I'd Rather Spend Time in the Park.

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Now that we've moved to a new sit, we've got a whole new bit of Melbourne to explore. Even better, BD is recovered enough to go back to work so our parental duties have reduced somewhat and we have time to go exploring.
The three of us went to Chadstone, which is the second largest shopping centre in the Southern Hemisphere (behind Centro Comercial Aricanduva in Brazil) and has a somewhat trippy roof to boot.
 
Peace out.
 
We didn't stay long at Chadstone due to all three of us being very allergic to shopping. Thirty minutes in the largest blah blah blah in the Southern Hemisphere was enough for all of us to roll our eyes and go home to recover with a nice cup of tea.
 
And a small fluffy dog to cuddle.
 
Boring big shopping centres aside, one of the great things about Melbourne is all the suburban parks just waiting to be discovered and our new suburb was no exception.  Just up the road was Wattle Park with lots of walking tracks on which to tire out small fluffy dogs.
 
"I think she wants us to sleep when we get home."  "No chance, I'm gonna go and bark at the neighbours."
 
 
After WW1 Wattle Park was the training base for the 24th battalion, and in May 1929 they carried out the first Trooping of the Colour in Australia (with permission gained from King George V) and continued doing so annually.  The 24th battalion is long gone from Wattle Park but they left behind a tree grown from a pine cone from the original lone pine at Gallipoli, and planted as a seedling  at the 1933 Trooping of the Colour.

The Lone Pine's little seedling, all grown up.

Wattle Park was big enough to have creeks and wetlands, all brimming with water and frogs after the recent rain.  So for those of you who like to listen to frogs, here's a small sample of a frog party, Wattle Park style.


The little dogs (Silly 1&2) were unimpressed by the frogs, wanting nothing more than to keep on walking with the occasional hiatus where they barked loudly at big dogs because as everyone knows little dogs trump big dogs and must always tell them so.  So I took them to the cemetary instead, where there were no frogs but the roses were well tended and in full bloom.
 

And then we went home, and I was even more convinced that I would much rather wander around the parks and cemeteries of Melbourne than waste my life in the second biggest Shopping Centre in the southern hemisphere.

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