Wynyard Wander

 So guess where we are - sunny Wynyard on the North West Coast of Tasmania, which in case you don't know is the most beautiful part of Australia.  Now before we go on a little history for you all - Wynyard was settled by Europeans in the early 1840's, but the original inhabitants were the Tommeginer people - it's a beautiful coastal area.

 Now I don't want to disappoint anyone, and there are plenty of places for it, so today's sweet break was at a lovely coffee shop/florist called Rumour Has It.....  Mum, Ken, and I went for lunch and as always Ken had something very healthy looking and I had toasted banana bread with maple syrup and yogurt - yum, yum.

 After lunch mum went home and we went for a walk out to East Wynyard to do a bit of beach combing.  Here are some photos of the area.

View of Table Cape which is an extinct volcano.

As always I found someone to chat to amongst the the animal kingdom, this time it was a lovely seagull who was very friendly and got really close.

Handsome Seagull

 The other excitement was a rather large gull eating a very big fish - he sort of alternated between eating and chasing the smaller gulls away.  As the tide was coming in he was also trying to pull it into shallower water.  He was so busy eating that he didn't really notice me getting closer for a photo - I took about 20 shots just to get these as every couple of steps I took pictures in case he got spooked, but he didn't.  If it wasn't for the tide coming in I'm sure I could have got closer.

We wandered for quite a while looking for sea glass, with quite a good collection, but one colour does seem to dominate the sea glass at East Wynyard - no clues for guessing what colour bottle the Tasmanian beer comes in.

My beloved hunting for sea glass

Arty shot that Ken wanted me to take

As we headed back through the wharf area I thought I should take a couple of pictures showing what a lovely day it was - blue skies and sunshine.  The picture above is the car park at the wharf and you can just see a seagull having a seat in one of the parking spots.  Below is a couple of hopeful fishermen.

Outside the fish shop at the wharf is one of those tourist boards where you can stick your head through - now call me crazy, but Ken looks awfully good as a mermaid!  Maybe he should grow his hair long to develop the look.

Hope you enjoyed the quick look around Wynyard - there will be more to come and there are at least 5 more coffee shops in the one street for us to sample.  So until next time, be good and look after each other.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S.
Final two photos, Ken being a good boy and mowing mum's lawn, and instead of the Australian flag as I usually do when found in the UK, I've put a photo of the Tasmanian flag for you all.xx

Nunhead Cemetery Open Day

Last weekend we did one of our days out that has most of our friends using one word to describe us - weird!! We went to an open day at Nunhead Cemetery in South London. It's one of the cemeteries known as the big seven - Victorian cemeteries that were built around 1840 to cope with London's increasing population and the resulting deaths.

The open day was fab, with all sorts of stalls, tours of the site, and a choir in the ruined chapel. We were going to do a tour but the group was too big to hear everything so instead we wandered around by ourselves.

Further into the graveyard there were some Bodgers at work - traditional wood workers, and birds of prey.

The ruined chapel had some great faces on it it - we love checking out gargoyles, with our favourites being the face pullers.

The cemetery is so beautiful and overgrown - it's lovely how nature has been left to thrive, and it's now a really important habitat for all sorts of creatures and plants. There is a small part of the cemetery that is still being used so that is kept tidy.

Whilst on our wander we came across two commonwealth war grave sites - the one pictured below is the Australian one - I felt quite moved by how beautifully looked after these graves so far from home are, and most of them just babies really, teenagers and 20's. The other war grave site was a mixture of Kiwis, South Africans, Canadians, and one lone Australian.

The two graves below are examples of head stones with a carving to show the person's profession in life - I really like the actors one.

A nice thing you see throughout the cemetery is lots of habitats specifically designed to encourage and look after the wildlife. The pile below was for staghorn beatles.

The choir were fantastic, with the chapel providing a perfect backdrop to their voices - they even got all of us singing. As Ken said, it was quite a surreal moment.

The upside down flame is on the gates as you enter the cemetery, but it is also on lots of gravestones as it is the symbol for life being snuffed out.

On our way home we went past Westminster Abbey so I've included a couple of their gargoyles and a lovely door.

So that was our exciting day out amongst the graves - a perfect day out.

Until next time, stay safe and happy.

Pamela and Ken
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