The Rubbish Warrior’s work

The Rubbish Warrior, Trevor Jenkins, has become something of a feature of Top End life recently. He is a homeless man who collects rubbish off the footpaths etc and forms them into tepees of cultural sculpture. Recently he ran for Mayor of Darwin in the local government elections and while he didn’t even come close to being mayor, he only lost out on a position as alderman due to the preferential voting distributions. On  my visit to Palmerston Library the other day he was back to work collecting rubbish and turning it into an urban commentary.

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Kids’ fun at the Palmerston Library

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings the Palmerston Library breaks all the usual conventions of silence in the library. The sounds of kids’ singing echoes throughout as they are led Pied Piper-like by the librarians in 30-45 minutes of fun. Singing merges into dancing and is interspersed with storytime. It’s aimed at littlies and toddlers and most seem to really enjoy it. Most of the kids have a whale of a time, as do the parents and librarians -not so sure about the people trying to use the library computers. This is a fantastic grounding for encouraging kids to love reading.

Obviously I can’t take photos of the kids so I’m including a photo of the bus which does the kids in the park theme, mainly in the Dry Season (which has now officially commenced for 2012 -probably explains why we’ve had big storms the last few days?).

A gnome at home

I’ve no idea what a gnome has to do with buffalo but there you go….

Not to mention a golden Buddha…

Or an Inuit (or is it?) carved pole with tusked boars…

After all that surely you’ll want a coffee.

I saw a dinosaur!

Even more eye-catching than lions or dragons, are these dinosaurs. These scuptures are HUGE. Our grandchildren love visiting them.

Lost in Gondwanaland. Do you know there are lots of sites for dinosaur prints and skeletal remains? Museums include those at Winton and Richmond in Queensland.

Lions on guard

The dragons on the previous post can be seen at Finlays on the Stuart Highway along with a variety of other eye-catching features which I’ll post over the coming days. Finlays offers an array of services -mainly stones, feature rocks and soil for the garden but also a shop with eclectic household and garden items -many of them quite tacky in my opinion though their large garden pots are good. Finlays also has a cafe which is popular for those living a  little out of town.

Needless to say kids love exploring the creatures they have in the landscaped area…certainly eye-catching.

There be dragons in Darwin

Crocodiles? Yes. Sharks? Yes Stingers? Yes….but dragons…surely not?

Turn onto the Stuart Highway near Palmerston heading for Kakadu or Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs or Adelaide you will see this dragon on your left.

Up close and personal he’s pretty formidable.