Easter Sunday

My Easter Sunday table (Ikea table runners and napkins, flowers from Lidl - €4.99 and guaranteed for 5 days)

Hermit Crab

The Wildlife of the Maldives - Lizard

Isn't he a beauty?

Strange plants - Glenveagh National Park

We didn't see any eagles in Glenveagh National Park. Apparently, there is only one pair there, despite all the fuss that was made about re-introducing eagles to Ireland - farmers didn't like it, and they poisoned them. Crazy, isn't it? But that's what happened. That's the kind of country Ireland is, I'm afraid - on the one hand so proud of its beautiful environment, and on the other quite willing to destroy that environment for profit.

But we did see strange ferns - at least I think they're ferns.

If you're in the area, eagles or no eagles, Glenveagh National Park is a must see - and the chocolate cake in the tea rooms is to die for (if you don't mind butter, that is).

Broken angel

Cows walking on the beach

Cows walking home for milking, on the Inishowen Peninsula

Slieve League - geology

When I told him we were going to one of the highest cliffs in Europe, my brother asked me about the geology of Slieve League  - "I have no idea" was my reply.

But I did take a picture at the back of the mountain - it still doesn't help me, but I'm sure he'll know what those black and white rocks are.

If you're really keen about the geology, you may be interested in this little article I came across - apparently Slieve League is connected to the Appalachian mountains, from a long long time ago before the Atlantic ocean separated them! Isn't that fascinating! I always loved my plate tectonics!

As for the rocks themselves, here is what I found in that article: "In the area of Slieve League the
dominant rock type is the Slieve Tooey Quartzite (of which both Slieve League and the neighbouring Slieve Tooey are constructed). It is a fairly pure quartzite formed in the shallow waters of the continental margin of Rodinia. Below the quartzite lies the Glencolumbkille Limestone, a unit of carbonate sediments deposited in the warm seas of Rodinia, now metamorphosed to marble. "

So there you go!

Sunrise in Dunfanaghy

Some days it's good to wake up at 5 am! This was the view from our bedroom at Arnold's Hotel in Dunfanaghy.

Thankfully, I was able to fall back to sleep, after taking about a dozen photos. (This one was taken by BB).

Low tide in Carrick

On our way to Slieve League (lovely smoked mackerel salad, and chocolate cake to die for at the Ti Linn café by the way, well worth a stop), we went through the town of Carrick. We stopped at the pier at low tide.

This definitely falls into the category of "Things you don't see at home every day".

Chiming Wedgebill

I think the sound clip of a chiming wedgebill, which I had posted a couple of years ago, has gone missing, so this is the perfect excuse to post it again. (Recorded in Alice Springs Desert Park in 2008)

Things you don't see - or hear - at home every day

The sweet sound of the Chiming Wedgebill

I have a WAV file of a chiming wedgebill singing its heart out in the Alice Springs Desert Park. It's the best bird song I've ever heard. It took me a while to figure out how to post a sound file. I found a piece of code from the Blogger Help, and then it took me a little while to find out that I could simply upload the file in my googlepages account (I thought that was only for creating quick websites, but there is an upload button on the right-hand-side of the screen that I had missed).

Things You Don't See at Home Every Day

Drive-in Bottleshops

There are plenty of off-licences and wine shops in Ireland, but I had never seen a drive-in bottleshop until we got to Australia. Very handy if you're getting a few cases of beer for a party on a hot summer's day, I agree. But I find the idea a bit objectionable. I don't like the idea of buying so much alcohol in one go. Probably something to do with the fact that I don't drink. (I used to drink, by the way, so don't think that I'm a prude. I used to drink pints of Guinness, neat vodka and neat whiskey. That's probably why I used to have the most awful hangovers. It's so easy for me not to drink. Just the thought of those hangover is enough to put me off.)

Things you don't see at home every day

Dead Kangaroos on the Side of the Roads

Unfortunately, we saw a lot of them. They are a real hazard for anybody driving at dawn or dusk, when they are more active. And most cars we saw in Western Australia have got big metal guards in front of the bumper, so kangaroos don't stand a chance really.

There are animal rescue centres that will take in baby kangaroos found alive in the pouch after their mothers were killed by cars.

And if you're in Alice Springs, injured wildlife can be dropped off at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre or Alice Springs Vet Clinic.

And for all reptiles, call the Snakephone (I kid you not) on 0407 983 276.

Things you don't see at home every day

Young Women Holding Stop/Go Signs at Road Works

You don't see many women on building sites here, and I've never seen one at roadworks. We saw plenty of women holding Stop/Go Signs both in Australia and New Zealand, and not ugly ones! Tall, slim, pretty, blond girls! And they seemed to be enjoying their job!

Things you don't see at home every day

The Milky Way in all its glory

The last time I saw the Milky Way was in the Maldives, but even then there was some ambient light that stole away the show. On our first night in Ayers Rock resort (Yulara), the Milky Way looked just so heavenly, so bright, so plentiful, that we would have watched it all night. Well, except there were cars on the road every so often, and I didn't want to walk up to a look-out point (I can control my fear of poisonous snakes during the day, when I can see them, but I don't think you'd ever get me to walk in the desert at night, particularly on a warm night, when they might still be out and about!).

Things you don't see at home every day

A personal training session in the park

I've never had a personal trainer. We see the trainers at the gym every day, but their customers never seem to lose weight or shape up, so why pay extra when all I need is a bit of self-motivation!

But if the training session was in a beautiful park, shaded by majestic trees, under a glorious blue sky? Well, if you're living in Perth, it's all possible! I have no idea if the lady who was getting the training in Kings Park made any progress, lost any weight, or developed nice muscles, but it certainly looked like a much nicer environment than a gym anywhere.

Things you don't see at home every day

Half-Price Sushi

We ate a lot of Japanese food in Australia, mostly sashimi and sushi and bento boxes. There was just such a wonderful choice in Sydney and Perth. In Perth, we stayed in the Holiday Inn on Hay Street. There was a fast food type sushi bar across the road, where we had lunch the first day we arrived. One evening, as we were sitting at the terrace outside the hotel, we noticed that the sushi bar had a table on the street with lots sushi boxes on it, and people were stopping by on their way home and buying sushi there. There was a constant stream of people and the boxes were flying off the shelves. They were selling off their leftover stock at half price! So I popped over the road, and bought myself a little sushi box and ate it at the terrace. You definitely wouldn't see that in Dublin - I think that restaurants would rather throw away the food than selling it at half price! And did I tell you my favourite thing about take-away sushi boxes: it's the soy sauce bottle - it's a tiny little plastic fish with a red top. I don't even like soy sauce, but I love the design of the bottles! I found a website that sells them empty and you can fill them yourself with soy sauce (they also sell a lot of other whacky stuff)!

Things you don't see at home every day

Snake Exclusion Fencing

We did see a billboard advertising snake exclusion fencing in the Margaret River area. Imagine the horror! In Margaret River, I guess this type of fencing is mostly used around the vineyards, but I have found this fascinating article on how to snake fence your house in Canada's British Columbia. I'll make sure to remember this if I ever decide to emigrate!

I have also found this really interesting article on Fauna Sensitive Road Design. Given the number of dead possums we saw in New Zealand and dead kangaroos in Australia, there is definitely a need to take action to help all animals cross the roads without being run over. We did see a sign for crossing reptiles in the Uluru National Park, but we didn't see any big lizards or snakes crossing the roads at all.

Given the large numbers of snakes in the country, it's hard to believe that we didn't see a single one while in Australia (and, believe me, I looked!).

Actually, I'm telling a lie, we saw lots of snakes in the Sydney Wildlife World, an excellent place to go if you want to see all the creepy-crawlies and the cuddly koalas. We spent hours there on a wet day in Sydney. Make sure to visit their games page where you can play Raymond the red-back spider trying to catch flies. What fascinated me more than anything was all their "weirder than fiction" facts posted all around the place. For someone like me, who has a strange fascination with venomous snakes and spiders, it was the perfect place to face all my fears! By the way, I want it to be known that I would have no problem touching a snake if I knew it's not venomous!


And we saw a tiny little snake on the path around Uluru. But it was so small, and it disappeared into the bushes so quickly that it doesn't really count.

Things you don't see at home every day

The sun in the Northern sky

It took me a few days to cop on to this! Actually, it was the 8th of February, 9 days into our trip, when we were driving from Kaikoura to Oamaru, that I realised that, at midday, the sun is due North, not South. I had assumed we would be facing into the sun on our drive from North to South, but realised after a couple of hours that it was just the opposite. Throughout the trip, I found it really hard to orient myself by the sun.