volcanoes – Pelican Yoga

Indonesia 2024 (final in teaser series: flycatcher, with catch)

Published December 8, 2024 by Pelidoug

Indonesia 2024 (final in teaser series: flycatcher, with catch)

Indonesia’s enormous number of volcanoes includes many active ones.

Whereas an active volcano’s crater is typically stark, precipitous and raw, its flanks’ appearance is likely to be more varied/variegated, according to where eruptions have – or have not – scorched or gassed them, rained down ash and/or lava rocks/boulders, or sent molten lava flowing…

A single volcano can “author”many different things.

Gorgeous rainforests and prodigiously fertile soils can sit adjacent to “devastated”, seemingly-barren (sometimes, relatively briefly, actually-lifeless) zones.

One stream’s waters may be safe to drink, whilst another’s, nearby, could be highly toxic.

This teaser series’ final episode features what was in fact the last photo I took on Javanese soil in 2024.

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Indonesia 2024 (#34 in teaser series: the greatest “acid cauldron”)

Published December 6, 2024 by Pelidoug

Indonesia 2024 (#34 in teaser series: the greatest “acid cauldron”)

“Our” planet’s largest highly acidic lake is the one in Kawah Ijen – the Ijen Crater.

I took this post’s photo from the rim of Kawah Ijen, in almost-easternmost Java, at 5.51 am on 24 October 2024.

My beloved and I were at circa 2400 metres above sea level, with the lake’s surface some 200 vertical metres lower than our feet.

The red fabric in the foreground is trying to tell tourists “do not venture any closer to the crater’s edge”; it was placed there not many moons ago, soon after a Chinese tourist’s fatal fall.

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Indonesia 2024 (#33 in teaser series: active volcano in “sea of sand”)

Published December 5, 2024 by Pelidoug

Indonesia 2024 (#33 in teaser series: active volcano in “sea of sand”)

At 2,329 m ASL, East Java’s Mount Bromo (Gunung Bromo) comfortably exceeds Australia-proper’s high point.

Its own complex includes several taller volcanoes, but Bromo is the most active one.

When Bromo is not being too active, its rim is a relatively easily climb for tourists. (and Hindu pilgrims, some of whom come to hurl sacrificial animals into the volcano’s roaring/steaming/smoking crater)

Accordingly, it is the “star attraction” in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, aka “TNBTS”.

TNBTS also contains Mount Semuru – Java’s highest mountain, at 3,676 metres.

Within TNBTS‘s massive caldera are several volcanoes; they are surrounded by Indonesia’s only such volcanic “sea of sand”.

Weather permitting, the park’s most popular viewpoint – atop Mount Penanjakan – offers stunning views of all the aforementioned from 2,782 metres (9,127 feet) ASL

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Indonesia, 2024 (#26 in teaser series: “a perfect place to enjoy cool air and relaxing scenery after a series of shopping activities” )

Published November 28, 2024 by Pelidoug

Indonesia, 2024 (#26 in teaser series: “a perfect place to enjoy cool air and relaxing scenery after a series of shopping activities” )

Wonderful Indonesia’s wonderfully-unlikely description refers to Tangbukan Perahu.

This post’s title is quoted from that volcano’s Wonderful Indonesia webpage.

Tangbukan Perahu is just one of Indonesia’s many active volcanoes, but this one is uniquely accessible.

A sealed road allows cars and buses to drive almost all the way up, to within a few easy walking paces of the main crater’s rim.

Tangbukan Perahu rises more than 2000 metres above sea level.

It dominates the local countryside – countryside which it has in large part shaped and fertilised.

Tangbukan Perahu has also, intermittently, delivered terror and death.

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Indonesia, 2024 (#3 in teaser series: Tidore Island)

Published November 4, 2024 by Pelidoug

Indonesia, 2024 (#3 in teaser series: Tidore Island)

Just south of Ternate, Tidore Island is also just “a dot on the map”, and was likewise “built” by its volcano.

Ternate Island and Tidore Island were once the centres of two rival sultanates.

Tidore’s big volcano – Mt Kie Matubu – dominates this post’s photo, which I took from Ternate’s eastern (Ternate City) shore.

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Indonesia, 2024 (#2 in teaser series: active volcano, rainforest & lake)

Published November 3, 2024 by Pelidoug

Indonesia, 2024 (#2 in teaser series: active volcano, rainforest & lake)

On Ternate the third afternoon of October 2024 was very wet – a not unusual circumstance on an island where annual average rainfall comfortably exceeds 2,000 mm.

At 3.46 pm the rain was easing, as we stood on the rim of Tolire Lake.

We failed to see any of its resident crocodiles, but the view across the crater lake – and up to Mt Gamalama’s highest peak – was becoming progressively clearer.

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Aspects of Etna (#19 in series: human, on “Terra infirma”)

Published February 20, 2024 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Etna (#19 in series: human, on “Terra infirma”)

As you can see, the total absence of clouds “up there” proved fleeting.

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Aspects of Etna (#18 in series: closer views of crater-scape)

Published February 18, 2024 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Etna (#18 in series: closer views of crater-scape)

This chapter’s images were taken circa two minutes later than were the previous post’s.

Here, the photos’ sense of height, scale and distance is pretty close to how a naked-eyed human would perceive them.

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Aspects of Etna (#17 in series: cloudless, suddenly, briefly)

Published February 18, 2024 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Etna (#17 in series: cloudless, suddenly, briefly)

The big volcano is very dynamic, always engaged in a closely monitored – but not entirely predictable – “dance” of destruction, construction, collapse, erosion and “quieter periods”.

The cloud-dance on Etna’s upper slopes is even more quickly-shifting – variously, arriving, departing, thinning, thickening, “setting in”, and “burning off”/“dissolving”.

Just a couple of minutes earlier – when I took the previous post’s photos – we were yet to enjoy more than fleeting glimpses of small parts of this post’s crater-scape.

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Aspects of Etna (#16 in series: as the “cloud cap” begins to “burn off”)

Published February 17, 2024 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Etna (#16 in series: as the “cloud cap” begins to “burn off”)

This post’s photos were taken 15-20 minutes after the previous chapter’s.

We had walked up a little higher, staying on a marked path.

For several minutes, most of upper Etna had been invisible to us, but the clouds which had fully-enshrouded us were now fracturing, lifting, starting to “dissolve”.

At 11.40 am we were probably standing a whisker below 3000 metres above sea level; the pictured, freer-roaming folks were, variously, a little higher up or lower down.

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Tag: volcanoes