Finally a piece of dolphin merchandise I like

This town is groaning under the weight of dolphin merchandise.  Dolphin merchandise is very popular here, just not with me. I've toyed with the idea of setting up a museum of truly dreadful dolphin merchandise along the lines of the Mangaweka Shell Museum or the Bluff Paua Shell House but a) I suspect the only people who'd visit and appreciate it would be my family and friends, b) the exhibits would be far too easy to collect and I need a bigger challenge and c) I'm starting to really enjoy myself here and don't want to get drummed out of town.

I have however finally found a piece of dolphin merchandise I like, but it wasn't in Mandurah.  A while back I found the card above in a shop in Perth.  That shop has just gone into receivership.  That figures.

Cruising

The children and I played tourists in our own town and when on a cruise. 

We left from outside the Performing Arts Centre and cruised out towards the ocean.  Before the estuary meets the ocean we turned right turn into the new marina area,

where we spotted a house-boat called Wakka-Doo,

and saw some unfinished apartments and shops.

And some more.
 

Quite a few of them actually. No dolphins today though.

Out of the marina and back into the estuary going towards the lovely old bridge,

past the war memorial,

then a swift right into a canal to cruise past people's front gardens.

Some famous person lives in this pink house but possibly a sporty person as I had no idea who it was.

At about this point the commentary went on a lot about house prices.  Very, very big numbers last year and apparently somewhat smaller very big numbers this year.  In a big, boomy, microphoned voice. Right outside these people's houses. I'm not sure if we were supposed to be horrified, mystified or jealous but I felt a tad mortified.

Then the commentary went on about how most of the inhabitants of these houses are never here as these are just holiday houses.  I guess that makes a good story and we didn't argue as that would be bad form.
 

But their story made us a bit curious as we stayed in a house on one of these canals when we first arrived here. It was a very nice (but not over the top) house lived in by permanent residents. Next door and all up and down the street were plenty of other permanent residents doing everyday things like coming home from work, walking their dogs, cleaning out their garages and taking surplus lemons to their neighbours.

We cruised out of the canals and back into the estuary looking towards the new bridge. Still no dolphins today.

Back the same route.

Past the Sailing Museum and still no dolphins.  But never mind because cruising around Mandurah with your children is still a pretty fabulous way to spend a sunny, wintery afternoon.

Pull up outside the Performing Arts Centre,

and pop in to see the General Manager who says he's had dolphins frollicking around outside his office window all afternoon.

Dolphins

Life is full of mysteries.  One such mystery is why dolphins - more than any other animal on the planet - have inspired so much truly dreadful merchandise.  Sometimes when I am bored I play a game called "Find a cool dolphin thing".  There are no winners in this game.  I have yet to find a single piece of dolphin merchandise that I think is cool, but I love to be proven wrong, so if you ever find one, then please do send me a photo.  If I was a tutor at a design school I would amuse myself by setting my students an assignment to design a cool dolphin thing, because I suspect that it simply isn't possible.

The reason this mystifies me so much is that I appreciate as much as other less bitter and twisted people, just how cool it is to actually see dolphins in the wild.  That day when we went to the Dawesville Channel to see where the whales had been we didn't actually see any whales, but it didn't matter.

Because we did have a beautiful walk on a beautiful evening,

and we saw more dolphins in half an hour than I had seen in my entire life to that point.

And it was seriously cool. I go so excited that I took hundreds of uncool photos of rippling water where dolphins had recently been,

before I actually managed to catch one measly image of one.

The dolphins came right into the canals off the channel.  The canals are deep and have very steep sides and the dolphins were leaping out of the water right next to us.  We dubbed them a "plod" of dolphins as they were just meandering around so slowly and lingered for so long.

One of the dolphins we saw had some major damage to its dorsal fin.  After being told of a possible cause of this from a holidaying marine biologist, I have a new thing to add to my "Not To Do" list: Run over a dolphin with a jet ski.  Because that would be uncooler than the even uncoolest dolphin ornament yet created.

Everyday creatures

I'm sure the locals can easily spot us new-in-town folk.  We are the ones going "Oh look, pelicans!" and "Oh look, blowies!" (the incredibly common puffer or blow-fish) as we walk through town.

There are two zoos near here and next week I plan to take the children to one of them.  I'm sure it will be interesting and enjoyable, but for me nothing beats seeing wildlife just getting on with their lives in and around town while we are on our everyday outings.

One day last week we saw Ibis, Galahs, Peewees, Honey-eaters, Wagtails, Twenty-eights (Ring-necked parrots) and lots more birds we don't know the names of so just call "budgies" before we even left the house in the morning.  We set off to do various chores.  On our way we saw a bizarre sea slug, dozens of donut-shaped jellyfish, dozens of blowies, huge schools of fish diving out of the water with a Snakebird (Darter) in hot pursuit, a flock of crazy-haired Crested Terns having a spot of argy-bargy, an iridescent Blue Wren, White-faced Herons, a flock of Car-alarm birds, a Squawks-like-it-is-getting-murdered bird, a Drives-me-mental-as-sounds-identical-to-my-new-cellphone bird (OK, those aren't their real names) and lots and lots of budgies.

Next we went to view yet another rental home; Outside on the verge we saw six kangaroos sleeping under shady trees.  The house turned out to be the the first one I've seen that I could actually imagine living in (sober), so to celebrate, the children and I set off to revisit some creatures we'd seen a few days earlier.

WARNING: Stop reading now if you also love seeing creatures in the wild and get jealous easily.  See a few days earlier we went to the south Mandurah suburb of Dawesville and walked along a boardwalk across the estuary shallows.  There, just 1 metre below our feet, going about its business in about half a metre of water, was an octopus.  This was no seafood pizza type tiddler.  This octopus was a proper big aquarium-style number. We watched in awe as it arranged and rearranged itself in its rocky home.  There was no wind so the crystal clear water was smooth as glass and we had a perfect view.  Finally we left it and carried on the walk only to spot another large octopus.  When we finally made our way back to where the first octopus had been we were a bit disappointed to find it no longer there.  But a quick scan around and we saw it about three metres away in an area that was obviously its dining room as scattered all around were dozens of dismembered crabs.  The octopus gracefully shot back to its rocky home and squeezed back inside.  Amazing.

When we went back a few days later we didn't spot it again because the tide was further in and the wind was whipping up the water.  Never mind.  On the way home we stopped at various beautiful lookout points and consoled ourselves by seeing stilts, stints, swans and shelducks, a Great Egret, a dozen pelicans synchronised swimming, a tree weighed down with several hundred cockatoos (guffawing like they'd just been told the funniest joke ever), another flock of Getting-murdered birds, lots and lots and lots of budgies and.... a pod of dolphins.  And yes of course we excitedly shrieked "Oh look, dolphins!" to the amusement of the locals.

Can't wait until spring when the snakes wake up.