Aquabelle.

Aquabelle.
Probably the most affordable place to rent nowadays.. cheaper to buy a luxury boat and just sail it around Oz πŸ™‚ mooring cost is about 6K for 6 months πŸ™‚

Hudgee Nudgee…

Hudgee Nudgee…
place of the ducks.
“The name Nudgee is derived from the Yuggera word in the Yugarabul dialect nardha or nedgee meaning place of ducks, from nar meaning duck’ and dha’ meaning place”
Makes a lot of sense, this mud flat came alive with birds this particular morning, mostly bin chickens πŸ™‚ you get a real appreciation for the size of these birds when they fly over in a flock, the sound is pretty impressive, contender with the clapped out Boeing 737’s i say. Here’s a cool tree on the flats which came alive with pre sunrise glow – the Cloud free night app nails the prediction again πŸ™‚

Chicken.

Chicken.
Its been a awhile since I have played chicken with the ocean, I won this round, toes still dry πŸ™‚
Cool channel right next to a sea cave, give it a few more million years and it will probably be a very cool sea cave too πŸ™‚

Pandanus Galaxy.

Pandanus Galaxy.
10 shot panorama with the Sigma f1.4 20mm lens. The hard bit with these is trying to manage the focus between the foreground and the sky, at f1.4, f1.6 in this case you need to change the focus between the shots, even between each foreground shot…
If you look closely you can see a few fuzzy patches where the stitching software did not have the same idea as me πŸ™‚ f1.6 @20mm ISO 1250. Click to see the full length version.

Panorama Galaxy.

Panorama Galaxy.
This ones ↓ good πŸ™‚
There has been reports of a ghost that takes photos of a wide-angle view of the amazing scenery. So-called ghostbusters have reported this strange and unusual…….
panorama activity πŸ™‚
my poor computer just groans when i do these (the photos not the puns) since its getting old (like me) and struggles with large stitched pano’s.
15 shots @ 20mm f1.6 ISO 1250 and 15sec each.

Castlehead.

Castlehead.
Probably appropriate given it is the Kings Birthday today.
It’s been a few years since I have been back out to this spot on the Narrowneck Plateau, the last was just after the 2019 Bushfires which charred the entire area. It has recovered somewhat and its really great to see the frogs and logs (National Parks and Wildlife NPWS) have added some nice steps and fixed up the track a bit.
The road out here is now completely closed to vehicles due to some minor landslides at the start of the road (Glenraphael drive) which means you have got a 4.5km walk to get to this point. Which has definitely made me make sure I had half a chance of getting some nice conditions, walking all the way out in the pitch black with no moon only to be clouded in was not on my todo list – i did that last time πŸ™‚
Out here on a still morning every sound is amplified, a rock dislodging from the cliff reverberates across the valley and the birds waking up in the inversion layer sound like they are right next to you, I think that’s what draws me out here again and again, to sit on the edge with a clear 180 degree view and just watch as the morning comes alive and the valley fog ebbs and rolls like a phantom ocean from millions of years ago.
It’ll probably be a few years until I come back to this spot, next I might just camp out on mount solitary and save the walk in the dark πŸ™‚

2020 vs 2023

2020 vs 2023
Clearly my photographic skills have not improved in 3 years, I pretty well picked the identical spot for this path panoramic shot πŸ™‚ Only by chance when reviewing the bushfire shots did I notice the same lookign little branch on the left with the same nuts. Slightly different perspective, the bushfire one is lower perspective and obviously the difference between a complete fog out and a nice winters day πŸ™‚

Fog Rolls.

Fog Rolls.
So I was sitting here looking out into the misty distance thinking that sure as hell looks like tiger country, i looked a bit closer and saw this mad huge tree, which as it turns out was not a tree.. but a powerline tower πŸ™‚ This got me thinking as to why on earth would you put a thumping great powerline thru the middle of the Blue Mountains bush, a little further digging and it turns out there is actually 3 main feeder lines into Sydney from the Lithgow power generators (defunct Wallerawang and now Mount Piper). The one I am seeing is the southern feeder (330kV) with another (132kV) located on the populated strip with the great western highway and the northern one (132kV) located along the Bells line of Road, a somewhat populated strip as well.
Well, thats a neat throwback thursday engineering fact which has added to my foggy foggy forest pictures. Here’s a bunch of inversion layer foggy landscape pictures..so with powerlines πŸ™‚

Rabbits and Planes.

Rabbits and Planes.
Here is two fun facts about planes and rabbits.
1) Some airlines will allow you to take your rabbit onboard as hand luggage.
2) Aircraft engines are typically certified to meet a certain bird size ingestion.. but i think we need expand that to just a organic lump of a certain size.. why you might ask?, well at Ireland’s Dublin Airport they have problems with rabbits being ingested into the aircraft engines, which has a double negative where by chopped up roasted bunnies attract a large of number of scavenger birds which then also get chopped up and roasted…

Viaduct.

Viaduct.
Very cool bunch of sandstone bricks here, in such good condition too, this bridge/viaduct is nothing more than a pedestrian/cycle way now but will probably outlast most the freeways in sydney πŸ˜‰