Perth -29th May

I was perhaps always inclined to like Perth. Partly due to it not being Adelaide which was cold and drizzly. Partly because it always seems to have an optimistic ring to it. I've not heard anything said against Perth, only good things. A young city with 3000hours + a year of sunshine. A very "liveable" city.

It was my first internal Australian flight and I was inclined to be excited but after 3 hours in a very claustrophobic little plane my enthusiasm was dampened. However the novelty of being able to fly for 3 hours, cover nearly 3000km and still be in the same country, albeit a different time zone, remained.

Rolling out of the plane onto the tarmac the warmth hit. Only 25 degrees as it's winter but a welcome 10 degrees more than SA. The sky was intensely blue without a hint of a cloud and as the bus drove from the airport it passed as many palm trees as gums and even a banana tree. A contrast again to the European trees and Autumnal colours I'd been seeing. Over the river - the bluest I've ever seen a river- into a city with a modest handful of skyscrapers, wide streets and no sense of claustrophobic penning-in.

After leaving my luggage at the hostel I went exploring, back to the alluring river bank. I'm aware of the novel and welcome sensation of feeling hot again and needing to shed clothing- the sun is wonderfully warm and disorientatingly I've left winter behind again!

Perth seems to be designed in many places. All along the river are walking/cycle paths. When they get to a main road they go under. None of the occasional climbing fences and dodging traffic which is sometimes necessary in other, less well thought out cities! The only criticism is that it's not quite finished. In fact I think I read somewhere that as WA is doing very well economically (from the mining) they have money to expand and develop.

With my body clock at least 1 1/2 hours ahead of WA time I take an early night.

Adelaide hills 11th-28th May

Arriving in Adelaide  my first impression is that it's warmer than Victoria. However up in Adelaide hills it's quite simply not.
Stirling is 15km from Adelaide with a population of about 2500 but other towns more or less merging into it at the edges. Originally settled as a place for Englishmen who couldn't cope with the hot Adelaide summers it's also the wettest place in SA. Facts I didn't bother to discover before coming...
The main street is lined with trees showing their autumn colours and over the next two weeks there's some very English sort of weather as winter sets in.

I take a decent walk nearby on Saturday which my legs feel. On Sunday I take the bus into Adelaide and visit the art gallery, get lost in the Botanical gardens and go swimming.
On Monday Lyn and Derek depart leaving me in charge of their huge house, cat and budgies. The sun's shining but it's cold and frosty the next day. The challenge is to keep the woodburning stove going and I'm feeling rather domestic again as I gradually transfer the woodpile indoors and burn it, keep the cat fed and pick and eat various home-grown veg. It's a quiet time with a few walks in my spare time, the cat for company and tv in the evenings.



They're a nice bunch at work and I'm working with another English Vet and also a Scottish nurse so there are people to discuss the inadequacies of Australian chocolate with; and other topics.
The clinic here is a world away from rural Victoria. I'm mostly seeing vaccinations, cat bites and routine things and there's no real dramas during the two weeks. My highlight is seeing my first up close (and unfortunately, dead-) koala. There's a bit of an overpopulation in the region and plenty are usually brought in to the clinic - many are getting renal failure very young, this one had a broken leg.

After a quiet and cold 2 weeks I'm glad to be heading off. First West to Perth then overland all the way up to the Northern Territory...

Melbourne again

I have a week off between finishing in Tatura and starting work in Adelaide and having already seen the main things I wish to see in Melbourne I venture beyond it, testing the limits of the public transport system. On Monday then I head to Healesville Sanctuary. A wildlife park for Australian animals with various rescue and breeding programmes in operation. I see some awake wombats, a speedy platypus and the top 10 poisonous Australian snakes. Its a cold day though with no sunshine to take the edge off and I'm in doubt about Tuesday's plans.

Which are another mission of a journey along the Mornington Peninsula, SE of the city to Portsea to dive. The day is bright and sunny and after some doubts about the effect of the wind on the visibility they deem it ok to dive. Not unaware that perhaps this was an activity for summer I was still keen to try and see the Weedy Sea Dragon on what might be my last time in Victoria- the only place in the world it lives.

10mm of neoprene, hood and boots 1 cold plunge and necessary recovery of breath at the shock of the 15 degree C water then we disappear beneath the pier. Luckily I see the weedy Sea Dragon and gain photographic evidence too. It's from the seahorse family about 30 cm long and looking like a beautiful minature dragon! Emerging from the sea is difficult as my hands have become so cold that my hands don't work and I can't get my fins off!

Wednesday is a more relaxed day by necessity involving no public transport. I meet Jessamy for dinner in the evening. On Thursday it's 10 1/2 hours on the Overlander train to Adelaide. It's a decent train but after 7 hours I'm ready to get off, just glad that this time I was sensible enough to not travel overnight. Victoria's been fun but with winter setting in and my lack of warm clothes it's good to know I'm starting the journey north with 3 weeks to go before I start it in Perth...

Leaving Tatura

Friday 4th May is the last day working at Tatura and a bunch of us have a nice meal in the local pub. It's sad to say goodbye to a lovely group of people who welcomed me and made my time enjoyable. After a relaxed start to saturday I manage to visit the Tatura museum (up the road from the Practice and open for 2 hours each day!) This is surprisingly interesting- run by a knowlegable volunteer albeit slightly incoherent in her enthusiasm to impart everything! I learn about the war-time camps of which there were many in this area due to there being plenty of food, water and it being sufficiently far in-lan to deter escapes. I hadn't realised that many of those interned were sent from England, in the case of one unfortunate Jew he had left Germany for England but at the start of war been put on a boat to Canada which was sunk by a U-boat then rescued by a ship bound for Australia. But those interned were treated well, and mostly released in 1941 to fight and make way for Japanese and Italian POWs.

Today all's that's left are the cemetries and a low security prison. (The prison is a client of the practice and the dairy Vets visiting have to make sure not to wear blue overalls when visiting as this is the prison garb!)

Saturday night sees Cassie, Kate and I watching The Castle and Priscilla Queen of the Desert as they had discovered my woeful ignorance of Australian films. Ignorance lessened on Sunday Cassie gives me a lift to Shepparton and I board the train to Melbourne

Yarra Valley and Dandenongs

It's the end of April and my last weekend with a vehicle and I decide to use it! Although the Yarra Valley and Dandenongs are closer to Melbourne than Tatura they can only really be explored with a car so I head over there early saturday with a planned stay on the edge of the city for the night.

Tatura is ludicrously flat but after about 45 minutes hills start to loom and the drive between Yea and Marysville is stunning in the cool morning with the cloud still low on some hills but the sun lifting it. Marysville was hit badly in the Feb 2009 bushfires which killed many people in Victoria but surprisingly there are trees and green landscapes everywhere such is the fire-surviving ability of the gums, just a few skeleton outlines on the hillsides support the guidebook. From here I drive over Blackspur through an incredible forest of towering Mountain Ashes and short, pretty Tree Ferns. A few stops are necessary for photos- I'm still fascinated by the tree ferns which I think I have read are the world's largest plant. The forest smells great and the air is filled by the calls of parrots.

On to Healesville and Maroondah reservoir where there's a wonderfully scented eucalptus forest for a walk. Driving towards the city for the night there's more beautiful scenery of the vineyards in their autumn colours the afternoon light highlighting them against the dark hills behind.

Sunday and I'm up early again and joining the hoards at Ferntree Gully- similar forest to yesterday. Soon I get lost and see less people and a lot of Sulphur crested Cockatoos. After a decent walk I'm refound and head to an ornamental garden and a sculpture garden. The best of the light once again is in the late afternoon as I drive through the Yarra Glen towards home through the golden vineyards. Well 2 days and no visits to wineries, I must be reformed!

April in Tatura continued

Six weeks in Tatura and they seem to have flown by, as life working as Vet always seems to. They decided they wanted me for another 2 weeks whilst Phil's back completely healed and he eased back in and this was good news for me as I was enjoying the new friendships and enjoying small town life too! Accepting now that everyone drove about in 4x4s, that rat bait poisonings, dogs being run over by their owner’s Utes or attacked by grass seeds made up the bulk of work. Actually the work was not so much Oz vs England but Rural vs Urban in the contrasts of the variety of cases. I continue to see new stuff not unique to Australia and happily learn more than I'd expected.

With work busy it's harder to be motivated to go place at weekends, after a rather damp weekend in Melbourne the following one is fine. After a lazy Saturday on Sunday I borrow Bella, Cassie's dog to take with me to Whroo- a forest with an old gold mine. It's a beautiful setting, deserted now but once a town of 10 000 during the gold rush. There's a couple and a child with a metal detector trying their luck but I'm content with the sunshine coming through the gum trees and a canine companion. Finding it proved more difficult than it should have and I was inclined to blame my map for missing off a major road.  The bitumen road gave way to less and less likely looking dust tracks, surrounded by identical forest. Luckily I strayed onto some people's property (in the absolute depths of the forest and they very kindly directed me the right way!)
On the way back I stopped briefly at Rushworth- another short-lived prosperious gold town but still with a small population today.
The following weekend I moved out of Jill's after 4 weeks of house-sitting and has some necesary chores to do. On Sunday I'd planned to go to Kyabram and visit the fauna park there. Pat who I was back staying with again mentioned that she'd not been for years so I took her along too. Unfortunately 10 minutes in there was a very heavy storm and we got soaked!