White week

Having a white week now and again, or even several can only be good and healthy I thought. White week meaning of course that you don't drink wine or beer or other spirits for a week or maybe longer. Then I saw this poster, advertising the Temperance Movement, when I visited the museum in La Perouse and I started thinking differently. Do I really want to end up like these ladies? Hmmm! They look a bit stern and maybe not so attractive.

The reason we went to the Bare Island Fort, La Perouse, which is a part of Sydney on Botany Bay where the first ship came in, is that they had a re-enactment of the French arriving a bare six days after Captain Cook's arrival. La Perouse was the name of the French captain.

Don't let history get in the way of entertainment! 

They had people dressed up in the uniforms of the Napoleon army and also the soldiers of the British army. As far as uniforms go I like the French better but you can judge for yourself. There was canon and musket firing, and by the way this is when the expression "pull your finger out " was minted, an expression frequently used here in Australia.

Here we have the British Army.

And this is the glorious French Army. Sadly their ships
disappeared after their 'defeat' in Australia somewhere
near the Solomon Islands.

 We were told a lot of other interesting words and expressions that hailed from this time. Like "a square meal" which was a meal after battle served up on square wooden plates. This was after they had eaten next to nothing or just what they had in their little pouches. Another snippet was that the reason you call a bayonet a bayonet is that they were originally made in Bayonne, France.

Bare Island was used for the main action scenes in the second half of the film Mission Impossible II, starring Tom Cruise.  I wonder what 'our Nicole' thought of that.

After a walk around Bare Island we had our customary seafood lunch and then we had a quick walk through the museum.

Looks pretty scary, doesn't it!

We tried to take a selfie but someone took pity on us.

If you have been reading here  before you might remember that I mentioned how the birds can get quite aggressive and here is how one cyclist is protecting himself. Don't think it would work if the pelicans attacked but they never do, they seem placid and friendly.

When we came home we heard on the news that there had been a demonstration in Sydney because of the new budget.  As usual it seems to hit everybody except the untouchables "up there". We'll see what happens next.

It is glorious sunshine outside so I need to go out and do some garden chores. Until next time, be good!

Wollongong and pelicans

We are back from a little Saturday outing to Wollongong and Port Kembla. Hubby has tried to take me to this cafe/restaurant in Wollongong for ages and we finally got there. We had our 'usual' oysters and seafood platter.  While sitting in the restaurant we saw loads of pelicans. They are Australia's biggest flying bird.

We were fascinated by all these gorgeous sports car in the parking lot. Later on we spoke to someone and he said that once a month there is an outing from Sydney with a group leader and people who have rented cars to go for an outing in Ferraris or Porches or Lotuses (and pretend that they own them).

After lunch we drove to Port Kembla, and I know that some of my UK friends were taken there too (against their will, as was I, so I feel for them).

We went to a lookout and I got talking with a guy with a very, very respectable beer gut. He told us that his Dad rescued a lady who mistakenly had put her car in reverse and driven down this very steep precipice. Her car was stopped by a tree and they managed to hoistt it up.  Afterwards they found her hand bag with $400 in it and they returned it to the police. The lady never thanked them for saving her life, her car or giving her back her cash. I think she was embarrassed!

I don't know if this photo gives you and idea of how far the fall would have been. It's very, very steep!!

All in all it was a fun day out and, aside from the fact that hubby had to put a shopping bag over his head because he had forgotten his sun screen and hat, it was a great outing

Birds, birds, and more birds

We have so many birds in the trees around where we live and every morning you wake up from the birds. Birds were never something I paid much attention to before coming to Australia. I mean in my hometown we had seagulls making a racket of course. They also stole my nephew's glasses when he was at the beach. He wasn't wearing them but still, it is pretty cheeky and it was very hard for my sister to get the insurance company to understand. Then there was that canary that followed me into the house in France one day when I was gardening and stayed with us for eight weeks but that was exceptional.

No, the birds here are something else. The big white ones are called cockatoos and have a yellow crest on the head. Apparently they also come in black but I have never seen them. They get into everything. Sometimes when you are driving around you see big groups of them and they almost look as if someone has thrown out a bunch of old, white shopping bags. They can grab food with their claws and put it in their mouths in an almost dainty fashion.

Then we have the kookaburras. They make a very funny, almost cackling sound. Sometimes at barbecues they have been known to swoop down and grab things from the barbecue.

Black swan at Lakes Entrance, Victoria

There are others whose names I don't know, some are very colorful and beautiful. Oh, I almost forgot, there are penguins too, and pelicans, and guess what? The swans are black!

Some birds sound like a baby crying, and some sound very nice. When you wake up in the morning it is always to the birds, and in the beginning it was a nuisance but it is growing on me, especially since when I was young I read a book that warned us that birds would all die out because of humans polluting the planet. So I am grateful that it hasn't happened but sometimes when you want to sleep in and they start up .....

Here is a link to bird sounds of Australia.