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Laverton Creek

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I had wondered about going to the WTP today, but decided that I would be worrying about wasting diesel the whole time so it would not be much fun.  Instead we went to the mouth of Laverton Creek (aka Apex Park, Altona Beach).   Traffic was generally light on the drive over and Google Maps took the twisty route using Grieve Parade delivering to the end of the Esplanade.  As soon as we emerged from the Mazda we had an interesting bird in the form of an Egret which appeared to have a shortish neck and plumes.  Sorry, nice try, no cigar: the dark bill shouts Great Egret. While common, Crested Pigeons are very pretty birds. There were a few Stilts around, but I couldn't find any bands or all-white heads. A Singing Honeyeater was nice to see.  I always think of them as inland birds but they are easy to find in coastal Adelaide as well as the shrubby areas in Western Melbourne. One of my favourite birding books is "The complete birder" by Jack Connor.   Altho...
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In the footsteps of Captain Wales

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There are a few obscure references in that title!   The first is to "The Footsteps of Mr Kurtz" an excellent book by Michaela Wong about President Mobutu of the DRC.  (That title is itself a reference to the main character in "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.) The second is to Prince Harry's preferred name when he was in the British Army.  He visited Footscray on Wednesday this week as we did on Friday. We visited different parts of the area to Harry, and I doubt I'd have got on to the turf of Whitten Oval.  Our reason for visiting was to explore the Heavenly Queen Temple, which we had seen from the train as we went to Williamstown a few weeks ago.  A helpful staffer from the City of Maribyrnong had provided us with a map of the area. Our route was starting at the station and more or less following the orange line, diverting to the yellow line, then the blue line and back on the green line.  These nice little cottages were in the area around th...
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April Music and other performances

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This could be quite a long post as we are finding lots of events to go to this stay. The music began with a visit to St Paul's Cathedral for an organ recital.  We took the grand-daughters along as it was still school holidays.  I really like some organ music - did I hear you say Bach?  This did not feature any of that tribe, but a much more modern set of 5 composers, 3 of whom I had never heard of.   Oh dear: not a good introduction to classical music for the girls.   It did not begin well as we arrived about 10 minutes before kick-off to find the preceding service was still happening: in fact they had just got to Communion , so the concert was 20 minutes late starting.  Then the music was IMO boring and somewhat  discordant.  We threw in the towel after 4 of the works. Potter Museum Frances wasn't sure about this, but as we had never visited the Museum and many other things were booked out we thought it worth a try.  The Museum is ...
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