No Koala Prison !!

Last weekend at the Winter Magic Festival at Katoomba we saw this group in the parade and decided to find out more.



A development application (DA X/1128/2008) has been lodged with the Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) for an animal exhibition space (described as an 'educational facility') at Echo Point, Katoomba. (a very popular tourist spot)

The applicant wishes to display reptiles and koalas.

The arrangements for housing and displaying the koalas are appalling.

According to the development application, two koalas will be imported from Victoria and housed in an enclosure in a basement-style room.

The koalas will not have access to sunshine or fresh air, and will be made available to members of the public for petting and photographing for an unspecified number of hours every day.

Potentially, the koalas could be handled by thousands of people every day.

The koalas are from Victoria, meaning they don't like to eat the less-nutritious leaves from NSW eucalypts, and so arrangements have to be made to get regular shipments of Victorian gum leaves to Katoomba.

The Blue Mountains Council has already denied the Development Application for this project so the developer is now approaching the next highest authority, the Land and Environment Court of NSW.

Sydney Morning Herald, Basement Koala plan savaged





More about it in the Blue Mountains Gazette

We signed a petition at the festival but were unable to get to the rally yesterday, I've been looking for information on how it went but haven't found much to date.

Winter Magic

Last weekend we headed up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, for the annual winter solstice festival.
Previous years have had good clear sunny winter days, but this year it was bleak, grey, foggy and the rain kept up all day in light splashes.

It was looking very bleak as we reached the outskirts of town:


but it didn't stop the crowds, Katoomba Street was packed:


The Fashion Police were writing tickets for anyone dressed in beige:



The Grand Parade was interesting as always, lots of characters and colours




and bellydancers who didn't look the slightest bit cold


and zombies (there was to be a Zombie Ball that night)


and very cool steampunk


and a very sweet Mad Hatter serving coffee


and this is Bandit in her dragon costume:

I've met up with Bandit over the last three years of festivals, in her outfits, unfortunately her owner thinks this may be her last year as she has leukemia and is not responding to treatment, she is such a lovely patient dog.

There were several local issue groups, one protesting the closure of Katoomba Hospital - the maternity ward has already been closed then re-opened from public pressure then closed again, nearest hospital is Nepean, which is a 45 minute drive away (that's on a good day, with no accidents on the one road out of town which can tie up traffic for hours)


Another issue that we learnt about during the parade was the plan by a developer to install two koalas in a BASEMENT room at the Echo Point tourist centre for photographic and petting opportunities:

I'm going to make another post just about this, it is appalling treatment of our native animals

After the parade, we wandered up and down the street stalls, then headed off home pleased to be leaving the cold wet mountains behind:


Here's my video of part of the parade,

slow cloth and practical pottery - #8 the kiln

Here's another little piece of my low fired embroidery series, the kiln, on rusted fabric







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