Penguin Island


Yesterday we decided to take a run down to Rockingham and Penguin Island.

Penguin Island is part of the Shoalwater Islands Marine Park and, as the name suggests, is the home to a colony of Fairie Penguins as well as providing nesting sites for several species of gull and Pelicans.

The weather was beautiful and after a short drive and an even shorter ferry boat crossing we spent a very enjoyable couple of hours walking the island. Part of the Penguin Island experience is a short educational session at the Discovery Centre where a few penguins receive treats and are used to explain a little about these delightful creatures. I should point out the penguins in the discovery centre have been rescued and deemed unlikely to survive being returned to the wild.

So here are a few snaps which will I hope convey what a beautiful place this small island is.

Bay Colony FeedMe Jetty Little1 Little2 Little3 MumandYoung NearlyThere Pelican PenguinIsland PenguinIslandApproach PrepareforTakeOff Rock Rock2 Rock3 Soaring Tongue Trio Tufty Tufty2 Whatsfortea

How Very Rude


Today was a good day. I will reveal all in a future post.

This post will concentrate on this evening.

We have just returned from a concert at the Astor Theatre, Mount Lawley, Perth where we have just seen Hot Chocolate perform.

This post is aimed directly to at a group of ignorant, rude and disrespectful folks seated in the middle of rows M and N of the stalls.

Hot Chocolates support act was a solo acoustic performer, Jason Ayers, a local Perth talent. He was really quite good, performing a number of his own compositions along with some more well-known songs. Unfortunately, we could not give him the attention he deserved due to the noise of the prats seated in Rows M and N.

To you, the rude, the ignorant, the disrespectful I say

  1. If you were not interested in the support act, why didn’t you stay out of the theatre until Hot Chocolate came on ?
  2. I call you rude because you inflicted your conversation on the rest of the audience, most of whom were actually interested in listening to Jason Ayres.

  3. I call you disrespectful because you couldn’t care less about your fellow audience members who had paid good money just to listen to your inane chatter.
  4. I call you disrespectful because there was a young man on stage who was trying to entertain and you didn’t give him a chance.
  5. I call you ignorant because you appear to be totally devoid of the basics of socializing in a public place.

I hope you are pleased that you have annoyed me enough to write this post. You probably view this as confirmation of your own self importance. Your rudeness was noted by several other members of the audience who commented to me and other members of our party.

You are yet another example of what is wrong with society today.

Whiteman Park


Here I am, down in Western Australia. Perth to be exact and today has been our first full day. Yesterday, Sunday, was spent recovering from the journey.

We woke to a beautiful sunny, blue skies, day. We had decided to take a trip to Whiteman Park where we enjoyed a leisurely exploration of Caversham Wildlife Park and lunch in the on site Village Cafe.

Obviously I took photos and have posted a few here your pleasure. They are in no particular order.

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Grrrr !!!


So after checking our bags, a process which took only ten minutes, we headed to security. We joined the queue which stretched the whole length of the building, out the exit and on down a ramp and some stairs. We were in this queue for just under an hour which by any estimation is not acceptable. How on earth did these people cope with the influx and the departure of all those spectators and participants for the olympics.

Why Are We Waiting


This is Heathrows idea of efficient passenger management. I have just joined a queue, several hundreds of feet away from the security check point for departures. Apparently if you are within one hour of departure there is another gateway !!!

Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy


Guess who is heading down under for one whole glorious month.Yep. Me.

Flying out today, to sunny Perth via Dubai.

I hope to be posting lots of pics and and a few comments along the way.

Catch you later.

If You Have The Bottle ……


I have just received this story by email. I don’t know if it is true but I do like the story, it has the requisite chortle factor …..
BristolZoo

UPDATE: I just did a bit of digging on the interweb and discovered that this is a bit of an urban myth which has been around since about 2009.

New View From The Conservatory


New View From The Conservatory

The new patio, completed after a lot of hardwork, provides a good platform for our new, relatively, garden furniture.