Day 68. 118,823 words.

Not an awful lot happened again today. We went for a walk down to the beach and checked out the “famous” Fairy Garden.

I haven’t got any pictures of this (again, feel free to nag Mrs. Hatboy[1]), but it’s an interesting little feature. Evidently, some considerable time ago, someone decided to transform a cute naturally-formed grotto on the lee of some sand dunes into a sort of playground. It’s sheltered by close, low-hanging trees and the overall effect is pretty elfin and cool.

[1] I do, however, have a picture we took from the Round House in Fremantle the previous week when we went to see Jumanji.

What you can see here is an artwork created by a painter, who decorated the entire street with seemingly random strips of yellow paint. Only from the Round House, looking back down the street, can you see the actual piece. Pretty cool. I also like the wedding cars there on the left, that sort of make this photo look like it was taken in the 1930s.

The curators built little paths, sandpits, and picnic spots inside it, using old card tables and doll house parts. And then it sort of transformed into an open-air museum where the curators – and visitors – could leave toys to add to the setup. Old beach toys, bath toys, and tacky Christmas presents have added to the decorations. The result is a big, sheltered space full of toys and tables and chairs and climbing frames and stuff, where a kid could quite easily spend hours.

Most interesting to me is the fact that this is completely public property. The local council obviously allows it to remain even though it’s not on the curators’ land, and somehow it doesn’t get trashed by drunk arseholes on a weekly basis.

There’s a certain amount of upkeep involved – while we were there, one of the curators was there sweeping sand back into place and fixing up bits and pieces, and there are signs asking people to please leave the Fairy Garden in the same condition in which they found it.

But bafflingly, it seems to work.

Very neat place. We spent a while there, then Wump and I walked home (a matter of some kilometres, and we stopped at the shops for candy and juice and flavoured milks[2] on the way) while the others drove.

[2] Finland is still way behind on their flavoured milks game. Australia, perhaps suffering from my departure from the flavoured milk market, has also slumped a bit but they still have chocolate, strawberry, banana, spearmint and a range of iced coffees. Finland, regrettably, really only has chocolate and coffee. And not much of a range of either.

That evening we watched The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD for the first time in ages. Still a classic.