Image issues

NOT HAPPY JAN!!

Sorry people but Blogger has 'hidden' all the pix I've posted since July 2019.  It's not just a problem for my blogs but it seems for many in the Blogger community. 

For stories AND images of our travels to the Arctic, North America by train in 2019, the amazing journey to Antarctica 2020 and our subsequent 5 months traveling in Gippsland during COVID lock-down please go to my Facebook page at facebook.com/heather.wheat.925 

I have set up a new blog using Tumblr where I will post images and stories of our  travels - as well as on Facebook.  I'm still getting my head around this new platform but I think it will work OK - keep your fingers crossed. Go to hwheat2021.tumblr.com (if you want to make comments on the blog site, like Blogger you will need to have a Tumblr account but you can still view it all if you have problems email me at hwheat42@gmail.com

One last post before we hit the road.

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page". So said C4th philosopher Augustine of Hippo (and suggested by a friend).

So travel, travel, travel and while you’re ‘traveling’ even if it is simply around your neighbourhood, keep your eyes and ears open for frogs. Australia has over 240 known species of frog, almost all of which are found nowhere else in the world. Some species are flourishing, like the Striped Marsh Frog, but others have declined dramatically since the 1980s, and four have become extinct. 

Frogs are essential to the environment. Rather like canaries in mines, they act as a natural bioindicator measuring the health of the environment. Throughout their lifecycles, frogs have an important place in the food chain as both predators and prey. As tadpoles, they eat algae, helping regulate blooms and reducing the chances of algal contamination. As frogs they are an important source of food for a variety of animals, including birds, fish and snakes. 

There’s an app which allows you to record the calls of the frogs you discover and upload them to Australia's first national frog count. But you can also do it from your desk comparing records etc etc – be a citizen scientist.  Check out Australian Museums FrogID project  https://www.frogid.net.au/ 

Ands while you’re at it keep your eyes open for fungi! At this time of year all manner of fungi are popping up their sometimes bizarre and colourful fruiting bodies.  Fungi in all their many and varied forms are essential to our environment yet we know so little about them. It is estimated to be around 250,000 fungal species in Australia and less than 10% have been described. What do we know about them and where are they? Check out https://fungimap.org.au/

Who could be bored!? Visit the Atlas of Living Australia and be blown away https://www.ala.org.au/

Next stop camels and the desert – wow!

Loving the local!

Leettle problem with uploading pix - groan. Bear with me. 

Our neighbourhood is really becoming a ‘neighbourhood’ rather than just a place with no heart - if you know what I mean. 

This little gem is in an old PMG building. 

After almost 20 years living here we now have so much that caters for the locals rather than to tourists and commuters - medical clinics, laundry/dry cleaners (things that suburbanites take for granted), a terrific new super supermarket, a few other supermarkets including a couple of fab Asian ones, library, community centre and garden, and joy oh joy some food outlets/restaurants that cater for locals including a fish snd chip shop to open soon!

Easy peasy food

And great access to the arts and entertainments to boot. 

A new pop up venture treating people to free concerts - footage of performances by students of the new Music Conservatorium and Arts schools 

Interesting architecture 

All within 100 or so metres, easy walking - starting to feel a wee bit like New York! Really loving living on the ‘block’!

Southbank Boulevard trying to become just that - check back in 12 months fir the finished product. It’s been a slooow process but the space has lots of promise.

Two more to add to the menagerie!

If you build it they will come” .... I know it’s a misquote and the context is wrong but it seemed appropriate. 

We have welcomed 2 new bird species to our garden in the last two days - a Little Raven and a pair of juvenile Magpie-larks AKA Peewee, peewit, mud lark, Murray magpies, and other names. We had heard them calling in the area and last night there they were come for a visit.  One of our juvenile currawongs popped in for a drink and forage too. All in all, we had 5 different species all ‘playing’ together nicely on our cosy terrace. Over the years we’ve had 14 species visiting us plus half dozen or so FIFOs. Not a bad count for inner city sky rise pad!

Plant the garden, bring the insects and the birds will follow - and leave some litter around for scavenging insects and for nest building material. What a joy it is in a sky-rise city garden tea la la ..... 🎶

Summertime in a city ‘sky rise’ and the living is easy .....

Let me tell you ‘bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees 🎶🎵 .... our terrace is a joyful place. We’ve slurped up the heavenly pulp of passionfruit from our vines and sucked the golden pink lusciousness from our figs - with more on the way. 

There are not enough figs ripening together to make jam but we’re really enjoying them daily.  The plum trees are going gangbusters but the tomatoes are being a bit slow ripening. 

Our second grevillea has now been planted (in the corner) and now we wait. Hopefully we’ll get other bird species visit us once they flower.

We spend many delightful hours - or so it seems, watching the birds and insects that visit our garden. And we are rewarded many times over. A couple of mornings ago, we were treated to a wonderful dawn chorus. A juvenile Pied Currawong came in for a look see, a bit of a forage, a drink and then started calling his ‘brother’ to join him. We watched for about half an hour as they talked to each other. Their song must be one of the most beautiful, a glorious melodic caroling. All the while the sparrows were quietly muttering in our tree and the doves fluttered about just making sure their territorial rights were protected. The currawongs are back daily to drink and bathe and forage. So beautiful and so far they haven’t scared off the other birds. 

City of bridges ..... and growing

Still on our quest to see and cross the many bridges that cross-cross the Yarra around Melbourne. 

While we’re on the subject of bridges, I found that when European settlers first arrived in Melbourne in 1835, there were no crossing points over the Yarra other than at The Falls or by boat. (The Falls separated the salty water of Port Phillip Bay from the fresh water upstream around where Williams and Queen Streets are today). Within a few years enterprising people had set up a punt at where Punt Road Bridge is today - the name!! Hot on their heels was the construction of the first bridge at where Princes Bridge is today the big push was by Swanston Street traders; it was a wooden toll bridge.  

But I ramble, here we were heading downstream to take in more of Melbourne’s staggering 15 bridges. 

Spencer Street Bridge built 1930s and nestled not far away the Polly Woodside is hunkered down. 

Seafarers Bridge a pedestrian bridge - 2009

Charles Grimes Bridge in the distance 1970s, reconstructed 2001. It was named after Charles Grimes, a NSW surveyor general who was the first European to see the Yarra River it seems.

This is an extension of the Jim Stynes Bridge, a pedestrian bridge - 2014 which links Docklands with the CBD and winds along the river’s edge 

Webb Bridge also pedestrian - 2003

Away off sending pylons high into the sky is Bolte Bridge (a part of the tollway) - 1999. It is the newest vehicle bridge (Melbourne’s  oldest bridge was also a toll bridge)

Further downstream, much further than we’ve walked to date is the almost infamous Westgate Bridge which after much tragedy opened 1978. 

Still exploring the Birrarung .....

I’ve discovered so much as we’ve walked in local neighbourhood - really just being tourists in our own town I guess. I read all the signs, take a shot then trawl through the internet winkle picking for more information. 

Looking across to Birrarung Marr to the cityscape. 

Heading upstream from Princes Bridge the paths are leafy and cool some of the way. 

Most of the year the river is busy with craft of some description - leisure and sport. And so it has been for well over a century. In 1904 the Alexandra Gardens, over to the right, was opened and ever since this precinct has been a place for entertainment and leisure. The annual Henley-on-Yarra rowing competition which started in the early 1900s was a nation-wide affair and drew huge crowds; in 1925, over 300,000 attended the regatta. It was a highlight of Melbourne’s Spring social calendar; the same regatta is still held annually over a century later. In its heyday, the river’s edge would be crowded with decorated vessels - double-decker, ferries, canoes etc. 

At Kings Domain Landing, a coffee-vessel is moored drawing in passers-by with its rich aromas. 

The Morell Bridge, a favourite, was built in 1890s and was open to vehicle traffic until 1998. Around that time major restoration works were done as serious cracks had appeared.  Decades ago when we lived on Punt Road, we regularly walked through Gosch’s Paddock and across this bridge to walk along the river in the evening.  

We’ll talk about punts later!

Jelly-bean picnickers scattered across the lawns - so colourful. 

Stark contrasts - the newest tower in Southbank yet to be finished and dear old government house 1880s. 

Sweeping lawns linking hands across the Gardens are a total delight. For 9 years we held our annual BYO everything including friends picnic on the Tennyson Lawn under a huge old spreading oak tree which we called the Dweag Tree. Sadly it is no longer standing. 

We ended that walk wandering through the Botanical Gardens and along Melbourne’s iconic Tan Track. The Tan was built originally to exercise horses. Now it’s the place to be seen ‘exercising’!

The Observatory built in the mid 1800s, was once home to weather forecasting, time setting, setting weights and measures standards plus a number of other essential functions. 

What an amazing precinct!

It’s all about the birds and the bees ....

Look at those delicate wings. Almost transparent yet with amazing strength and resilience. 

Bees I just love them 🐝 they’ve given me a lot of joy watching as they hover around the oregano plant which is laden with tiny white flowers. 

With a garden full of bright, larger flowers you’d think they’d be all over those but no! There’s always at least one bee hard at work among the oregano flowers, after the nectar I think rather than collecting pollen. 

The hover flies get into the act too and both are regular visitors to the water bowls. They seem quite fearless. 

Lindsay removing another tree to make way for a lovely bird-attracting grevillea. A hybrid which is supposed to produce  big red flowers most of the year. We’re aiming to make our wee garden more and more bird and insect-friendly. I’ve already planted another grevillea which flowers most of the year. The veggie space is being reduced - sorry veggies (because we’ll be away a good part of the year).

December-January exloring local: walking the Birrarung

The banks of the Yarra River are one of our exercise circuits. The River, the Birrarung, flows past Naarm (where Melbourne City now squats with a great sense of ownership!). Naarm is the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people; in the Woiwurrung language ‘wurun’ means the Manna Gum which is common along ‘Birrarung’  and ‘djeri‘, the grub which is found in or near the tree. Wurundjeri are the ‘Witchetty Grub People’. When I walk by The River I like to let my mind drift back to a time before European settlement. 

Our morning walk takes us around seven of the 9 bridges that span the Yarra River from Punt Road Bridge (the site of a punt service in the mid 1800s) to Spencer Street Bridge.

David Greybeard the first chimpanzee to interact with Jane Goodall sixty years ago. Artist Lisa Roet created this intriguing inflatable 'sculpture' in association with Jane Goodall Institute Australia. The sculpture will tour to 6 countries and 4 continents to help raise awareness of habitat and species protection.

There are many quirky scuptures along the banks of The River 

This one is one of Deborah Halpern's, the artist who created the 'Angel', my absolute favourite.

And here she is! My favourite, 'Angel'. I could spend hours looking at all the images the artist has worked into the ceramics.

Dervish in oxidised steel

Shearwater (I'd call it red-tailed cockatoo!)

'Sukkah' is a relatively new, temporary work of public art installed in Birrarung Marr (meaning beside the River of Mist, depending on who's telling the story).

Like all large cities on rivers this could be called a river of bridges. This is looking under the Prince's Bridge (the third iteration) towards what many of us call the Skipping Girl Bridge because at some point there was a animated neon sign of a skipping girl advertising Skipping Girl Vinegar - it's a long story. Beyond that bearly visible are the Sandridge and Queen's bridges.

Spencer Street - the first pile for this bridge driven in 1927, had to go very deep to reach bedrock. At 20 metres below sea level they struck a red gum stump that took three weeks to remove. It was dated at about 8,000 years old and appears to have lived for well over 400 years.  But the important thing in this photo is the red helicopter! On my bucket list but where to go? hmmm ... somewhere exotic.

This is one of the 'Travellers' sculptures at the south end of Sandridge bridge.

The Sandridge Bridge built in 1850s was the first steel bridge over the Yarra and linked the growing metropolis to Port Phillip where thousands of immigrants landed. The bridge was redeveloped 14  years ago as a pedestrian and cycle path and features public art 'The Travellers' most of which move along the bridge (you have to be lucky to spot them moving though). The sculptures were intended to depict the diversity of people coming to Melbourne.  Along the length of the bridge were glass panels each one dedicated to a country from which people had emmigrated to Melbourne. The bridge was vandalised when 'someones' used a sledgehammer to smash 46 of the 128 glass panels of the Travellers exhibit.

Enterprize Park beside what is know as the Turning Basin, commemorates the spot where the first settlers aboard the ship Enterprize went ashore on 30 August 1835. Today, it is the site of the Scar Project, a collaborative installation by Aboriginal artists who used original wharf poles from Queens Bridge to engage with the tradition of tree scarring.  It's wonderful but I don't have a pic yet!  What I love are a collection of five carved-wood figureheads represent a dragon, woman, bird, man and lion reflecting ethnic and cultural diversity of those who used the Turning Basin during the early years of settlement. This was Melbourne's first port.

I love these bees! a colony of giant golden shining bees hover on the side of the Eureka Tower, on the Southbank. The artist used these lovely creatures as a gleaming metaphor for the hive of frenetic activity and harmonious high-density city living. He could be right!

This is an appetiser for inner Melbourne’s 'public' artworks. I adore this bronze angel, such attitude! More later.