MAD About Quokkas

Rotto Paradise, Little Parakeet Bay, Rottnest Island

When we first came to Perth one of the things we did was visit Rottnest Island and, as fairly young & fit couple we hired bikes to ride around the Island. On one of our short breaks to eat a bag of twisties a Quokka jumped out of the bushes and rather boldly approached me, he appeared to want my twisties! Not wanting to hurt the creature and not sure of his motivations we jumped on our bikes and rode off, at this point we did not know the nature of Quokkas or their larrikin nature.

Nosey Quokka

Years later, older and wiser, we returned to Rottnest and, walking towards the lighthouse, we saw a Quokka in the road. We had no food this time but Dave was armed with his camera and wanted a great shot of the Quokka. Being the nature lovers that we are taking a picture of a Quokka on a man-made surface would not do, so being the MAD person that I am I walked towards the bushes and bent down to talk to the Quokka (because he was going to understand exactly what I was saying!).

Anyway much to my surprise this lovely Quokka slowly hopped over to me and put his paws on my knee, how adorable!! After enjoying a few minutes admiring my new friend I carefully stood up and walked away, which gave Dave his chance of a natural shot of this gorgeous marsupial.

Cute Quokka

and there he was, gone …

Speedy Quokka

Quokka Mug Shot

We love Quokkas so much we have now immortalised another cute pair on our new range of gift ware, here is the mug shot we took of them 🙂

This is my favourite mug for my coffee each morning and you can own one too, simply click here and you can order your very own cute Quokka mug.

Not only can you have your own Quokka mug, you can have these cute little creatures on the a range of products featuring our new “MAD About Western Australia” (more to come on this soon) brand:

• iPhone Case (without MAD About WA branding)
• Galaxy Phone Case (without MAD About WA branding)
• T-Shirt (without MAD About WA branding)
• Mug
• Travel Mug

NOTE: Quokkas are a vulnerable species meaning they are a high priority for conservation management. It is a privilege to be able to interact with them in any way on Rottnest Island. They have very few predators there, hence are very friendly and unafraid and are happy to approach you. Please do not abuse them or feed them, remember they are wild animals. I for one hope to be able to enjoy this interaction for many years to come and that is only possible if we all respect the Quokkas and help to preserve them.

Interesting Facts
Rottnest was named ‘Rattennest’, literally rats’ nest in the late 1600’s as an explorer observed the Quokkas and described them as “a kind of rat as big as a cat” (Willem de Vlamingh).
The Aboriginals called them a range of names such as ‘Ban-gup’, ‘Bungeup’, ‘Quak –a’ (Gould 1863, Shortridge 1909), ‘kwoka’ and ‘bangop’ (Abbott 2001).
Their species name is Setonix barchyurus. ‘Setonix’ is derived from the Latin ‘seta’ meaning bristle and the Greek ‘onyx’ meaning claw. Barchyurus is derived from the Greek ‘brachys’ for short and ‘oura’ for tail.
Can you believe these adorable creatures were declared to be vermin in 1933!!

Quokka Fine Art Prints

Maggie Catley

Postcards with a Difference?

We’re very excited to announce the launch of our new line of Postcards which we’ve called “Thongy Postcards”.

In true Australian tradition these Postcards are die cut in the shape of an Aussie Thong sat on the beach, boardwalk or forest trail and each one portrays a unique Western Australian Fine Art image from MADCAT Photography.

Created from an concept by local printer Adam Hollister and designed by MADCAT Photography these new themed postcards are already proving to be very popular, both as quality postcards to send home and mementos of a great holiday in Western Australia.

All of our images are available for purchase as Fine Art Canvases or Prints through our web site, click the image above for more information.

After successfully trialling some prototypes of our “Thongy Postcards” last year we have just taken delivery of our first batch of production cards featuring a new updated design and new images.

Starting with some of our most popular images we will be expanding the range to cover Western Australia and with luck ultimately they will go Australia Wide.

If you would like to purchase a “Thongy Postcard” then you can visit Oceania Gifts at the Mindarie Marina or Sunshiners at Two Rocks or contact Maggie directly.

If you are interested in reselling our “Thongy Postcards” in your retail outlet then please contact Maggie and we will arrange to come and visit you with some samples 😎

Help Us Support St Jude’s School

For the last few years we have had the privilege to be involved in the St Jude’s Charity Ball by providing them with a framed print for their silent auction. This year we donated one of our more popular new images titled White Thunder #4.

All of our images are available for purchase as Fine Art Canvases or Prints through our web site, click the image above for more information.

It never ceases to amaze me the extraordinary lengths some people will go to to help out with very little to gain apart from knowing you have done some good. The school was started by Gemma Rice to educate children in Tanzania that had no other avenue to gain an education. As a young lady herself, Gemma opened the school in 2002 in Northern Tanzania with 3 children, 1 teacher and 1 classroom. Nine years later there are 1500 students, 350 local staff, three schools and 2 boarding campuses.

Children are the future and I believe they have a right to a decent education so I applaud Gemma for her efforts, vision and insight.

I also applaud the ladies, headed up by Julie Hepworth, who started the St Jude’s Charity Ball 6 years ago who have also grown their event significantly every year and managed to raise $19,000 at the end of last year.

They have announced this years event to be held at Rendezvous Hotel, Scarborough, Perth on Saturday 10th December. Tickets will go on sale in July so be sure to look out for it, its a great night out and for a very good cause.

Maggie

MADCAT Photography Goes “Trendi”

We have just put up our first exhibition for 2011 at the Trendi Cafe in Joondalup, on Reid Promenade.

All of our images are available for purchase as Fine Art Canvases or Prints through our web site, click the image above for more information.

We have focused on our Fine Art Canvas prints for this exhibition, there are currently 16 canvases of various sizes up in the restaurant with 3 more to come very shortly.

Trendi Cafe’s menu is a mix of Italian and Asian food. According to Minh, the owner, some historians believe Marco Polo brought pasta back to Italy from a trip to the Far East and China!

Trendi Cafe will be open for Valentine’s Day, nothing better than a fabulous romantic dinner surrounded by some of the best views in WA 😀 You can make a booking on 9301 0668.

So make a date for dinner at the Tendi Cafe and you can enjoy our exhibition at the same time.

Maggie

Australia Day at Lancelin

On Australia Day we decided, instead of heading to a busy city, we would do the complete opposite and head up to Lancelin and celebrate Australia Day the natural way 🙂

We had a great pub lunch at the Endeabour Tavern which is situated right on the waterfront with a great view of the kite surfers and wind surfers out in the bay. It really was a windy day so they must have been having heaps of fun out there.

After lunch we went to take a look at the spectacular sand dunes. If you have never visited the sand dunes at Lancelin, I highly recommend it we had heaps of fun, although it was a bit (well, very) windy. The image at the bottom will give you a good idea just how windy it was, even with our backs to the wind we were still getting sand in our eyes and turning round to get a photo into the wind was very interesting …

There are different areas for motor bikes / quad bikes / 4WD’s and sand boarding and plenty of room for everyone! The guys on their motorbikes were screaming over the top of their dune showing a fair bit of air beneath, very exciting I am sure! As far as sand boarding went you definitely get to take a fair bit of sand home with you but it looks very exhilarating, we didn’t get a chance to try the sand boarding but you can hire sand boards from several places around town so anyone can give it a go.

Should you wish to pop up to Lancelin for a visit I highly recommend you go to the Visitor Centre at Lancelin Holiday Accomodation & Tourist Information Centre. the lovely lady there will tell you where you can go for the dunes, where you can hire a sand board and give you a very helpful map.

Maggie

Hidden Valley or Lost Treasure

We live in the City of Wanneroo which is a very diverse part of Perth with many modern new suburbs and alongside the much older rural areas. Hidden away in one rural suburbs is this gorgeous old cottage which conjures up thoughts of the early settlers and what life might have been like.

This building has been referred to as the “Woodcutter’s Cottage” and the area is known by some as “Hidden Valley”. It is indeed hidden and not that easy to find but the locals know it and Dave stumbled across it whilst out walking and looking for some new photographic subject matter.

All of our images are available for purchase as Fine Art Canvases or Prints through our web site, click the image above for more information.

This is one of two images that Dave has created from that walk, the first image (WCS1.1-V2) started off as a bit of an experiment in HDR techniques and this one came along later when Dave revisited his photos and found this one with the tree in the foreground to the right.

The “Woodcutters Cottage” sits on the edge of Lake Nowergup tucked out of the way off the Gibbs Road. Lake Nowergup is the largest fresh water lake in the Perth surrounds and is home to a unique valley with a Tuart Forest and numerous caves. The local aboriginal tribe, the Noongar, used to frequent the lake as part of their nomadic existence. It is said that Nowergup stands for “place of sweet water”.

Now there is talk of putting a quarry in there, I would rather preserve the public walk currently there and maybe even add some information, it must have an amazing history. If you want to follow the fight to save the lake you can follow it on Facebook.

What hidden places have you found that few people know about?

Quite simply the most breathtaking view in Western Australia

We recently visited Monkey Mia and took a trip out on the Shotover. The trip promises up close and personal wildlife experiences and it definitely exceeded our expectations. If you ever visit Shark Bay I recommend a trip out on the Shotover, the crew are great and the experience is incredible!

All of our images are available for purchase as Fine Art Canvases or Prints through our web site, click the image above for more information.

We saw dolphins, dugongs (and their young!), rays, turtles, sea snakes and some amazing feeding frenzies where mackerel were chasing fish and the Turns were hovering, in very large numbers, in the hope of catching an off guard fish! Absolutely amazing site.

The day we had our trip there was an unusually high tide and we were able to sail very close to the shores of the Francois Peron National Park. This image was taken then. The contrast of the colours between the ocean, shore, park and sky take my breath away. I am nagging Dave to print a 60″ canvas for my office wall!

There is a lot more of Western Australia we are yet to visit and perhaps I will discover a new favourite place but meantime feel free to share your favourite place with us.

Maggie