If the number of people trying to get Heavy Rigid (HR) truck licenses currently is any indication – then Western Australia’s mining industry is taking off again. Its impossible to get lessons or assessment times in Perth. Western Australia is definitely lucky – there are huge gold, iron ore, bauxite and natural gas reserves – [...]

Today was the final of the Perth edition of the Red Bull Air Race – and Aussie lad (and former RAAF fighter jockey) Matt Hall, finished a close second. The excitement started earlier in the week when Adilson Kindlemann, a Brazilian pilot, crashed Thursday during practice into the Swan River. Fortunately he was pulled out [...]

Us Fremantle Dockers supporters are a long suffering mob – its been over 15 years of disappointment. But so far this year its been different – 3 wins from 3 games. And today was the biggest victory so far – beating last year’s AFL premiers – Geelong. And Best-on-Ground was Matthew Pavlich – Fremantle’s captain [...]

When we are not on the water in Croatia, we like to escape Split by heading into the hills behind the city. Our favorite trail is up from the village of Sitno Gornje to the peak of Mosor. On the way is Planinarski dom Umberto Girometta at 868m above sea level. (A planinarski dom is [...]

Dropping Roklan off at day-care the other day I noticed the kids running around the playground with familiar brown seed pods – though I have never seen them in Perth before. The pods come from a carob tree – a rarity here, but numerous in Dalmatia – where they are called rogač. Today carob is [...]

Last week we received the invitation from Plamenko Bavcevic to participate in the 2nd Rota Palagruzona – a traditional boat event starting on Hvar Island, crossing to Komiza, on Vis Island and then crossing to remote Palagruza Island. Professor Josko Bozanic started the regatta to honor the old fisherman who used to make the marathon [...]

The Western Australian Croatian Chamber of Commerce held another guest speaker night last month. This time Fred Botica, radio star on Mix 94.5, gave the presentation. The Chamber was set up in 2003 to promote business links between the State of Western Australia, with its large Croatian population, and Croatia. It has sent 3 delegations [...]

This week I had a second meeting with Dr Michael McCarthy, Curator of Maritime Archaeology at the WA Maritime Museum. His department is responsible on behalf of the Federal Government for all the historic wrecks off the coast of Western Australia. The reason for the meetings – Mack has a small project for me. As [...]

Trying to learn more about wooden boat construction, I sought out the few remaining shipwrights in Perth. I was lucky enough to find Aaron Woodall‘s contact details, and visited him in his Henderson workshop. He was able to offer me a short-term job learning some tricks of his trade. Aaron’s training came with a distinct [...]

AC/DC are playing Subiaco Oval tonight – their last concert of their Australian / New Zealand Black Ice Tour. Last year they started their World Tour in Europe. The band’s core was formed around a group of young Scottish-Australians in the early 1970′s – Angus and Malcolm Young, and the band’s lead singer and soul [...]