The Perth Skyline

The Perth skyline is seriously impressive with many sky scrappers in the central business district.

The Bell Tower

The Bell Tower is an impresssive piece of architecture down by the Perth waterfront.

This historic ring of bells was gifted to the people of Western Australia as part of the national Bicentennial celebrations. The Bell Tower includes the twelve bells of St Martin-in-the-Fields which are recorded as being in existence from before the 14th century and recast in the 16th century by Queen Elizabeth I. The bells were again recast between 1725 and 1770 by three generations of the Rudhall family of bell founders from Gloucester in England, under the order of the Prince of Wales who was later crowned as King George II. They are one of the few sets of royal bells and are the only ones known to have left England.

A taxi driver told us the structure cost $6 million dollars to build and it cost the politician who wanted to build it his job! I must admit to rather liking the structure.

More information can be found at: http://www.swanbells.com.au/

Trip to Perth Western Australia

After some 10 hours travelling myself and Mike, one of my colleagues, arrived in Perth in Western Australia. We had a few problems connecting with our shuttle bus but we eventually arrived at our accommodation and we both jumped in to the pool to cool off.

Mike is showing how many times he tried to blag our way into an Air New Zealand Koruclub lounge. Needless to say he was successful on at least one occasion.

I have to take my hat off to him for his determination and effort!

The Mighty Waimakariri

One of the major landmarks that you see flying out of Christchurch is the mighty Waimakariri river. The Waimakariri is a threaded river teaming with fish and other wildlife and flows from the Southern Alps to the Pacific Ocean just north of Kaipoi.

Air New Zealand Empty Seats

Flying out of Christchurch on the international connection NZ90 brought home to me the scale of the current slowdown in the travel industry. The back of the Boeing 777 was just about empty with plenty of spare seats. I hope my former colleagues at House of Travel are all doing okay.

Two Jags

My brother and my sister-in-law have been to stay for a couple of weeks on their world tour. Andy has been working as a political lobbiest for a homeless charity and often meets with senior politicians in the UK and Europe.

On our obligatory day excursion to the 'West Coast' we called in to see his mate 'Two Jags' between Reefton and Greymouth. The two Jaguars have been up-ended and have been used as gate posts.

Sky ride

One of our neighbours has a helecopter and Jake and his mate Jordan have been promised a ride. Today was their lucky day and they were taken for a flight out towards the Torlesse mountains.

Our house can been seen on the top right hand side. If you look hard enough you will see me on my red tractor mower!

Papabear sets up Blog

After the very successful JOTI 2008 camp this weekend, papabear has set up his own blog. This can be found at the appropriately named http://oldbearnews.blogspot.com ;0)

Please feel free to pass on your comments!

JOTI 2008

It is hard to believe that the Jamboree on the Internet (JOTI) has come around yet again. We have again been back to Cotswold School this weekend and have been using IRC to contact scouts and guides around the world. We have had over 80 people attend the event.

A great time has been had by all and a big thank-you goes to the Bishopdale and Harewood Scouts team who have organised the event on behalf of the Torlesse scouts zone. I personally haven't laughed so much in a long time!

I have been running a seperate blog for the event which can be found here:

http://joti2008.blogspot.com/

I have a nasty feeling my colleagues are going to 'get me back' for some of my posts at the annual zone scout camp in January! I'll keep you posted on what happens.

The Vegetable Garden takes Shape

After a lot of hard work over the last few weeks the vegetable garden is starting to take shape. I decided to use raised beds because it makes it much easier to look after and it gives the plants some protection from the wind. I have been using some of the firewood that I bought earlier in the year so it has only cost me price of the nails to put together.

Real Compost

Rangiora Landscape Supplies do a 'veggie mix' compost which is ideal for putting on your garden. The compost is a mix of wood chippings, horse manure, chicken manure, pig manure and mushroom compost. It is a real wholesome product and it helps your veggies to grow. It costs NZ$15 (£5.25 ) per 1/3 cubic metre scoop and four scopes just fits in my trailer nicely.

The thing I like about this product is it is totally natural. It does NOT contain chicken blood, feathers, hatchery waste, meat products, food waste, human sewage or any of the many other unsavoury ingredients that DEFRA allows to be composted in the UK.

Rainbow

A weather front has just passed through and we have been left with clear blue skies and a beautiful rainbow.

The Veggie Garden Starts to Take Shape

The firewood has again been put to good use to make raised beds for the vegetable garden. We now have some 7 raised beds in production with another twelve cut out and ready for construction. The wooden frames provide protection from the nor'wester winds which can burn the leaves of the seedlings.

This box is a metre square and is about 30 cm high; it contains red cabbage and celery. The stones have been collected from digging the ground.

Fruit Bushes Planted

Over the last couple of weeks I have been busily planting the fruit bushes. To date, I have planted gooseberry's, red currents, black currents, raspberry's (early and late varieties), boysenberry's, blackberry's and blueberry's.

Roll on the summer!

Dining Room Sunsets

The sunsets from the dining room are breath taking ... absolutely fantastic.

Tunnel Shed

Cutting firewood in winter is not much fun. What we need is a big shed to provide some shelter when cutting the wood and to keep the firewood protected from the elements.

Mark, my neighbour (of electric fence testing fame) has a business called L. T. Sheds and he kindly offered to knock me up a wooden frame for a 2.4 metre by 3 metre tunnel shed. He makes tunnel shed kit sets in his workshop and offers them for sale via www.trademe.co.nz. The sheds can be either clad in corrugated steel or they can be clad in plastic to create a green house. To keep costs down I found some recycled corrugated steel on www.trademe.co.nz for NZ$70 (£26) which has been more than enough to clad both the shed and the roof of the chicken run with plenty left over to spare.

I am really very pleased with the end result which could only be improved by a lick of paint.

A big thank-you goes to Mark for all his help and time.

Work Permits successfully secured for Hens

Work permits have finally been secured for 8 point of lay Shaver hens who moved into the hen house earlier this week after a long selection process. Spokeshen, Marjory Clucker pictured on the right hand side said, 'We are delighted to have secured employment although we were not very happy about the transport provided from the hatchery. It was undignified to have to share a cardboard box with 7 other hens.'.

Despite the complaints over the travel arrangements the girls have settled in very well and have already started laying some three weeks ahead of schedule. Each hen has been given 3 weeks to meet their production target of one egg per day.

The hens came from Heslips Hatchery which is near Fairlie in South Canterbury.

Let it rain, Let it rain, Let it rain

We have had a bit of rain in the last 24 hours. The River Eyre 'runs' about 400 metres from where we live. However the river is a dry river bed and seldom has any water in it.

However, judging by the water in my wheel barrow (System International Unit of Rain Fall - or at least it should be!) we must have had 15 cm of rain overnight!

Anyway, the Eyre is ... er, flowing like a river again.

I was talking to a chap who was also taking photos and he said that in the 8 years he had lived here, he had only seen water in the river twice.

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label!