Dry season sunset Mindil Beach

With the onset of the dry season, the sunsets like this one at Mindil Beach are often enhanced by smoke from burning off of the bush.


Plenty of tourists at Mindil Beach, its very, very popular.

Losing some great team members

Sadly Pauline needs to return to her family in Victoria. She has been a great team member,her sense of humour and sense of purpose has endeared her to us all. I played around with Flickr Toys to create these:

Also Karen has decided not to return to Darwin so another good friend and team player has been lost from my team.

Library Week

I was busy with Australian Library Week as I judged a photo competion, went to the Library Technicians Dinner. This was at Karawa, the CDU training restaurant,you can see why I enjoyed the meal!.(Great food and prices)



then the next night a tour of the new Palmerston library and a panel session all of which I was asked to be the official photographer for and then today a morning tea where I announced the winner of the photo competition.
This is a photo from last nights panel and tour. Its myself with Elizabeth from our Library Studies Unit ,and Leigh from my team.

Return to Fogg Dam May!

Managed to get out again to Fogg Dam.This time with Pauline.
The road has been opened up again now the dry has started , but you can see some damage.

Lots of birds though. I was pleased to get a good photo of four Rainbow Bee-eaters


and a few Kingfishers.


There was also this rather magnificent crow, nice body dreadful voice!

Also lots of Crimson finches.

The Egrets and Royal Spoonbills were quite vocal.

Sunset at Mindil Beach market

Returned this week to Mindil Beach, this time with Pauline.

These two princesses were enjoying the music at the market.

I enjoy the Celtic/World Music nature of this group, Jabaru.This is Rene Bradshaw.
Quoting their web site"Through the performance of her music rene uses hammer dulcimer, flutes, djembe and dun duns presenting a haunting sound with soul filled melodies. Rene sings sultry, emotive lyrics, plays the hammer dulcimer like a Persian Princess and enchants with melodies on various flutes."
Hear their music at jabaru.com.au

Pauline looking at the stalls

The first Mindil Beach market's for the year

Delayed for a week because of the threat of Cyclone Monika, the Thursday and Sunday evening markets are a huge tourist magnet.



I always like the humour of the Road Kill Cafe, "you kill it we grill it!"

Return to Fogg Dam

Having missed a couple of weeks due to my trip with son Dave to Singapore recently it was good to get out to Fogg Dam again. I gave David Forsyth from the University a call, and he joined me for the 60km drive out there. It was quite a dramatic change as the road in along the old dam wall is now closed, at least until the "Dry" is well underway. the water is flowing well over the road in the middle of the dam so it was only accessible for driving by official 4WD vehicles.






The usual birds were seen, Royal Spoonbills, Pied and Intermediate Egrets,Kites,Cormorants, Rainbow Bee-Eaters



and something I had not seen there before, a Broad-billed Flycatcher(Myiagra ruficollis).


We also saw a snake in the water. We were also prevented from going on the forest boardwalk because of flooding.

Some business as well

Dave and I also visited a couple of universities as well. Nanyang Technological University and also the National University of Singapore.
This is just one of the libraries at NUS where I gave a talk to the Library Association of Singapore on Google Scholar.

They have a chill out or "Perk Point" area with food and drinks available as well as zones where mobile phone users can duck into!

This seat is tucked into the stacks and I liked the quote, I guess that's what librarianship is all about!

Dave and Stephen's BIG trip to Singapore

We had quite a few trips down the famous Orchard Road.



After spending quite a few days undertaking retail therapy, Dave and I went to the Singapore Zoo.
We saw the Asian small-clawed Otters.
Right next to their display was this beast,
which I had never heard of. Its called a Binturong
(a kind of Civit cat)



and the orangutangs

and the stunning Siberian White Tigers, so sadly under threat of extinction.





The smile on this young woman was delightful.


as was this colourful families concerned looks as the peacock strutted around, lording his domain.


I liked the patterns of the feathers.


This baboon was creating quite a display!


There were lots of school children, very well behaved.
A very polite child with a clipboard asked me lots of questions about where I had come from, what I thought of Singapore, what other Asian countries I had or would visit.
When I asked him where he was from, he was actually
on a school trip from Hong Kong!


It was interesting to note in the new Australian Outlook display that there were links to the Northern Territory.


Dave took advantage of the 4WD to get a bit more height for his shots.

We also shopped in other areas as well.
This is North Bridge Road.

Dave rather liked the art work on this taxi.

Our hotel,The Carlton is just a few steps away from the more famous Raffles.