More Outback

When you drive in to Lightning Ridge you are met by this Big Emu called Stanley but it was not the only emu we saw. The real ones were everywhere along the road, fortunately not as roadkill which was the case with wombats and kangaroos, but standing there serenely looking at passing cars.

The emu, or the DHINAWAN, is very significant to the Aboriginal people. He takes the role of the father, mother, teacher and provider. The female emu lays the eggs and the male emu sits on the nest of eggs until hatching and then raises the chicks until they can provide for themselves. The emu is also a totem for some families in the area.

Our first venture on Sunday was to the local market where we met a very interesting American lady who came to LR over 20 years ago and was involved in the Historical Society. She told us many interesting stories.

One thing I always try to find out when we are traveling around Australia is if there are any of my fellow countrymen there. In this case yes, she told us of The King of the Swedes and how there was an article published in a Swedish newspaper that led to a few Swedish families moving to LR to try their luck. 

Astronomy monument with different flags to honour astronomers from these countries

In the afternoon we went on a bus tour and the guide was a goldmine, oops, I should say an opal mine of information. He told of us "Alex" a Polish miner, who had been imprisoned for over 4 years for murder, here in Australia, but after being completely exhonorated he came to LR to mine. He was also interested in astronomy and built this monument in honour of Copernicus, a fellow Pole. It is all built in concrete all made possible because he had befriended the concrete truck driver and got all the left over stuff when the driver cleaned his mixer. He was also an expert tequila distiller using all the cactuses growing around his home. Sadly the still exploded and he died leaving many miners at a loss. He was the only one who knew how to make tequila!

This castle was built completely by hand, stone by stone by Amigo, using material from his mining. After almost having finished it he had had enough and now he lives behind it with his 63 cats which he feeds from road kill that he collects and barbecues for his cats.

These are four of the sixty three cats.

Just wanted to add these last photos as well. They show how every bit of scrap metal and other things are used to make these living quarters and some people live there for years. Some were more like a normal house and according to the guide had all the mod cons. They lease the land and in most cases build as they go along, so no mortgages and then it is just the yearly fee for their claim. Sounds very tempting!

This the church with the dunny conveniently located outside, all in corrugated metal.

Thoughts about birds

While sitting on the stone wall outside our house after my walk I saw a bird up in the big pine tree. She was chirping away, warbling even, and I felt that she was calling for someone, that she wanted company. It was quite intense and insistent, in fact that is why I said "she" about her/him/it. Suddenly, lo and behold, after a few minutes a bird of the same type flew up to her and started chirping to her. They sat there and "chirped" for a while and then the first bird flew off and left the second one alone and forlorn. I guess I don't understand the bird protocol.  If I had invited someone to come and see me, I wouldn't just go away like that. Oh, well, they'll have to sort it out.

Another thing that is cool about being a bird is that you never have to worry about finding a toilet. You just do it, and it seems to be number 1 and number 2 in one go. We have reason to notice this since one of our balconies is a bird assembly point. Every time we are having people over for barbecues we have to do a big bird-poop clean up.

Most people would probably say that the most obvious great thing about being a bird is the flying of course  but since I am a little afraid of heights I think if I was a bird I would be more into the singing.

Well, those are my thoughts on birds if anyone is interested. Oh, I just forgot to mention that we saw emus on our last trip. They are very big, very big. According to Wikipedia they can reach 2 m in height and run at 50 km an hour. I look on them as a two legged horse with feathers. I have a healthy respect of horses.

Now I am going to my painting class. I am still riding high on our visit to the Red Centre of Australia and the painting I am doing right now is from there.

I can't believe I only have two more classes after this and then we are going to Europe for the European summer. I will have to rename the blog to "going back" or something.

Back from painting and walking on the beach. It is supposed to be the Australian autumn but it is still around 26° or more in the day and people still surf and swim etc, it is quite nice. The downside is that they don't often have heating in their houses and at night it gets down to 12° or something so a lot of cuddling is necessary.