Christmas Lights in the Mandurah Canals

Each year, starting on or about Dec 1st, a lot of the houses on the canals in Mandurah (Port Mandurah and Waterside) dress up with Christmas lights. Some are quite spectacular.

Each night hundreds of boats pass through in a steady procession.

For those who remember Mandurah from years gone by, things have changed. This is where the Peninsula Hotel used to be.

Here are a sample of some of the houses.

They stay up til about the second week in January. Some owners stretch it out to Australia Day but most are down by then.

Blessing the Fleet in Mandurah

OK, I know the Blog is called Gone Bush in a BT but it's summer and we stay at home.

Today was the annual Blessing of the Fleet here in Mandurah. All sorts of boats, big and small, commercial and pleasure craft, go out into the estuary to form a parade and file past the local dignitaries including the religious heads in town.

We get sprinkled with holy water (got to be a good thing) and the boating season gets underway.

Even the Channel 7 helicopter was hovering around.