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Mainly Simians

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 Having joined the Zoo we thought t was a good idea to go for a visit mid-week to avoid the hordes of  family funsters.  I commented that there would probably be a lot of school groups, which there were , but they were not a problem with teachers being well in control.   I suggested the Gorillas would be a good starting point.  Before we got to them we passed through the Ring-tailed Lemur enclosure.  This a lovely site as one is actually in the middle of the lemurs.  The tails are very tempting but there are always some staff around to offer advice. The Lemurs don't seem at all fussed by humans: this one was as close as it looks, leading to a stffer rquest to give it a bit more room. Some of their food turns up in paper bags to give them a little mental stimulation to get at it. THey seem to deal with this OK. I managed one shot of a lemur in flight. Next stop was the big blokes (and sheilas).  They also get their food in puzzle-packages and ...
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More Botanics than expected

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 For our walk on 15 July we headed towards the Botanic Gardens.  As we went across Fawkner Park Frances noticed this magnificent fig tree with a branch dipping to the ground There are Figs on the branch after it touches down.  It will be interesting to keep and eye on this and see if it puts roots down from where it touches.  (Although I am unsure how to check that!) Walking up Park St I marvelled again that Robin Boyd was the architect behind this ( Domain Park Flats) - which caused an uproar amongst the Citizens of South Yarra in 1962.     He wrote  The Australian Ugliness (1960) with a condemnation of visual pollution and vulgar 'featurism'.   This map from Google Earth shows the route we followed.  At point 1 we decided from looking at map extracts posted in the gardens, to go North to Long Island rather than East to Guilfoyles Volcano.  I was very surprised where we ended up, which I initially thought added a km to the ...
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Albert Park and Nearby

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On Bastille Day I took myself for a walk along the North Shore of Albert Park Lake and past MacRobertson Girls School (which seems to be referred to, for efficient use of breath, as Mac Rob) to the tram stop at Toorak Rd.  It is about 4.5km including the stretch from 505 to the Pavillion.  Here is the route. For those interested in other sorts of efficiency than use of breath, the sight of these 4 cranes all set up on the Pits (and it is metaphorically 'the pits') site offers scope for thought.  As nothing on the site is more than 3 m high why do they need 4 cranes with a lift of about 20m each?  (Possible answers include: the rain might cause buildings to grow very suddenly; and someone's brother-in-law had 4 cranes not otherwise engaged.) There must have been more recent rain than I was aware of as the water level in the Lake seemed to be a bit higher than it has been recently (good) but the water - especially in the SE Conservation Ponds appeared to be more t...
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