Veronika Wild

Here stood Megalosaurus Broomensis - a smaller version of the Stegosaurus, about 155 million years ago. Hope it didn't have as much trouble getting here as I did Eventually I must have slept regardless, because when I came to, it was daylight. I still felt a bit rumpled and grumpy especially without my morning coffee. Though I‘d brought a little for the plane – I hate aeroplane coffee, I couldn’t find a cup or a drop of milk and sorely wished I’d saved a couple of those little milk shots they are usually so generous with on planes. I then set off on the long trek to the supermarket about two Km away. The bus stops are few and far between. Broome is a sprawling place and even several bus trips later, I am still totally confused as to its layout. Just as I was about to buy a cup and a bowl, annoyed that they would only get four days use, another hosteller told me I could hire them at the hostel.   Cable Beach stretches out before me. What I thought were Broome...

There was a very elusive orange and green parrot in this tree that defied all attempts to photograph it With the girls going away for part of the school holidays I was in two minds (or possibly three or four) as to whether to sleep for four days, watch back -to -back videos or just escape somewhere, almost anywhere,   instead.  Broome happened to be one of those places so far off the beaten track that I had never managed to get there before. Thinking it might be a while before I got even this close again   - a mere 2200 km away, I booked a flight, with just the teensiest regret that it cost almost as much as a trip to say, San Francisco, Azerbaijan or one of those other more distant places I hadn't been to either. Four days were simply not enough! The scent of tropical vegetation fills the air One of many colourful plants whose names I don't know  Perth has had one of its coldest, wettest winters on record and is still having it, so th...

Lower Level Lesmurdie Falls Lesmurdie Falls are quite high and lie on the edge of the Darling Scarp.This huge scar on the landscape runs for over a thousand kilometres and can be seen from space. The fault upon which it lies marks the point where Australia broke off from India some 135 million years ago. It also contains some of the world's oldest rocks - magma intrusions thrust up from the centre of the earth around 260 billion years ago. Though now around 30 km inland from the sea and the city of Perth, its edges were sea cliffs  a mere 200,000 years ago when sea levels were higher. Part of the Upper Level I had visited these falls once before at the height of summer and after a long period of drought  and they had been rather disappointing. Now, after what has been one of the wettest winters on record, they were not only flowing magnificently, but the surrounding bushland was green and alive with the harrumphing of frogs, the squawking of birds and the ...

The true blue Lechenaultia We are getting some lovely weather at last and carpets of flowers are starting to appear. I especially like those unbelievably blue ones, be they in gardens or in nature. I turned our snails loose this morning, thinking that they had suffered enough in the name of science, not to mention that I seemed to be the only person who was still feeding them. That’s another good thing about snail pets. There’s no problem releasing them back into the wild. The small ones were now twice as big as when we first got them and possibly getting a bit big for their strawberry box homes. Blue Lady The council here has been doing its annual kerbside collection of hard rubbish lately – that’s the stuff that won’t fit into the bin. What a treat it was. A bonanza of lounge suites, old chairs, outgrown bikes, hot water cylinders, broken prams, useful building materials, old tiles. We would have killed as children to have been let loose in a treasure trove like th...