Pictures And Words

I live East of Perth, as you go east the urban gives way to rural, and eventually the rural gives way to raw nature, a very hot raw nature at the moment. I live probably halfway in the urban-rural transition. there are some hills to the west of where I live and over them is the desert. We get strong easterly winds in the morning, that have been running free all night, over the obstructionless landscapes yonder.

Not far from my house there is an old railway track, minus the actual nuts and bolts, and bars of wood. Its like a scar of nature slashed through the estate here, a beautiful scar that reminds us that underneath there is life, and it extends as far as Ive been walking down, and further. Since my current job has now finished(!) for good, I am going to leave it a few weeks before getting another job, so with all this free time I’m going to explore the bush a little bit, look for critters and what not. I’ve just bought some macro rings for my camera, so I will be able to capture images much closer. I have been for a small walk up the hill and into the bush, and from up there you can see the city of Perth.

In both of these pictures you can make out where the city is reaching out for the sky, as cities tend to do. There is nothing else like that for thousands of miles in all directions. That’s Perth, the most isolated city on this earth, its its biggest claim to fame. When i first came here I ignored the nothing that is all around Perth and expected to see something amazing within Perth, but the thing that’s astounding is the nothing all around it, because in fact there is more in that than in Perth. (I find myself a lot being very cruel about Perth, at first I meant it, but now its more playful).

Along the old railway track nature is having a busy time. There are so many parrots, no pigeons here, its all parrots. And all manor of nuts and pods and seeds that i’ve never seen before. And pretty much every insect is new to me.

This mofo was crawling across my path, so I took a few snaps, moved him off the path onto a bush, then walked on. It seemed id attracted attention to the guy and a parrot swooped in and grabbed him, took him to a high branch on a tree and gobbled him up……ooops.

More into the rural areas and you start to come across kangaroo’s and there are a lot of them. I’ve seen quite a few already, but i’ve not had my fill of them yet, well literally i have done, by eating them, as for seeing them its still an amazing sight (and they taste pretty good as well). That pink and grey parrot is super common, they seem a lot smarter than pigeons, much more enjoyable to watch, there’s a lot of expression in the way they walk and the way they look at you.

I saw these plants a few months ago, when the ground was more wet. They are called “sundew”. The first one actually looks a bit like a venus fly trap, buts its just an immature Sundew i guess just popping through the ground. The red hairs are sticky and insects get caught in it and get dissolved and absorbed by the plant. I think this is my first insect eating plant that I have seen in the wild.

Couple more pictures from the nature around here. If anybody wants the full size version of any of my pictures just leave a message on the board with your email and ill email you whatever picture you want.

Since I am going to be off work for a couple of week I will also be writing more for my site, and changing things around a little bit, learning a bit more about the layout of my site. The way I have been doing things is so limited. I know I can make it a lot more pleasing to look at and to use.