go-see-do guide for adventurous travellers
The last few kilometres were heavy going as I trudged back to camp. The bright daylight faded into twilight as the sun sank below the eroded peaks surrounding the amazing Wilpena Pound valley, centrepiece of South Australia’s Flinders Ranges National Park. The evening coolness rose as we entered the campground. While taking an 18.8 kilometre (11.7 mile) hike might not[…]
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Australian Opal I didn’t understand all the fuss about SiO2.nH2O until 2004. That’s when I first visited Coober Pedy. It’s slap bang in the middle of absolutely freakin’ nowhere in the South Australian Outback. And it’s where I first found a piece of SiO2.nH2O I wanted to take home with me. You might know SiO2.nH2O better as Hydrous Silica. Or[…]
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I’ve got Pilchard to thank for some of our more obscure travel destinations. If not for him, I wouldn’t be out birding. And if not for birding, I wouldn’t have been in this marvellously scenic spot near Werribee on the outskirts of Melbourne’s west! As I photographed the sunlight glinting across the waters of Port Philip Bay to Portarlington, and[…]
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Hi there! Tiny town Marree South Australia is the first major sign of civilisation in over 500 km (~310 miles) for travellers heading south down the iconic Oodnadatta or Birdsville tracks – both LOOOOONG stretches of dirt, rocks, gravel and bulldust. But we approached it over several days from the other direction – a straight run from Adelaide of nearly[…]
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Visit Innes National Park on a fine day and if you don’t end up with a photo that looks close to the one above, you’re just not trying! But joining the ‘Entrance to Innes National Park’ photo club isn’t the only reason to visit this smallish 9400+ hectare National Park. It’s around 300 km from Adelaide on the toe of[…]
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OK, so I’d been reading a photography magazine as we approached Lake Cullulleraine at the end of a long day on the road, and I was itching to try a few things out. So what if my camera was ‘only’ a point & click, and not one of the fancy-schmancy-hi-tech must-have gadget-laden-gizmos the mag condescended about. Besides, I was in[…]
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The Evening Before … I gripped the railing and looked through the deep shadows down the deep RED gash of Dales Gorge. WAAAAAY down. Late afternoon at the lookout meant the sun was long gone from the gorge floor. Even though it had lit up the eastern wall quite spectacularly. Ho Hum. Another day in the Pilbara, another killer landscape[…]
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The splendiferous sun sank into the shadowy waters on this balmy OZ winter’s evening with a sensational splash of colour. The superb sunset would make a good stand-alone shot. But a prop or two would turn it into a GREAT one! Luckily for me, this July 2012 Derby sunset over stunning King Sound in Australia’s North West had three: a massive[…]
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I had no idea that at 747 metres (2450 ft) above sea level Tom Price is the highest town in Western Australia. I also had no idea Tom Price is at the foot of the highest Western Australian mountain with a summit accessible by road. And I had no idea that the town was named for American geologist Thomas Moore[…]
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It’s the bird du jour around almost any given sub-tropical picnic area and car park, so it should have been easy to get a good shot. However, my shots of Australian Brush-turkey in the dark depths of Natural Bridge*, part of Springbrook National Park’s lushly magnificent rainforest, all had something missing. Clarity. We’d driven up the impossibly steep Border Ranges from[…]
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