Traveling Torchbug had a fairly quiet week overall but has seen quite a few sights including a quick roadtrip 3hrs inland too see a man about a dog, no really. He also had a few close encounters with some of the native wildlife both mammalian and reptilian which I’ve captured in stills and video. Another highlight is the stop on the roadtrip at a heavy machinery yard. I’ve been absolutely flat out since returning to work last week properly (should really have worked harder the week prior...) As a result I haven’t left the property very much but when I have TTB always comes along for the ride.
We’ll start at the destination of our recent roadtrip which is the City of Bendigo in central Victoria, Australia. We were only in the town briefly to pick up a ‘new’ dog. We lost our family dog last April to a snake bite and the kids have been wanting another dog for a while now. We finally found and secured a great little 2 year old cross bread that is just a perfect little dog. No pictures in this post but I’ll get some of her with TTB soon and post them here.
Anyway here’s a few shots of just a couple of nice bits of old architecture in this city. This is and old gold rush town and as such has a heap of really nice old buildings, some are rundown and others are in a good state of repair. I didn’t get any shots of the derilict ones.
We may as well start with this stoney faced old lady. It’s a statue of Queen Victoria, the lady the State is named after. South Austraila has Adelaide as the name of the capital city, she was also another old English Queen from back in the pre-internet days. Not to be outdone Queensland just named the whole state in a way that covers more bases I guess.
Not sure when it was erected and I’ve not researched it sorry.
This big old church caught TTB’s eye on the drive in and was impressed by its size. The stone work is amazing and in really good condition for it’s age, again no idea what that is but it looks old?
Unfortunately I didn’t get many shots of TTB in focus as it’s difficult seeing the screen on the phone, especially in the head down-bum up position you find yourself in on the footpath. The Suns position also made some of the shots difficult.
This was quite an impressive building both in scale and quality of the stone work. I didn’t go in due to time constraints, I’d already spent about 5 mins snapping these shots while the wife and kids waited patiently in the wagon.
Next we spotted one of the historic trams so TTB wanted to get some shots, of course he photobombed them. These are around 100 years old, possibly a little older.
Next was an awesome old fountain in the old Main Street. It was erected in 1881 according to the inscription on the base. Sorry, best shot I got of the text.
When I first saw it I was disappointed that it wasn’t running but as I approached it TTB somehow got it flowing. I came back past it less than ten minutes later and it had stopped again. TTB has some Herbie type superpowers it seems, or the city has it on some kind of timer set up to save water, maybe.
The old Clock tower still keeps pretty good time, picture was taken at 11:18 according to the iPhone.
Such a handsome beetle.
Next we passed the Soldiers Institute. Another nice old building. When I say old it’s not that old in a global sense. 1788 was the year the country was claimed as part of the British empire and for a long time was just used as a prison colony. Must buildings here aren’t more than 200 years old so still relatively young compared with many other countries. Although the Australian Aborigines had been here around 40,000 years they were largely a nomadic culture and didn’t build any permanent structures, apart from Uluru (Ayres rock).
Ok, last bit of architecture. Just one of many old buildings still in great condition in this inland city.
Time to head home. On the way in I noticed a yard full of giant earthmoving equipment. Sonzilla loves this stuff possibly more than me so the car was parked and we made a very quick visit. Although the gate was open and there was no sign to say keep out it felt wrong, I was cheeky and took Sonzilla and TTB on a self guided tour.
Spot TTB? This thing was massive!
As was this. It was having a drive sprocket replaced and possibly other work done. It was the biggest excavator I’ve ever seen in person. (No TTB in shot)
Here’s TTB posing with the giant bucket.
Sonzilla was amazed and threw some stones in to help “fill it up” before I had a chance to stop him. I didn’t want to attract any attention, just incase...
Big tracks! The Rams were just huge on the arm of the ‘digger’?
No TTB in shot, these were also huge. The one on the right is the front view of the machine in the first shot.
There he is!
This is a bad shot but had to include it as the scale of this equipment is amazing.
So back in the home territory we were able to find and get up close with some of the local animals. First up are a couple of shots with some Eastern Grey Kangaroos in the paddock. This was as close as we could get to these.
This first shot was taken in the seconds after emerging from behind a bush we used as cover. They jumped off almost instantly as seen in the next shot.
Off they bounce.
Here’s a Swamp Wallaby just outside the workshop at home. Although it had seen me it’s gotten used to me now and will stay as close as 20 meters before hopping away. I managed to get up close using a combination of TTB and the Mazda paddock car as cover.
It’s looking at us but not really fussed, yet...
Still grazing.
After some stealthy ninja type manoeuvres I blew the cover at the last minute to get a close shot, it didn’t hang around and say cheese.
It’s flying!
Ok next beast. This is an odd ball animal. It’s a mammal yet lays eggs like a bird or reptile. It’s one of two Australian animals known as Monotremes, egg laying mammals. The other is the Platypus which lives in the area in rivers and dams. They are notoriously difficult to capture on film as they are super shy. I have seen a couple on our big dam once on dusk but never again. So I don’t think I’ll get any shots of them.
Anyway I’m getting sidetracked, pictured below is an Echidna. It’s fur has evolved to be sharp spines much like a porcupine although not related. I believe the echidna is smaller the the porcupine. The echidnas long jaw bones have become fussed together as part of its evolution and the animal can’t really open its mouth very far at all. It feeds on insects and ants and has an extremely long thin sticky toungue that it pokes into ants nests and somehow survives both the ordeal and on the many ants required to fuel its body.
Checking out TTB, gets spooked and scurries away and starts burying itself in the soil as a defensive move to protect it’s vulnerable under belly. Videos below show it in action.
So after we finished annoying it we left the Echidna to got about its business. They don’t really cook well and plucking them is painful. Next up is a proper reptile.
A large Goanna, a type of Monitor lizard found in different countries (apx 1 meter long). I believe the aussie ones are slightly different to their overseas cousins. Below are a couple of videos of TTB chasing the thing up two different trees! We saw it once and went back ten minutes later and it was back on the ground, until it saw TTB.
In this one we are around 5 meters away, lucky it was not attracted to us.
This is a little closer, maybe 3 meters at the start and less than 1 meter at one point briefly.
Ok due to a lot of difficulties with posting this I have to publish and run. I’ll catch up on the replies from the last week and any I may get on this one. It’s 1:36 at time of writing, good evening from down here.