There are a few things that that out as being particularly odd in my opinion. Some odd things are commonplace. Some odd things are just plain odd.


Here are a few I can share with you.

Well, they have home mail delivery here... And let me say that the mail system is extremely fast here. Mail is gathered from the postboxes around 6 pm or so, and is usually delivered the next morning. It would be nice if Canada Post would take note of this. Anyhow... The people here all have unique mailboxes here, ranging from little mailboxes, to little birdhouse type mailboxes, to cans, to this original creation. The sort of knights helmet with the witty knight's phrase (seems appropriate to postal work too) stand and deliver.

Back home we are used to having very clean roads... Don't take it for granted.

Here if a bottle gets smashed on the road, that's just where it stays. Garbage can lay there until it blows away. Anywhere there has been an accident there is usually some glass lying around as a reminder of the event. Which brings me to the subject at hand...

Back home you usually see it lying on the road. It is fresh, sometimes still twitching even. Usually the Ministry of something or other pops out within a few days and scoops it up and then it... (choose your own grand destination for the animals remains).

However here it stays just where it is... just like the broken glass. When we arrived here on July 11th there was a dead animal on the road. The identity of the animal was the subject of many conversations.. Was it a cat? A dog? A fox? Some weird genetic experiment that escaped from a lab? All answers were equally possible?

Everyday when I walked to the train station, this gruesome reminder of a creature that once ran out onto the road and was squashed was there. Every day it got flatter and flatter. The flesh at this point was baked by the unforgiving sun to the pavement and had turned black from all of the tires running over it. After weeks more had passed it looked as though someone had just placed a piece of fur on the road. It was strange to think that all the cars just kept running over it... Oh ya, this was the Great Western Highway, one of the major roads in the area. Near the end of September it finally peeled off and sailed away. It was seen for a few days after that sliding farther and farther down the highway.
I'm sure it finally made it to the ocean.

In Western Australia, between Geraldton and Monkey Mia, they have the leaning gum trees. There are trees like this everywhere there. This one tree is not a freak since there are many others like this around.
Someone told me that the wind blew on the trees the whole time from the same direction while they were growing up. Hey I guess it could be true. Another person has emailed me and told me they are similar to some trees in California where the wind always blows in the same direction.