Halloween has come and gone. We carved our pumpkin, had our bowl of candy ready to go, however it was not meant to be. Between Australia's lack of halloween enthusiasm, and the high number of octogenarian neighbours we did not get a single trick or treater. At least we still got to carve a pumpkin and roast some pumpkin seeds.

Maren doing her best Headless Horseman impression.

Fremantle

Our first huntsman!

It may not be the size of a dinner plate, but it is ours and we will love and cherish it for all time! Actually it is pretty small by huntsman standards. Only about 8cm (3 inches) across from leg tip to leg tip. Fortunately this one is outside, where I hope it will remain. I really don't want to deal with having to try and catch one of these.

The local pond....

Early sunday morning we had a tremendous thunder storm, with torrential rains.  Here is a picture of our local park, which briefly turned into our local pond. Of course with the soil here being as sandy as it is, and the presence of a strategically placed drain, it was back to normal in about an hour. Still it made for a dramatic sight on the way to work. Not sure exactly how deep the water was, but I would guess at least a couple feet at it's deepest.

Hello Kookaburra my old friend.

Kangaroos, Koalas, and Kookaburras. Oh my!

On Mom's recent visit we took two road trips, one north of the city to Yanchep National Park, and one south to the coastal town of Bunbury. Here are some of the highlights:

Kangaroo!

Koala! Not native, however the have several captive Koalas in an enclosure within the park.

Kookaburra! Not a great picture, but they were very camera shy.

Oh my! A Red Wattle Bird enjoying a cup of coffee.

A Purple Swamp Hen

A friendly duck.

A Ringneck Parrot, also know as a "28" parrot, although I have yet to figure out why...

Bunbury is know for it's local dolphin populations. One group in particular often swims close to shore and interacts with humans in the mornings during the summer.

Bunbury is an active shipping port and the dolphins seem to enjoy playing in the bow waves of the large ships and eating the fish that are stir up from the bottom after the ships passage.

Taken from the highway on the way home from Bunbury.  The end to a wonderful weekend.

Perth Skyline

Here are some pictures taken from King's Park looking towards the city, taken on an nighttime excursion.

Mobile Blog!

I have updated the blog to have a mobile browser mode, so it is now more friendly for viewing from smart phone, should one desire to.

Cheers,

Iain

Lancelin Pt. 3

Geoff and I swimming in the waves.  Some of them were pretty decent in size, up to about a metre and a half, maybe taller. It took quite some effort to stay upright when hit by the big ones, we were both rolled once or twice. Still it was incredibly fun. Despite winter having officially started here, the water was still about as warm as the water off Vancouver during the summer.

Just a pretty yellow flower, where we stopped to have a picnic lunch after the beach.

On the way home we saw a small group of Grey Kangaroos, so stopped to take some pictures.

More Roos

We stopped in a quaint town called Seabird on the way home to watch the sun set. Seabird was the perfect name for the peaceful seaside town.

A picture of Geoff taking a picture of the sunset.

The sun sinks below the line of cloud on the horizon ending a wonderful day. Many more adventures to come.

Lancelin Pt. 2

Edward Island, off the beach at Lancelin

Captain Chester, ready for takeoff.

Dixie assumes that leaving the water is an invitation for play.

Dixie's best chester impression.

Caitlin and Geoff strolling down the beach.

Lancelin Pt. 1

Saturday we took a trip a little ways north up the coast along Indian Ocean Drive.  It was a beautiful drive through the bush, and we saw Kangaroos and even Emus (a rare sight in the wild) [unfortunately we did not get any pictures of the Emus].  We ended up in Lancelin, a small town with some lovely beaches, and a distinct smell of sulphur in certain areas.  I will be posting most of the photos in days to come, but thought I would post one now, just start things off.

Indian Ocean Drive,  north of Perth (Route 60) en-route to Lancelin.


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Live Export

Attending a rally to ban Australia's practice of exporting live sheep and cattle to nations overseas.

Macro

This a picture I took recently at the Kings Park Botanical Garden using a telephoto macro lens. I took the photo from about 2 metres away and did not see the ant crawling up the stamen of the flower, or the spiderweb until after I loaded the picture on my computer. Just thought I would share.

Night Sky

The view from our front lawn at dusk looking west towards Fremantle.

A (somewhat) rare planetary alignment seen from our front yard with dawn approaching. The 4 visible stars are actually Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter.

Nighttime Spider Hunting

So for those of you that may not know, spiders here are large enough that they create an eye-shine at night when you shine a flashlight on them. This gives you a pretty good idea of how many spiders are out there if you go looking for them.

The main species you see at night is the wolf spider, which i a ground dwelling, free roaming hunter with a mildly venomous bite, it won't send you to the hospital but if you look at the fangs in the next picture you will agree with me that avoiding being bitten is probably a pretty good idea.

This spider is thinking: "If I were big enough, I would eat you."

This is a Garden Orbweaver

Close up!

Geoff's Arrival

I know that the blog has been neglected as of late, but I recently purchased a new computer, and will now be able to update the blog with out borrowing Caitlin's laptop, so hopefully that will mean more regular updates on the picture front.

Geoff's plane ready to disembark passengers.

A happy but tired Geoff arrives in Australia.