Selfie Sunday

Selfies at a Sunday afternoon birthday with, respectively, Dr Nadia Niaz, Dr Nuzhat Lotia, and Dr Asha Bedar.

Plus one bonus ‘golden light’ selfie at sunset with Nadia :)

Blocking the sun so we can see ourselves in the phone camera.

Camouflaged neighbourhood cat

Now that is a well camouflaged Cat of Kingsville.

I saw it only two steps before we walked by it, so all I had time to do was make sure Maggie stayed close to me on her lead on the other side of my legs.

Maggie, in the meantime, didn’t notice it at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Blending into the dirt and and into background.

It’s a little easier to see from across the street, when it doesn’t have all that dirt and background to blend into.

But even then, given how still it was sitting, you’d miss if you weren’t actively looking out for animals as you walked your dog.

Camouflaged cat is watching you.

Cats taking the high ground

Coming back to our cats of Kingsville series, though, today we saw two cats.

This one that decided that vertical separation was better than horizontal separation as I walked Maggie down its street (Maggie sniffed the base of the tree but didn’t even register the cat’s presence).

Cat up a tree, unimpressed with the fact that I’m taking its photo.

And this one that was particularly frowny about us walking by its domain :)

Disapproving cat-on-a-post is disapproving.

Friendly cat in Yarraville

We take a break from our usual cats of Kingsville coverage to show a friendly cat in Yarraville that loved getting scritched by Nadia :)

Turned up after we’d parked our car, got a few scritches, and then wandered off through the hedge into the neighbouring park.

Warm and stylish!

It’s important to be warm and stylish when Nadia takes you for your morning walk on a windy, overcast 4-degree day in Melbourne :)

I’m not sure how much she appreciated the coat, but she was certainly looking forward to her walk!

Happy puppy :)

Happy puppy :)

Tour of the West Gate Tunnel Project

One of the perks of working at Transurban is that you can sign up for tours of our major construction projects — which is how I found myself on a tour of the West Gate Tunnel Project last week :)

Wearing boots, a hard hat, and high visibility vest while touring the West Gate Tunnel Project northern portal (which is across the street from Yarraville Gardens).

I love the West Gate Tunnel Project because, as someone who lives in Melbourne’s west, I know first hand how much of a pain it can be to drive into the city.

Once complete, this new toll road will make it much easier for folks coming from the west — ie the Western Ring Road (M80) or the West Gate Freeway (M1) — to get into the western side of Melbourne’s Central Business District (CBD).

Right now, if you’re driving into the city from the west, you have two options: (a) go through Footscray by taking Geelong/Williamstown road and then Dynon/Footscray road or (b) take the West Gate Bridge and get to the south of the CBD.

The West Gate Tunnel will give us a third option, albeit a tolled one: (c) take the tunnel under Yarraville and the Maribyrnong River, followed by the elevated roadway above Footscray Road. Then connect to Footscray Road, Dynon Road (near North Melbourne railway station), or Wurundjeri Way to get into the city; or take the on-ramp to CityLink and go north.

Map from WGTP project website.

Sadly, this project is still three years away from completion so there’s nothing to do but wait.

On the up-side: this means I’ll get to go on more project construction tours over the coming years :)