First Stop Dwellingup

Strange photo to start my travels with? It was a strange night! I left Denmark and drove to Dwellingup, a small town about an hour out of Perth up in the Darling Ranges. A friend of mine owns a few acres in the bush and some friends had driven down from Perth to catch up with me on my return from the south west.
I’d only arrived there perhaps an hour earlier and we were sitting around the bonfire having a drink and chatting when there was an almighty SMASH from the highway about 400m away from us across a paddock.

Initially a little bewildered we quickly realized that it could only have been a car accident, nothing else sounded like that. This is a small windy road yet still a major country road with a speed limit of 110 and someone had slammed at full speed into a large tree on the side of the road. One friend drove across to see if he could help and came back about an hour later after emergency services arrived, the scene he painted wasn’t pleasant, a girl in her early 20’s had died instantly.  It made for a more somber evening as we watched the police in the distance for the next five or 6 hours dealing with the situation.

The following morning was cold, really cold. this photo above shows some of the frost that had formed on the grass, very interesting to look closely at some of the different shaped crystal formations. Top right you’ll notice here’s one crystal poking out from the leaf that looks a little like half of a snowflake.

While frozen the water forms crystalline structures with flat sides like tiny ice cubes or grains of sand. Then as they warm and begin to melt their soften and they form into rounded droplets.

 

 

And then onto more bad news the day after arriving in Dwellingup my dog Joker became quite ill. At 14 years old there had been a few scares, he was diagnosed with cancer almost 2 years ago and at the time I was told perhaps he had 3 to 6 months left. Over the past 8 months while living in Denmark he’d had a few trips to the vet and twice I thought it might be time but he kept pulling through. I guess luck doesn’t last forever and I we had our final trip to the vet yesterday morning.

I’d had Joker since he was a puppy and he’s been with me almost 24/7 for most of his life. He used to come to work every day and was the mascot of the Backyard Aquaponics shop and was seen in a few of the aquaponic videos and photographs. No one ever had a bad thing to say about Joker, in my eyes he was a model dog and he was my constant companion, he’ll be sorely missed.