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 [...]
The best reflection of the Dalmatian locals’ rediscovery of their maritime heritage is the yearly increase in the number of participants in the Latinsko Idro (Latin Sail) Regatta. We have mentioned Latinsko Idro previously. A Latin-rigged boat has a single triangular sail – only such boats can enter the regatta. The fleet of gajetas and [...]
Early this morning the Aussie expats and Aussie tourists in Split gathered at Cafe Libar to watch the Aussie Rules Football Grandfinal via satellite from the MCG in Melebourne. The game between the Geelong Cats and Saint Kilda Saints developed in the one of the greatest finals ever. Most in the cafe were cheering for [...]
Today we decided to go to the Irish Pub in Split to watch the rugby union test match between Australia and Italy (Australia won 34-12). There wasn’t a large crowd – just a nice group of 6 Aussies (for Queenslanders) who have just finished a week out on the islands. One of the group turned [...]
Today the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia), published a story about our plight to get our boat, the Labud, out of Arista Nautica‘s shed. It was a good article, describing how we want to use the boat to promote ‘real’ Dalmatian tourism. Unfortunately it doesn’t mention the work I did for Arista Nautica and [...]
