The twenty-metre-tall Cape Naturaliste lighthouse was activated in 1904, became fully automated in 1978 but remained fully staffed until 1996. Before automation, the rotation of the light was achieved by a gearing system whose weight was wound up (just like the pendulum of a grandfather clock) every 45 minutes. Staff watches were 4 hours on, eight off, every day of the year.

Whales in Alaska

Celina and I have seen whales off the coast in Alaska (see PCs 44 and 45 June 2015) and in WA we were lucky enough to be here at the start of the annual whale migration, from their wintering north of Australia where they calved, to their summer feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean. Whilst you could see them surfacing and breathing, they were so far offshore that no iPhone photograph was going to do more than capture a moment of broken water in the distance. Even so, quite magical!

On the way back to Cape Lodge we stopped off at the beach at Yallingup. My brother-in-law Carlos would have loved the surf.

At the lodge Josefinna had messaged us to say she’d seen some kangaroos up near the entrance. We found three, but leaving the following day we found more than a dozen up near Petra’s Olive Oil plantation.

In my last postcard I mentioned that the Aboriginal people have six seasons. Just for interest, and they vary throughout WA and across Australia, the Wadandi’s Noongar are Birak (hot & dry) December and January; Bunuru (warm easterly wind) February and March; Djeran (Cool and pleasant) April and May; Makuru (Cold and wet) June and July; Djilba (Cold lessening rain) August and September; and Kambarang (longer dry periods) October and November. I rather like this, although I wonder how much climate change will alter them.

Acceptance by the settlers of Australia of the Aboriginal people and their beliefs is everywhere. For instance, this is a footnote on the Cape Lodge welcome letter: “We acknowledge the Wadandi people, the Traditional Owners of the land and waterways on which we operate. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.”

Back to Perth for our evening flight to Auckland. Ms Francisquinha was very chuffed as one of the border force officers found a stamp for her passport.

Another four-hour time shift saw us arrive in a very wet dawn in Auckland at 0600 (0200 WA Time!). New Zealand has extremely strict environmental laws, basically forbidding one to bring in anything! Celina surrendered her half-opened Lindt chocolate or might have found herself fined hundreds of dollars.

Auckland’s Sky Tower

This is not the first time Celina and I have been together to New Zealand. In January 2017 we stayed in the Coromandel at Whitianga (PC 88) and in 2019 explored Farewell Spit and Marlborough Sounds, on the northern coast of South Island (PC 169 Shifting Sands & Feathers and PC 170 100% Pure New Zealand). This year’s visit was to attend the ‘Celebration of Life’ of Dinah Warren. She had died in April this year and her five children had organised a ‘get together’ at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland.

Auckland marina

In this photograph taken towards the end of the celebration, you will notice on the far wall on the right what looks like a framed pair of red socks.

These belonged to Peter Blake.

Peter hanging up the red socks

For an explanation see Note 1 below.

Back in March 2011 I had organised, with others, the first Nation get together, deliberately coinciding with the 130^th anniversary of the death of my great great grandfather Henry Matthew Nation (HMN). In the same hotel in Parnell was one Dinah Warren (HMN was her great grandfather) and she persuaded me to help her get some flowers to put around the plaque we had placed on his grave.

On this trip Des & Gleneth Laery took us out to St Stephen’s Cemetery to see HMN’s grave.

I dug out the group photograph from March 2011

Dinah Warren is directly behind me!

Regular readers of these scribbles will know all about Francisquinha, our stuffed rabbit with her own personality and passport, who accompanies us on our travels (see PC 172 Francisquinha February 2020 and PC 217 ‘My Week – Francisquinha February 2021).

In the ‘order of tribute’ booklet for Dinah’s celebration was an extract from her favourite story, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. It read: ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you’re Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose on your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’

Her grandchildren believed ‘Dinah’s greatest gift of her life was being Real, being Real through being loved. She believed that’s how we all become real – not by how we look, but by loving deeply, and being loved, even as life wears us in (sic).’

I only met Dinah a couple of times, once in London and then when we bought those lilies. But I, and Francisquinha who has read the story, think this is a great way to be remembered, so I had to include it in this postcard.

Richard 24^th October 2025 (My birthday!)

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Thanks to Wikipedia (!) Sir Peter James Blake KBE (1 October 1948 – 5 December 2001) was a New Zealand yachtsman who won the 1989–1990 Whitbread Round the World Race, held the Jules Verne Trophy from 1994 to 1997 by setting the around-the-world sailing record as co-skipper of ENZA New Zealand along with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, and led New Zealand to successive victories in the America’s Cup. In the 1995 America’s Cup challenge, Peter Blake wore some red socks his wife had given him; the team made a clean sweep, beating American Dennis Conner 5-0 …. and the red socks became Peter’s trademark. Peter Blake was shot and killed by pirates while monitoring environment change on the Amazon River on 5 December 2001. He was 53 years old.