Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

All's well that ends well for Scouts

Today is Foundation Day for Western Australia - a public holiday. Probably quite meaningless for most people without some tenuous family connection to the British pioneers who rocked up at Fremantle on 1 June 1829 and commenced chopping down trees as fast as they physically could.

If you've been observant so far, you will have realised that yesterday was actually Foundation Day, but today is the "real" one because that's the only day when a freebie Monday public holiday can be taken seriously.

Today was also the final day for the Scouts' Unearth Perth jamboree. I've been up on the Perth Esplanade with my family watching the closing ceremony - in perfect weather. We went on the train which was much less trouble than driving into the city. I'm well and truly converted on that one. The new Perth to Mandurah line is brilliant.

The ceremony paid homage to all those who had contributed to making the event a success. There was a stony silence when it was announced the Labor state premier Mr Carpenter had sent an apology for his non-attendance. I was surprised he'd declined, but obviously he must have had something more important than speaking to so many fine young Western Australians all gathered in one place.

The Esplanade was still squishy from Saturday's flooding. All the tents were still in place this morning so they had to be packed away wet. I made a panorama of them when I arrived this morning. Click up the thumbnail for the full sized version:

We brought one of 1st Fremantle Sea Scouts' tents home with us on the train. I got to lug it. Its presently strung up on our front driveway drying out. As Shakespeare once wrote about Scouting, "All's well that ends well."

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

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Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!

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