Bart Bear's Blog

It's hard to believe, but I have been with the Oldies for 15 years now. In that time I have seen lots of the world with them and traveled on lots of boats, planes and trains and have shown you lots of my favourite places via this blog. For a small bear, 15 is a significant milestone, so my birthday celebrations lasted for 3 weekends. They started 3 weekends ago at my favourite winery, Brindabella Hills. It was just after Aunty Enid's birthday (I won't tell how old she is, but it is a lot more than 15) so we had a joint celebration. The thing I love about Brindabella Hills, apart from the magnificent wine and food, is the view along the Murrumbidgee valley. The new owners are clearing a lot of the scrub and the view is superb. The next weekend the Oldies took me for High Tea at the Burberry Hotel. Here the view was over the government buildings in central Canberra. I like the tasty nibbles that come with High Tea and of course good Champagne really makes it special. Then last weekend we joined Big Bros Trent and Nathan for lunch at a new winery they had "discovered". It is called Contentious Character and is on the other side of Canberra to Brindabella Hills. The view here is open woodland and acres of vines. The food is good and the wines are also. Canberra has many wineries surrounding it. Some are good, some are just so-so, but Brindabella Hills and Contentious Character are truly worth the visit - and they both take good care of visiting small bears with a taste for the product of the vines.

Labels: Canberra, family

Here are two of the most embarrassing moments of my stay in Perth. In the foyer of Crown Towers there are two things that look like huge slabs of gold. I was trying to get a scrap of material off this one so that I could test it and see if it was real or not when I was grabbed and taken outside to the lion. He didn't look very fierce and wasn't moving at all so I thought he would be friendly. No way! As soon as I was feeling like he might be a new friend he moved like the Flash and quick as a wink I was in his mouth. Fortunately, the Oldies were nearby and Dad snatched me out of the mouth before the jaws closed. I still don't know if that's really gold in the foyer. Mum just laughs when I ask her and wants to know how I was planning on taking it home if it was real.

Labels: Perth, Western Australia

Here's a lighthouse that is a bit different. Instead of being built on a clifftop or near the bank of an estuary, it is on the top of a 100m high hill 500m from the ocean. The lighthouse is only 20m tall, much easier for visitors to climb the stairs for the view from the balcony. It is the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse in Western Australia. It was built in 1904 and went into service the next year. It is built from limestone which was quarried nearby. It is one of the few lighthouses that still use their original Fresnel lens. I like these lenses because they are a clever way of making a big lens that is much lighter and flatter than a conventional lens. If you get the chance to look closely at a lighthouse lens you will see that is a lens that has several steps ground into it, sort of folding the lens into itself. Fresnel lenses were actually originally invented for lighthouses. Mum still aims to get to every accessible lighthouse in Australia, including historic lighthouse ruins and ones that have been deactivated and moved into museums . This was number 91.

Labels: lighthouse, Western Australia

One of the favourite beach suburbs of Perth is Cottesloe. As you can see from the first photo, it is just north of Fremantle. This photo was taken from a headland at the southern end of the long sandy strip of the beach. On the headland I noticed a strange-looking structure and headed down a convenient path to see what it was. If I had been tall enough to read the signpost at the start of the path I would have seen that this is the Cottesloe Bicentenary Sundial. It is very different to the small garden sundials you often see. It is actually two sundials, a morning one and an afternoon one. The big limestone ramps are gnomons, which throw their shadow onto the curved brass strips. These strips are engraved with time markers. The curvy markings show the difference needed to correct the time shown by the shadow to Western Australian Standard Time, which is set at Kalgoorlie, 4.3 degrees east of Cottesloe (click on the photo for a larger view). We were there at 3:17 pm and the sundial and Dad's watch agreed on the time. This sundial is similar to the giant 18th century ones at Jaipur in India. The beach? Well, it's not bad, but in my opinion we have much better ones in the eastern states.

Labels: astronomy, beach, Western Australia