A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.

Seal at play #1. Melbourne Zoo, April 2011.

As I might have mentioned previously, we’ve just spent Easter in Melbourne. One of the delights that we took in during our stay was the zoo.

Of all the animals on display, I particularly liked the seals

Seal at play #2. Melbourne Zoo, April 2011.

We got a good look at the Australian Fur Seals, from both above and below.

Seal at play #3. Melbourne Zoo, April 2011.

It’s a large display, with plenty of space for the critters to swim about the place, in both sun and shade (hence the different tones of the photographs).

Seal at play #4. Melbourne Zoo, April 2011.

If you do find yourself in Melbourne, and enjoy watching animals at play, you could do worse than a day at the zoo!

Comments

Roddy said…

Do you rate Melbourne Zoo as highly as Zoo Doo in Tasmania.
Did Henry get to meet the Melbourne camels?

28 April 2011 at 20:11

Kris McCracken said…

Even better.

The camels are all out at Werribee

29 April 2011 at 09:56

Carola said…

Watching seals at play is gorgeous. I love it.

29 April 2011 at 18:12

Roddy said…

Surely not all camels. I'm sure there must have been at least one.

29 April 2011 at 19:44

Kris McCracken said…

Carola, I could sit and watch the seals all day.

Roddy, not one.

30 April 2011 at 08:31

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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