Disco at a Sprint Dog trial last week. He can outrun Usain Bolt, as he covered a hundred metres in just under nine seconds. His uncle does it in under eight, so he's got some speed to come.

The main reason that I didn't make it to the Iron Heart party this year was because I got myself a dog. This is Disco, he's a Peruvian Inca Orchid.

He's currently about four months old, and probably about the size of a Whippet. Like his owner, he's also completely bald.

Disco playing with Stormy the Blue Heeler.

I had a guest hound, Tex, for the first half of this week. He's a Peruvian Hairless puppy, about eight months old. His owner had fallen ill a few weeks after getting him, and he'd gone to stay with her friend. Unfortunately, after a few months in hospital, she passed away. I went to pick him up in Wagga Wagga, which is a couple of hours from where I live.

Here's Disco meeting Tenor the Azawakh, with Tex in the background. Azawakhs are a really rare sighthound that were originally kept by the Tuareg people in North Africa. They can be a bit prone to biting, as they were kept as guard dogs, but Tenor was friendly. He also quite liked Disco.

I made a stop about halfway home because the weather was hot, at over 40°C or 105°F. My car's air-conditioning had been unreliable for months, which didn't help, and the compressor blew up halfway to Wagga.

Peruvians come in three sizes. Disco is about 64 cm or 25" at his withers, which is at the top of the large size, whilst Tex is 50 cm or 20", which is borderline between a medium and a large. Unlike a Poodle, the sizes exist more as a spectrum. The dogs have the same father, but Disco's mother is a large, whilst Tex's was a small medium.

The heatwave continued all week. I took the dogs out on Tuesday morning, and they cooled off in the river. Tex decided that swimming was quite fun, apparently he hadn't done it before. Disco doesn't generally go in any deeper than he is in the photo.

I had to drop Tex off at the airport on Wednesday afternoon. The heat built during the day, so I headed to Melbourne in the morning, as the weather was much cooler, and we went to the off-leash dog beach.

Disco tried to steal a ball.

Tex had a ball running through the water...

... and he got plastered in sand about an hour before his flight!

I did wash him off before taking him to catch the plane.

Tex is a lovely pup. He's gone back to his breeder, and I think that she's planning on keeping him long term.

Having two dogs was a different experience, and I've only had one before. I think that Disco enjoyed having a playmate, which meant that they entertained each other, but handling two on a walk was much trickier than one.

I got a pair of Papa Nui Sailor Moku pants a few months into the competition, and I didn't wear them as much as I should have.

The mud is from a Sprint Dog competition over the weekend. It was rather wet...

When you've been to Adelaide and back over a few days...

This is a Kookaburra. They're a relative of the Kingfisher that's native to Australia, and they're about the size of a crow.

They're hunters, and I saw one today that had caught a small snake. That's the large worm in its beak. It's not a great photo, as I snapped it with my phone on maximum zoom.

The Aurora Australis was visible from outside my house this evening.

There's an area of native bush or woodland in the park near where I live, and there's some wildlife that frequents it.

Yesterday I saw a couple of older gentlemen on the bridge across a creek that runs through it. It turns out that they were watching a Platypus. It climbed out onto a log, and I got a rather poor photograph with my phone's camera.

The sighting came about half-an-hour after I'd been verbally abused by a woman for having my dog off-leash in an off-leash area...

I saw an Echidna back in December. They're a spiked marsupial that resembles a Hedgehog or Porcupine.

I've seen a couple of Kangaroos, and several snakes. I don't have any pictures of them, because I'm normally trying to stop my dog from sniffing them or following them into the undergrowth.

I got my pair of Sailor Moku Denim Pants from Papa Nui a couple of months ago, and the Australian summer has been really hot (over 40°C or 105°F last week), so they haven't had a huge amount of wear.

Papa Nui has a new cap coming, this time made from the hide of Hokkaido’s native Ussuri brown bear.

@BenBWH I'm sure that you will.

@BenBWH said in Motorcycles:

@louisbosco I gave the back break a little too much welly and skidded a little on the emergency stop. Automatic fail for safety

I failed my first attempt at a motorcycle driving test because I braked a bit hard during the emergency stop, and the rear wheel lifted.

I got my licence, eventually.

I got a pair of Papa Nui Sailor Moku pants a few months into the competition, and I didn't wear them as much as I should have.

The mud is from a Sprint Dog competition over the weekend. It was rather wet...

@Bridger the 911 looks like a rolling midlife crisis.

That said, I find most modern sports and supercars boring. The exceptions are the new Morgans and the Renault 5 Turbo 3E. Unfortunately, the former aren't sold in Australia, and the latter is really expensive.

The Mini has charm and it isn't trying too hard.

@Brian the current plan is to drive over on Wednesday. I'm at the Royal Adelaide Show on Thursday with my hound, and possibly again on Sunday if he beats his uncle again. I'll probably head back on Monday.

The current plan is to stay in an Airbnb in Glandore.

@mclaincausey the tax write-off sounds nice. In Australia there are incentives for pickups, as they're allegedly commercial vehicles, and EVs if you get one on a lease.

@louisbosco a '73 Falcon XB GT with the optional MFP package is the only Ford to go for, especially with the world looking increasingly apocalyptic!

The Renault might be cheaper...

@mclaincausey I've got a fourteen-year-old Ford Fiesta that's got nearly 215,000 km or 133,000 miles, a busted air-conditioning pump, and way more rattles than are healthy. I'm taking that to Adelaide next week, which is about 800 km or 500 miles.

Maybe I need to upgrade my road trip mobile!

@Bridger the Kuwaiti 911 doesn't appeal, but the Mini 1275 GT was a car that I loved when I was a small kid. I haven't seen one for years.

@WhiskeySandwich Guitar Center and Sweetwater in the US, and Andertons in the UK are showing these available on a pre-order. If you want one, it looks like they're out there.

I've got a butcher's block style chopping board that I found in TK Maxx in Manchester years ago for about ten quid. It followed me to London and then Australia, and it's still going strong.

I for one welcome our new overlord @Alex.

And congratulations!