Do you recognise the animal in the photo? For most of you I guess the answer is no because it has been extinct for 85 years. It’s a photo of Benjamin the last Tasmanian Tiger (Tasmanian thylacine). The photo was taken at Hobart’s Beaumaris in 1933 by Australian zoologist David Fleay. Originally in black and white the footage was colourised and released by the National Film and Sound Archive on National Threatened Species Day.
National Threatened Species Day is on 7th September each year as a tribute to Benjamin the last Tasmanian Tiger. It was the day he died back in 1933 and the species was declared extinct. I am so grateful to be able to see Benjamin in his true colours 85 years after his death.
The photos above were taken last Sunday on my walk. The news had said that the southern swells and Spring high tides earlier in the week had caused major erosion of my local Merewether beach not seen in our area since a major storm in 1974. The 1974 storm was locally known as the Sygna storm after the Norwegian bulk carrier of the same name that ran aground on Stockton beach at the time. I was fascinated to see what everyone was talking about. Wow! I wasn’t expecting what I saw. It didn’t even occur to me that there were rocks under the sand. All the media reports about the erosion stated that history had proved that the sand would return by summer. The swells and the tides would put it all back again. No intervention needed.
While I had no evidence to go by I just trusted mother nature and didn’t think any more about it. Today on our lockdown walk as we had nothing else to do we thought we’d go back to Merewether and see what was happening. We were gob smacked. Merewether beach was back and beautiful. The photos below were taken this morning. They are from similar spots and of the same stretch of beach that was stripped bare last Sunday. We were also surprised to note that there seemed to be even more sand on the beach than before. It was also clean and yellow. Merewether beach had been Spring cleaned at no cost.
Spring has sprung. And just before it my 59th birthday. Both of these have recently helped drive my latest time of reflection. My final motivator is the news that to get out of lockdown we need to live with Covid -19. As Australia up until these last few months has been able to contain the virus this reality creates anxiety in most of us. The reality is however that I can only reflect on things in my life I can change and Covid isn’t one of them.
I’m a firm believer in the following quote:
My favourite way to break down powerful words is through the use of acrostic poems. So for me, reflection means:
Review where I am currently at
Explore where I want to be
Freely and honestly check my initial review
Look at what needs to be different
Enact a plan
Choose daily, weekly and monthly goals
Test and track my goals
Include in daily, weekly or monthly routines
Observe regularly what works and what doesn’t
Negotiate any changes that may be needed and enjoy the new me blossoming
For me the main areas of reflection involve:
My health
Blogging/Writing
Career/Retirement Planning
After reflecting on my health I realised daily tracking needs to be around my water intake, movement and sleep. I started doing this a few weeks ago and I have already noticed a huge increase in my energy levels.
Returning to blogging last month made me realise that over the years Inspiring Max has developed its own momentum. I was surprised that even when I haven’t been blogging, it is continuing to be read. This has inspired me to spend more time blogging. Not just writing posts but also engaging with the blogging community. Over the last few weeks I have been able to maintain 3 posts a week, which on refection is sustainable. Me getting better at planning posts will be the key.
Reflecting on this last area is in some ways out of my control. I am a mental health nurse who trained 40 years ago. I have obtained many skills over my career but have no general nursing experience. As we open up I have no idea what will be expected from me as I go about my work day. I have decided to follow my gut and see where the journey takes me. It is also tricky to plan for travel at the moment but it is certainly something I am hopeful to start in 2022.
What areas of your life are you currently reflecting on?
Last week as I was walking around my local area I found this yarn bombing event. As I had never seen one before I was intrigued. Why? What was it all about?
For anyone like me who doesn’t know what yarn bombing is – it is a form of street art, like graffiti often connected to activism in some way. Another point of yarn bombing is to mitigate the severity of barren, cold public places.
This particular laneway I agree prior to the yarn bombing was boring, desolate and barren. I would walk down Devonshire Lane twice a week last year on my way to work and it had nothing going for it. The addition of the Deafblind Connect yarn bombing event has definitely brightened up the area. The colourful event has also brought attention to the Hunter’s Deafblind community. When I looked closely at the tree coverings I noticed many different textures especially designed for the blind to enjoy.
The event occurred during Deafblind Awareness week 21st -27th June as part of a global initiative in 22 countries across the world. What a fantastic idea to bring the community together.
Today as we are still in lock down in New South Wales, I thought we’d share a takeaway coffee at a secret spot I only discovered last year. Newcastle’s Fairy Garden to my surprise is over 50 years old. I can’t believe I never heard of it as a kid even if then it was a private place.
Merv Moyle created the wonderland across the road from his house in the 1970’s for his children. Over the years he kept adding his new ideas to it until his death in his 90’s.
Imagine how special his children and grand children must felt to have their own fairy garden, complete with a fairy queen, animal friends, fairies and toadstools, not to mention the beautiful flowers and rainforest. As a child, I thought we were lucky as our dad had made us a cubby house. I am glad that it is now open for anyone to wander through and connect with your inner child at this magical place.
I hope you enjoyed our coffee and visit today. Thanks to Natalie The Explorer for hosting Weekend Coffee Share
The sight before me took my breath away. The room was filled with circular tanks of over 1000 sea jellies. I never realised that there was so much variety in them. The Sea Jelly Spectacular was taken to the next level by specially selected background music and neon lights. Together they emphasized the amazing pulsations of the jellyfish. The experience was so wondrous I still remember it with a smile nearly a decade later.
If ever you are in Hong Kong spend some time being memorized by these amazing creatures at the Sea Jelly Spectacular at Ocean Park.
I think my favourite stopover in Ruby so far was at Cranky Rock. It is a recreational reserve not far from Warialda in North Western New South Wales. The camp ground attached to the reserve is run by a caretaker who each night in the cooler months lights a big campfire and provides nibbles for the campers to enjoy as they socialise together. My husband and I loved meeting other campers, sharing stories and learning more about future travel options. Some campers were old hands and other like us were first timers. It didn’t matter. There were also chickens wandering around and if you found an egg they laid you could keep it.
Cranky Rock is made up of various giant boulders that balance on each other and make an enclosed natural phenonium. It was so peaceful my husband and I spend over an hour down in the valley before moving on to explore other parts of the bush.
We definitely plan to go back to this spot when we are out of lockdown and can travel again.
This week again we will be having takeaway coffee as New South Wales remains in lockdown. As we cannot have visitors to our homes or most shops we will take a walk with purpose. Today we will be exploring the Newcastle Window Wander. A group of local businesses have gathered together to increase their shops profile while closed and at the same time give locals something to look at during their daily exercise. The idea is to follow the map, look at the specially created window displays, take a selfie, upload it the social media and then go in the draw to win a gift voucher.
Today was a beautiful day for walking with Spring just around the corner. It was interesting to go walking with the specific goal of looking in shop windows. What surprised me was that I don’t really notice what is in the windows when I walk. As I followed the map I found most of the window displays. On 3 occasions I was so impressed I will go back to the shops when they reopen. Unfortunately being window displays they were hard to photo graph without something being reflected in the glass.
I smiled at the first window I saw that used humour to catch our attention. They created a “shitty” birthday cake made out of toilet paper rolls.
The next shop a few doors down in Darby Street was a men’s wear store that I didn’t know existed and they keep my husband’s favourite John Lennon brand shirts. I loved the one in the window.
Some were a little bit clever.
The birds at the gallery were spectacular. They were amazing replicas of some of our iconic birds. Unfortunately, due to the doors breaking the line of vision my photos don’t do them justice.
The last stop on our journey was Pappa Sven. I have walked past this small shop many times but never looked inside or at the windows. It is a Swedish shop and looks amazing. They had created their window display to represent celebrating the joy of Swedish Midsummer.
I love Lego. The creativity and inspiration used to design these amazing models is unbelievable. Last year in Newcastle we were lucky enough to have an exhibition by Brickman. He is one of only 14 Lego professionals in the world. This display was titled Awesome. It included 37 models, took 5000 hours to build and used over 2 million Lego bricks. Each model was an example the first, the biggest, the deadliest or special in some other way.
Each model had a story board next to it which describes the build, giving
The facts of the model
Information about the designer, how long it took to make including the number of bricks used
The designers notes about build it including frustrations and problems
And lastly, Why It Is AWESOME.
The first big model we saw was the first full size Harley Davidson motor bike. Apparently in non Covid times to public like could sit on it. Even the electricals worked. AWESOME.
This Caterpillar 797 dump truck was the largest ever build. I loved it.
I was also fascinated to see the impact of a model of a single Lego brick. Definitely Awesome. From memory it took over 6 000 bricks to make.
One of my favourite things was the attention to detail hidden in and around each model. It really brought each model to life. Having previously traveled on the Shinkansen (bullet train) we smiled at the memories it created for us.
As an added bonus Brickman hid Mr & Mrs Awesome many times throughout the exhibition asking the children to look for them and enter a competition telling him how many they found. These special Lego figures were fun to look for that encouraged a much closer look for everyone.
These copies of original movie posters looked amazing.
It was a beautiful winter’s day out. We enjoyed watching the surfers and smelling the fresh sea air. It was also great to see the ocean looking so clear and clean. Here’s some photos we took to remember our walk.
If we were having coffee I would tell you about my latest favourite pastime. Buying second hand books. I love the thrill of the chase. They are everywhere and sometimes I am amazed at how new the books I find are. I have several authors I look for and based on them I have found many new authors. Most I am able to pick up for a couple of dollars however on our latest holiday, I was lucky and found many exciting titles for only $1.00. Needless to say, I had fun.
If we were having coffee I would ask if you have been doing a jigsaw puzzle during lockdown. I have. My latest puzzle is of the people skating on the frozen Rideau Canal in Ottawa. Its a beautiful puzzle that reminds me I need to go back to Ottawa in winter to complete this bucket list activity. Back in January 2015, when my husband and I were in Canada winter was late and the canal opened to skaters the day we arrived back in Australia.
If we were having coffee I tell you that today is both my 59th birthday and National Rum day. Ironically, my husband baked me a fancy birthday cake from scratch yesterday, while I was at work. His choice a chocolate rum cake. Imagine his surprise to discover this morning the rum day connection. Rum is also my favourite spirit.
If we were having coffee I would tell you how much I love wattle. It is the floral emblem of Australia. I am also blessed that it begins to flower in August. It is a bright yellow and pops up everywhere. Wattle never fails to bring a smile to my face.
If we were having coffee I would ask you what has been happening in your world?
