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 🙂

Misty Matilda Bay

Yes,I I’ve been working, but I thought I would post some photos.  Only one day at a time though.  & I need to get more space!

So hopefully, I will get time to do another post soon.

 

 

First of June, first official day of winter – cold and wonderfully misty.  The city is obscured. Mist is very rare here, and it stayed this way for most of the day.

 

Things too far away are obscured: St George’s College (attached to the University of Western Australia) looks very un-western Australian 🙂

 

Trees were fine though – as beautiful as always

 

 

Unexpected beauty with the cape lilac trees

 

And a wonderful eucalyptus, white against the green

 

 

and boats on the still water

 

I will post some more.  Yes, I have been quiet, but not my little camera 🙂

I have taken some wonderful photos of clouds as storms slide away – soon, I will post them soon 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

More Trees around Matilda Bay & the University of Western Australia

I had 2 trips to the University of Western Australia and Matilda Bay this week, and this 2nd trip – I had more time.  So – more trees.

It’s was a strange day and although the river wasn’t glass-like, the reflections of the city are clear, like great pylons sinking down as they spread support beneath the flat plane of earth the skyscrapers rest on:

 

and the rest is trees:

The flame tree growing outside the cafe.  We sit beneath it and in Spring/Summer, the flame-like, flame-red flowers drop without warning into our coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A wattled honeyeater high in branches:

In the University grounds:

a dead tree surprisingly beautiful and a long tall tree of grace, made of light dappled with shadow:

 

I don’t know what this tree is but it is impossibly tall and straight:

This tree is coming back from illness and the other is a flame tree in the quadrangle by the Arts Department:

 

The space between the university & the road:

I found a scribbly gum.  I just love the bark.

 

But it’s got a freeloader!

This tree has a lovely shape, and so has the other:

 

So tall:

a gathering of trunks:

A detail of bark & a b&w paperbark detail – with a tiny surprise.  Can you spot it?

Then to my astonishment, I found an oak in the midst of all the natives!

I hope you enjoyed all these trees!  🙂

Out of mtlawleyshire #2: Trees in the University grounds

Here is the 2nd of the posts from my little outing yesterday to the University of Western Australia.  I can’t include all the photos. – there’s too many.

All these are from within the university grounds, and only a small portion of the grounds at that, but I was still spoilt for choice.  And it was raining, raining, raining!

First, a massive conifer – the detail of the trunk attracted me:

 

Then a massive tree I saw from a doorway:

 

It is really a huge tree:

the colours of bark in a group of trees outside the faculty where I met my friend:

 

2 trees: the one behind is a scribbly gum – more on them later

just love the alien look of this

a series of tall, wet gums:

 

   

 

Now the lemon scented gum.  Of course I would take photos of this lovely tree.  Though I was hampered by rain threatening to fall on the lens of my little camera.  I’m quite sure that would be disaster!

 

 

Trees and foliage from across the lawn

: 

 

The moreton bay fig.  I love how they gleam in the wet:

 

 

Now – the scribbly gum.  It gets its name from the bark which is, I read somewhere, caused by little greeblies munching through the bark – obviously not harming the tree, just giving this bark the look of having been scribbled on.  When I next go to the uni, if it’s a fine day, I will take more photos.  I love rain, but it does – well, it hampers some activities.

 

 

Of course there are plane trees, most around the internal carparks.  But the detail of the trunk, with the gloss of rain shine, brings out the most wonderful colours and reminds me I must go down to Hyde Park again before too long.

 

These guys are everywhere, especially around what used to be known as the Arts Department (where I did my Masters).

 

detail of a beautiful trunk.

These were taken from across an oval while the rain was pouring down – though you can’t see the rain.

 

The most untidy of all the trees: stringy bark!

 

just beautiful trees:

 

and home – well, it was still raining so she was inside on the armchair amongst the books

There are so many photos I didn’t include.  Heaps.  And now I’ve run out of time to do another post, but they will remain on my computer for use another time.

I hope this wasn’t too large and that you enjoyed it.

Keira 🙂

Between the river and the university

Today I went to visit my old professor at the university of Western Australia.  It is Western Australia’s oldest university & has the most beautiful grounds, filled with huge trees of all sorts – my favourites and others.  So you can imagine – yes.  Photos.  And oh dear.  I took over 200 – in 2 hours!

I can’t post them all, & many aren’t suitable anyway (rain is not good for little cameras – or Keiras!), but even so – there are too many for one post. so I am going to attempt to group them.

As it was raining, some of the photos were hurried & blurred.  But many were OK, though I fear there’s not too many that are brilliant.  However, even in this first post, there are different trees.

First – along the river.  The university is on the banks (sort of) of the Swan River, and I parked in the Matilda Bay carpark.  The city was barely visible through the mist of rain:

trees against the river:

 

Peppermint trees and a tall gum:

 

Moreton bay figs in the rain:

 

 

 

 

Then the area between the road and the university, filled with all sorts of trees – almost wilderness:

 

These two are trees I haven’t come across in mtlawleyshire, but of course, the university is a long way from my little shire 🙂  I love the colour of these and I really will, soon – I promise – get hold of a reference book so I can figure out what trees these are

 

 

 

 

The first of the next two photos is, I think, a stringy bark, as the bark hangs off in strips like strings.  They can be very untidy!

and look – more rain coming:

I will do the next post tomorrow – in the grounds of the university.  And this is despite the rain.  And no – no kitty for this part of the post.  How can there be?  And the end of this post, as far as the pictures tell the story, I am still at the university 🙂