SO THIS IS NIGER

Happiness is....

I adore springtime in Perth. Things in our gardens are starting to burst forth with an unbelievable vigour despite the ‘gutless’ soil of our coastal location.

I especially love the way the fragrant blossoms of my wisteria sinensis cascade from the thickening vines that start to become gnarled with age. Roses burst into flower, seedlings and long forgotten bulbs have emerged in my flower beds, but so have a lot of weeds.

In despair I retreat indoors. Perhaps I should tackle the house first?

But then the sun comes out in the early mornings, the sky is so unbelievably blue as it is only in Australia and you start weeding, raking, cutting back, replenishing the veggie patch with compost and manure and suddenly you are filled with happiness.

Posted by: Lewana at September 30, 2006 01:14 | link | comments (4)
australia, gardening, western australia, happiness is

Wildlife Photography

                                                                                                                                                                                                                I have tried my hands at many things, but nothing beats the frustration of wildlife photography.




Here I was yesterday, in the late afternoon in Yanchep National Park watching a large group of kangaroos grazing on the the Henry White Oval. But with only an hour to spare before night fall and a painfully inadequate camera in hand, it is as hard as ever to get some decent shots. What I needed most in this situation would have been one of those nifty cameras with an enourmeous zoom.

You sure know what I mean? All you see in your view finder are tiny animals on a large field. So, you try to creep up closer and they all turn and look at you in alarm, ready to bolt in a second.

You also know that it is the mating season and the normally docile beasts could be quite aggressive this time of the year.

But I am never one to give up and as they say, I 'gave it a go'.

Posted by: Lewana at September 28, 2006 14:37 | link | comments (4)
australia, western australia, yanchep, yanchep national park, kangaroos, wildlife photography

YANCHEP

 

When you are offered a privately guided cave tour to a special place does not your heart beat faster with anticipation and joy? Mine does as Helen and I leave Perth on the Northern Freeway for Yanchep National Park and I catch the first glimpse of native bushland and tall eucalyptus trees after the many months I spent away from home.

It is the beginning of spring. The land is as serenely green as I remember it to be at the end of winter.  But I steel myself for a ‘newly revamped’ National Park and for signs of hordes of both foreign and local tourists.

Thankfully, Yanchep National Park, one of Western Australia’s oldest parks, has not changed as much as  dreaded. There are no signs of tourist buses or cars yet at this early hour. There are all the old buildings, and a few new ones, of course: The McNess House and Visitor Centre, the Yanchep Inn, the Chocolate Drop tearooms and the Gloucester Lodge complete with the Heritage Tram No. 57, but the gnarled prickly barks and flowering banksias, and stands of tall tuarts, jarrah and marri trees remain unchanged.

A noisy flock of white-tailed black cockatoos, more than fifty birds, fill the mouth-wash blue sky with their raucous voices. Halfway between the entry station and the Crystal Caves I want Helen to stop at the Henry White Oval to take photographs of several happy families of Western Grey Kangaroos, but my daughter doesn’t want to waste her time on this very ‘ordinary’ sight, she says.

Helen, at twenty-two, still looks like a school girl, even though she has recently graduated as an environmental scientist. She is also our first “nationally certified cave tour guide” in our family. Though she is not entirely an Australian girl born and bred, she speaks Australian English without accent, but today she conducts my tour with a sprinkling of German as well. “It helps to break the ice with my audience, who are often German tourists,” she says.

Helen, armed with keys and two enormous torches leads me expertly towards the entry of the Yanchep Crystal Caves and warns me to watch the slippery steps and certainly not to touch the crystals or break off stalagtites as souvenirs. As we enter the first chamber, Helen lectures me on the age of the Crystal Caves (approx. 200 000 years), how limestone caverns were formed (as a result of chemical erosion by groundwater) and explains that the first white man to see the many caves in Yanchep was Lieutenant George Grey in 1838.

“Weren’t the caves used by the Aboriginal people as shelters?” I ask Helen, noting the pleasant temperature of approximately 19 C and the fresh air despite being more than 9 meters underground. “No," she says, "apparently the Nyungar people believed that the caves contained an evil spirit called Chingi that overpowered and consumed men. Whether that was genuine dread of caves or rather an attempt by Aborigines to conceal knowledge of ritual cave sites is open to speculation”, Helen says and smiles wryly.

 

You can always tell a true blue environmentalist by the way she points out interesting facts about flora and fauna of the Crystal Caves. Here, there are Tuart tap roots at the entrance to the ‘pantheon chamber’ that have found their way through the porous lime stone into the cave and feed spiders, centipedes and cockroaches.

On the floor there are dry eucalyptus leaves. "Guess how they came in, Mum?” she asks while pointing her powerful torchlight at the ceiling of the cavern. "Do you see that small hole up there? That’s why it is so important to stay on the marked paths in the park.”

“Imagine, in the Yonderup cave – Yanchep National Park is peppered with caves - a skeleton was found on the cave floor with its head missing”. And guess what, eventually the head was discovered stuck in a small hole in the ceiling. “What a cruel way to die for a hunter”, she says, hanging there all this time hoping in vain to be found by his tribe.

Somehow this tale sounds especially gruesome with only the two of us in the sparsely lit cavern. We hurry on to the next chamber, the Jewel City. Yet, it is fun in the warm company of my daughter to admire the sparkling ceilings, discover the elephant’s foot, and a huge flowstone – dubbed the ‘Sleeping Beauty', learn about gravity-defying helictites, and smile at a strange formation that looks like the Loch Ness monster ‘en miniature’.

At the touch area, finally I am allowed to feel broken crystal pieces that are lying on the ground. I can see how dirt, oil and acids on our hands spoil the clarity and sparkle of the crystals.

In a large area that only twenty years ago was an underground lake that contained rare, we find now almost extinct Amphipods – small pale creatures that are in fact aquatic crustaceans. These critters are only found in Yanchep and nowhere else in the world. The National Park tries its best to keep them from becoming extinct, but with forever falling ground water levels the chances are not good for these mysterious creatures.

After we admire and look some more at interesting formations in every nook and cranny we eventually pass through an earthquake tunnel that was built after the Meckerin earthquake in 1968. I am shocked when Helen points out a wide crack in the rock formations right below the “Sermon on the Mount” - another interesting formation.

Fortunately, at this point we have almost completed our tour. But we must have a ‘latte’, she exclaims suddenly, and her eyes light up at the thought that we are going to have coffee and hand-made chocolate at the tearooms.

Posted by: Lewana at September 24, 2006 00:08 | link | comments (4)
australia, yanchep

What's the point?

Posted by: Lewana at September 02, 2006 10:31 | link | comments (5)
whats the point