Warrandyte is an outer suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 24 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Manningham. At the 2011 census, Warrandyte had a population of 5,520. Warrandyte is bounded in the west by the Mullum Mullum Creek and Target Road, in the north by the Yarra River, in the east by Jumping Creek and Anzac Road, and in the south by an irregular line from Reynolds Road, north of Donvale, Park Orchards and Warrandyte South.
Warrandyte was founded as a Victorian town, located in the once gold-rich rolling hills east of Melbourne, and is now on the north-eastern boundary of suburban Melbourne. Gold was first discovered in the town in 1851 and together, with towns like Bendigo and Ballarat, led the way in gold discoveries during the Victorian gold rush. Today Warrandyte retains much of its past in its surviving buildings of the Colonial period and remains a twin community with North Warrandyte, which borders the Yarra River to its north.
This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.
An old post-and-rail fence using rails fitted into mortises in (split) posts with the ends of adjacent rails overlapping in the mortises. Although post-and-rail fences are the most iconic of Australian rural fences, they were expensive and required some skill to build successfully. This one is found in Warrandyte, an outer Melbourne suburb.
This post is part of the Good Fences meme.
Chinese New Year's Day was on Thursday, February 19, 2015. This is the year of the Goat (sometimes called the year of the Ram/Sheep). Chinese New Year has a long tradition in Melbourne, and includes fifteen days of cultural festivities, starting with New Year's Eve and culminating two weeks later with a Lantern Festival. Feasting, firecrackers and the awakening of the dragon are just some of the traditional festivities in Melbourne's Chinatown and at Southbank.
This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.
The Tropical Glasshouse in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens showcases plants from tropical regions around the globe, and displays some of the most important and spectacular tropical rainforest plants known to man.
This post is part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
Sky watchers in Melbourne will have noticed a very bright star in the Northern sky at night. That 'star' is in fact the planet Jupiter and it is only days from reaching opposition on Saturday 7 March 2015. Even if you are not familiar with the night sky, Jupiter’s brightness means that it is very easy to find. Jupiter will be the brightest star (-2.6 magnitude) you can see.
The term 'opposition' means that the planet Jupiter will rise as the Sun sets and then set as the Sun rises the following morning. For Jupiter, it coincides with the planets closest approach to the Earth, and means that the next few months are prime time for Jupiter watching. In fact, Jupiter is so large (approximately 1,200 Earth’s by volume) that even a reasonable pair of binoculars will resolve Jupiter as a disc plus show four of its largest ('Galilean') moons.
The Galilean moons are the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo Galilei around January 1610. They are by far the largest of the moons of Jupiter. They are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto and derive their names from the lovers of Zeus. However, in total there are 67 confirmed moons of Jupiter!
I took these photos from my bedroom window tonight. The first photo shows Jupiter in the upper centre of the image. For the close up of Jupiter I used a 30X optical zoom as well as an additional 30X digital zoom. A little brightness/contrast enhancement in Photoshop and voilà ! The labelled image of the sky is from the free astronomy application 'Stellarium'. I have added labels for the Galilean moons in the last image.
This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.
Lagerstroemia, commonly known as crepe myrtle, is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian Subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia and parts of Oceania, cultivated in warmer climates around the world. It is a member of the Lythraceae, which is also known as the loosestrife family. The genus is named after the Swedish merchant Magnus von Lagerström, who supplied Carolus Linnaeus with plants he collected. These flowering trees are beautifully coloured and are often planted both privately and commercially. Popular varieties used in modern landscaping include the bright red Dynamite Crepe Myrtle, the deep pink Pink Velour Crepe and the purple Twilight Crepe Myrtle, which also has a bark that changes colours.
Crepe myrtles are chiefly known for their colourful and long-lasting flowers which occur in summer months. Most species of Lagerstroemia have sinewy, fluted stems and branches with a mottled appearance that arises from having bark that sheds throughout the year. The leaves are opposite, simple, with entire margins, and vary from 5–20 cm. While all species are woody in nature, they can range in height from over 30 metres to under one 30 cm, most, however are small to medium multiple-trunked trees and shrubs. The leaves of temperate species provide autumn colour.
Flowers are borne in Summer and Autumn in panicles of crinkled flowers with a crepe-like texture. Colours vary from deep purple to red to white, with almost every shade in between. Although no blue-flowered varieties exist, it is toward the blue end of the spectrum that the flowers trend, with no sight of orange or yellow except in stamens and pistils. The fruit is a capsule, green and succulent at first, then ripening to dark brown or black dryness. It splits along six or seven lines, producing teeth much like those of the calyx, and releases numerous, small, winged seeds.
This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.
