Malaysia My 2nd Home.

Well,  our first home really.  Very cool.

The Bridge.

Penang Bridge in the early morning.  Next week we relocate to Penang.

Australia post script.

 The Oz trippers,  Sandie and Harry,

Gek and David.  The faces behind the cameras,

Gek on the bald rock.

Film - Social Network

Amazing how messy the creative process can be.  Or rather,  making the creation into a success.  Given Mark's character,  it is even more amazing that he recognised the ideas value.  Or did he?  Anyway,  the time flew by, so 4/5 for a gripping effort at recording recent history.

Book - My Malayan Life

A very interesting mixture of fact and fiction - a life of a British colonialist during the 1950 Emergency. Made more interesting by the endorsements of senior British officials at the time Frederick is writing about, and references to historical figures such as John Davies and Chin Peng. A Cannot-put-down-read and a very filmic book, given the interesting sex life of the main character, Ferdach.

Silat

Silat, a SE Asia form of martial arts. This demonstration is highly choreographed.....given the knives, a good idea.

The venue was the street below our Penang window. A little bit hard to fall on. Tough guys these.

Second eagle nesting.

At a different nest this time. Not sure but I think it is a Grey Headed Sea eagle. the nest is further away than before This time there are 2 chicks which can just about be made out in this photograph. By the size and colour of the chick, they were days old when the photo was taken on the 30/10/10.

SW Australia - Last word to the Birds.

And not forgetting our hilarious friend.

Perth Courts and Arcades

Perth has a number of these shopping walk throughs.

And then there is London Court.

Complete with Dick and his cat.

Kings Park

With just shy of 300 steps, Jacab's Ladder is not the easier way to get into the park. But we did it munching on an ice cream. Easy peasy.

The botanic garden part of the park is sectioned into flora from all parts of the state. This is the Boab tree , a prized specimen in the park. These trees can live for over 1500 years and may have an ancestry stretching back 65 million years. Makes humans look like fly by nighters.

The double helix tower is a fitting sculpture for the park, given the diversity and difference of the life here.

Another monument to death. Underneath the obelisk are walls covered with the names of those who set off from Albany and didn't make it home.

That lady again. She is in Penang as well you know.

12th October.

The day of the Bali Bombings. A memorial to the victims has been set up in Kings Park and on each aniversary friends and relatives gather at dawn to remember. Very moving in such a setting.

64th in Perth

The second day in Perth was my 64th. Opened my present from Sock Hoon and enjoyed a cup of Fremantle coffee before,

having a full English breakfast at the London Court Cafe. That I enjoyed. Real bacon and eggs. The whole thing.

After breakfast, drove to Fremantle to drop off the hire car and return to Perth on a river cruise.

Beautiful day to be on the river.

These are the only high rise in Perth. The rest of the city is distinctly low rise, with most buildings being single storey. Couldn't be more different than Singapore.

The return to Perth

Another accomodation triumph. We travelled back to Perth from Albany in one day, taking 6 hours to cover the 400 + km. A good driving road which you have to yourself most of the time. Gek enjoyed to the max bowling along!! And another room with a view. New Esplanade Hotel over looking the Swan River.

Window view. The tower houses the St Martin in the Field's bells that were gifted to Perth by St Martin's on the city's bi-centennial. A surreal experience hearing the bells as you step on to the boat quay.

Models Exhibition.

Albany models show at the equivalent of the County Show Ground. Mainly men, of course, but a fair number of lady modelers.

Most of the exhibits were scratch built.

My favorite was this model of the old Perth Electric Tram system, sadly no more.

Strange.

The light and kelp combined to create this strange effect on the sea.

Strange tree flower. Somethings are very different here.

Going to the Beach.

We went to so many beaches. Cannot remember which one this is, but well framed by Harry!

Photo by Harry

And when you get there, only one deck chair!

Whale Station.

Another type of whale killer, at Whale World Albany.

Whales where hunted off the continental shelf, some 50 km off the coast of Albany. This only began in 1953. Before that, whales were only hunted in the coastal bays. Spotted from this crows next, the whale was killed with an exploding harpoon, filled with compressed air to stop the body sinking and then marked with a buoy to be picked up at the end of a days hunting.

Old picture from the crows nest. These are sperm whales. They have been known to dive 3 km.

Once delivered ashore, the carcass is cut up and processed to extract the oil, which was shipped to the UK. Apparently it was very good at lubricating watches. I am sure the whale would have been happy to know that his life was taken for such a essential use.

The very same saw. One of the ladies on the guided tour had visited the place when it was still in operation. She commented that the place smelt a little better now.

Southern Waves

There was nothing on the sea to give away the massive swell. No white horses.

Just these massive columns of spray when the waves came ashore.

No surfers here today!!

I estimated that the figures were midway between the breaking wave and the camera. That makes the spray 40 to 50 feet into the air.

The nearest you will ever get to a rainbow.

The Stirling Range.

A days outing from Albany. Now the insurance on the hire car does not allow laterite roads to be driven. Hummm. Bit of bummer, really. The park was all laterite roads. But we did get up high enough to see past the range to the east at Bluff's Knoll. Got a real impression of a land sea. All the way to Sydney?

Turned round and made for the car.