John and snails

John absolutely loves snails. According to the girls at the creche, if he spots one in the garden he will sit patiently watching it for ages. So when a face painter came in, he was thrilled to be able to get one painted on his cheek.




These were taken over a week ago but a change they made to blogspot prevented me from posting them until now. 

Trinny & Susannah

I was getting breakfast this morning and Anna was reading something to John on the sofa. I only realised that it was Trinny & Susannah she was reading to him when I heard her say "John, big tits" and he repeated "big tits."

Ger's 35th Birthday!

Ger and Maeve were 35 today! Anna insisted on doing all photography, which is why she doesn't appear herself.

Today was also the IBM Christmas Party (they're usually held during the day in Australia rather than in the evening!) so when she got home from 'work' she was very...happy, as you can probably tell from this one ;-)

Great Bike Ride 2006

As most of you know (because I hassled you for sponsorship!), I was in the annual City of Perth Great Bike Ride today. A company called Aussies in Action had photographers positioned at various points around the course and you could buy their photos subsequently if you want. They took this photo of me going up Mead's Hill - a nasty little out-of-the-saddle climb in Mosman Park.
 

Sunvisor Superheroes

Kids are great the way they can make a toy out of the most mundane thing - a windscreen sunvisor in this instance. Anna came up with this one all by herself while the two of them were playing in the garage yesterday afternoon and they got huge mileage out of it.
 
 
 
  

Caversham Wildlife Park

Ger, Anna and Alan went off to Caversham Wildlife Park this morning and had great fun feeding the animals. 
 
 
 
Anna got a huge thrill from holding an almost newborn baby rabbit, as you can see from the grin on her face.
  

East Alligator River and Ubirr

We took our second guided river tour today, this time along the East Alligator River. This forms the border between Kakadu and Arnhem Land - an enormous reservation (at 100,000 sq km, it is bigger than Ireland) that is off limits to non-Aboriginal people unless you have a special permit.
 
Although the first white man set foot in Arnhem Land in the late 18th Century, the whitest man didn't set foot there until today!
 
It might look tempting to have a quick dip when it's over 40C and humid as hell. But the salties are never too far away.
 
The word that kept coming into my head as we cruised along was 'pristine'. With the exception of the above warning sign at the boat ramp, there is little other evidence of mankind.
 
After the river trip, we went to see the Aboriginal rock paintings just a few km away at Ubirr. They are up to 40,000 years old but still very clear and vibrant.
 
 
There's a nice vantage point at Ubirr from where we could see a big thunderstorm moving in over the escarpments in Arnhem Land.
  

South Alligator River

After Jim Jim in the morning, we went for a little boat tour of the wetlands around part of the South Alligator River (named by the first white explorers who mistook the river's most famous inhabitants for alligators).
 
And true to the name (species confusion aside), we saw our first saltwater crocs. Seriously folks, seeing these things in the zoo is one thing but seeing them swim along in their natural habitat just 1-2 metres from the boat is something else entirely. I think awesome is the only word.
 
This lad was the first one to pop up and when he did, a cry of Krokodil! by one of the Germans caused a rush to one side, resulting in the boat listing alarmingly for a few seconds.
 
This one looked almost comical with a garland of leaves on its head. Our aboriginal guide said that though this obviously happens by accident, the crocs are quite happy to leave them there for camouflage
 
Besides the star attraction, there is lots of other interesting wildlife to see in the wetlands. It is mostly bird life of course...
 
 
 
...but there are also oddities like wild horses. I should have asked the guide I suppose, but these must be the descendants of escaped domestic stock and not indigenous.
 
When the monsoon comes in a few weeks time, the water levels will rise for a couple of months to such a height that only the tops of these trees will be visible!
 
Seeing as this has turned out to be the wildlife post, I'll include this here too...this dodgy looking fellow had weaved a weird zig-zag web partly obstructing a doorway at the Kakadu visitor centre.
  

Jim Jim Gorge

We head for the high country of Kakadu first thing this morning. Getting there requires a 4WD and it's 55km from where you leave the sealed road until you reach the gorge. As you can see, our vehicle was more of a soccer mom SUV than a hard core muck mobile. And though it was well up to the job on the sort of gravel pictured here, it was at its limit over the last 10km or so where it gets kinda hairy at times.
 
When you get to the end of the 4WD track, it's just another km or so on foot to get into the gorge proper. It is still beautiful at this time of year, even if the falls have completely dried up until the monsoon arrives in a few weeks time.
 
  

Off to Kakadu!

We left Darwin for Kakadu this morning (map here). It's about 100km from the park entrance to the tiny township of Jabiru where we were staying.
 
Before you even get to the park however, you pass some pretty impressive termite mounds - some of them are apparently over fifty years old.
 
There's also the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre (or something like that) where they have the only B-52 outside the US. This was a nice, unexpected little sideshow for us plane nerds.
 
Here's Alan in the bomb bay.