What we did on our Holidays - part 3 - Melbourne

After the turquoise blues of Perth's beaches the grey/brown of Melbourne's came as a disappointment ... they say it is storm water run-off.   However, I had been knitting yet more cossies for Blythe dolls and BiBi did some modelling for me.

BiBis is my daughter's French Trench, she was the 1st Blythe in our family.  She has a classic beauty - rather posh & classy though her 'bed-hair' suggests that she likes to party ... on expensive champagne. 
BiBi has claimed this classic plain black one-piece swim suit.

The photo-shoot was at Brighton Beach with those wonderful beach sheds as the perfect back-drop. 

 

This cossie is more 'vintage' style with a modesty skirt - I'm thinking of opening another Etsy shop, to sell clothes etc for Blythes & this might just be the first item made for it. 

The dolls love going to Melbourne and catching up with their friends there ...

BiBi & Lillian enjoy nice long chats

Took the grandkids to the museum one day - the Melb museum has this wonderful whale-bone on display.  I've made reproduction corsets, I've handled real Victorian corsets and I've done a lot of research on corsetry - so to me, this is fascinating.  

The whalebone that was used in corsets and clothing is not really bone, it is the baleen.  The filter-feeder business in the mouths of the baleen whales that feed on krill.  And look - it is like compressed hair - this is why it was so strong yet flexible (so much better than the modern plastic boning and thinner than the spiral steels we use).  It is made of keratin - just like our hair & fingernails, also birds' feathers & beaks.  It is also practically black, though I have seen old 'whalebones' in vintage garments that were cream colour (also some very dark ones) not sure of the reason for such variation in the colour.

I also did some crafting with the grands - 

cheap little kits to make Chrissie Decorations but we'd lost some of the bits and so the children had do be imaginative ... I love what they came up with.

Penguin?

Naturally, we all did plenty of eating - and I realised that I'm constantly taking photos of my granddaughter eating - she does enjoy her food! 

Now for some random Melbournian photos - 

saw these pretty lead-light windows in a house not far from Brighton Beach.  Love that one window had green round the edges and the corner window had the pink...

I also finally managed to get a photo of The Hand at Flinders Street station - pointing the way to the correct platform for St Kilda ... wonderful old tiles!

Finally - some more Brighton Beach photos - the dolls didn't mind the E. Coli count!

Audrey made sand-castles...

   

   

While Lillian and BiBi went for a stroll and chatted away some more!

Violetta & BiBi play beach ball, despite the wind!

What we did on our Holidays - part 2 - Perth

Mostly what we did was spend time with family and eat a lot of Christmas food ... my lovely niece & nephew decorated this Gingerbread House.

We didn't do much that was 'touristy' - though the dolls did spend a morning at the Stirling Gardens on St Georges Terrace where they met some bronze kangaroos!

Roos have big feet

and their Tails are very long indeed!

The kangaroos were created by Charles and Joan Walsh Smith in 1997. 

They were very friendly and took the dolls for a bit of a hop about the gardens ...

and the girls found a giant 'shish-kebab' made of rocks - (you can read about the 'Harmony of Minerals' here)

 

Let's see a little more of Perth's public art - this time from Kings Park.

 

A giant steel dragonfly on "Lycopod Island" (the pole has been made to look like a Lycopod trunk). 


This area of Kings Park also has life-size replica dinosaurs.

And our grand-daughter loved the newly hatched Baby Muttaburrasaurus (which I think looks a lot like ET) ...














There are also replica Stromatolites which the ducks find very convenient ...

Pacific Black Duck-lings

More ducklings - these 2 are Australian Wood Ducks.

But the State Emblem for WA is not a duck - it is the Black Swan and there are swans on many older buildings...

Let's see some more 'nature' - lovely hollyhocks & hoyas in my mum-in-law's garden

Violetta likes flowers that match her hair!

A large Preying Mantis who posed for a portrait ...

And some truly spectacular Sturt Desert Pea (Swainsona formosa)  in a Mosman Park garden

This amazing flower with its 'crescent moon' shape and shiny black centre is the Floral Emblem of South Australia.

Hmmm
2 state emblems in 1 post!

Well, let's leave Western Australia with a sunset.  From Leighton Beach, ships anchored in Gage Roads waiting to get into Fremantle or Kwinana harbour.

What we did on our Holidays - part 1 - Perth

Just back from 3weeks away in Melbourne and Perth visiting family - it was a MEGA Christmas.  

The 2 Simply cousins, Audrey and Violetta came to Perth with us. 

Do you think all these pressies are for us?

We stayed at a cheap hotel which is about to be renovated.  This is a shame in a way because I doubt that they'll replace the vintage bottle opener fitted to the wall in the bathroom ...
And, sorry, I know we shouldn't mention such things, but why do hotels & motels do this to the toilet paper?





I do admire the skill and care that goes into folding toilet paper into neat points but ...

The hotel in Perth went one better - the tissues were pointy too!

  

 

The girls decided to stay on the shelf - it was just their cup of tea!

They also did plenty of exploring - mostly in Kings Park

Indiana Audrey

They found old trees with wonderful dolly-sized hollows in them

Dollies debating what living in a tree hollow would be like

And trees with lovely colours

Also wonderfully coloured birds ...

Rainbow Lorikeet

Pink & Grey Galah (Cacatua roseicapilla)

Finally here is a view of the Swan River with the old brewery in the foreground - this was taken from the Tree-Top Walk in Kings Park which is not recommended for folk who get vertigo!

  It was a typically hot Perth day - but with wonderful clouds - Cirrus (I think?).