jeremy.id.au

The other day I was getting a box of Christmas decorations out of the garage, something fell onto my head and I brushed it off quickly thinking it was a spider. Though my sister thought it was a lizard. I wondered how a little skink could get up there in the rafters, well perhaps now that becomes clearer.

This evening I walked into the kitchen and through the corner of my eye I thought I saw a huntsman creeping across the wall. Nope, it was a gecko. Most people think of geckos as little green things, but no this one was brown; most likely a Southern Marbled Gecko. I never really would have thought there would be geckos in Melbourne, though these things are apparently quite common. However, they are apparently nocturnal creatures and as such, quite shy of the light.

Even if it is a bit creepy, at least it’s keeping the spider population down. In fact it’s probably feasting on some right now.

Edit: After all the rain and storms we’ve had, it may well have been looking for somewhere dry rather than being a regular inhabitant of our kitchen.

Update (27th Dec 2007): Our gecko friend was spotted again last night, above the same cupboards that he retreated towards last time. So seems he has made his home there! Being incredibly shy of the light, he only comes out when the lights are out and if the lights are turned on, he retreats back to his hiding place behind the cupboards. I suspect he also feasts on the introduced American Cockroach, which is at least nice to think.

It was a nice sunny 18˚C in Melbourne today. We’ve had warmer in the last couple of weeks, none the less, it is the first day of spring and what better way to celebrate than spending some time in the outdoors. A lot of people were out walking their dogs, others kicking soccer balls around at the local park and I happened to be out on my bike.

Riding along, enjoying the fresh (well most likely polluted) city air, when suddenly I was hit from behind by a terrorising magpie. Normally it is rather trivial matter being swooped while cycling; more of a nuisance that is. Bike helmets may not do much to protect cyclists from the menace of cars (some say they actually create more danger), though they usually prove quite effective in the defence against swooping magpies in the springtime. This time, however, the magpie bypassed the defence of my helmet by going for the back of my neck, attacking at the weakest point of contact.

Fortunately, however, I got off lightly. Although it hurt for a while, it left no signs of damage. Some people describe the experience of magpies more accurately as this:

‘Trivial and humorous’ is definitely not how many people now regard aggressive magpies. For them, the advent of spring is a time of daily terror and anguish, of real fear and th ever-present feeling of imminent danger.

Well I certainly won’t take this extreme and to me they are still something more of a nuisance… though they certainly seem to be increasing their terrorism tactics. The worst day I had for bird attacks on my bike was actually way back in September 2000 when I got swooped several in one day. Fortunately they all attacked on the helmet that day, rather than my neck.

It’s been another mostly uneventful week. I have kept up the riding, bringing the total to 130km in the last fortnight. Though the best day of riding was Monday, where I did 45km to Jells Park and back, along with Daniel, a mate from my last TAFE course.

We set out from Box Hill at approximately midday, heading east along the creek to Blackburn Lake. After leaving the Blackburn Lake Sanctuary we mostly cut through side streets to get through Nunawading and Mitchem and then onto Heatherdale Road (which amazingly has bike lanes on it). We then headed south, joining Dandenong Creek in Vermont, which takes you through Koomba Park, a regional park which somewhat resembles the Yarra Flats park near Heidelberg. We then went along a track behind the Whitehorse Recycling and Waste centre where we stopped at a fairly unusual looking lookout tower, although most of the view was obscured by trees. We then continued along Dandenong Creek to Shepherds Bush.

The bird life around Shepherds Bush (and probably all along Dandenong Creek) was truly amazing. As we came in past the sporting ovals there was a large flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and I also spotted Galahs, Willie Wagtails, Blue Wrens, Rosellas and many other species.

Arriving at Jells Park some time after 1pm having riden over 20km, we rode around the lake (where there were also Pelicans and other wetland birds), before stopping for lunch at the restaurant. While waiting for lunch I used the WiFi feature in my new phone to check up on the weather as it was one of those days where it just seemed like it wanted to rain. Though after looking at the radar we were satisfied that any showers that were around would be insignificant. As it turns out we didn’t get hit by any rain at all.

After lunch (approx 2:30pm) we had another 20km of riding to do in order to return to Box Hill. We left Jells Park through Wheelers Hill, following the Scotchmans Creek trail. Although at this point it is more of a bike route with no remote possibility of any creek nearby with the number of hills we had to climb. There were some moderately steep climbs in there as well through the Wheelers Hill area (hence the name I suppose). The route through the side streets, however, was very well sign posted; until we got to a new housing development near the Monash Freeway that is, requiring use of the Melway to get to the start of the actual Scotchmans Creek trail.

We then only followed the creek for just over a kilometre before turning off at Valley Reserve. We then cut through Mount Waverley, stopping briefly at a small park between High Street Road and Highbury. We then crossed over Highbury Road before hitting the backstreets of Bennettswood then across Burwood Highway before taking a short path towards Station Street. We took a few more back streets through Box Hill South and we were finally home (sometime after 4pm).

We had just completed 45km (averaging 16.4km per an hour; not including any stopping time), without riding on a single main road, riding all the way from Box Hill to Wheelers Hill and back in a loop, all along side streets and bike paths.

Edit: I’ve made a map of the route we did that is now available through Bikely (excluding some diversions where we got lost, etc).

For years and years we’ve had these things flying over far above the tree tops. But they would never actually come down. As I kid I tried to devise and engineer various means to get them down, namely, bird feeders and the like. Though they could never actually see from far above the tree tops that the feed was here. However, more recently they have found their own food on our property in the form of a flowering gum tree that was planted in more recent years. No doubt, it is far more healthy for them as well than becoming dependent on human provided feed.

They also like to feed on our silver birch trees at this time of the year and they have been seen in our silver birch trees before. Though this year we’ve the frequent visits have lasted for a far more prolonged period.

Now just for fun, who wants to guess the species? Sorry, no prizes for the first person to guess it right though.

Edit: Since nobody wanted to guess (even though the answer is pretty obvious), they are Rainbow Lorikeets.

On Thursday morning I got up at the earliest time as I have in a long time. The only time I can remember getting on a train any earlier was when I left for Sydney earlier this year. Only that time it was daylight, where as this time it was pitch black when I got up at 6:40am. As I walked out the door twenty minutes later, it was still quite dark though there was a glimmer of daylight.

It was a cold chilly walk to the station and the air has a crisp feel to it. The street lights were still on and a few cars went past with their headlights beaming. It wasn’t until I got on the tram at Elizabeth Street in the city that the sun made its first appearance as just a glimmer of light on the city buildings. Yet as I rode the tram up Royal Parade a possum could be seen still lurking in one of the elm trees. Finally as I was approaching Brunswick, sunlight was making its appearance in the tree tops.

It’s a strange and almost eerie feeling to be out so early, yet almost an amazing feeling at the same time to see the world awaken. Though possibly only because I don’t do it that often.

The reason was that I had to go into TAFE to finish off some work that I should have done last year. Yeah I’ve been slack, well at least in this instance I have an excuse since I was sick when the module was on originally. The only classes being run were for some Prepress apprentices from 8am to 4:30pm. These apprentices must be brave and fearless people to be getting there so early and in fact they do it for two weeks at a time.

On Friday I didn’t quite get up as early and it was already magnitudes quieter when I left, however, on both days it was still quite dark when I left and dark when I got home too. Well now I’m glad it’s the weekend and glad that I don’t have classes next week.