Hot day in the park...

HOLY COW

Shit!
no - that wasn't a swear word.. it is cow shit on my front yard!

I ordered 8 cubic meters of cow manure. Supposed to come on Friday but it arrive a day earlier! Didn't get the chance to get tarpaulin.

Imagine the pongs!

Waakakakakaakaka

If my vege garden still not performing.. I should just quit!

School Report

Something to share with my friends - The system in Tasmania. (I can't tell for the other states of Australia - they are different again!)

I think compare to the education system in Thailand, India and Malaysia... Tasmania has less competitive structure.

I am not showing off the 'averageness' of my son OK [poor kid]

If 33 years ago I took home a report card like this to my parents, I am sure both of them will have no clues to what's happenening to me in school. In Malaysia [at least 30 odd years ago] the approach was RED no good. 100% is good. On top of that you will be given ranking in the class, ranking in the whole school.. and so on

Parents will be happy if their kids get # One! or close to # one. Top ten for eg.

This competitiveness can sometimes cause rift amongst students .. the 'clevers' hang out with 'clevers' only (as it seemed from the not so clever pupil's point of view) or parents might say "Don't befriending with such and such, she/he never study..." -- sounds familiar??

Fortunately my parents weren't like that. In early school age I was living with my grandmother and she or my uncles and auntie who cared for me wasn't like that.
Gosh looking back... I was always hanging out with this one boy who turned out a criminal in later years and he was in 'slow class' [kelas lembab - what a derogatory word used by teachers too!]

Back to Tassie system here... looks to me there's only 2 things that they emphasized : Literacy and Numeracy.
science had a mention but no grading.
anyway -- tell me what you think of the system here.. this is a report of a 7 year old student in grade one.

My poor bumble bee

My bumble bee scooter is causing me a lot of grief lately. Hisham even suggested that I should get a new bike (scooter). It is a good scooter when it was going. The problem is with the service people.

It seemed that problems occured when I send her for the service. Coincident??

There was once where they forgot to put the engine oil - so she was cooked! That was a long grief but not so bad since I got the replacement scooter, which is exactly the same model minus the shield.
Then an oil leak -- related to the replacement motor.

Now.. I don't know what.. It was serviced - then it did not want to start... Battery was konked! - OK fair enough - this thing happened. One year-and-a-bit old battery konked? I can accept that. BUT then she stopped at top speed out of sudden. Luckily I got it going again.. but she was getting harder to start. ... then DEAD!
This time the mechanic reckoned it was "black box" which is the brain of the scooter! Ow well - OK that's the electronic bit.. I can still accept that. It is still under warranty but the new battery, new spark plug made me out of pocket for $120. Three days later....she don't want to start again...

hmmmmm I smell a rat! and the rat is the mechanic! ggrRRRRRRR

Noor is leaving Sydney..

For GOOD!.
Last year I blogged about meeting an old friend in Sydney. About a week ago I got a text message from her saying that she is going back to Malaysia .. for good.
Sydney and Lonnie is not close.. as Noor and I. Just occasional texts or emails.. but somehow I feel kinda 'lonely' when I learned that she is going back for good.. funny!

Let's hope Fizz in Queensland (even further than Sydney) will hang around a little longer!

Rohan turned 3...

in Stanley... We couldn't find a decent birthday cake there.. only a banana loaf from the local shop... but Hey! Rohan won't mind.

Happy Birthday My Darling.. [27.01.10]

Stanley - last part .. I hope

This is Pol of "Pol and Pen" Cottages. We stayed at Pen, Nice cosy cottage with home away from home facilities.

More images of Stanley

In front of fish and chips shop. They sell fresh fish as well. You can't get any fresher because the fishes are actully alive and swimming in the tank. Choose what you want and they happy to knock it's head for you! Euuwwww....



Crayfish (lobster to some people) traps at the wharf

Feeding hungry seagulls in Stanley

Tarkine Forest Adventure

Once you are in Stanley it is not far to go to Tarkine Forest Adventure. Tarkine is reputed to be the largest temperate rain forest in Australia.

You can take a slide down to Dismal Swamp from the Visitor Centre. The slide is 110 meters and the ride is less than 15 seconds. It must be fun for Aladdin.

The other kids and I walked down to the Dismal Swamp whilst Hisham just enjoyed his cafe latte at the visitor centre.

We walked down at waited for Aladdin to slide..

He didn't scream but he was shaking after it all.. Good Fun!

Dismal Swamp (I wonder why such name) It is mainly 1.5 kms of walkways but it is not one straight round of walkways - it is inter-mingling with one another. It has many interpretation kind of arts..
Like this two giant praying mantis

A big door.. among others

Kids love walking in the forest they pretended to be characters in Dora the 'Explora'. Aladdin was reading the map of the lost world of Dismal Swamp.

Loved this fern, It is kinda green flourescence! You'd like this Shil!

This is my favourite spot of the walk. The curve timbers that are sticking out from the floorboards. Cool!

Felt like I'm in the skeleton of a giant fish (Remember Yunus a.s)

This is supposed to be the skeleton of an ancient lion that roam this land some thousands of years ago..

Stanley - Highfield

We didn't hit the Nut first when we got here. First day we went to see the ruins of the first settlement in the North West region. I just like the ruins... Intan remember those ruins we saw in Scotland..- they just make a good photography as far as I'm concerned. Now I wish I have Shilla's toys.. but a simple digital would do for now!
Always like the stone buildings...

Whatever it was - it has a very tiny room... tiny area but very high roof..
Penguin crossing??? we saw this sign on the way to Highfield. Must find out more about those little fairy penguins. There is a penguin trip, $20 per person and I thought it would be nice to do the trip but Hisham talked to one local and he reckons it isn't worth the money. All you see is little baby penguins in their burrows.. [[ There are some places in Tasmania that you can see the penguins comes in at night to feed their babies and leave the burrows in the morning]]

So I thought I better investigate the penguins ourselves..

Here she/he is... so cute... what a treat! Rohan started to do his penguin walks after that evening!

School Boys

I know I owe you Stanley.. but I must blog about this first [quickly]


Today is Orion's first day kindy. Only 2 days a week. Wednesday and Friday.

All set to school, new shirt, pants, lunch box, shoes, socks... all smile

Old Spidey bag

But what happened now????

UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

No Auntie Olga, your favourite boy isn't crying because he doesn't want to go to school... He is crying because he can't wait to go to school.. but he doesn't start 30 minutes after Aladdin. So we were on the way to send mummy to work [coz her scooter didn't want to start!]

I am sure he is now happy at school...

Orion also has this baby talk that he ALWAYS use... [ever since we had Rohan he started this baby talk]

So I said to him.... "You can't talk like baby in school"

"I KNOW that" - came a quick reply and with all grown up voice!

Orion... Orion...

Stanley

This is what Stanley is famous for... The Nut! a sheer-sided bluff - all that remains of an ancient volcanic plug . You can climb up the Nut (like Hisham, Aladdin and Orion did) or go up on the chair lift (Rohan and I). What is up there? - not much! hahaha

View from Chair lift. The village of Stanley from far. It is a very tiny village with half the population are tourists!! Every other houses seemed to be B&B or some sort of accomodation. They also have a massive caravan park on the left [Near the beach].

These are the views from on top of the nut. We saw lotsof little burrows like this one.. We were wondering .. is it a rabbit hole? Rats hole... then we saw the sign it is a type of bird. Short tail sheerwater. Apparently the summer night sky here is full of them. They migrated as far as Arctic region in winter and they have their babies in summer here. People eat the youngs. It is also known as 'mutton bird'. The youngs are actually bigger than the adults. They sell this baby mutton bird at the fish shop. Apparently it tastes very fishy [due to their diets].

Would you put your hand in there to get the chick?

The Left beach is wilder than the caravan park's beach. We stayed near this one.. like 5 minutes walk to the beach.

Would you believe that this is part of the track on the nut. Quite tall vegetations here [compare to just grass when we started.. and there were lots of this pedimelons [small wallaby or kangaroo like animal]