In Which We Get Rained On

When we woke up, it was raining sideways.

I believe this kind of rain in coastal regions, especially in isolated bits of Western Australia that no one really thinks about much, is referred to as a "gale". If anything could qualify as a gale, it would have been what we saw clattering outside the walls of our rent-a-cottage. This, needless to say, bode poorly for our planned day of vigorous outdoors activities. As it turns out, there is in fact just about jack all to do in Kalbarri when it is raining sideways outside. But we didn't know that just yet, and were feeling vibrant and optimistic regardless.



We stopped at a nearby beach to look at the water, which could only really be described as "severely pissed off". I am not in the camp that believes in a deeply woo-woo fashion that water can transmit (or care about) the emotions of humanity, but after regarding that water for a while, I was willing to entertain the possibility that it can get *mad*. Anyone who went out in that mess, be it in a boat, a ferry, or on a surfboard, could only be described as clinically insane. But this is the Australian psyche we're discussing here, and we would indeed see a couple of dogged mental patients waiting on wave after wave that never actually came.



We proceeded down the track into the national park, which was also soggy, although the rain had at least reduced itself to "morose drizzle" status. A sign on the way in informed us that the road to Nature's Window, Kalbarri's most iconic site, was closed and would be until the soil dried out and it was rendered safe for vehicular use again, which would doubtless be a while. Hiking was also right out. I spent a few of my tween and teenage years quite ardently engaged in outdoors sports in rocky, gorge infested regions like this one, and Lesson Numero Uno in that department is "If it is pissing down rain, don't go hiking in a slippery, flash-flood prone gorge." So we didn't do that either.



What we did do was batten down the hatches and go and politely observe the open overlooks. These were, thankfully, given a bit of an atmospheric boost by the lingering mist in the air and the crystal-clear droplets hanging from the pines and shrubs nearby. It was in fact quite pleasant, and I wished the weather was good enough to allow me to do some really soul-satisfying scrambling around on the nearby boulders.







Here, have an interpretative sign. Or two.

I left Lyn to read a nearby sign and scrambled tentatively down the walking path, where I encountered a couple of elderly Australian ladies down a flight of stairs. "You're not here alone, are you?" one asked carefully, and I assured her I was not.

(Elderly women in foreign countries, and in fact, everywhere, are eternally very concerned about me. This may be attributed to the fact that I am small, blonde, and distinctly waifish looking, which seems to set off their internal little old lady concern mechanisms with roaring intensity. When I am in places like India and China, elderly women often seize me sternly by the arm and walk me across busy streets, which is among the more humiliating experiences known to a young person in possession of full mental and physical faculties. But enough about me).

They walked up and began chatting with Lyn, and I soon joined them. They were pointing at a group of people in brightly-colored windbreakers, standing in the gorge below us. "We're in that tourist group, but we thought better of scrambling over the river," one said. "Didn't seem like a good idea.

"Oh, lovely," I said. "Where are you from?"

"Well, we're from Melbourne. The tour is all right, but we hadn't known that it would be all young people, when we booked it."

"Yes, quite young people, university types. They were out until five in the morning last night, at the pub. Don't know how they're managing the hike."

"They all looked like hell this morning. Like a truck had hit them. I don't know how they're managing at all."

They grew thoughtful and silent, and Lyn and I looked at them with abject horror and pity.



Consider it. You are a nice old thing from Melbourne who has decided to take a lovely packaged tour up the Western Australian coast. You find a nice looking outfit, and perhaps not being among the most internet savvy of creatures, fail to notice that it caters to a younger crowd, shall we say, in fact the kind of crowd that enjoys things like beer pong, ironic t-shirts, and getting tattoos on their asses. You get on the bus and realize that you have about 50 years on everyone else, including the guide and the driver, and you have already paid up and got someone to watch your Lhasa Apso, and you are just going to have make the best of it, horrible rock-rap music on the bus speakers and technicolored 6:00 AM barf in the hotel corridors and all. Which these commendable women were obviously trying their very best to do. I hope they made it back to Melbourne alive, that's all.

The other thing to consider is that these Young People were out until five in the morning in Kalbarri which boasts, as I perhaps previously mentioned, just about two pubs, one of which is the avowed territory of the Old Bastards club. Logic indicates that kids may be among the most incredibly persistent drinkers on earth. Either that, or I made a gigantic tactical error in going to bed at 9:30 instead of slipping out to Get Down with the spry and winsome residents of Kalbarri. Huh, hmm.


Stand of gum trees in the gorge.

As Lyn and I considered the horror of our companions position, we noticed three kangaroos bouncing majestically through the mist, along the floor of the canyon. "Seeing kangaroos never gets old," I commented, and everyone nodded in agreement.

"Looks like our group is coming back," one of the old ladies said, a bit depressively. "And there's John. Always has to be up front, that one." The windbreakers were now moving towards us.

"Oh man, I think the rain is picking up," I said. "We'd better move along. Lovely to meet you two." We beat a swift retreat to the car.

Well, that accounted for the national park, at least in these conditions. The rain showed no sign whatsoever of letting up, so we decided that it was high time to make for Kalbarri's sole indoor attraction of note. "Let's go see ourselves a sullen and wet parrot or two," Lyn said. There may have been a bit of an edge in her voice.

The Rainbow Jungle proclaims itself to be the top parrot-breeding outfit in WA, which it probably is. It's a nice enough place, featuring a series of semi enclosed gardens and grounds with a dizzying array of parrots. It is probably even nicer when it is not raining a whole lot.



When it rains a whole lot, most parrot varieties do indeed get wet and sullen. They huddle up on their branches and lurk in their little parrot-houses and do not engage in any charming, cheeky, or talkative behavior. Instead they glare at you and suggest with their little parrot faces that you should fuck right off and leave them alone, instead of peering at them through the slats and hopefully saying "Hello, hello!" We ignored them because, well, they're parrots.

Some of the parrots do not respond in this way to weather. Some, like the Australian white cockatoo, see you coming and immediately climb enterprisingly down the wire of their cage, offering you their white and plush looking head, begging you with watery eyes to please please please pet me, just a little pet, a stroke, a fondle, a nudge?

This would be a horrible mistake because white cockatoos (like many kinds of parrot) consider human fingers a delicacy on par with Beluga caviar. Signs indicating this were plastered in obvious places all over the Rainbow Jungle, but I am entirely certain more parrot bite wounds then I am capable of imagining occur there every year, exclusively to the very stupid. This makes me happy. "Fuck you parrot," I said, merrily, as I stood just out of reach. "I know what you're up to."

Outwitting small, reasonably innocuous animals always makes me feel great.



Some lovely multicolored parrots. Don't ask me what kind. Australia has roughly a zillion different kinds of Lovely Colorful Parrot and it would take either an ornithologist or a dedicated dork to tell them apart. Being dedicated, I will doubtless sit down with a bird book and figure this out soon. But not today. Don't judge me.


The iconic Aussie Princess Parrot. Even more striking when they fly above you - incredible looking tail feathers.



Red tailed black cockatoos, regarding us with unnerving intelligence. (Parrots are weird). They're called "cockies" in Australia. Everything in Australian must have an "ie" or a "o" added to it. It's a law. Brekkie, Freo, saltie, surfy, bikie, Rotto, on and on and on.



This sign regarding Eurypterids (ie, GIANT ANCIENT SCORPIONS) made me unreasonably happy .



A GIANT METAL GARDEN EURYPTERID. YES.



Adorable lorikeet is adorable.



Just mentally add in "nom nom nom" sounds and this photo becomes twelve times better.


He's out there. And he's nuts.

The Rainbow Jungle features a nicely sized observation platform, ostensibly for whales. No whales out today insofar as we could tell, but there was one mentally ill surfer out there in the cold, sideways rain, and churning ocean. Lyn was fascinated, and we watched him reject wave after wave for about twenty minutes. You'd think one wouldn't be too picky about waves in this weather, but I guess not.

We went to the Gilgai Tavern for lunch, mainly because it seemed to be the only mid range eatery in town that was not a Fried Counter. A Fried Counter is an Australian eatery devoted entirely to deep fried things, of various makes, colors, and freshness levels. They are almost exclusively take out joints staffed by powerful looking middle aged women. They cater to an optimistic idea of good, picnic supporting weather, which we obviously did not have, and eating deep fried and soggy fish in the car didn't appeal to us much. So off to The Pub we went.

The pub was totally characterless in the way of many such Australian ventures, but at least the counter lady was nice and the menu featured a dizzying array of non-deep fried items. I ordered an entirely respectable flat white coffee and watched a violent American movie on the screen in front of me. I then consumed an entirely respectable grilled grouper, served with an equally respectable salad. Everything at the pub was entirely respectable. This couldn't be where those kids in the group had partied last night, could it have been? (There is another pub in Kalbarri which attempts to look rough and ready and outback-tough, or at least more so then this joint. That must have been the place).


After lunch, we went to the visitor's center. This was partially a hopeful but obviously doomed attempt to see if any sort of tour or touristic enterprise was running (the rain HAD reduced itself to a mere chilly drizzle). I also had decided that I needed a cuddly plush whale shark in my life, and the visitor's center just so happened to sell them. "So are the sunset boat tours running this evening?" Lyn asked the counter woman. The boat ran up the lovely Murchison River Gorge in the limpid cool of the evening, and featured a full audio tour, plush seats, and most pleasantly, a licensed bar. We had tried to book the boat tour the night before, which wasn't running then either.. "They don't want to run it, in this weather," the man had said. "They took some folks out this morning on one of the charters. Insisted they could handle the waves. Ended up barfing all over the boat. Quite a horror, eh?" (Jocular Australian downplay of loathsome events = check).

"Oh, God, no, it's not running." the woman said. "There isn't much going in Kalbarri in bad weather, I'm afraid."
"We gathered," Lyn said.
"Have you tried the Rainbow Jungle?" she said, hopefully.
"Yes," Lyn said. "We sure have."
"Lots of neat looking parrots," I said, trying to be positive. "Wet parrots." I selected a particularly personable looking whale shark from the bin.
"Oh, well, then," the woman said. She rang up my whale shark. We retreated. We had successfully exhausted every single source of rainy day entertainment in Kalbarri. Point, set, match.

We headed back to the cottage, to read and consider the seashell art. There was so much seashell art. I am going to see it in my dreams. (Lyn is an art history major and seemed to find the art actively offensive, as if someone was kicking her in the shin whenever she looked at it. I mostly just found it *hilarious*.)


SHRIMP EYEBALLS

Dinner was at the Black Rock Cafe again. This was because the other upscale restaurant in town was closed, and the other options included aforementioned fry counters, the Hotel Pub (now teeming with randy construction workers at this hour) and something forbiddingly called Finlay's Fish BBQ. The choice was easy.



The restaurant was even more packed then the night before, as Kalbarri's entire holiday population seems to have come to same conclusion we had. I chose the local tiger prawns with scallops and mashed potatoes in a butter sauce. Extremely good, and the seafood was obviously freshly caught and local - the intense taste of Aussie prawns is something well worth experiencing. I also enjoyed the roe on scallops. Why aren't those more common in the states?



Lyn chose the grilled snapper with mash and veg. She said it was good, although a tad overcooked. This seem to be common affliction in Australian restaurants.

An Asian man wearing a windbreaker wandered by the restaurant windows a few times. He was soaked, cheerful looking, and eating a sandwich, and he waved when he saw Lyn. "Do you know that guy?" I asked her.

"I've seen him around everywhere today," she said, waving back. That must have been one wet sandwich.



We shared an excellent fruit salad with ice cream, then headed out into the night and back to our cottage again.

Australian Road Trip! The Pinnacles, Cervantes, Stromatolites, ADVENTURE

I always thought of Australia as America's reversed counterpart. We share so much: British heritage, love of bland deep fried food, oppression of native peoples, a deep stock-raising tradition, a curious affection for ridiculous hats. But I think that Australians and Americans share their deepest cultural affinity in the matter of space. Both Australia and the USA are new countries, new countries that had an inordinate amount of space, space that could be settled, tamed, and made profitable by immigrants with the right mixture of gumption and foolhardiness. America had its manifest destiny and Australia had the same: the image of a dry, sparse, and, uh, inadequately inhabited land that might be made verdant, beautiful, and vaguely British, just enough to keep you comfortable. We have cowboy movies, Aussies have Jackeroo movies. And Australians love to road trip just as much as we Americans do, have elevated the road-trip to a bona-fide icon.

Of course, an Australian road trip is often a more serious pursuit then its American counterpart. Even in darkest Nebraska, drivers can usually find water, semi-edible food, and a place to sleep blissfully free of wildlife that will kill you. This is absolutely not the case in Australia's Red Center, in the very middle of the real-deal Outback. Out there, you bring along your water, you bring along your food, and you watch out very carefully for the world's most dangerous and aggressive snakes. Let's not even get into the crocodiles. You don't take fun-loving dips in waterholes in Australia's northern regions, unless you are keen on being eaten. There are various entertaining accounts of such attacks, if you're interested. (EVERYONE IS).

My Aunt Lyn decided, on this particular Australian road trip, to take me through northern Western Australia. Due to the down under nature of Australia (shocker!) going north means you're heading into the warmth, and away from the surprising chill of Perth in winter time. Furthermore, the North has that wild untouched antediluvian wilderness thing going on, and that's something me and most of my family members find impossible to resist. Opportunities for unabashed and abundant science geekery aplenty, in other words. To get a sense of the extent of this, stromatolite viewing was one of the major highlights of our itinerary. We'd spend the first night in the little town of Cervantes, about four hours or north of Perth on the Batavia Coast, then spend the next two nights in Kalbarri, about five hours north of there. En route, we'd go to the eery Pinnacles desert, pass through the port town of Geraldtown, ogle a pink lake, and finally end up at Kalbarri National Park, one of the major scenic wonders of WA. Not a bad deal all around.



We started reasonably early on Tuesday morning, and bundled all of our stuff into the car, including a very optimistic full picnicking set. The weather in Perth was cloudy and cool, and we made good time out of the city - Lyn was happy she managed not to get lost, like the last time she attempted this whole "going north" business. I appluad her. There was nothing really resembling traffic. What Perhians consider deadly and totally unbelievable traffic, most Americans consider "Sunday afternoon." Wusses.

The road outside Perth passes through the Swan River Valley and quickly descends into that grey, bushy, and slightly weird landscape affectionately referred to as "scrub." It's a landscape that's host to most of the iconic Aussies beasties, including grey kangaroos, kookaburras (in wet places), wallabys, emus, and even the occasional dingo. If you can tell dingos from standard issue dogs, you're a hell of a lot cleverer then me. There is also a whole lot of nothing, a totally inordinate amount of nothing - definitely approaching or exceeding Nebraska levels of nada, which is impressive about two hours out of a huge metropolitan area. Road signs helpfully inform you how far it is to the next patch of something approximating civilization, and warn you in pleading tones to FOR GOD'S SAKE GET WATER AND GAS YOU'LL REGRET IT IF YOU DON'T. Dingos eating babies, attacks by emus, you can imagine the possible ramifications.

We stopped for lunch at a totally authentic Australian roadhouse, which meant that it was 1. elderly and constructed mostly of tin siding, 2. had bathrooms marked for "Sheilas", 3. had an outside exhibit of depressive looking parrots, and 4. had a menu that revolved entirely around fried meat pies and beer. Lyn decided to take an extreme risk and ordered a roast beef sandwich, which looked as it had actually been vomited upon by the proprietor and tasted like all of Australia's erstwhile culinary sins condensed into a single packet of evil. Should have chosen the fried thing with a side of fried with fried crumblies on top.

I stuck with pumpkin soup, which was perfectly acceptable. Australian pumpkin soup is always perfectly acceptable. That and Violet Crumble will never, ever, let you down.

We forged onwards into the Cervantes area. Dead kangaroos began to appear by the side of the road. Apparently the carnage only increases the further north you go. Are northern kangaroos inherently more suicidal? Do truck drivers use them for target practice as a way of desperately alleviating the incredible boredom of driving through millions of miles of scrub scrub scrub. Fuck if I know. My paleontologist, dead-things obsessed cousin would be absolutely thrilled and would drag them all home to her den for cleaning, articulation, and adoration. I'm sorry we can't ship you a really nice carcass, Laura.



Just prior to Cervantes, we turned off to Lake Thetis, to indulge a very particular and long term nerd fantasy of mine. The salty and unimpressive looking Lake Thetis happens to harbor an, um, vibrant community of stromatolites and thrombolites, which are the planet's most elderly "living fossils." Stromatolites have soldiered on virtually unchanged since the very dawn of life, and exist only in a few rare and remote places. Western Australia features the largest concentration of them on the planet, and they occur in remarkable numbers in Hamelin Pool in the Shark Bay region, further up the coast. Our Stromatolite Friends are created by the conglomeration of cyanobacteria. Stromatolites are formed as this bacteria deposits deposit calcium on the lake bed, which glues cement into the rock-like structures we view today. "Blister mats" of cyanobacteria also form around the lake's rim, and these nascent stromatolites are very delicate. Don't poke them. Dark regions on a stromatolite indicate where bacteria is alive and laying down sediment. Thrombolites differ from stromatolites in that they clot sediment instead of layering it. This is extremely useful information at cocktail parties, let me tell you.



Stromatolites don't do a hell of a lot. In fact, they resemble cow patties to a truly remarkable extent. The thrill in viewing stromatolites really lies in the symbolism of the thing. Organisms that looked exactly like them were around right after the "primordial soup" stage of life on this planet. The fact that we can view them, unchanged and living today, is truly remarkable, and is extremely pleasing on a quite deep seated level. The stromatolite and thromatolites at Lake Thetis are around 3,000 years old, which is not superlatively elderly by stromatolite standards, but is deeply impressive for everything else living. The lake was cut off from the very nearby Indian Ocean a while back in time and has merrily created its own chemical environment, one that makes stromatolites very happy indeed. There are plenty of them: a boardwalk has been conveniently set up for your viewing pleasure, and this handily facilitates deeply introspective walking-and-thinking about the Origins of Life.

I would not recommend a special stromatolite trip to the action inclined.

Finally, we got to Cervantes. Cervantes is about as small as small towns get, which translates into a couple of roads, a few wind-worn and perfunctory houses, a single general store, and the inevitable pub. Also, a golf course and an RV (excuse me, caravan park. There is always a golf course and a caravan park in Australia. The country is presumably populated almost entirely by golf loving caravan dwellers who enjoy fried pies with gravy and horrible techno music. Bless their little cotton socks, every one of them. Cervantes was founded in the 1960's as a crawfishing settlement and was apparently even rougher now then it was back then, consisting mostly of shacks populated by sunburned and smelly men and a single general store with a focus on beer. It's come up in the world now since, of course. Will totally turn into a tourist mecca once the big mine comes in, or once the crawfishing industry becomes ultra glamorous via some magical alteration of the universe as we know it.

Our guesthouse was run by a chilled out looking man with a beard and glasses, who regarded our appearance with vague interest. Lyn had in fact chosen the guesthouse because of his website: at the bottom of his perfectly normal looking personal site, there was a small disclaimer. The disclaimer explained that the owner had experienced a considerable number of extaterrestial viewings and experiences in the region, and that guests who might be unnerved by such phenomena might find it wisest to stay elsewhere.

We asked him about a good place to get a local spiny lobster, which I was eager to try. "I used to love them," he said, with a bit of a reisgned sigh, "back before I started my raw diet. But try this place." He handed us a voucher for a low price on a special seafood dinner, put on by the Country Club.

The room was extremely pleasant and had a nice view of the sea and the scrub-lands that led up to it. There were a profusion of paranormal themed magazines in the room, discussing such topics as the mafia's secret takeover of Australia, uranium enrichment on the moon, and the usual assortment of anal-probing experiences and Things My Dead Mum Told Me. I discovered that New Zealand produces its very own, very thick conspiracy theory and paranormal themed magazine, which is impressive for a remarkably tiny country. Lyn posits that Kiwis just go funny out there in their incredibly beautiful and incredibly isolated country: this may indeed be the case.



Then, it was time for the Pinnacles. Ah, the Pinnacles. Haven't heard of them? Color me unsurprised. These geological oddities happen to be out in the bona-fide Middle of Nowhere, which probably has saved them from being coated with graffiti. The limestone formations occur in staggering numbers in this small, sandy expanse, and range in size from big guys as tall as myself to little squirts about as high as my ankle. No one is entirely sure how the Pinnacles happened, and there are three primary theories on the matter. Allow me to a bit of a hussy and quote Wikipedia:



" 1. The Pinnacles were formed from lime leaching from the aeolian sand (wind-blown sand) and by rain cementing the lower levels of the dune into a soft limestone. Vegetation forms an acidic layer of soil and humus. A hard cap of calcrete develops above the softer limestone. Cracks in the calcrete are exploited by plant roots. The softer limestone continues to dissolve and quartz sand fills the channels that form. Vegetation dies and winds blow away the sand covering the eroded limestone, thus revealing the Pinnacles.


(yes they look like dongs let's just get that out of the way)

2. The Pinnacles were formed through the preservation of casts of trees buried in coastal aeolianites where roots became groundwater conduits, resulting in precipitation of indurated (hard) calcrete. Subsequent wind erosion of the aeolianite would then expose the calcrete pillars.[1]

3. On the basis of the mechanism of formation of smaller “root casts” occurring in other parts of the world, it has been proposed that plants played an active role in the creation of the Pinnacles, rather than the rather passive role detailed in 1 and 2 above. The proposal is that as transpiration draws water through the soil to the roots, nutrients and other dissolved minerals flow toward the root. This process is termed "mass-flow" and can result in the accumulation of nutrients at the surface of the root, if the nutrients arrive in quantities greater than needed for plant growth. In coastal aeolian sands which have large amounts of Ca (derived from marine shells) the movement of water to the roots would drive the flow of Ca to the root surface. This Ca accumulates at high concentrations around the roots and over time is converted into a calcrete. When the roots die, the space occupied by the root is subsequently also filled with a carbonate material derived from the Ca in the former tissue of the roots and possibly also from water leaching through the structures. Although evidence has been provided for this mechanism in the formation of root casts in South Africa, evidence is still required for its role in the formation of the Pinnacles.[2]"

Now that that's all entirely clear!


Oh, those crazy tourists.

The Pinnacles are officially part of Nambung National Park, and a surprisingly excellent interpretative museum has been set up at the site. You're allowed to take your car out among the Pinnacles - I don't know what happens if you hit one - so we did that after we took a long and contemplative walk around the center. It's a truly bizarre landscape, and I imagine goes quite quickly from whimsical to downright eery at night. I understand why UFO enthusiasts might choose to settle down here: it is entirely easy to imagine alien beings feeling perfectly at home around here.



The Aboriginal people of the area naturally have an origin myth about the formations. Supposedly, young men were repeatedly warned not to go out to the sandy expanse outside the village and did so anyway. They were sucked into the sand and promptly calcified, and their fingers make up the Pinnacles. Must have been big fingers. But regardless. I can see why the locals would be less then chuffed about staying here at night. They doubtless all turn into looming figures when the lights go low.



The area surrounding the Pinnacles was first recorded by European in 1658, but there is, oddly enough, little mention of the Pinnacles themselves. The formations seem to appear and reappear in explorer's accounts from that time onward, leading some to speculate that they have been covered and revealed by the shifting sands multiple times in history.



A detail of a rock, primarily taken for the geology types. I have no idea what I'm looking at but I dearly hope you find it totally thrilling.



There's a lot of wildlife in the PInnacles, despite the remarkably unfriendly appearance of its surroundings. We spotted grey kangaroos, brown kestrels, and incredibly large and unnerving wild emus. We spotted this particular emu silhouetted dramatically on a hill on the way out of the park, and were pleased to discover he had the kids with him - a bunch of little emulets stalking about. Male emus watch after the young, presumably allowing the female to wildcat around. I am not entirely sure how an emu parties but it probably involves a lot of deep-throated thrumming. And blue stuff. Emu babes go wild for blue stuff (as I discovered while wearing my blue coat at the wildlife park).



We headed out to the beach with a bottle of wine to engage in the requisite Sipping Wine and Watching the Sun Go Down activity. The beach was incredibly lovely, if a bit chilly. This was also the first time I'd really been on a bona-fide beach in quite a long time, and it turned out I had entirely forgotten how sand works, ie, that if one buries your wine glass in aforementioned sand then removes it really quickly and forcefully, it gets all over you. I had also forgotten the whole "don't track sand onto the beach towel, you damned idiot" clause. There were, as always, a couple of healthy looking European tourists taking a doubtlessly fiber rich dinner in their RV in the parking lot above us, but otherwise? Not a soul around. Rural Australia is bloody fantastic for the antisocial.



This is self explanatory I think.

The restaurant turned out to be the local community center, and was in fact housed in a room that could be easily and snappily converted into a basketball stadium and bingo parlor at short notice. Everyone else in the place was eligible for AARP and wearing baseball hats, and had that sun beaten and exceedingly skin cancery look that old timer Australians always have. (There are skin cancer clinics in completely unnerving quantities all over Perth. As an Aboriginal guy said in a video at the art museum, "Why did the English people stay? They just get skin cancer all the goddamn time! All over the place!" Well, yes. Australia and its paler residents are indeed hotbeds of vibrant melanoma. God help them). Lyn and I were both just a teeny tiny bit inebriated (just like everyone else in the surrounding area insofar as I could tell), but I refrained from having another class of wine, though Lyn partook.



The seafood platter, to our surprise, was really well executed. The primordial-insect looking spiny lobster was sauteed with butter and spices and had a lovely, delicate flavor, which was brought out by the veg. Lyn has a tragic allergy to shellfish that turn pink when cooked so I had it all to myself, and I derived considerable carnivorous pleasure from going eye-to-eye with my supper.




Look at the picture. The poor little sucker is beseeching me. Too late, friend. Too late. The fried roe-on scallops were nice little bites, and although the fish was a spot overcooked, the batter was crispy and had a good, rich flavor. The salad bar was completely randomly set-up but was quite good as well: beet salad, Greek salad with real actual feta cheese, corn and pepper salad, and Caesar salad with inexplicable but completely addictive deep fried croutons. No one else in the room had in fact ordered anything other then the Special Seafood Platter. We messily devoured it and repaired to our room. No aliens visited me in the night with probes and malicious intent.


I was a bit disappointed.

The Perth Zoo and Awesome Laksa

Australia has weird animals. This may seem blindingly obvious, but their weirdness is really quite interesting on a biological level. Australia's long term isolation and the curious dominance of marsupials means that its critters move, behave, and look very different from most of their foreign counterparts. Australian animals entertainingly and creatively fit the niches that animals like deer, pumas, squirrels, and foxes fill in other regions, swapping out different traits and means of locomotion for others as they see fit. As an amateur evolutionary biologist, I totally plotz when I get to see Australian animals in the flesh.

Australian zoos are especially fabulous because they can (obviously) acquire creatures that just aren't exported to American collections. Tasmanian devils, numbats, bilbys, potoroos, frogmouths and other oddities are common enough in Aussie collections and extreme rarities elsewhere. Naturally, visiting the Perth Zoo was high on my priority list, and it luckily didn't disappoint. It's a small but extremely well cared for and laid-out collection, with impressive landscaping and plenty of room for the inmates to roam. The nocturnal exhibit is especially good - a great chance to view a lot of Australia's native mammals in their natural, darkness loving state. And haven't you always secretly wanted to see a bilby? Come on, don't lie to me. I can see it in your eyes.


The Jabiru, Australia's iconic wading bird. This one was having an exchange of opinions with the small kingfisher nearby, which got all fluffed up, stabbed at the bigger bird, and made pissed off AWK AWK sounds. The whole thing pleased me more then I can say.



Blue tongues are fairly ubiquitous in Australia, and are regarded with some affection by most locals. They're affable, fat little guys who often sneak into homes through dog doors and steal the family pet's food. They also lay waste to garden snails and other backyard pests, rendering them very popular as backyard pets. They don't do a hell of a lot. As in, nothing whatsoever. Their toungues really are electric blue, in case you ever got the urge to french kiss one.



Frilled lizards are fantastic creatures, and I didn't really know just how much so until I saw one in the flesh. The keeper was flipping the little blighter crickets, which the lizard ran about partially on two legs in a hilarious shambling motion to get at. He half-heartedly put up his frill when poked gently but obviously was not feeling threatened enough. They're incredibly endearing and surprisingly intelligent looking animals - sort of like scaly little bulldogs.




This is a fairy penguin, WA's native penguin. They're very common at Penguin Island, near Rockingham, and can be fed and ogled by tourists who take the ferry over. I'm fairly indifferent to penguins but these are scruffy and cute little buggers. They float on the surface of the water and only rarely dive, so don't expect astonishing underwater acrobatics from them. They mostly stand around on land and look discontent during the day, which is nothing if not cute.



This is a Bush Stone Curlew, and it is nesting, and it is profoundly apprehensive. I always wondered why birds in zoos don't become totally accustomed to having people staring at them all the time. This could be related to the fact that they're birds.


Here's more on the mighty Bush Stone Curlew. The picture of one freezing into a bizarre position because HOLY CRAP DANGER is very, very amusing.





Grey kangaroos sunbathe in a fashion remarkably similar to our own. Down to shifting around and grunting when the sun moves. I feel you, man. I feel you. At the zoo, the kangaroos are allowed to wander around and follow their hearts vis a vis interacting with tourists. Since you can't feed them here, they ignore you completely. Kangaroos are capitalists too.

I looked for the adorable and striped numbat in the impressively leafy numbat exhibit, but couldn't find it (shocker). The numbat is one of West Australia's native marsupial predators and is also among its most endangered, having been pushed out of its habitat by invading species, primarily foxes and cats. The Zoo participates in the enormous Western Shield program, an ambitious attempt to protect native species and eradicate interlopers throughout the west coast. They conduct fun events like annual toad drives, wherin you can stomp on (horrifyingly large) cane toads in the name of conservation. I want to do this very badly. In fact, it seems like about a third of the exhibits at the Perth Zoo have a sign discussing the evil and duplicitous ways of cane toads, in case you didn't get the point at the other 35. This is actually not excess, though - a little research on the cane toad reveals these South American aliens really ARE that bad.



This is obviously a crocodile. However, crocodiles are goddamn terrifying. It is hard to express how true this is, especially if you've never seen one of these primitive horrors in the flesh. It sort of makes you question religion. And maybe the nature of creation. Maybe the universe is actually a hostile and cruel place that is actively out to get us and devour us and make our lives deeply unpleasant, maybe end them quickly and horrifyingly in a splash of blood, gore, and violence.

After the zoo, I ambled over to the waterfront at South Perth, which boasts a large number of extremely expensive cafes full of people with the benefit of expense accounts. Not being among their numbers, I trekked around and found Munch Delight, a lovely Singapore-Malyasia cafe in a small shopping center. Superb. Even more pleasingly, it was very reasonably priced, akin to finding a magical Unicorn in Perth's panoply of ridiculously expensive restaurants.



A big bowl of seafood laksa, and very well executed indeed. I loved the rich, extremely pungent flavor of the seafood in tandem with the chili and the coconut milk. It's definitely strong stuff so should be avoided by those who don't free base fish sauce (like me). A winner.



I also horked down a plate of sauteed greens with garlic sauce, which is simple, sorta healthy, and among my favorite things to eat in the world. These were super rich, generously served, and had a lovely topping of crisp garlic. Aces.

Caversham Park: Kangaroos, Barramundi Wings, Horrifying Emus

The sign into Caversham Park. Yeah, I know. It's perfect. Sort of disgusting how much so.

Humans have a weird affinity for fondling wildlife. It may be fuzzy and adorable or scaly and horrific, but whatever it is, we want to poke at it. I suspect this is an extension of a childhood desire to poke at things with a stick to see what will happen - to touch an animal is to truly experience it, and to some extent, master it. We have poked it and has not bitten our hand off, injected us with venom, or pissed in our eye. The unknowable has become knowable.

Petting wildlife also provides Japanese tourists with endless, endless amusement.

Caversham Park is a privately owned wildlife park situated about twenty minutes outside Perth, just out enough in the bush to be comfortable, and close to the Swan River wine region. The park features a very impressive selection of native animals, grouped by their native regions in the Australian continent, and housed in nice and well kept-up enclosures. (Nothing is more depressing then a poorly maintained zoo, let me tell you). We're talking Tasmanian devils, horrifying emus, dingos, cassowaries, wombats, numbats, crocodile,s and a profusion of other beasties on display and for your amused perusual. There's a huge kangaroo paddock featuring a mess of kangaroos for the petting and fondling of admiring tourists. And there's koalas. A huge quantity of them, feeding on ecualyptus like brown, fuzzy, and obese parasites. Excuse me, "drop bears."


Not a koala but instead a kangaroo giving me the "Whassup man, pass the chocolate nachos and the bowl" sort of stare. I doubtless met this guy at a Tulane college party in a former life, holding a beer-bong and wearing an ironic dinosaur t-shirt. That guy.

Disclaimer: Folks, koalas don't do shit. They are like pandas: complete and utter failures at the basic act of existing. Their chosen diet of ecualyptus is so nutritionally unsound that they literally have the energy to do nothing but eat or sleep all day long. Why are people so bizarrely obsessed with the damn things? Is it because they resemble teddy bears? I hated teddy bears when I was little. I favored plush sea life, preferably with claws and beaks and a delicious flavor when sauteed in butter and shallot. Screw koalas. I hate them. Bet they don't even taste good.

Maybe I need therapy.


The park has a couple of Tasmanian Devils, one of which was this geriatric but well cared for specimen. This guy appears to be roughly 90 by Tasmanian devil standards and regarded us with the sort of stare one directs at kids you wish would pipe down, put away their Playstation thingamugs and let a tired old man sleep. We duly left. As a side note, Tasmanian devils have gigantic heads and jaws, and can doubtless bite the shit out of you when not incredibly aged. In case you encounter one out back sometime soon.


The Kookaburra is one of Australia's animal emblems, and for good reason. They make a distinctive, insane sounding laughing call, and they are absolutely adorable, with little feathered bodies perched on top of small and grasping feet. This lovely specimen was displeased with our presence and kept on making disgruntled "SQAWW" noises at us to register its discomfort and embarrassment. Scuse' me, small wetland bird.


Barn owls do live in Australia, although they are not particularly exotic. What they are is hilarious, especially in large numbers. I just have visions of these owls peering through the window at some unfortunate person showering, and visions of their horrified, wide-open eyes. The owls disapprove of you, sir. The owls are terribly disappointed.


Emus. These were agitated by my electric blue coat, and persisted in strutting around angrily and making throaty "thrum" noises at us. It is hard to express how profoundly unnerving this experience was, sort of the closest thing we humans can experience to being menaced by hairy and extremely stupid dinosaurs. I would probably piss myself if I came across one in the wild. We should eat them all.


The park puts on a Wombat and Friends exhibit, which basically entails a hefty park ranger hauling an equally hefty and profoundly laid-back wombat out onto a platform for the pleasure and edification of the public. The public in this case was a profusion of Japanese tourists, who squealed KAWAII NE over and over while shooting hundreds upon hundreds of photos of themselves con wombat. The wombat didn't care. I am not sure anything short of a nuclear attack could faze this wombat. As a friend of mine remarked on Facebook after viewing this photo, "I can picture him chilling on the couch smoking a bowl, trying to forget his social awkwardness and anxiety when dealing with strangers- but being adorable while he does it: "Man, you wouldn't believe work today- pass the Cheetos." This is, I think, accurate.

There was also a local possums out for the petting, which was a hell of a lot cuter and more charismatic then our reptilian American possums. They're really not closely related, other then their both being marsupials.


Then it was time for the Highlight of Caversham, which is, of course, up close and personal interface and interview with kangaroos. Which was, I must admit, pretty awesome. Kangaroos are pretty charming beasts and when properly socialized, are very good with people, who will good-naturedly shake you down for food and scratches under the chin. Sort of makes you wonder why they're not commonly kept as pets. The answer will be revealed by a cursory search for Youtube videos of kangaroo attacks. Male reds can get up to 6'6 tall on their hind legs and can kick hard enough to disembowel. Gracious. (Video of a kangaroo kicking the stuffing out of a guy in a stupid costume on a children's show. Life sustaining footage, really).



This guy was getting up in my bidness. They have a way of putting their weirdly human hands on your own hands to make damn sure you don't move away your roo kibble holding hands until they're finished. Kangaroo got your number, punkass.


D'aww. I think they're pretty cute. I like things with long noses. Former rough collie owner.


SUSPICIOUS KANGAROO
IS SUSPICIOUS



For lunch, we headed a little ways outside the park to the Feral Brewery, an artisian, well, brewery that just happens to have really fantastic food and a surprisingly daring menu. I didn't try the beer as I have not yet been able to talk myself into liking it (Yes, I know, and shut up), but my aunt and my cousin are very fond of their stuff, and it has won all manner of awards. I cut my losses and ordered a tasty and crisp glass of their house-made Chenin Blanc instead. We sat outside on the patio and enjoyed the uncharacteristically balmy winter weather.


My aunt decided to hedge her bets with small bites. These are polenta cubes with pear salad and blue "vein" sauce. Very elegant little bites, and the combination of blue cheese and rich, eggy corn was impressive.


These puff pastry chicken parcels were also excellent. Buttery and light pastry, and a tasty, slightly curry like filling. Would be great served on crystal at a fancy party. These guys obviously missed some sort of memo vis a vis "crappy brewpub food". For shame.


I ordered the barramundi "wings," which turned out to be equivalent to hamachi kama, or fish necks. I am a total freak for hamachi kama and thus went absolutely nuts for these. Lots of sweet, delicious barramundi meat and plenty of little bones to negotiate, served with a lovely lemon aioli dipping sauce. I ordered a side of their lentil dahl, which was also flavorful (although could have been more spicy) and very tasty indeed. What an excellent lunch.

We "toddled" down the road (Aussies love saying that, don't ask me okay) to Lancaster Wines, which has a nice outdoor tasting booth and a large selection of fine boozes for the sampling. The exceedingly friendly British guy manning the table proceeded to drink us up with everything he had on offer - standouts included a fruit-forward Chenin Blanc and a seriously good fortified "Sticky" shiraz. Well worth a visit.