Oh interesting, i went to see if i could see, instead I saw the red rock as the bottom of a fish curving around in water.

When I first saw the image for this post I thought I was looking at a blueish coloured fish swimming past a reddish rock.

What's cool is I can make my brain keep seeing the fish-not-fish.

I'm a straight dude but had gay friends, I used to go to connections 15 years ago it was a great. I moved since around then and have grown up so I can't say much else, I had no idea it was running that long and figured it had probably closed like so many others. I miss The Rise. Lol.

Yeah, thought I'd try for it since the moon phase is good too...

But I can't go tonight because I'm on call for work, gotta be Sunday so camping isn't the best for work in the morning. Time will also depend on the work thing.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'm NOR, was thinking about John Forrest NP but will also depend on cloud cover and smoke from any fires started by the thunderstorm.

Not sure I'm North enough for beach to be the go but worth thinking about.

If you're North of the River maybe go out to Gingin, either near the town, or the Gravity discovery centre. Never know they might be doing something up there tonight as well.

Ooh, this is the geminids for tonight is it? Haven't kept up with it lately. I thinknit depends on what part of Perth you're from.

Its a bit late but you could have a look/call Perth Observatory to see if they're open and doing something, they're still mostly out of the Perth light corona.

Failing that, i'd get out maps, and if you're East of Perth, travel 45 mins further East (Toodyay, or Mundaring Weir, or plant yourself in the middle of the forest like Christmas Tree Wells or something (watch for roo's); If South travel 45 mins South maybe inland due to the light pollution from Mandurah and Rockingham, so Pinjarra, or Waroona dam way (watch out for the roo's); If you're North pick a spot near the beach 45 minutes North from you, at this time of night that freeways gonna get you pretty far North pretty freakin quick, just don't go anywhere you can't get back out of i suppose.

I think the tricknis to get as far away from the light pollution of major centres as possible. If you can get into the Wheatbelt there'd be plenty of spots to pull up out there, but i think that might take more than 45 mins even at this time of night.

What time you thinking of heading out? Best times are usually super late at like 2am or 3am I think.

Probably still useful, its only for the metro area, so if you're off up North or Douth still be useful.

Lmao I literally just bought an AM radio to listen to ABC for emergency purposes

Yeah, drove near there, lots of roads getting closed off, i think i saw a couple helicopters flying around. That wind definitely didn't help things.

Yeah pretty nasty place for it too, right in the suburbs. Lots of smoke and haze over the city.

As a non-fisher i understand very little about this developing feud between recreational and commercial fishers.

Although i have one anecdote from a friend who went north for a fishing trip tour this winter. He came home waxing lyrical about the amount he caught, and how the market prices you'd get for the fish cover like 2/3rds the cost of the week long holiday.

He also said you've got to watch the boat hands that will try to take the good fish for themselves and leave the people paying with the less attractive catch.

I found this article from February 2024. Has an interesting quote.

"The critical element here is we are switching fish out of the commercial sector and into the recreational and charter boat sector," he said.

"We're operating in the same recovery paradigm, but essentially it is a move out of commercial into recreational and charter."

WA fishing council slams move to increase recreational catch limit of demersal fish

Yep, it'll pass no problem. Labor is so dominant over here its not funny. I mean, this government definitely earned that through their general management of the State, and their nation leading COVID response. So they've demonstrated they know what good governance is, and they've been able to keep the mining companies on side, which is the shit reality of governance in WA unfortunately.

I hope this article is innocently misrepresenting the legislation and there are guard rails. Or maybe its last calls for WA Labor's unfettered political dominance.

This is ridiculous, there are reasons we don't give unchecked power to single individuals.

I have to admit I don't follow state politics closely, do they have the numbers to push this rubbish through?

Is this the point at which we say this government has the humility required for effectively governing millions of people?

I suppose this time at least the councillor doesn't seem to be a raving lunatic, but has a fair ethics reason for resigning. But considering its the second in a few months, maybe theres more to the story.

u/elwexo over on the alien site did some digging

TL;DR It's a land development matter, basically mining sand in an apparently environmentally sensitive area, which one of the other councillors has a financial interest in (they appear to have abstained from the vote). It was narrowly (4-3) passed.

From the minutes:

Item 9.1.2: That council pursuant to Schedule 2, Part 9, Clause 68(2)(b) of the Planning and Development (Local Planning Schemes) Regulations 2015 and the provisions of the Shire of Donnybrook Balingup Local Planning Scheme No. 7 (LPS7), approves the Development Application P25035 Industry-Extractive (Sand) at Lot 10 Donnybrook Boyup Brook, Yabberup subject to the following conditions and advice:
[several pages of notes]

Found a Collie Roundhouse Visioning Report by H+H Architects for National Trust of WA - pdf

CY O'Connor pushed hard for the project apparently.

BACKGROUND The significant role rail played in the emergence of Collie as a source of coal for Western Australia is highlighted by the infrastructure that remains in the town of Collie, with the Roundhouse and Turntable and the Railway Goods Shed (c1898) and Footbridge (c1912) being key components. Collie Coal was discovered in Collie in 1883 but was not immediately exploited because of the dominance of the eastern states coalfields and the lack of a railway to transport the coal from Collie to Bunbury. The Collie town site was declared in 1896.

The South West railway line was completed in 1893 and the line from Brunswick to Collie in 1898. Access to rail transport launched Collie and the coal industry on a sound basis and boosted settlement in the district. The important role that the engineer-in-chief and acting general manager of railways in Western Australia, Charles Yelverton (CY) O’Connor played in establishing the Collie coalfields is often overlooked. He pushed hard for the building of the line from Brunswick to Collie and argued convincingly for the use of local coal so that WA would be independent of the unreliable Eastern States coal supply. Turntable and Roundhouse.

Little detail is included in the assessment of significance documentation for the place... ...It was reported in June 1947 that ‘a new turntable 80ft long’ was located in Collie.

The Collie Roundhouse is a post-war building which housed 14 steam locomotives. It remains intact complete with turntable pit and turntable. It is thought to be the last extant Roundhouse in Western Australia.

National Trust chief executive officer Julian Donaldson stated at the time that Be Our Guest, owner of the Dome cafe brand, had presented an “inspired vision that respects the heritage values of the site

Be Our Guest owns Dome hey? Interesting little nugget.

Oof it was behind bunting when I rode past this morning.

I wonder how many of those are slowly corroding in the river.

Found Ol’ Greg’s scoots

I guess someone's been having a go at magnet fishing...

Davie's gonna want his scooter back, mate.

This is an interesting resource. When i had a quick look i found myself thinking i'd have loved this back in my Uni days grab this ready made dataset as the basis for whatever random assignment i had on. Would be such a great thing to build a research report, or proposal off.

Found via dataportals.org - A list of open data portals from around the world.