Congradulations Libby

News via Rowen ....

Congratulations Libby. It must have been a marathon labour. I look forward to more news probably after she has had a years rest.

elo Gecko

Say 'elo to the Southern Leaf-tail Gecko Phyllurus platurus.
They are restricted to the Sydney Basin, living in weathered sandstone outcrop and on the sides of brick houses. They are a large lizard so when they stand up tall on their legs and arch their back and hiss/bark at you it can give you quite a fright as this little fellow did just before he(?) lunged at the string that hangs of the camera. He kept his tail tho'
General scientifical stuff here (search the PDF for platurus) and here. For a fantastic read about how geckos pile up their poo you have to go here (what else do we pay the CSIRO for?).

Beta

Made the move to beta blogger
something funny going on with my passwords in doing so :-(

likes: labels, speed
dislikes: now everything points to gmail - I was comfortable with the hotmail account.

A blogger friend has gone into labour

Yay.
I got word that Libby is in labor. I didn't start reading her blog until after this classic post but have dropped in nearly every day to read her and share the bits of our lives we choose to blog about. Which in Libby's case is just about everything.
Best wishes to you Libby and your family and I hope that everything goes smoothly.

Photographic Awards.

The photographs from the Fairfax Photographic Nikon-Walkley Finalists are up on the SMH website.
I particually like this photo essay of some country chicks droving.
Go look now, it's good.

Thats Aussie

This has got to be one of the most Aussie photos I have ever taken.
It's a Blue Tongue lizard, drinking nectar from a Banksia (blechnifolia) sheltering under the isopogens (anemonifolius) .
Blue Tongues are the biggest lizard in the skink family, they are viviparous, big, this one is about 30cm, and very cute. I think that it may be a Tiliqua scincoides scincoides (Common eastern). They even have a beer named after them.
This lizard lives in the gardens in the town-house complex.

The wildflowers are out

Over the long weekend I managed to get in a ride through the National Park at our back door. Naturally Annalise came along for the ride.
We followed part of the great north walk north from Terry’s Creek up to Browns Waterhole then all the way through the fords and creek crossings up past Fox Valley to just below Thornleigh where there was a large fallen tree across the path that I could not pick the bike up over with her in the back. It’s a nice ride, if a little rocky and rough along some of the fire trail. Coming back we took the exit up the ridiculously steep hill to the Canoon Rd netball courts and back down Kissing Point Rd and down the long winding fire trail back into the park.

It’s probably the most challenging I’ve done on this new mountain bike. The handling is a little sloppy with a 12kg toddler on the back and some of the steeper hills are a tad more challenging but it is nice to be out getting some exercise.

Many of the wildflowers are out and after the rains we had a few weeks back its looking great.