Black Cockatoos and Driving in Perth.

Road Trip Day 20: 11th June 2007

Cockatoos.

This morning, at Rose's house, I was just about to start organising my breakfast when I heard a commotion in the backyard that was familiar and clearly a flock of Cockatoos (a species of parrot) feasting on the larger trees. Familiar because I've heard this sound many times in my home town of Gawler with the white cockatoos we get there.

I wouldn't even mention it except that when I went out to have a look (because watching all the debris rain down from the tree tops being stripped by cockatoos is quite a sight) I saw this was a flock of black cockatoos with yellow patches on each side of their heads (roughly where their ears might be if you could see bird ears). I've never seen black cockatoos doing this, not in my home town, nor have I ever seen it in Western Australia.

I tried to take a few photos but the birds were too high up to get a good shot. The photo shown here is about the best I managed.

Perth Driving.

Since being back in Perth I've done just a little bit more driving in traffic than I'm used to. In seven years since I moved, the areas I used to drive quite a bit have become far busier. The concentration of roads seems to have doubled and people seem to drive much faster and more aggressively.

Maybe I'm just not used to driving in this much traffic anymore. I don't remember it ever being this busy with this many cars - even in times when you'd expect it to be less busy. Roads are everywhere, built like ribbons across the city, going over and under yet more roads as well as railway lines. In some places you can't even see the buildings for the roads.

Perth is a rapidly growing city. It seems to have become much faster. I'm not enjoying driving here. Everybody tailgates if you don't accelerate fast enough, or even if you do. There are so many cars, so many roads. It's supposed to be much better to get to places. I'm sure it is. However, to me, a landscape dominated by roads is ugly.

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