Jump to content

July challenge - Pedal Power


Recommended Posts

Very funny everyone :) 

It is true that the only way quokkas are likely to ambush anyone is with cuteness - although I did have an "OH MY GOD THERE'S SOMETHING UNDER THE BED!" moment last time I stayed overnight at Rottnest Island (alamy image ID F54TY4).

- Suzanne

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

 

Curious quokkas checking out bicycle, Rottnest Island, Western Australia

 

quokkas-setonix-brachyurus-marsupials-na

 

Wow, these large critters ambush bikers?  :o

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

I never heard of these beasts so I Googled and from mentalfloss.com I found this...

 

"Journalist Kenneth Cook learned the hard way when he tried to befriend a quokka along a dirt road. Cook noted the animal’s “small, mean mouth,” but decided it was probably too small to do much damage. “It was a malicious-looking beast,” he wrote in his 1987 book Wombat Revenge, but he wasn’t afraid. He offered the little animal a piece of apple, which the quokka spat out, and a crumb of gorgonzola cheese. The quokka popped the gorgonzola into its mouth, chewed, and then, Cook says, “fell down in a dead faint.” 

Convinced he’d just poisoned the creature and determined to save it, Cook zipped the quokka’s body into his backpack, left a little room for air, swung the pack onto his back, and pedaled his bicycle frantically down the road to find help. After a few minutes of bumping along at breakneck speed, the quokka began to revive, and blearily climbed out of the backpack, claws first. 

Afraid to turn around in case he lost control of his bike, Cook sped onward. The quokka grabbed his neck and began shrieking in his ear. The bike kept going. The shrieking quokka sank its teeth into Cook’s earlobe and hung there, dead weight, like a large, furry earring. Disoriented, the journalist steered his bike off a cliff into the ocean. Surfacing, he looked around and found the quokka standing on the shore, glaring at him and snarling.  

The story seems incredible, but Cook is far from the winsome creature’s only victim. Teddy-bear ears and doe eyes aside, these animals are ready, willing, and able to fend for themselves. Each year, the Rottnest Island infirmary treats dozens of patients—mostly children—for quokka bites. "

 

Hmmmmmm. I bet you thought you were joking!
 
Paulette

 

 

If I submitted a photo as far removed from reality as that piece, there'd not be a big enough "digitally altered" button to cover it  :P

 

And as for quokka's "biting" . . . well, as the article referenced above says, "The animals can be approached so closely that they regularly NIP the fingertips of children who get too close" . . . digitally altered indeed :)

 

If you want to talk about really dangerous Australian animals, cyclists should beware the . . . drop-bears!!

 

dd

 

 

Had to look up that one too...

 

drop bear (sometimes dropbear) is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory carnivorous version of koala. The hoax is commonly used in tall tales designed to scare tourists
 
Scaring tourists!!!....or photographers with too much time on their hands.. There was an image but I wasn't allowed to use it on the forum... Look it up
Paulette
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was looking for something different like kids pedal car but do not have anything other than bicycles/cycles/bikes etc, so will have to join in with the gang.

 

 

Strangely I have the words Pedal Power for this one.

 

city-cycling-cambridge-city-england-br0x

 

 

And for this one.

 

city-cycling-cambridge-city-england-br96

 

 

But not for this one.

 

emmanuel-college-cambridge-city-england-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

If I submitted a photo as far removed from reality as that piece, there'd not be a big enough "digitally altered" button to cover it  :P

 

And as for quokka's "biting" . . . well, as the article referenced above says, "The animals can be approached so closely that they regularly NIP the fingertips of children who get too close" . . . digitally altered indeed :)

 

If you want to talk about really dangerous Australian animals, cyclists should beware the . . . drop-bears!!

 

dd

 

 

Had to look up that one too...

 

drop bear (sometimes dropbear) is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory carnivorous version of koala. The hoax is commonly used in tall tales designed to scare tourists
 
Scaring tourists!!!....or photographers with too much time on their hands.. There was an image but I wasn't allowed to use it on the forum... Look it up
Paulette

 

 

Many a cocky tourist has believed, to their painful detriment, the "it's a hoax" hoax . . . :ph34r:

 

dd

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the help Mark.

 

I tried an number of things to post the picture directly from

Alamy and they did not work for me?

 

Thanks again.

It's really easy once you get the hang of it.

 

Search for your image via the Alamy file number. Not in My Images, just on the normal Alamy page.

When you see the thumbnail, right click on it. It'll give you the option to "Copy Image Address".

When you're back in the forum post, select the little icon above that looks like a polaroid pic. 

Paste the link into this.

And Bob's your uncle. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Had to look up that one too...

 

drop bear (sometimes dropbear) is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory carnivorous version of koala. The hoax is commonly used in tall tales designed to scare tourists
 
Scaring tourists!!!....or photographers with too much time on their hands.. There was an image but I wasn't allowed to use it on the forum... Look it up
Paulette

 

 

Yeah, we all thought that 7 metre crocodiles, Great White sharks, blue-ringed octopii, stone-fish, bull sharks, over 100 species of venomous snakes (including one considered the most venomous on earth), funnel-web spiders, tiger sharks, Barnaby Joyce, Sea Wasps (aka box jellyfish), cone-fish, Irukandji (a one cm long jellyfish, barely visible to the naked eye and the smallest animal capable of killing a human), Scorpion Fish and redback spiders just weren't scarey enough, so to really really scare tourists we invented a koala that bites . . .

 

dd

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Congrats on the win Malcolm! Here are my three:

 

1. Bicycle repair shop and local people, Flacq town, Mauritius

 

 

a-cycle-repair-shop-example-of-local-ind

 

 

2. Woman cycling by Kings College Chapel, Cambridge

 

 

cambridge-university-student-cycling-pas

 

 

 

3. Bicycle and rods of local fisherman on the beach, Agadir, Morocco

 

 

a-local-fishermans-bicycle-on-the-beach-

 

 

 

Kumar

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some great pictures as ever, better than anything that I have.

 

Just for the fun of it though...

 

A couple of "Boris Bikes" in use in London:

 

a-couple-of-cyclists-on-boris-bikes-ride

 

 

Sticking with "Boris Bikes", a group of friends take hire bikes from a docking station in Kensington Gardens:

 

people-hiring-boris-bikes-from-the-kensi

 

A cyclist taking on London traffic:

 

a-cyclist-waits-at-the-head-of-a-queue-a

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.