Far from MtLawleyShire #4: Views of Araluen

The last of the posts of Araluen.  these are photos of views of the park – though it was a dismal (but delightful) day.

I saw many birds: fairy wrens – the boys in their iridescent blue, the girls in their soft browns, New Holland Honey eaters amongst others – & this little fellow: a robin in a wintered tree.  So suited to the European aspect of the gardens.

The bridge over the pond was closed, so I could only get these photos of the – um – whatever it is.  I love the trees around them.

 

 

From the tearooms – you can see wattle gleaming amongst the sombre greens.  The twisted wood is wisteria – huge and only just starting to bud.  It would look beautiful in full flower.

 

did I mention it rained?  The 1st of these photos is my favourite.

This was my attempt to capture water running through a rocky stream bed.  I need more – much more – practise at taking those photos (fast or slow shutter speed) to catch moving water:

And this was at the entrance to the gardens 😀  It was too cold to worry about snakes, but should I go there again, before summer, before the flowers fade, then I will bear it in mind.

One the way home, we decided to try a scenic route and got delightfully lost.  And as we descended the hills, the Swan River coastal plain with all its city was laid out before us, including the eruption of the CBD of Perth with its skyscrapers.  Much hilarity was caused by me trying to get these shots through the windscreen.  Every time I thought I had it, round a curve we’d go, or a tree would obscure the view or she’d go over a bump.  But I got these.  And the last (& best) is proof there was some sun on the day.

It was a lovely day.

I hope you enjoyed these posts.

Far From MtLawleyShire #3 Trees

Trees.  The Araluen Botanical Garden is surrounded by them.  This is the third of four posts on my expedition to the Gardens.  No tulips this time, but flowers are still visible.  This post is devoted to trees.

Just before you get to the carpark, there is a bare patch because it’s a rose farm, but that’s not visible from the gardens.  Mostly they are native Australian trees with the odd plane tree or European spruce.  Basically, if the branches are bare, it’s not from around here.

And here are 2 examples: ghost-pale against the darker greens – though in the 2nd photo, some of those greens are conifers and it was raining too much t go and check what kind they were:

 

the brilliant gold of flowering wattle lifts the subtle greens of the West Australian bush

 

in some areas, the fact that it’s a park, not wilderness is visible

 

 

in some areas, it looks like pure wilderness 🙂

 

 

this massive tree on the lawns, with neighbouring ghost gum and the background of ghostly deciduous waiting for spring’s touch:

 

and some of the shapes made wonderful silhouettes:

      

Outside of MtLawleyShire: railway line trees

MtLawleyShire, as an area (though occasionally, it is also this person – just to confuse you 🙂 ), is leafy with lovely trees and gardens.  It is an old area, the trees are large, but it is a regular suburb with roads and parks and houses.  The railway line is some distance from my normal routes, and getting near the city, is bridges and buildings without a great deal of space.  Further west, on the oldest rail line – Midland to Fremantle (which also goes through the eastern edges of MtLawleyShire) there are areas where the buffer along the tracks has been allowed to be itself.  Urban bush.  Managed, no doubt, and therefore not ‘pristine’, but nonetheless – a touch, a taste, of bush in the middle of suburbia, so this is what the railway side of the road looks like:

 

I don’t know all the trees.  I recognized this one though – a massive peppermint tree, its huge girth giving an indication of its age:

These are either lemon-scented or ghost gums – or perhaps something else entirely!  Beautiful though:

 

 

especially this one – so straight! It makes me think it’s a ghost gum:

A massive moreton bay fig – known as the strangler fig, it is definitely an interloper that has been here a long time.  It makes me thing the area is managed because otherwise, there would be many of them, and it is dotted with berries:

 

this Norfolk pine soaring above everything renders the lightpole redundant 😀

Cheating a little – this paperbark was in someone’s garden – over the road from the urban bush, so not really straying 🙂 But of such a size! It had been there a long time:

the first of this group is so reminiscent of something you’d see driving something other than the city – trees against the sky.  The other 2 are trees I see frequently, even in MtLawleyShire, and I think they are actually west Australian natives:

 

I have no idea of the names of these trees, but they are lovely:

 

 

and this one – the last of my photos – just magnificent!

This post was to remind myself of my love of trees, and I hope you enjoyed it.  Bulldog, my friend – I hope this made you smile.

Next post will most likely be back in MtLawleyShire, and quite possibly, yet another sunset.

Out of MtLawleyShire: Kings Park #3 – Trees

The real wonder of Kings Park is not the gorgeousness of the wildflowers – the beauty of Kings Park are its trees.  I took quite a few photos, because I cannot resist trees and these are some of the most beautiful in the whole city (she says, having not really been everywhere…)

But I know some of you (and Bulldog in particular) will enjoy this post.

They are everywhere, the trees – viewed through a Victorian era tea pavilion to the city beyond

 

Magnificent and ancient conifers:

 

 

 

  

Trees frame the city:

 

 

 

 

Flowering bottlebrush look beautiful against massed greens

 

 

The occasional oak in new bright green is startling against the more subtle blue-grey greens of native trees:

 

 

especially in contrast with the always ancient looking peppermint trees – & this one tossing in the bright warm wind that day:

 

 

but the real beauties are the wonderful eucalypts,growing in natural settings throughout this ordered part of the park, backdrops to large lawned areas and planted areas of the Botanical gardens before the wilderness starts:

 

 

 

Along the edges of the cliff, framing views of the river:

and these – grown in avenues along the road to commemorate fallen soldiers:

 

 

 

I love the trees, and wish I could’ve got better views of the avenues of tall trunks, white in the light.  But there was very heavy traffic, people everywhere.  Maybe when the school holidays are over…

I hope you enjoyed this last post from my visit to King’s Park 🙂

 

 

MtLawleyShire visits Matilda Bay

On this dark wintry afternoon, I was at Matilda Bay and, as always, it was richly rewarding.  Where we usually sit, my friend & I, is beneath the flame tree.  Unlike those trees around the corner from my home, the Matilda Bay flame tree is not showing full flowers.  It is more reticent, perhaps because it is near the water so it’s a little cooler.  But there are one or two, and buds that are showing signs…

 

 

 

 

 

There were, of course, birds:

Willy wagtail in the flame tree & a raven – not at the same time

 

Swans & ducks on the river:

 

the ubiquitous seagull

but it was a dark day with storms threatening from all directions (& eventuated the moment I stepped in my house on my return!):

 

 

the clouds & bared winter trees give some delightfully spooky shots:

 

& wonderfully evocative cloud forms:

 

Then, as always, there were the trees.  This is 1 or 2 plane trees – magnificent & I couldn’t find the right angle, but so pale and beautiful against the buildings of the University of Western Australia, and the building storm of sky:

 

 

 

& this amazing tree:

 

glorious on the edge of the road that skirts Matilda Bay:

& 2 of my favourites in the reserve:

          

It was a cold, shivery wonderful afternoon & now it’s dark and raining hard and my little courtyard is flooded.

Time for dinner 🙂

 

Out of MtLawleyshire – Trees at Murdoch University & Matilda Bay

I have had a busy week and while there have been no sunset photos for the end of the week, there have been lots of trees.

It is Festival season in Perth, and within the Perth festival is the Writer’s Festival – & I am a writer, of sorts.  This year, I actually attended an event at the University fo Western Australia, but before that, I was invited to attend a Q&A with China Mieville at Murdoch University in the southern suburbs.  It was an excellent talk.  He’s a very articulate engaging character, which is to be expected from his books (my favourite is The City & The City).  But, though he would probably raise his eyebrows at this, it was also a chance to look at trees.

Murdoch University has wonderful native grounds, filled with mostly natives.  But not just trees – flowers:

Grevillea:

 

This – so reminiscent of a flame tree flower, but it isn’t.  Glorious red 🙂

Eucalypt blossom:

 

& the nuts they leave behind:

Water lilies:

& this

Grows into this:

 

Now the trees. I don’t know what this is, but its brilliant green is striking, and the duller yet graceful shape of a sheoak:

 

Wonderful tree with almost furry bark:

 

Cape Lilac in the outside cafe:

 

These are just beautiful from various places around the campus:

 

& this is the trunk of a massive tree:

Finally, two towering trees soaring into the inconstant, uneven sky of a terribly hot day threatening rain and delivering none:

 

A plane tree in the city as I made my way home:

& this?  At the small park in West Perth just down from where I teach – a peppermint tree looking like a jungle unto itself:

Today, I attended a talk by China Mieville & the wonderful Margaret Atwood.  They played so well off each other, and Margaret Atwood is such a character – so sharp & funny & wonderfully subversive.  I love her writing, have heard her talk often and this was just as wonderful.  China Mieville was a wonderful partner for her.  Of course, with his genre writing, her novels Oyrx & Crake and After the Flood (as well as The Handmaid’s Tale)  were under discussion along with his novels  (& mention of  a book the talk reminded me of that I want to read for the PhD: Hoban’s Riddley Walker).

And although I had no time to wander along the river, everywhere you go around the University of Western Australia and Matilda Bay there are trees:

a Moreton Bay fig dappled in the inconstant sunlight today:

A scribbly gum and another:

 

just trees – a strip of manicured wilderness between roads and car parks, paperbarks and others:

 

in the university grounds as I hurried towards the lecture theatre – white trunk amidst intense green:

& this wonderful tree on the corner of a carpark:

 

& then it was time to go in, and after that?  Time to go to work.  No more trees till, maybe tomorrow.

& today, it rained.  A little.  Enough for me to make my students laugh as I ran outside to dance about in it.  In the middle of the city.  Oh dear 🙂  But it was such a relief after a cooler, though intensely humid day, and tonight, I will have to have a light blanket.  Much better than the 40 degree celsius of the two days before!

I hope you enjoyed my trees.  I enjoyed looking at them, and the activities of the two days 🙂

An evening walk in MtLawleyShire – and Jupiter!

I went for a walk down to Beaufort Street a couple of days ago, but haven’t had a chance to post – working and so on.  And I am still not used to the settings on my camera – or checking them before I take photos, so these roses are in light too low for crisp detail.

The first of these seems to have light inside it & all I can think of is that it caught the light of the lowering sun.  The 2nd is just a pretty bud.

 

& these – the orangey one is overblown, but still beautiful, considering that most roses I saw that evening were scorched by the hot sunny days we’ve had recently.

 

A tree loaded with pomegranates – ripe-looking pomegranates.  Maybe I should’ve nicked one or 2!

Late afternoon light on the branches of a lovely tall gum on William street, and the second photo is of my ‘pied beauty’ friend, also on William Street.  These 2 trees are almost opposite one another.  One is a sort of street tree, the other grows in the grounds surrounding a block of flats.

 

On a side road, this tree, spindly and untidy, soars gracefully into forever and light behind a box tree adds mystery & magic:

 

The wonderful shapes of the lemon scented gum street trees: they keep them lopped so they don’t entangle the power lines.

 

And then – I saw a pair of galahs – they started far apart, but then began to groom each other:

 

 

 

I finished my shopping and began walking home.  Sunset glow was visible ahead of me, behind the rise:

At the top of the rise – William Street, the glow was broad:

 

To the east, the pastels were beautiful.  The second of these is the same tree that up above has light on its trunk:

 

And although there were no clouds, nothing to differentiate the sunset, I had to take photos of that tree:

& finally – lastly – the moon.

 

It turned out to be  the piece de resistance!

I caught – without knowing what it was – the occultation (or the beginnings of) the moon with Jupiter.  I actually got Jupiter in my little camera!!  OK, very small, unbanded, totally undetailed Jupiter, but it *is* Jupiter!

🙂

 

Out of MtLawleyShire – an afternoon at Matilda Bay

An afternoon too hot and time poor to wander too far, with the river unstill and sparkling in the endless sunlight.  But it was nice to stop for an hour, have a coffee with a dear friend, before we both went back to our respective work.

There were so many swans!  On the ground in front of me on the path I took towards the tea rooms.  They have very big feet!  The second of these swan photos (it’s the same swan) paused at the foot of something larger:

 

A large, graceful paperbark:

 

& its flower:

A plane tree, leaves burnt by the long heatwave, and the same damage can be seen in the leaves of the flame tree outside the tea rooms:

 

& this one: I am fascinated by its knobbly trunk and the way its branches have grown:

A cormorant on a post in the river & later I caught him just coming up from a dive:

 

Swans on the river:

 

 

I think this is the River family all grown up:

 

& sometimes the ubiquitous gull makes a statement: on the beach & against infinity:

 

There were ravens – the 2nd photo is definitely ‘quothing’:

 

The city from across the river: that infinite blue sky speaks of the heat:

 

Wider views towards the hills, with little bits of wind calligraphy & the long tidal ripples in the river:

 

 

Through the doorway of the tea rooms: it looks so invitingly green

         

My favourite cedar: foliage & trunk with a patch of sunlight:

 

Foliage:

& at work, in the small gardens on the corner of 2 busy roads: a bush with tiny white flowers – & a bug!

 

Finally, home later at night: the moon:

Hopefully, there will be a gradual cooling.  & hopefully next time I am there, I will have more time.

No sunset photos tonight, as the sky is clear, but I will be able to shoot the moon 🙂

I hope you enjoyed my little afternoon out before work.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

What a Weekly Photo Challenge: Green.  For me, green is the colour of relaxation, of growth, of renewal as in last week’s post. Green happens after rain, verdant in winter, rich and prolific in spring, dies down to rustly yellow from mid summer to when we get rain – sometimes not till the following late winter.

Green fills spaces against the sky, softens edges in cities, broadens the restricted spaces in gardens by concealing boundaries, conflating their corners and walls with that sense of upwardness and foreverness that growth has.

And yes, for me, green is the world outside my door (though I am wearing green nail polish at this moment & no – you can’t have a photo), the lining of streets and the pools of green, dappled shadows in parks and people’s gardens.

So come with me up the green dappled path into a small sample of my world of Green

It’s a background to everything, green – even a willy wagtail staking his territorial rights on my garden gate

The bed of the beautiful rose

background for the simple & simply lovely daisy and a background for this tiny native violet

 

& the grey green makes a mysterious backing for the equally mysterious (& slightly sinister) borage flower

Green is the background and reason for lilies and all flowers, pretty (as these are) and otherwise

 

The grey green of Australian native trees becomes emboldened and something wholly other when their flowers come: bottlebrush (a spiky looking untidy tree) and the untidy, chaotic peppermint tree

 

Green is the beginning of flowers: their support & backing: their promise

 

& reflected green endows water with a sense of something else – a magical intimation of otherness: Hyde Park’s island photographed in August when the ponds were still clear enough for reflections, and a duck on a small lake that reflected native greenery on the other side:

 

City green?  Sometimes it looks quite striking, although the real ‘real’ green puts the ‘manufactured’ greens in a pallid light – to me, at least.

At other times, it brings a sense of the natural world into the built environment: the end of Pier Street in Perth’s CBD. These are the beginnings of the gardens surround the Governor’s Residence and the Supreme Court.

Then above Perth’s CBD, we have King’s Park – looking down onto the freeways leading out of the city is a verdant oasis:

and wildflowers carpet spaces of intermittent green:

 

the green of the south-west Kangaroo Paw

A Grevillea nestled amidst odd green foliage and a Geraldton wax – purple amidst its green needles

 

contrasting the northern hemisphere greens: an oak – with native Australian trees:

 

Then there is green when the sunlight is at just the right angle to turn it golden green – Hyde Park:

 

and the luxurious green of lawn striped with shadow

 

the alien green of palm against other foliage

and the unreal green of the beautiful (if feral) new leaves on a weeping willow

 

and the greens around a path in Hyde Park

but best of all: the green of massed foliage made brilliant by Spring’s new growth

 

or new leaves on old plane trees in sunlight – Hyde Park

 

I enjoyed searching through my files of greenery & I hope you enjoyed my selection 🙂

& for some reason I’m limited to 10 related articles.  Sorry

Related articles

• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (sousetoiles.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge; Green (annarashbrook.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (ronmayhewphotography.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (stephenkellycreative.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (joycannisphotography.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green… (eof737.wordpress.com)
• WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (lensandpensbysally.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (myjourneywithdepression.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Green (keiththegreen.wordpress.com)
• Weekly photo challenge: Green (luluseestheworld.wordpress.com)

Trees in MtLawley Shire’s Hyde Park

I love Hyde Park, and the plane trees and the ponds, but this time, I’m looking at another area.  There’s only a hint of plane trees in this post.

From the start of my walk, along the path leading from the corner of William Street – I think this is the Moreton Bay fig I photograph the most: in situ and picked out, just in front of its massive neighbour:

 

wandering in the area above the ponds:

 

A massive Moreton Bay:

I just love the spread of these branches:

 

Banks of foliage – looking towards the city (there’s a city? Where?)

A path:

Looking around a Moreton Bay fig’s massive trunk:

A distinctive trunk & a tree almost wonderfully bare:

 

And then, the native section:

Western Australia’s iconic jarrah tree:

 

and bark:

Must find out what these are – they look almost candy striped 🙂

An amazingly coiled peppermint tree:

a view of the native garden with the sun adding mystery:

 

Oh – course, she’s not amused I was gone so long (it’s actually after I went sunsetty photo-ing).  She wants DINNAH!

I hope you enjoyed these trees.

Keira 🙂