Hopping to Perth

Top to Bottom: Kangaroo with joey in pouch,
Child and joey, Cynthia feeding kangaroo

Caversham Wildlife Park is great fun simply because you hand-feed the kangaroos and wallabies, whisper in the ears of the dozing koalas, and chirp with the birds in the aviaries. This is a well maintained park with lots of area for the animals to roam. Many of the birds are housed in aviaries, but some are still maintained in cages. My favorite part is feeding the kangaroos and wallabies. There are signs that warn you not to touch the joeys in their mothers’ pouches, but in nearly every case, the joeys are happy to come hopping up to you reaching for a mouthful of food from your hand.  As with years past, there were several mamas with babies in their pouches; sometimes all you could see of the joey was a foot or a tail. The grass is really green where the kangaroos and wallabies are, and our shoes really needed scraping once we were finished in the enclosure. There is also a 'farm animal' exhibit that we had to experience. We got chewed on by kids (they particularly liked Dave’s shoelaces), rubbed on by the nannies, and ignored by the chickens. I did get to scratch some rabbits, but the park personnel wouldn't let me in

Top L to R: Bustard, Dave and kid
Bottom L to R: Barking owl, Koala and Dave

the stalls with them. It seems you have to be no older than five to actually get in the pens. The birds in the aviaries weren’t too thrilled about being visited, particularly since it is spring. The males were downright hostile and the females were grumpy. As we walked through one area, we heard a dog barking. We followed the ‘woof, woof’ and found that it was not a dog at all, but a barking owl. And if that wasn’t strange enough, the lion’s roar we thought we heard was actually a bustard. Caversham hasn’t changed substantially I visited about 15 years ago, but Whiteman Park, which surrounds it, has added a several other things to do, including a train ride and a place to eat.

King's Park and Botanic Gardens is a great place to while away a day. In the spring the  

flowers are gorgeous and the temperature isn’t too so warm as to keep you from walking

L to R: Banksia, Yellow flowers,
Kangaroo paws

through the entire park. The first place to go is to the Visitor’s Center for a good map and to find out if there are any areas that are restricted. This year there were all sorts of areas, both parking and touring, blocked off because two celebrities were visiting. England’s Prince Edward had come to Perth, as had Katy Perry; it was hard to tell just who park visitors were trying to spot. Such excitement and all we wanted to see were some native plants! The park has added a ‘tall trees’ walk that, much like what we experienced in Tasmania, takes you up near the top of the trees and provides some great views of the city. Spring means that the flowers were in bloom and the bees were zooming around them. My favorite flowers were the banksia with their spiky blooms and leaves. Although I should have expected it, there were sections with plants from around the world, including a group of cacti from California.

L to R: Bee on flower, DNA Tower, Gala

Eventually we made our way to the Firefighters’ Memorial and to the DNA Tower. The tower resembles its namesake. At the bottom are signs telling about the characteristics and function of DNA; platforms half-way to the top have information about the flora and fauna in surrounding area. Once on top of the tower, there are more views of Perth and the nearby mountains.

Raining with a Chance of Sheep

Tasmanian bay and sailboats 

Tasmania was not at all what I expected. While there are ‘mountains’ that ring the coast, the interior of the island is rolling hills covered in lush green grass and herds of sheep. The mountains do get touched with snow, but the foothills host redolent, temperate rainforest plants. The wind-swept beaches and hills reminded me of Scotland, but without the castles; the weather lived up to the best traditions of Scotland, however. It takes no more than six hours to get anywhere in Tasmania, and the roads are good, so we rented a car. Our seven day road trip took us to most of the island, but there are still many sites we didn’t see and events we didn’t experience. This is one of those places in the world we want to visit again.

Hobart to Launceston

It’s a lovely drive from Hobart to Launceston, with opportunities to pop over to the beaches to touch the sand and to find that the water is, indeed, very cold. The Tasmanian Wool

Raw Wool and Wool on the Hoof

Centre in Ross affords an opportunity to learn about the wool industry, tour their small but substantial museum, learn about the town, and do a bit of shopping. Local artists sell finished wool garments, as well as hand spun and dyed yarns.  I’d never seen or touched raw wool directly from shearing and didn’t know how it was graded; I still wonder how the grading was done before the advent of technology since the wool fibers are measured in microns. The wool from a black sheep isn’t black, but a muddy brown; wool texture changes based on fiber size, but also on the variety, gender and age of the sheep. The raw wool feels oily.

Odds and Ends

Tower Bridge

There are always odd and unrelated occurrences on trips. This blog is composed of images that I didn’t fit in anywhere else. For instance, we saw the Tower Bridge and once again did not make the stroll across. We did, however, walk across the new Millennium Bridge from the Tate Gallery of Modern Art to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Wowzers

Epitaph at Hawkshead

On every trip there are some things that really stand out. Although I got to check three places off of my ‘bucket list’ (St Melangell’s shrine, Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm and Gallery, and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter), there were other places that we went that were surprising, moving, and unforgettable.

Rannoch Station is the end of the line: for the railroad and for the ‘B’ roads. What’s out there are the moors. When I was in grade school we read a story about a young girl who lived on

Sunrise on the moor

the moors in Scotland and that sparked my imagination. That vision of the moors was further fueled by Sherlock Holmes stories and movies. However, I was completely unprepared for the reality of the Scottish moors. First I had no idea that they would be surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Aren’t moors supposed to be low-lying bogs oozing mud and bugs? Well, there were bugs and bogs but there was no mud. We were told to be extremely careful hiking out onto the moors because they can be quite unforgiving, taking the lives of unsuspecting or careless hikers each year. When I stepped down onto the thatched vegetation water oozed up and as I took another step there was a sucking sound threatening to pull my shoe off of my foot. As the evening approached, we

Moor deer

watched from a rock that had been around for a few thousand years the last train cross the trestle and a herd of deer head toward their nightly feeding area. Looking across at Loch Rannoch it was easy to believe that we were the only people on the moor that day. Except for the trains (four a day), the only sounds we heard were birds songs; no traffic, no human voices, no sirens. There are six full-time residents here, with tourists flowing through the area in the spring, summer and fall. Gorse, a beautiful but prickly shrub, is common on the moors, as are all sorts of lichen and heather. I was hoping that the heather would be in bloom, but we were a few weeks early. Two days after we left, it snowed on Rannoch Station. I’d go back in a heartbeat!

Like the moors, the Isle of Skye was ruggedly beautiful. Animals and people who live there have to be hearty. The wind blows, it rains water just short of ice, and the temperature never gets

Highland Cattle

really warm. But the air is clear and waterfalls plunge off of cliffs into the sea or down the side of mountains covered with brilliant yellow blooming gorse. Black faced sheep with thick, plaited wool wander at will eating the lush grasses. Farmers keep a healthy strain of cows with long shaggy red hair, Highland Cattle. Like the sheep, they can withstand cold, rain and wind. This is a very interesting geologic area. There are peaks, plateaus, and valleys that were formed from volcanism and glacial movement leaving stunning craggy areas covered

Waterfall near Kilt Rock

with verdant grass. Also in this area are dinosaur trace fossils; Ornithopods, Megalosaurus Cetiosaurus and Stegosaurus called the Isle of Skye home. What I don’t understand is why anyone in this windy area would wear skirts or kilts of their own accord. This is another part of the world I would return to with no hesitation. 

Highland Sheep

Without a doubt Rosslyn Chapel was the most interesting and beautiful of all of the religious sites we visited. Built in the 1400s, William St. Clair had intended for this to be the start of a huge cathedral.

Rosslyn Chapel

However, the relative who inherited the chapel and land was not particularly interested in completing these plans and literally slapped a wall on the end. During the reformation, the St. Clair family decided to abandon the chapel rather than tear out all of the catholic related art, although angry mobs came in and ripped out alters, statuary, and other catholic relics. Inside, there is seemingly no spot that is not exquisitely carved. The carvings were to function as a visual guide to the Bible. There is the story of the Garden of Eden, the seven deadly sins as well as the seven virtues, the angel of death carrying people into the hereafter, fallen angels, devils, Moses with the 10 Commandments, and so forth. There are also ‘green men’; these male faces have plants growing from them. Somewhere along the line the family St. Clair split, adding Sinclair as a family name and the chapel began to be restored. These restoration efforts were short-lived and Rosslyn Chapel fell back into ruin. This changed in the 1840s when a young woman viewed the ruin and proclaimed it a ‘gem’ that should be restored. Fortunately, this young woman was one who people listened to, Queen

Rosslyn Castle

Victoria; and standing in an alcove is a Madonna that looks surprisingly like her. The restoration work continues to the present. The metal roof that had been in place covering all of the Chapel since 1997 had just been removed so we were able to see the entire exterior. We thoroughly enjoyed the 25 minute lecture our docent gave about the Chapel, and we really liked being greeted by the resident Chapel cat, Michael. Down a trail through a cemetery and around the middle of a hill are the ruins of the Rosslyn Castle. The walls are under restoration but there is a house that is occupied by descendants of St. Clair/Sinclair. There is lavish vegetation with lots of walking trails going all the way down to the town of Roslin.

These three amazing places will stay in my memory and fire my imagination for years to come.

©2013 NearNormal Design and Production Studio - All rights including copyright of photographs and designs, as well as intellectual rights are reserved.

Never normal, only near

Group W Bench

Although I refer to this as the NearNormal Traveler (singular) blog,I am usually with other folks on these sojourns, so many of the postings will refer to 'us' rather than just to me. In the long years that I've indulged my wanderlust, there has never been a 'normal' trip nor 'normal' travelers; that would be much too dull. So
far on this trip we've only encountered a few odd occurrences, but situations from our past adventures seem to set the stage for new possibilities. For instance, using the Group W Bench as a meeting place.

Back in the 1980s Arlo Guthrie sang about Alice’s Restaurant. This was a tale not only about a woman who owned a restaurant, but also a war protest song. The Group W Bench of ne'er-do-wells figured prominently into the war protest portion. If you’d like to know more you’ll have to go

The Awakening!

to YouTube and listen to the entire saga. Suffice it to say that when we’re with any group and we end up sitting for sustained periods of time in one place we refer to it as the ‘Group W Bench’. It’s also a place to meet when we’re off doing our separate things. In this case the bench was in the British Museum and we were taking a break from the excitement of the museum collections. However, a few minutes later, Barb and I went off to do some shopping. Upon our return, we found the guys, still on the Group W Bench but surrounded by two groups of picture taking, Japanese tourists; they were picture worthy because they had fallen asleep! I missed the sleeping shot, but caught the awakening.

Trafalgar Square Rooster 

Trafalgar Square is home to great places to eat and wonderful things to see. Lately a German artist has presented London with a piece of art that now graces the area and celebrates England’s defeat of France in 1805. Yep, it’s a big blue rooster. I have no idea how Londoners or the French feel about this, but it gave our group a good giggle. While identifying a large rooster didn’t present much of a problem, the sheep seemed to cause some consternation. Perhaps if they had seen cattle or horses they wouldn’t have been quite so astounded.

Sheep near Stonehenge

Neither the travelers nor the travel is ever normal, that's why we’re NearNormal Travelers . . .






©2013 NearNormal Design and Production Studio - All rights including copyright of photographs and designs, as well as intellectual rights are reserved.