Parks, Birthdays and Shows

I am happy to say that Annabell is very much improved and  has started going back to the coffee evenings. Have no idea why they call them coffee evenings – most of the ladies drink tea. Oh well. I took Benji down to the Wetlands to see  the progress on the new Kiosk. It’s coming on well and should be opened soon. The electricity had been cut off to the area whilst work is being done on the  kiosk. There doesn’t seem to be much happening on the outside so I suppose it is all happening inside – well I hope that’s the case. But really,  some form of kiosk  here is well overdue and this one is close to one of the three barbecue areas which should increase the traffic on warm days. I have come down here on public holidays and being family friendly the whole area is well patronised, so the kiosk should do well. My concern is that some “couldn’t care less” dog people are not cleaning up after their dogs and it is becoming noticeable. There are  dog bag  dispensers  situated all over the park, plus there are notices but neither seem to help. I don’t know what the answer is. So, a small minority, not doing the right thing, give us all a bad reputation.   When we came here at first  there was,  on the outskirts of town,  a Fauna and Reptile park and an animal sanctuary. Again this was well used and I took a number of visitors down there. There was a Snow Tiger  that was no longer able to perform at a circus. The circus people were going to have it put down so the owners of our park bought it and brought it to  the Fauna Park where it lived in peace and quiet for its last years. However due to financial problems the Park was closed down about 14 years ago.

Recently a local business family have expressed interest in opening the park again and work has already started on cleaning it up and getting it back in shape. A lot of people and businesses have donated time and equipment to help get it up and running again. Most of us remember it from when we took our own children there.  It is believed that the park will be open in time for the September school holidays.

Wilson Park is a family friendly park not very far from Andrew’s house. This is where they held Connor’s birthday party. However, it has drawbacks in that there are no Barbecue facilities there so in order to have a Barbecue Andrew and friends loaded a Barbecue onto a trailer, moved it down to Wilson Park and then manhandled it

off.   Just off the designated playground, Council in its infinite wisdom have decided to construct a second skate park. It’s about 30 feet away from where we had the children on Sunday, so that should be “interesting”.

Going back to the Wetlands again – when I was down there with Benji the other day, I took this photograph  of a Magpie drinking from the dog trough. Not spectacular, but I thought it was interesting enough to share as something you don’t see very often,

Denver held a Pet Expo and I said that we never held anything like that here and that’s true. However, I did discover that  in April of this year there was a two day  Animal Expo in Adelaide, billed as the biggest in South Australia, which is really not all that difficult because I don’t think many country towns can afford to run such a specalised event. It is also unlikely that many traders would attend such an event in a country town because of the costs involved – and really not a great return on outlay. Sad but true. However, and this is the thing, until I read the Denver information and started looking at this area, I had never heard of the two day event in Adelaide – which indicated how widespread  the advertising for the event was.  On a final note – it has been raining off and on – heavy and light – for the last 24 hours. I guess that means that the drought in this area has been broken and that the Emus population that  invaded the town, can now go back home.