Heading home to the frozen wastelands of the north.

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Shortly to be heading back to the frozen wastelands of the north and reflecting on what the past four months spent in Western Australia has brought. Firstly the levels of vitamin D are well and truly replenished and I have taken up a more regular pattern of daily walking and swimming in the endeavour to contain my non specific lower back pain. There is always ample opportunity to walk in WA but all too few people take the opportunity in favour of using the 4x4 to obtain access to what was a wonderful coastal wilderness. Once again Wharton proved a wonderful place to wander, scrambling up through the bowls of Hammer Head and out onto the Southern Ocean side where nobody seems to roam.

Summer in WA doesn't mean no rain and when it does there are road closures and detours to make. One such lead me to my only climb up Mount Barren in the west of the Fitzgerald NP. The by now my ritual walk out to Bald Head has become a measure of my own fitness and this time it proved to be more than just a struggle, with the tide high and a heavy swell that crashed fifty feet below as I made my way along the narrow goat track. The extra ordinary sand cliff formation are a wonder to behold.







A trip to Perth was well timed to co-enside with the sculpture on the beach exhibition, always worth a look.

There was a time when friends would ask me what I as someone who is fascinated by history and architecture could find in Australia. The answer is simple I come here for the natural history as well as the fine Australian take on the arts and crafts period of architecture. I have spent the past few weeks preparing 24 botanical water colour that I will be further working on to add some feather birds. The collecting of feathers through road kill has been remarkably productive and I now have a good selection of colours to produce my next hickmanii varieties of birds. On the oil painting side I have turned back to portrait painting and in a very hot tin shed have been painting a portrait of Charley, my oldest friend from Cambourne College days. We are both in or approaching our 65th year. When after enough years, the look you put on your face to hide behind becomes the shape of the person you are then you are ripe and ready for a portrait.

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