Yesterday was the shortest day of the year for us here in down under. I guess it means the midwinter is here, with its breezy +20C days, but luckily already today the daylength is longer and maybe soon the summer will be here. The hibernation period is obviously now, as I slept 15 hours straight on Saturday and have had trouble waking up on time every morning. To celebrate the coldest and darkest time of the year, we went to the local swimming pools on Sunday to sit in the gloriously hot sauna!
Happy Midsummer to all of you in the Northern Hemisphere!
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Out in the bush.
So last weekend we drove out to the bush and even spent the night in the car. I have never seen so many stars anywhere before! Here are some photos of the nature (copyright my boyfriend).
The Serpentine Falls. Not amazing, but the hiking trail in the surroundings seemed lovely.
Near the picnic area we encountered some wild kangaroos...
...which weren't quite so wild. They happily ate toast and apples from the silly tourists who would feed them.
Some proper bushland right after sunrise.
Some more bushland.
The bushland regularly burns, leading to some really interesting ecology and growth strategies (like seed germination in response to smoke), but there are also some bigger trees..
...that grow beautifully twisting and turning.
This plant is known as the blackboy, or the grasstree, and is probably a hundred years old as they grow very very slowly (1 cm/year).
More blackboys.
More trees.
And finally a sunset into the Indian Ocean.
The Serpentine Falls. Not amazing, but the hiking trail in the surroundings seemed lovely.
Near the picnic area we encountered some wild kangaroos...
...which weren't quite so wild. They happily ate toast and apples from the silly tourists who would feed them.
Some proper bushland right after sunrise.
Some more bushland.
The bushland regularly burns, leading to some really interesting ecology and growth strategies (like seed germination in response to smoke), but there are also some bigger trees..
...that grow beautifully twisting and turning.
This plant is known as the blackboy, or the grasstree, and is probably a hundred years old as they grow very very slowly (1 cm/year).
More blackboys.More trees.
And finally a sunset into the Indian Ocean.Friday, 3 June 2011
Vroom vroom!
Happy Friday to everyone from Perth! We have hired a car for the weekend, and the plan is to take a map and go explore! Amazing! This weekend it should not rain, so even better! Finally something else than urban (and suburban) sceneries!
In other notable news, we are extending our stay in Perth by a couple of months, beautifully timing our stay to cover the whole Australian winter period. But why not, boss said he'd be happy to keep me a while longer and boyfriend will need still some more time to finish his thesis. And realistically, if I want to get a good paper out of this research, it will take a little longer.
Other than that, it has been a lot of work days, some rainy days, some beautiful days and a couple of weekend days in the park exploring the flora (fig trees are fun to sit in), as well as some delicious Italian food (we finally found a restaurant where it is a joy to eat). Unfortunately it is too easy to watch TV in the evenings (Big Bang Theory and MasterChef every night), so I've started going to Body Combat twice a week. It all has started to settle into regular everyday life - gasp!
In other notable news, we are extending our stay in Perth by a couple of months, beautifully timing our stay to cover the whole Australian winter period. But why not, boss said he'd be happy to keep me a while longer and boyfriend will need still some more time to finish his thesis. And realistically, if I want to get a good paper out of this research, it will take a little longer.
Other than that, it has been a lot of work days, some rainy days, some beautiful days and a couple of weekend days in the park exploring the flora (fig trees are fun to sit in), as well as some delicious Italian food (we finally found a restaurant where it is a joy to eat). Unfortunately it is too easy to watch TV in the evenings (Big Bang Theory and MasterChef every night), so I've started going to Body Combat twice a week. It all has started to settle into regular everyday life - gasp!
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