Sand Castles, Big Cats, Meerkats

Now home from my second trip to Sumner Beach, I'll show you photos from my first trip from this past Friday. Here's the view to the north. Farther north (and east?) would be the Brighton Beach pier, if I have my geography correct. (See that strip of sandbar in the middle? That heads east toward the pier.)

Here's the view to the south, up on the cliffs of Taylor's Mistake. Down below is Hobson's Beach, and I only know this name because it was faintly etched on a rock I climbed down off of. Apparently, this section of beach is undergoing a dispute, in that the city wants to tear down all the houses here. Many of these houses are weekend retreats, though, which I suppose lessens the tragedy somewhat. Several of the houses, to my surprise, were on stilts. And, if you know me, you know I love stilted houses. I have three main goals in life, and one of them is to live by the ocean in a house on stilts. A vision of it came to me in a dream or a daydream when I was a teenager, and that kind of thing is unshakeable. The house, on the other hand (especially if it's stilted), might shake and might fall into the sea.

Up on the cliff these really adorable donkeys came up to me. They were tiny, maybe four feet tall from hoof to ear.

These next few photos are from the following day (Saturday) at Orana Wildlife Park. I couldn't pass up feeding this cute calf. After giving it leaves, it went for my hair.

Here's a view from inside the cage atop the truck, from the lion "experience," which Michele and Richard and I paid to do in a sudden lapse of sanity. A few lions hungrily gripped onto the cage or circled the top. Any weakness in the enclosure and we would've been lunch.

This meerkat reminded me of Gandhi. Its expression said, "I'm a visionary." I attempted to look into its eyes but it looked beyond me. I was a mere thing to this meerkat, ahead of its time and ready to solve world hunger or something.