Elly May at Home and Abroad

Lord of all He Surveyed.

The Swan Valley, Perth

A Guided Birthday Tour by SD & DD

This was the first of two great days. We were given the genuine cook's tour(s) by two expert travellers. Laid back, sensitive, observant people. It was the best birthday present I could have wished for. And with dessert.
Mind you, this was the first foray, and the second, which included a Black Swan Restaurant lunch, rocked my socks right off. Paella! And wine so good I actually bought some at WA prices. Really!! A genuine Bordeaux blend of Cab Franc, Cabernet and Merlot, and with 5 years on it and a nose like Jimmy Durante. Good mates to show us such good hospitality.

Laid back? You want laid back? This is IT. When I master this style, I'll quit.

Local birds in their finery, just hanging round to see what happens when there's a party in the air.

Driver, driver - are we there yet? Steph drove us home after lunch, down the Zig-Zag! Wow, what a switchback trail, but wow, what spectacular vistas across Perth.
I can guarantee no coach-load of tourists will be popping up there for a look and a snap-shot or two because they'd be beached at the first turn.

Mundaring Weir. On reflection, it could have more water in it.

The country showed the effect of fires and that it's a genuine National Park. You can drive through it and look but I get the feeling that if I stepped out in the wrong place a khaki jihadist with a badge and frown would have me 'Back in the CAR' pretty damn quick - same as they do in SA. To be honest I an finding that increasingly Australians are being very limited in their access to their 'own country' and that paving, steel bars and locked gates make sure we don't stray very far. Soon a camera will be useless because no more unique shots will be possible given that a hundred thousand others have stood and 'shot' from here before.

The next couple of pix were taken in King's Park the day Steph and Doug took us there. The magnificent River Red Gum (pictured lower right) is not specifically a WA native (well, not in the south west) and looked like it was out of place; it certainly is Australian. However, it's so huge I was surprised to see its age; planted in 1954 as a sapling, maybe two or three years old, it must have been fed some good shit to get to this size in 2015.

There she is, QE II, in 1954.
Maybe I have in my head the Penwortham Giants of my home in the Clare Valley, or the gloriously gnarly samples that fill our Murray-Darling River system, or the absolute giants of Victoria. Besides them, this brawny up-start of a tree seems to be too big for its roots.