Hill, where a local ranger, Peter Lacy, came to give us a talk about the history of Dryandra. My phone was threatening to run out of charge at this point, so I daren’t take many more photos:

I need to get hold of Kevin’s book!

Someone worked out that Kevin is 88 years old and he is full of energy. I am 9 years younger than him and was flagging before the day was out. Like my phone, I was running out of charge. In the end, I decided not to go on the evening excursion to Barna Mia to see the nocturnal animals in their sheltered enclosure. Annette and I had a quiet evening in front of the log fire instead.

Mandy and Bob (with whom we were sharing Wallaby Cabin) did go and reported back. Mandy does lovely crochet:

The blanket consists of rows of double crochet, with a treble into the row below, every 10 stitches.

Someone had carved one of the Barna Mia creatures on a door stop. 

For more about Dryandra, see:

https://dryandravillage.org.au/.

Two Days in Dryandra

There is a lot to see in and around the village. With Kevin in charge, no minute of the day will be left unaccounted for. This is the schedule he wrote for us:

Kevin Coate, who’s agreed to be our main leader, has sent the following info:

DBCA at Narrogin have arranged for the WANC to be given an exclusive tour over Barna Mia on the 10^th of October.  I have indicated to them we to expect at least 14 members.  There will be no problem should there be more.  I have forwarded to the WANC office their confirmation of this event with times etc.

On the 9^th after checking into the Lions Village and setting up at the camp ground, all meet at Old Mill Dam near the settlement (time to be notified) for orientation and drive to Lol Gray picnic area.  Here we will walk the 3.5km Lol Gray Loop through Kwongan Heath (wildflowers are looking good).

Evening spotlighting will be either from Old Mill Dam or around Congelin Dam.   If camping, I recommend Gnarla Mia as mosquitos at Congelin camp site are very prevalent even during the day.  Gnarla Mia has an interesting walk and numbats, echidna and woylie are being recorded around the camp ground.  Caretakers there are Debbie and Andy.  There are 37 caravan sites and eight tent sites.  NO camp fires are allowed.

On the morning of the 10^th the plan for the club is to do the 23km drive along the Darwinia Drive starting from the Old Mill Dam.   If people are willing to share vehicles there is more chance of seeing animals ( I have room for 3 and will have a large icebox box to put eats in).  There are a number of interpretive stops with plenty of interest for everyone.  A side track toward the end of this drive with good bird life and a good chance of spotting numbats is an optional extra but the vehicle will need a high clearance – as in four-wheel-drive.  A picnic lunch needs to be taken and we will have this at Contine Hill picnic area – a fantastic venue with panoramic views out over forest and farmland (A thermos of hot water for tea or coffee would be useful). Two walks are available here.  It has been arranged for Peter Lacy from DBCA to arrive here and he will provide us a run down on what is happening in Dryandra and answer any questions.  A lovely clean stainless steel gas barbeque is also available for anyone wishing to barbeque a few sausages or chops.  I have been assured it will be charged up with gas.  After leaving Contine Hill the plan is to go to the Congelin camp ground and do the 1.6km circular walk (birds and botany).  Evening – 6.30 Barna Mia.

Take a breath. Can we really do all that?

One of the cabins with its own rainwater tank.

Kevin demonstrates a Powder Bark Wandoo.


Red Leschenaultia.

Poison Bush.

Kevin made sure we didn’t miss any wildflowers which were prolific.

The stony track, with lots of loose gravel, was a bit of a challenge. I had left my stick in the car back at the village, in my rush to accept a lift in a 4WD.

Says it all!

Beautiful Verticordias.

Smoke Bush blowing in the wind.

Most of the Nats in the group were familiar with the proper botanical names, but I can only cope with the common names!

To be continued…..