Bart Bear's Blog

This is one cute lighthouse. It is on one of the Low Isles, near Port Douglas, and is the main lighthouse for boats coming back from trips out to the Barrier Reef. The Low Isles are a pair of very different islands. The small one is nice and sandy and the bigger one is yucky and swampy. Naturally, the lighthouse is on the smaller one. We went out for a day trip on one of the Quicksilver boats in 2005, just before we did our Barrier Reef cruise with Captain Cook. I had fun that day. It had a bit of everything, a bus trip, a look at some cassawories, lots of different sorts of boats, a small train, a boat trip, a beaut beach to explore while the Oldies were off snorkelling, and enough people around to scare the crabs away. We walked all around the island, and had a good look at the lighthouse which is in the middle of the island. There is a nice path from the beach so not even small bears can get lost there (unless we want to). The only problem is that once I got away from the crowd on the beach I was back in crab territory. Fortunately there is a set of posts to climb and a chain joining them that I learnt to tight-rope walk on while the Oldies were busy taking photos (can you see me in this one). Crabs are not good tightrope walkers.
I love holidays. Only two more sleeps before we are off on our next one. My next post will be in a fortnight, with more pictures of my favourite thing, cruising Fiji with Captain Cook.

Labels: Barrier Reef, Cairns, Captain Cook, crabs, cruising, lighthouse, Queensland

Mum doesn't just have a thing about cows. She has a thing about pens as well. Honestly, she has at least 3 pens for every day of the year and just can't resist buying more. That makes it easy to get presents for her. Just go for jewellery or pens and you can't fail. Dad and I found this fantastic pen shop when we were down in Melbourne. It had all sorts of pens in it and we got a special one as Mum's trip present for our Fiji trip next week (that's a sneaky way to get her to write up the trip log). I wanted to get her this one that was on the wall outside the shop. It is so big that I could ride behind the nib while it was being used and play with the ink. But it wasn't for sale. I guess that it saves me from lots of baths, but it would have been fun. The one we bought for Mum is a lot smaller.

Labels: Melbourne, Victoria

Only 7 more sleeps to go and then I am off, back to my favouritest place. Scruffy and I are already packed and ready. We are heading back to Fiji and my friend Captain Cook's boat, the "Reef Escape", or "Dro ki Cakau" as it's called in Fijian. Back to days of visiting different islands and villages and lazing around on the boat while the oldies snorkel and scare the fish. Seeing our boat anchored offshore in the fading evening light, waiting for us to come back from an island feast. Having fun with the crew, some of the happiest and friendliest people on the planet. I am getting excited and can't wait for this next week to pass. If any of you are going to be on this trip, come and say "G'day" to us.

Labels: boats, Captain Cook, cruising, Fiji

You can always cause an energetic debate at our place by talking about your favourite aircraft. For instance, Mum likes modern, fast, noisy jet planes while Dad likes the old, slow propellor ones, preferably with more than one wing and lots of wire. I like all sorts. If Mum has to admit to liking any propellor type, she goes for this one, the Boeing B-17 Fortress. I think it is because she likes old war movies and the Yanks always make a big thing out of their B-17s. Dad won't have it. He points out that the British planes of the same period were much superior. The Lancaster carried a bigger load, further, and the Mosquito (at half the size and with less than a quarter the crew of the B-17) flew faster, higher and further with around the same load. I notice that doesn't stop him building models of the B-17 though. We have 5 different versions of it on our model shelves, but then we do have 7 different marks of Mosquito. Anyhow, on their big trip last year Mum got to see B-17s in the aviation museums at Duxford and Hendon. This one is at Duxford and is painted to represent a famous B-17 called "Memphis Belle". Mum was so excited by being able to get close to it that she kept getting between Dad's camera and the plane, so most of his photos of it have a bit of Mum's head in them as well.

Labels: aircraft, England

Last Thursday the Canberra Astronomical Society had its annual dinner. Some of the members dress up special for the dinner and, you guessed it, Mum and Dad always do. This year they resurrected Sheik Rattlenroll and Nefferonnasunday. Here we are, all ready to go. Mum always takes a photo on these occasions as it is the only time she can get Dad to be (ever so slightly) serious. Dad was a bit worried that they might be mistaken for terrorists when they turned up at the club where the dinner was being held, but I guess that most terrorists don't have a small bear with them, so we had no trouble at all.

Labels: Canberra, family

So where did I get that football? Well, Mum always has to go to the observation deck of the tallest building in any place we visit. Dad is a fraidy-cat when it comes to heights, but he always comes along. There is a new building in Melbourne, the Eureka Tower, that lets you get about ten floors higher than the previous "tallest", so of course we went there. You can see a picture of the tower on my ticket (concession for me). All the way around the observation deck they have these cool viewing tubes that centre on buildings and things of interest. They are beaut things for small bears to climb on. The problem is that the metal is slippery and it is very difficult to hang on and see through the tube at the same time. Dad to the rescue. Here we are looking out towards the sporting heart of Melbourne. The big round building is the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the MCG). Between it and the river is the Rod Laver Arena, home of tennis, where the Michael Bubble concert was. They don't only play cricket at the MCG. Back in 1858 they invented the rules for Aussie Rules football there and played the first games in 1859. So the MCG is the birthplace of Australian Football (not to be confused with either type of Rugby, soccer, or the American version). Since I was next door to the MCG and looking into it, I just had to get a football. The Eureka tower shop sells ones that are just the right size for me. Now, when I get into practice I will try for a place in Unka Mark's favourite team, which he calls StKFC. I should be just as good with the footy as a team of chicken bits any day now.

(note from Dad: For those not up on their AFL teams, Bart is referring to St Kilda Football Club. I think he is in for a shock when he finds out).

Labels: Melbourne, Victoria

Do I look like a real cool bear, or what? This is what a shopping trip can do. My skates are adjusted to fit my legs because if I try to stand up on them I fall over. Small bears like me don't have knees and that makes balancing really hard, so I zoom around the place sitting down. The sunnies make me look real sharp. It is a pity that it is so cold here at present that the curtains are all closed to keep the heat in and that makes it so dark in places that I can't see obstructions through the sunnies. And what about the football? Well you will have to wait for the next post to hear about that.

Labels: Melbourne, Victoria

I found this great shop at Chadstone in Melbourne. It is the "Build-a-Bear Workshop". People can make their own bear there, but the great thing is that it is full of interesting things for small bears like me. Fortunately, the Oldies give me my own pocket-money (whenever they remember) so I was able to buy some things just for me. None of the clothes fitted me, but that just shows that Mum is right when she says that there is no other small bear like me anywhere in the whole world. But there was other stuff that I just had to have. The excitement of getting back to your hotel room with a bag of goodies that just has to be unpacked immediately! I have to climb up on the bag to make it topple before I can haul stuff out, but here it is. Roller skates, just my size; sunnies, just what I need for the Fiji trip; and something that Scruffy and I will need for partying in Fiji, but you will have to wait to see what that is. I like shopping almost as much as Mum does. I don't see what Dad has to grumble about, all he has to do is carry the bags for us.

Labels: Melbourne, Victoria

At last I got to see out of an aeroplane. Normally when we travel I am tucked away inside Dad's backpack in the overhead locker and the view from there is nothing to rave about. Well, last weekend we went down to Melbourne. Mum wanted to go to a concert by a guy called Michael Bubbly (or something like that) and Dad got dragged along as usual. When they booked the flights they found that they had enough frequent flyer points to go free in business class. Now the great thing about business class is that there is room to stretch and a gadget between seats that is just the right size to act as a seat for a small bear. I had my own seat all the way to Melbourne and back! And I was able to see out the window! There was lots of cloud but I could see the ground lots of the way. Clouds are fun. I thought you might hear a thump as you run into them, but it is just like they weren't there at all. Dad says that there are some dangerous clouds that can toss aeroplanes around, but I haven't met any of them yet. I hope that I can escape the locker more often when we fly. We are off to Fiji in a couple of weeks and I want to see what the ocean looks like from way up high.

Labels: aircraft, Melbourne, Victoria

This is a photo of the place that really was the highlight of the Oldies Big Trip last year. It is a set of two temples built by Pharoah Ramses II way up the Nile in the ancient land of Nubia (near the border with Sudan). They were carved out of a solid hill in the 13th century BCE. The big one with the huge seated statues (of Ramses, naturally) is the temple dedicated to the gods Amon-Ra and Ra-Horakhte. Actually, old Ramses ranked himself as a god as well. In the heart of the temple his statue is on the altar between the other two. The walls of the temple are covered with carvings and hieroglyphs telling the story of just how great Ramses was, in battle and in ruling Egypt. He really had a huge ego. One of the nice things about him, though, is that he included small statues of his children among the giant statues of himself. The other temple is not as big and is dedicated to his favourite wife, Nefetari, and the goddess Hathor. In the 1960s the temples were moved higher, into an artificial hill, because they would have been underwater when the Aswan High Dam filled. Mum had been wanting to visit this place ever since she was a little girl. Now she can't wait to go back again.
By the way, do you know why there aren't any Nile crocodiles in Egypt? Well, when the high dam was built the Egyptians rounded up all the crocodiles and tossed them over into the Sudanese side. Just thought you would like to know. Dad told me about it, and he wouldn't go for a swim here even though it was very, very hot, so it must be true.

Labels: Egypt

I like visiting Unka Mark and Aunty Vicki because they always have something interesting and fun happening. When I visited them last weekend, Unka Mark had just finished turning the back half of his garage into a small cinema. He got all the bits from that place E bay where my cousin Billy T came from. Unka Mark lets me fiddle with the controls. I like running the screen up and down and making the projector send the movie all blurry at the parts where the oldies are most interested. I know that Dad wouldn't let me get away with that so I make the most of it while Unka Mark and Aunty Vicki are the bosses. I have my own special place to watch from. It is on the projector stand, in front of the lounges where the oldies sit, where I can reach all of the buttons and keep the remote handy. So far I haven't seen any really interesting movies there. Mostly they are girly ones that Mum and Vicki like, or ones with lots of guns and car chases that Dad and Mark like. Hopefully some sense will eventually creep in and they will run movies about really interesting people, like my heroes Captain Cook and the Flash. Otherwise they are going to see lots of blurry bits when I am driving things.

Labels: Captain Cook, family, heroes

We've been making cupcakes. I love cupcakes, they are even better than cookies and cookies are great. My job is to help measure everything and stop the mixing spoons from dribbling delicious dribbles on things. That is best done by licking the spoons and dribbles clean while Mum is looking the other way. This batch of cupcakes was supposed to go to work with Mum, but something happened to them before she was able to pack them up. The picture might give you a hint why the number was way down on what she cooked. I have to point out that the pile of empty paper wrappers is due to Dad, not me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Labels: cookies

Guess what. Mum is teaching me to make my own jewellery. Maybe she figures that will stop me digging around in her jewellery drawer. A result of my Tiffany's heist maybe? Anyhow, here I am (in the top picture) surrounded by the essential tools of the trade, listening to Mum explain what to do. I have a collection of different sorts of beads, special wire and string, and at least three sorts of pliers and cutters. We have Dad around somewhere to do the tough bits like cutting hard wire, tightening up the crimps and doing the superglueing (we laugh a lot when things stick to his fingers instead of where they are supposed to). The bottom picture was taken a couple of hours later. You can see the spectacular bookmark we have made. And there a couple of special sparkly bits of dichroic glass ready for our next effort. This beading thing is lots of fun.
Why is the small bear different colours in the two photos? Well, the top one was taken with flash and the bottom one with no flash, just the light coming through the window. Bear fur looks different colours depending on the way light hits it, so I can be any sort of brownish colour, just check the other posts.

Labels: beads, craft