Brighton Jetty Sculptures - Adelaide

Last week I flew again to Adelaide, in South Australia, to spend time with my husband, during one of Adelaide's hottest weather spells!
Luckily he lives close to the beach in Glenelg and towards the end of the day when it wasn't so hot I would walk to the beach with a book, wet my feet and sit there until the sun set at around 8,30pm.  A magical time!!

Various sunsets at Glenelg beach

Just outside Adelaide's airport I got the first glimpse of some of the sculptures that were part of the Brighton Jetty Classic Sculptures.
The Brighton Jetty Classic includes other fun events such as Swimming events, Carnivals, stalls, entertaiment...and started on 22nd. January ending on 2nd February.

Sculptures outside Adelaide Airport

One day I had the brilliant idea of cycling from Glenelg to Brighton just over 4,5km (3miles) away to go and see the Sculptures.

Sculpture "taking a rest" on a bench near Glenelg Beach - here wearing the Australian colours for Australia Day that was celebrated on 26th January

I'm no Cadel Evans, and I'm scared to ride on the road, but luckily there is a cycling/walking path along the sea front, except for a little detour where there is a Life Saving club by the beach edge and cars and cyclists need to go up one street around that area.

Some of the sculptures

With a few exceptions, most of the sculptures were made in metal. My favourite was one made of marble and stone called "The greatest muse" , which are the windows capturing the even changing moods of the sea.

The Greatest Muse

Brighton Jetty and Shark sculpture

On my way back home I had the bright idea to rather cross the sand area instead of cycling ar0und  the detour, and boy did I regret that!! 
Pushing the bicycle on the sand for around 15 minutes is very hard work!! 
Phew I was exhausted by the time I got back on the cycling track and had to stop for a while and sit on a bench to catch my breath. The return home was certainly a lot harder. I was surprised that the following day my legs weren't hurting from all that cycling and walking.

A lovely bench in a garden overlooking the beach 

Being summer and school holidays (kids starting school this week in most States), the beach suburb of Glenelg was always full of people walking around the town and on the beach.

Jetty Road, Glenelg with the tram that goes to Adelaide

 There was a fund raising event for "Heart Foundation" with huge "Love" letters in metal, and you could donate $10 in exchange for a heart locket where you could write a message to your loved one, to be hung on one of the letters. 
These letters would then be going to Rundle Mall in the centre of Adelaide from the 
1st to the 14th February and then to the Garden of Unearthly Delights in East Terrace Rd for the Adelaide Fringe Festival,  until the 16th March.
I thought it was quite a novel idea for a fundraiser and it seems to be such a "fashion" thing to pin lockets in bridges, etc.

Pinning my love heart locket

The Bay Discovery Centre - Glenelg - with the Love letters

1.Photo board in Brighton beach, 2.Little Boy diver in Glenelg, 3. Grafitti lane, 4. Bicycle rest, 5.Glenelg Jetty with hopscotch game,  6. Resting with my bicycle on the way home

Hope you enjoyed your tour of Glenelg and the Brighton sculptures. 

Have a wonderful weekend and keep warm or cool depending on where you are. 

We are in for some hot days from next Monday to Friday with temperatures in the high 30's C.

Another sculpture made of bicycle parts, inside Adelaide Airport

GROW YOUR BLOG challenge 2014

For the second year, Vicky is hosting a "Grow your blog" party, Check out her blog at - 2 Bags full blog.

This is a campaign to get more people to read a wider variety of blogs, variety is the spice of life, as the saying goes...

For my new readers I will start by introducing myself:

Hi, my name is Sami, I have been living in Perth, Australia for the past 7 years.
I was born in the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique, then moved to South Africa when I was 14 years old. 
I met and married my husband in Johannesburg, and shortly after I accompanied him to Braunschweig in Germany, where he was going to work on a project. We stayed for 6 years and both our children were born in Germany.  
In the early 90's we moved back to South Africa for a short while, then another move to Portugal, where we lived for 12 years.
My husband was then offered a good job in Perth, and another move was on the cards!
I hope we are done with moving for many many years now, as I love living here!!

I work part-time as a Practice Manager in a Medical clinic with 4 Doctors and 5 other receptionists, and I love my job, although it can be quite intense and stressful at times!

Perth city, seen from Kings Park Botanic gardens

I started my blog in June 2011, as a way to record my travels, crafts, recipes...and also to meet with other likewise bloggers.

I have been gluten intolerant for about 3 years, and recently started to follow the "Paleo" way, to help my husband lose weight and get rid of his newly diagnosed diabetes. The diet worked and we both try to eat this way now, although I am more disciplined than he is. This explains the fact that I now follow a few "Paleo" blogs.

I am on a quest to be more aware of the environment, use less chemicals on my body and house, so I make my own washing liquid for the washing machine, and use vinegar, baking soda and lemon for cleaning around the house, as well as making my own lovely soap. 
Try these recipes, they are easy, don't take long and you will feel so proud of yourself .

I enjoy crafts although I must say I am a bit of a procrastinator and haven't done much in way of crafting or painting for a while. 
My other interests are stamp collecting, postcard collecting (I joined Postcrossing a few months ago) and I also enjoy Genealogy.

I love to watch lifestyle shows, renovating shows, etc., which drives my husband crazy!!  
60 Minute makeovers?? No wonder I get cranky when the bathroom renovation takes 3 months!! I'm proud to say that in the last 5 years we have renovated our whole house, with hardly any help from respective handymen - a lot learned on the job!!!

I have 5 cats, only 2 of them are friendly and love to keep me company, the others are bit wild and scared of visitors. But I still love them to bits.

Twiggy

Fluffy

Baby

Shelley & Mommy

At the moment I have 56 followers, some lovely virtual and not so virtual friends spread around the world, but it would be nice to increase my regular readers.

I have actually met a few of my followers and/or bloggers that I follow, such as the lovely Carole from Piglet in Portugal, who was one of my first followers outside my family and who helped boost my readership, and who I met on a visit to Portugal last year.
Then there is Monica who also lives in Perth and blogs in Portuguese about her Perth experiences, Grace, has a daily blog about Perth, and Iris, who by coincidence lives in one of our former towns - Braunschweig - and who I met recently on her visit to Perth.
Celeste, also from Portugal, is a self published author, who also writes in Portuguese, posting poetry, articles about herbs and their benefits to your health, and she is an enthusiastic writer with over 500 posts in about 2 years.

One thing I find, is that although I have many people that read my posts every day, very few people apart from the regular 5 or 6 commentators leave comments. I don't know if the procedure is difficult or if people just can't be bothered. 
I miss that people comment and I always try to leave a comment if I visit a new blog, there is always a post that is interesting, has nice photos, is funny....
So make an effort and leave some kindness.

So hop along to 2Bagsfull -  with over 500 bloggers having registered you will for sure find one or two to your liking.

And of course I hope you "follow me" too and enjoy reading my blog.

FREMANTLE - the golden Oldie

Although the port city of Fremantle is only half an hour away from my house, I don't go there that often, even though it's such an interesting and quirky place.

I took the opportunity to spend a few hours there on Friday, when I took my son and daughter in law to Victoria Quay, to catch the ferry to Rottnest Island.

So camera in hand I walked around, stopping here and there, taking a peek into interesting shops, absorbing the atmosphere, and I returned home happy with my little trip.

The Rottnest Express ferry - you can see container with the luggage they deliver and the bikes for hire

The ferry departing to Rottnest

The W.A. Maritime Museum at the end of the Quay

Two  beautiful "oldies" in front of the E-Shed markets - cafes and markets

Another "oldie", this tram does the tourist routes around Fremantle

Fremantle Train Station

After dropping them off, I turned into Market Street, across from the train station and parked my car nearby.

I walked in the direction of the city centre until I heard a beautiful singing voice. I sat down, joining quite a few people that were already listening to this young busker in High Street. 

From Facebook I learned he has an original CD coming out as well as a CD with covers. Good luck to him, he truly deserves a place next to the best singing stars!

Fremantle founded in 1824

The park across the Town Hall had a chest set, a couple of table tennis tables (see Welcome sign) and even a piano under the big Ficus trees. How cool is that?so in High Street, in the pedestrian only zone I saw this xylophone (I hope that's the right name for this) that can be used by all.

Across the road the Fremantle Town Hall is an imposing building with a tall tower making it look more like a church. A window at the Town Hall shows Fremantle was founded in 1824.

Public Xylophone 

Chess set and Table Tennis table

Public piano

Back into Market Street, the National Hotel is showing it's new facelift after reopening the ground floor and first floor to patrons in December 2013.

This Federation style building started as a single storey shop in 1868 and in 1886 became an hotel. In 1895 the new gold prospecting owners commissioned the building of a 5 storey high Hotel with 50 to 60 rooms in the same site.

Ownership changed a few times, and in 1975 the top floor was destroyed by fire. While renovations were being done and nearly completed, another fire resulted in substantial damage in 2007.

Work is still ongoing with a roof top restaurant  and boutique accommodation due to open in mid 2014.

The Federation style National Hotel in Market st

One of the lead windows over the Bar entrance

In front of all the shops I could see these recycled planters

A lovely kitchen goodies shop in High Str

Another Kitchen goodies shop in Market Str

Inside the Home Provedore

Along Market Street I came across Kakulas sister Grocers - the sister shop to Kakulas Brothers in Northbridge, where you can buy your produce by weight from their rustic sacks.

Inside Kakulas Sisters

Uniting Church of Australia - corner of Market & Cantonment Street

I will have to return soon to take a peek inside more interesting boutiques.

Ahh, and least I forget if you do visit Fremantle don't forget to taste the best waffles and ice-cream ever!!  
Just off Market Street turning into South Terrace towards the Fremantle Markets is the Piazza Mall, and across from Zapatas Mexican Restaurant, is a coffee shop - Freo Ice Cream and Waffles, that makes divine waffles served with Ice-cream of your choice.

Hope you enjoyed the trip to Fremantle and hope to see you again soon on another one of my wanderings.

(photo from net - sorry forgot the photo this time)

It's time to join the Grow your blog party

On reading one of the blogs I follow I was reminded that if you want to join the "Grow your Blog Party" you should do so by the 15th January.

This is a super blogging party that anyone can join with the purpose of finding new blogs, meeting new bloggers, get more followers....

For those of you who do not have a large following this could be the event for you, to make your blog known to others.

All you have to do is sign up with Vicky at 2bagsfull.blogspot.com and leave a short message with your blog's name, how many readers and what you blog about.
Click on the "Grow your blog 2014" button on the side bar and it will take you to Vicky's blog!

This is the second time she is hosting this Blog Party and last year it was very successful! 
So please join me too!

Discovering new places in Perth

I don't often go into the city, mainly due to the fact that I have everything I need in the suburb where I live, but once in a while it's nice to do something different!

So today, on my day off work, I took my daughter in law into the city and the suburb of Northbridge to show her some of the sights she still doesn't know. (She lived in Sydney previously, and has only been in Perth 6 months).

Our first visit was to the WA Museum where together with the usual exhibits there was an exhibition honouring 30 years of work from Perth's fashion designer Aurelio Costarella. 

Not all dresses were to my taste, but most were quite feminine and wearable.

Here a dress is inside an exhibition window with some Australian animals

There was a huge display of butterflies from Australia and the world

I love these stones with minerals!

  

Meteorites

A very important room in the Museum is the Discovery Centre, 
and today it was full of school children who are on their summer holidays at the moment.
It's a treasure trove for kids, but also very interesting for adults.

You can build a Pyramid

This lioness was popular with the kids who stroked her when they walked past

Under each cupboard the sliding drawers had interesting things to discover

The Dinosaur at the entrance to the WA Museium

Turning left to go to Northbridge we came across this "new sand box" in front of the main city Library. Under the shade a few beach chairs and recliners were available, and the kids played happily in the sand. It looked almost like a beach, quite funny!

Northbridge Piazza where free music concerts and movies are held - giant screen at end

Returning from our visits after lunching in Northbridge we went past Kakulas Brothers in William Street. A old-fashioned grocer store with flours, nuts, spices, chocolates, etc that can be bough by weight from various bags around the store. There are cheeses, olive oils, sausages, olives, canned goods, lots of European flavours...
Prices are very good and the choice is enormous!

(photo from net - I didn't think I could take photos inside)

Next door to them is another lovely find - a tiny and brightly painted shop selling artisan ice-pops -  Delish Ice-creams - the lady behind the counter offered us a try and we loved our choices - creamy coconut milk and passionfruit for me and Creamy Iced coffee for S. 

Pity we started walking towards the city and with the heat (it was 38C today!!) they started melting quickly. Eventually we found a shade until we finished eating them.

Have you ever tried something similar? They were delicious, we will be back for more!!

The sales lady took the photo with us holding the ice-pops

Next to the train station at Forrest Place, the kids were cooling themselves and having fun under the water feature, and a couple of  adults were also taking the plunge and getting wet...

Near the station on Murray St, this mural featured in a shop window caught my eye. Stunning!! It's part of an exhibition - Art 140 Perth and the artist is Anna McEachran.

Hope you enjoyed visiting the city with me and are getting to know a bit more about Perth's delights.