This is the house i live in now, seems Western Australia is more google street photo’d than Manchester.

There they are, beautiful, just beautiful, brings a tear to my eye.

me

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.

I am in Perth, which is on the West coast, its the only city on this side of Australia, and its not to exciting for a city. Its very dull in places, very conservative, for what, I don’t know. There is a stupid peti war going on between the train company and graffiti taggers. The taggers scratch their name into the glass of the windows on the train, and the train company sticks up sign next to it saying things like “Does this make you feel big that you sign your name on the window, like your a rebel, because your not, your pathetic…..” and so on. There is a hot line to complain and report anyone you see tagging, I was thinking about phoning it and complaining about the signs from the train company, as they are equally an eye sore to me.

Anyway, time has been passing by, the unremarkable aspect of this place has become remarkable. The wildlife comes bouncing and crawling out of its hiding place in the increasing heat. I have seen kangaroos bouncing across my path on my way to work, I took pity on a blue tongued lizard who was crossing a desert of a carpark, and moved him into a desert that he was more familiar with.

Some less wild life in the form of the family cat her where I live, an excellent model called Angus, and a nest of totally harmless baby rabbits that we saw at a local fair. Still on the subject of life, but although back to being wild life, there was an incident with bees that occurred a couple of months ago, it warrants its own paragraph i think.

So yeah, it was a normal Sunday, April’s brothers girlfriend spotted a mild swarm of bee’s outside. We all went out to see, then the swarm grew and seem to home in on a bush just opposite our house. Eventually they all formed a beard of bee’s on the bush, and as the evening closed in they calmed down and nestled in for the night. In the morning they were gone! I guess they were on a journey and night caught up with them before their destination, so they had to form a beard on that bush.


And there they are, as the beard grew, in chronological order. I saw a similar swarm passing by the bus station close by here a short while later. A kid who was sat next to me said “You don’t see that everyday do you”, I told him I saw it last week, he looked away looking a little disappointed.