Friday, January 29, 2010

 

A Great Sunning Spot

Right at the top of One Tree Hill on Hamilton Island you will find this neat cairn of rocks. It is labelled "Porto del Sol", which probably means something like "Gate of the Sun" (small bears are not very good at Spanish so I don't know for sure). Anyhow, it makes a great place to soak up a bit of Sun. It has enough gaps between the rocks for small bears to get toe-holds and climb up to the top easily, and the top is not so slopey that you fall off. The Oldies spent a fair bit of time at One Tree because it is a great spot to watch boats of all sorts cruising the Whitsunday channels. I spent most of my time there either climbing trees or lazing away up on the cairn. I don't get sunburnt through my fur, but Mum says that I am getting faded. That doesn't worry me, because if my fur fades to white I will look like a Polar bear and surely then somebody will let me swim.

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He Got Too Close

Here's what happens if you don't keep a good lookout when you are at sea. This boat didn't and it ran aground on Rottnest Island. I am not sure just what ship it was, or when it was wrecked. There are lots of wrecks around Rottnest and I didn't take enough notes to help identify this one. It looks like the sort of place where the Oldies would like to snorkel, because fish use these old wrecks (the ships, not the Oldies) as places to live in.

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Another Strange Critter

If you have been wondering why there has not been a blog post for over a week, there is a simple answer. It's not that I dashed off to somewhere exciting with a great beach and no crabs. It's just that Mum has been talked into joining Facebook. Not by me, but by one of her friends at work. The result is that I can't get near the computer. If Mum isn't Facebooking, Dad is busy processing images or chasing esoteric aircraft information on Google. I need my own computer..... Oh yes, the peculiar newcomer. I think it is some sort of cow. It sort of looks like one, except that various bits are stuck on in the wrong places, and I haven't seen a real cow wearing Wellies. Maybe Mum's cow collection is heading off on a crazy tangent.

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

 

Sometimes Help Is Needed

Sometimes the Oldies race off and leave me in situations where I have to ask for outside help. This is a case in point. Our boat had just pulled in at Whitehaven Beach and all the people had raced ashore. Well, small bears have short legs and that makes it difficult to get down ladders like this one. I could have jumped from step to step, but there was a chance that I could have missed and fallen through the gaps. The gaps were right over the muckiest place where the waves were churning up the sand. I know what Mum would have done and said if I got all wet and mucky, so it looked like I was stranded. Fortunately, one of the boat crew saw the problem and helped me down. That's a great example of customer service.

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Help the Koalas

I have found a great way to help my wild relatives. At Port Macquarie in northern NSW there is a koala hospital. There are lots of koalas living in the forests around the town, and also lots that live in trees in the town. Lots of koalas are taken to the koala hospital for help after they have been hurt by cars, dogs or people. The koalas are nursed back to health and then released back into the wild. Before they are released they are microchipped so they can be identified if they have to come back to the hospital for more treatment any time. The hospital treatment costs a fair bit and koalas don't have any money, so you can help by adopting one of them and that will help pay their hospital bill. As soon as I found out about this, I started working on the Oldies to let me adopt a koala. After all, it only costs $40 a year and it helps keep the koala hospital going. Well, the Oldies thought it was a great idea and adopted three koalas, one for each of us. We could even choose which ones we wanted to adopt from their pictures on the hospital web pages. I was really happy when I opened the letter from the hospital people and found adoption certificates, the stories of each of our koalas, stickers and books. I hope our adoptees are doing fine back out in the forest, and keeping clear of anything that will land them back in hospital.
If you want to help too, you can read about the koala hospital and the "Adopt a Wild Koala" program on the web at http://www.koalahospital.org.au

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Friday, January 15, 2010

 

A My-size Fire Engine

Isn't this the cutest little fire truck you ever saw? It is part of the Hamilton Island fire brigade. They have a big pump truck, but there are parts of the island where only a small and tough one can go. This one is not much bigger than the golf buggies that do most of the usual carrying on Hamilton, but it has a lot more power and is a lot faster. Actually, you can see a golf buggy converted to a toolbox carrier parked next to the truck. We saw the truck zipping around the island lots of times, but I never got a chance to ride in it. Next time.

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Where's the Barbie

This fine-looking crew is obviously outfitted with a variety of aprons and ready to head to the barbeque. Well, it's not quite like that. The aprons were Christmas presents to Mum, Dad, Uncle Craig, Aunty Karen and me from Unka Patrick. We were at a pre-Christmas get-together at Unka Paddy and Uncle Grant's place. Lots of interesting food and drinks had been attended to and presents were swapped. Imagine the surprise when we all scored aprons. Not just ordinary ones, but ones with patterns that matched the person (or bear). Aunty Karen's has leaves and flowers, Uncle Craig's has racing cars, Dad's has aeroplanes, Mum's has bling (I bet you expected cows), and mine has paw-prints. Cousin Andrew didn't score an apron, he got boy things. Now to light up the barbie and throw a few (dozen) prawns and some snags on.

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

 

More Mum Cow Stuff

I guess by now you all know about this thing Mum has about cows. Everything with a cow on it becomes part of the household as soon as Mum sees it. Plates, cups, mugs, jugs; you name it, she's got it. These are her cow scoop things, a small sugar scoop and two bigger ice-cream scoops. I think the one that has the ice-cream heart and sunnies looks like a real cool cow. Actually, with a scoop for each hand, even a small bear could make a big hole in a container of ice-cream in a really short time.

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Swan Bells

This big glass tower is near the Barrack St wharf in Perf. It is a bell tower and has sixteen bells in it, one of the largest set of bells in the world. The tower is really just one big musical instrument, big enough to walk around inside. Twelve of the bells come from the church of St Martin in the Fields, in Trafalgar Square in London. They were given to Western Australia for the Australian Bicentenary in 1988. The tower is nearly 83 metres tall and you can go inside it to see the bells and find out how they are played. The bell room is high up in the tower and you get good views of Perf from there. Just about every time we were at the wharf the bells were ringing. They sound great, but I couldn't have a go at ringing them because my paws couldn't reach the controls.

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Thursday, January 07, 2010

 

Ready for Cricket

Aussie cricket selectors please note; I have the gear and am available for the next test. Santa left me my very own cricket bat and pads. I have studied the game on TV for years now and have been practicing using Mum's beads as balls. My arms are too short to be able to bowl like Mitch, Warnie or Pidge, but I can slog beads around like Punter, Gillie and Hados. All through last season when our guys were not doing so well, I thought that if only I had a chance I could help the team out. Well, I now have the equipment and the selectors are giving the younger guys a chance to fill the gaps left by the retirement of my heroes, so what about giving me a go??
And how about that last test match? After the first day I thought that we had had it. A bad call from our captain and the whole team bowled out for next to nothing. A big score from the Pakistanis and what seemed an impossible task for the Aussies to win, but the guys did it. I have just about made holes in the lounge with the excited jumping and bat-swinging. Cricket is never boring.

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Christmas Dinner

One of the fun things about Christmas is going out somewhere swish for Christmas dinner. This saves Mum from a lot of housework on a day when she should be able to enjoy other things, like small bears do. This year we were away from home, so we went to the fanciest place we could book into near where we were staying. Dinner had everything that we could possibly ask for. Dad goes for the ham, lamb and poultry. I think that he definitely has bear genes. Mum, of course, goes for the prawns. I think that she could totally deplete the world's prawn stocks if she was given a free go. This time I tried one and I have to say that I didn't like it much and can't see what all the fuss is about. You don't actually have much left to eat by the time you get the critter out of the shell and remove the yucky bits. And they look too much like crabs for me to feel comfortable near them. I will leave them to Mum and stick to the chocolate and champagne.

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Sunday, January 03, 2010

 

New Friends

Meet two of my special friends. The lady is Stacey. She works with Mum. I like it when I can go to work with Mum because Stacey makes a big fuss about me and treats me in the manner that small bears should be. She is getting married soon.
The bloke is Nathan. He shares a house with bro Trent and their doglet, Slinky. I like him because he has more time for small bears than lots of blokes do.
I just might make these two honourary Aunty and Uncle.

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Santa Came Good Again!!!!

No doubt about Santa, he always does the right thing for small bears, even if we do get into some mischief during the year. I was really worried that he might forget about me because I wasn't at home for Christmas. Mind you, I liked the week we were away at the coast, but there was this niggly worry that Santa hadn't dropped a quad bike for me down there and might have missed dropping it at home as well. No problem. As soon as we got back I raced over to where I had left my stocking hanging and there was this big parcel waiting. Now I know some people take great care unwrapping presents, but I'm not one of them. In double quick time the paper was off and there it was - a bear-sized quad bike. What a beauty. Not just a bike, but a launcher thingy that shoots it off at high speed as well. I have had some great runs on it already and I guess that this year the Oldies will have to watch where they put their big feet to avoid the small bear zooming around the floor. Thank you Santa.

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