sallysetsforth

They take the title of "UFO capital of Australia" pretty seriously in Wycliffe Well, Northern Territory. In doing so, they've certainly set themselves apart from all of the other small localities that are dotted along the Stuart Highway, which tend to blend together in the memories of that long, long road trip.



It's a great place to stop and stretch your legs, grab some lunch and a beer, and buy some gorgeously tacky UFO souvenirs! The walls of the cafe are lined with newspaper reports of UFO sightings in the area, so there's plenty to read with your meal. And if you venture into the dark little room at the back of the cafe ...



Wycliffe Well is about 400km north of Alice Springs. There's a caravan park with motel/cabin accommodation, as well as the store and restaurant/bar. It's located quite near the Devil's Marbles (Karlu Karlu). I highly recommend visiting there if you ever find yourself travelling down "the track" :)

There's something magical about watching the sun set over the water at Mindil Beach here in Darwin. The crowds on market nights make it a wonderful shared experience as we grab something yummy from the food and drink stalls and make our way to the beach to see what kind of show the sky will give us. Of course it's different every time, depending on the shapes of the clouds or the amount of smoke in the atmosphere (there are always fires burning somewhere nearby during the dry season).





But do you know what is equally magical? The unexpected sunsets that you see when you're on your way home from the shops, or when you raise your head from the book you're reading and discover that the whole sky is pink! The crowds hardly gather on our balcony to watch the sun set over nearby buildings and palm trees, but it's a special experience nonetheless :)

A couple of years ago, my Mum was in hospital and I was planning to buy her some flowers. Then I remembered an online tutorial that I'd come across for making carnations using tissue paper. I'd never really been one for paper crafts before, but these were really pretty - they would last longer than real flowers, and my Mum would always know that they were made with love.



The tutorial for tissue paper carnations was from the Folding Trees blog. The blog authors have stopped posting new material, but the archive of tips, links and tutorials remains. I was aware of the blog because one of its co-authors was June Gilbank of PlanetJune, who designs wonderful amigurumi, punchneedle and more.



Now I have plans to decorate my own home with paper flowers, to bring some colour into our living space (and no watering required!). My recent interest in origami has sparked my inspiration for future projects such as origami roses, tissue paper blossoms, crepe paper roses, and cherry blossom wall art :)

Hmm, I'm not doing a very good job of daily blogging this year. I took the weekend off, a much needed break :) But now I have some catching up to do!

So I'm going to start getting back on track with a post about my cat - of course, you should know by now to expect blog posts about Roxy on a fairly regular basis - and her YouTube stardom.

Perhaps I exaggerate when I say stardom, but although I've posted a few videos of Roxy on my YouTube channel, there's only one that's really taken off in terms of viewing stats. It's a video that I uploaded back in 2009 of Roxy trying out her Drinkwell pet fountain for the very first time. So far it's amassed 7,731 views :)



My partner Tim also has a few videos on Youtube, including one that has even more views than Roxy (curses!). It's a video that he filmed during our holiday in New Zealand in 2006. A pair of cheeky keas took to our rental car, as they are wont to do. Please excuse the very bad language towards the end of the video when Tim stopped thinking it was funny and realised that the car was in real danger!

I have lots of photography and video apps on my iPhone. Most of them are free, though I've paid for a few too. They let me edit or play with photos or videos in ways that previously could only be done on a desktop or laptop computer - and sometimes in new ways altogether! Some apps try to do everything (crop, contrast, filters, frames, etc.) and others just focus on doing one thing well (panoramas, colour splash, stop motion).

WaterMyPhoto is a neat little app that does one thing well. It costs $0.99 (although I'm pretty sure I downloaded it for free, maybe during a special offer period). You take or select a photo, crop it to suit the effect, and then apply the water reflection effect. The effect is animated within the app, but when you save the photo it becomes static. There are sharing options to Instagram, Flickr, Twitter and Tumblr.

I tried it out with this photo I took at the Devils Marbles (Karlu Karlu), south of Tennant Creek last year.



Here it is with the WaterMyPhoto effect applied:



Of course you can apply the app in more realistic ways as well, but I was quite tickled by the idea of adding water to such a dry location :)

Do you have any unusual photo apps that you like to play with?

Darwin has many beautiful beaches, though they are somewhat let down by the fact that you can't swim at any of them because of the ever-present dangers of crocodiles, sharks and stingers ...

But much of Darwin's coastline is also made up of mangroves and mudflats. Today we went for a walk along the Mangrove Boardwalk in East Point Reserve.

The mangroves have a strange beauty all of their own, and their complex root systems are fascinating. These photos were taken at low tide. The same scene would be inundated at high tide - Darwin has a tide variation of approximately 7 metres.

This is just a "what I did today" post - they tend to be more prevalent during the #blogjune challenge ;)

In the morning we visited the Alawa shops to see the new location of Dragonfly Fabrics. They're Darwin's only specialist quilting shop, and have the most amazing selection of fabrics, especially Japanese designs. They also have lots of other embroidery and sewing goodies. And you can't go to Alawa without stopping in at Dimitrios Speciality Cakes for the most beautiful cakes and Greek pastries. We bought some small pastries and a couple of rum baba for laters :)

The Glenti Greek Festival was on this weekend, so of course we had to go along to enjoy some yummy Greek food (the spanakopita were delicious!). It's always great to see the kids showing off their dance moves too! I've previously blogged about Glenti HERE.



We walked off our lunch with a stroll along the Esplanade, pausing to read some of the poignant memorial plaques near the Darwin Cenotaph. Then we finished the day's outing with a quick visit to the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens. I'm planning to visit there again soon to take some photos - when I don't have a hole in the sole of my sandal to distract me!

A quiet evening followed - an afternoon nap, a very light dinner, and a DVD on the couch. We watched Dogfight (1991) with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. It's a little gem of a film, and a sad reminder of the wealth of talent that was lost when River Phoenix died only a few short years later.

I regularly monitor Twitter and other channels for news and developments related to accessibility in libraries and the broader community. I recently came across this YouTube video from the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) that explains the work of their National Library Service in the United Kingdom. I was so impressed by it - very professional with a clear communication of the library's value and how advocate on behalf of vision impaired readers. The contributions of some of the library's clients are especially wonderful :)



Vision Australia also has a very good video available on YouTube that describes the services of the Vision Australia Library, if you're interested in learning more about the equivalent local service. Their clear explanation of print disability is excellent, and I loved their demonstration of new braille technologies. I would have liked to hear some client voices or perspectives though (maybe next time!) and closed captioning would have been a plus as well.



2012 is the National Year of Reading, and both of these videos do a fantastic job of demonstrating the importance of being able to read for people of all abilities. I hope you have time to check them out :)

We found a great place to rent in Darwin this time around. It's a 2-storey townhouse in a nice complex. It's expensive, but well located for public transport, shops, etc.

It just has a few little problems with electrical appliances ...

Fridge - The townhouse includes a fridge/freezer. It doesn't work. I put in a maintenance request when we moved in, but 5 weeks later (yes, 5 weeks!) it still hasn't been fixed. Luckily we have a bar fridge to tide us over while we're waiting but patience is wearing very thin on this particular issue. I haven't had ice cream in over a month!

Air conditioning - As far as I'm concerned, it's essential in Darwin. Especially in a house that isn't designed to work without it. A week after we moved in the air conditioner in the main bedroom broke down. We slept in the second bedroom (home office) for about 2 weeks while waiting for it to be fixed. It was finally sorted out just a few days before our first visitor arrived.

Washing machine - A week later, it was the washing machine's turn to die. The washing machine also comes with the house, so it was another long wait to get it replaced. Much hand washing was done in the meantime. The new machine arrived today. I wasn't impressed that we had to install it ourselves.

Television - I also haven't watched TV in over a month. It took us a week after our furniture arrived to get the television, set top box/hard drive recorder, stereo system and DVD player set up. At which point we discovered we had no TV signal. After some more to-ing and fro-ing, a technician came around and we discovered that the previous tenant had taken an important component with them when they moved out. That was replaced a few days ago and we can now watch telly again.

So things are getting fixed, but at a snail's pace. It's very different to when you're in your own home and just get things fixed when they break - this ask-and-wait (and follow-up-and-wait, and ask-again-and-wait) process is so frustrating!

P.S. The fridge/freezer issue should be sorted out soon (it had better be!!) and I'll let you know by sharing a celebratory ice cream with you :)

Everyone in Darwin had their winter woollies and long pants on today as they complained about the bitterly cold night we had just had. My colleagues wore scarves or shawls to ward off the chill. And there's no relief in sight for these poor folk - temperatures will be down all week ...


Yes, that's the week's forecast. In Darwin, that's a cold spell. I haven't re-acclimatised to the tropics yet, but even I woke up cold in the middle of the night and had to retrieve an extra coverlet from the cupboard. And tonight's after-dinner drinks were called to an end when we decided it was too cold to remain outside.

How's the weather in your neck of the woods? ;)