Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
The Cadney Homestead Roadhouse is a bona fide “remote” location.
It sits on the Stuart Highway in South Australia’s far north, nearly 1,000 kilometres north of Adelaide, a little more than 150 ks north of Coober Pedy, and 534 ks south of Alice Springs.
The Painted Desert is conveniently nearby.
Comments closed
The Curdimurka rail siding – near Lake Eyre South in the SA outback – saw its first train in 1888.
The last one went through in 1980, nearly three decades after the pictured water tank and gigantic water softener lost their raison d’être, when diesel electrics replaced steam locomotives in 1951.
This “big softie” was erected in 1943-44, so its working life was very brief.
2 Comments
Today’s photo shows a repeatedly-pleasing aspect of our June 2023 “outback” trip: it included a surprisingly large number of sightings of Australia’s largest raptor.
One Comment
Some of Australia’s mines are many thousands of years older than most Australians realise…and enormously more colourful.
A spectacular and easily-accessed example sits in desert, circa 600 kilometres north of Adelaide, just outside a quasi-“ghost” town.
A formerly-important “railway town”, Lyndhurst saw its last train in 1980, but is still the crossroads for the Oodnadatta and Strzelecki Tracks
Comments closed
Northern South Australia and the south of the Northern Territory are deservedly celebrated for their vast, “cinematic” landscapes.
Any visitor can hardly fail to be in awe of the big skies, the far-distant horizons, and the extravagantly colourful, harsh/glorious, obviously-ancient terrain.
Too many visitors, however, fail to pay attention to what’s literally right in front of them, or just behind, or immediately above them.
The “small” view – of whatever is within “touching distance” – is almost always at least as rewarding as is any “sweeping plains and rugged mountain ranges” perspective.
Comments closed
Is there a Great “Martesian” Basin, from which water “escapes” in certain places, forming petite “oases” on the planet’s otherwise “desolate” surface?
This gushing – or seeping – water originally arrived from the sky as rain… many thousands of human generations ago, when the proverbially dry Mars was a very wet place.
As you can see, the new photographic evidence is compelling.
One Comment
Superb Fairy-wrens and Splendid Fairy-wrens both deserve their names.
The former – Malurus cyaneus, pictured above – is the “Blue-wren” most familiar to humans who reside in Australia’s southeast.
The latter – Malurus splendens – is the Blue-wren most commonly seen in Australia’s southwest.
Comments closed
Recently, in a “to cull, to tweak, or to let it be?” mission, I waded through nearly 10,000 images.
I suddenly realised that most of my “single species” wildlife photos involve either a single animal, a pair, or a group/flock/herd of more than four individuals.
Three, I think, is the rarest single-species group size…or number of individuals a photographer can “isolate”, successfully.
This little celebration of “companies of three” will range over three continents and at least one island….
It begins in one of my favourite parts of the island continent.
Comments closed
If the relevant timepiece registered only minutes and hours, it would have said “9. 23 am” through all of this post’s eight images, which are presented in chronological order.
As it happens, my camera also records seconds, so I know that only 39 of them elapsed from first to eighth photo.
From image “1” through “7” only 21 seconds passed.
A recently-bathed Superb Fairy Wren – Malurus cyaneus – can adopt a great many different positions within such a “short” time!
One Comment
This sequel to previous post is the fruit of summertime visits, pre-pandemic.
Warmer days offer their own particular photographic opportunities and challenges.
Heat haze and mirages can render some “long lens shots” utterly pointless.
However, they can be the making of others.
One Comment
