The Only Chance…...

….to get something of interest on a very grey, dull Saturday was to head up to Birch's Creek to have a play amongst the rocks and autumn leaves. I never come home from here without a nice image, and just another great example of knowing how to make the most of the conditions, no matter how lifeless it seems.

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Ofu Island, National Park of American Samoa

We've been back 4 weeks already from American Samoa, time that has just flown by. So I wanted o post a few images form the trip, partly to keep it fresh in my mind. We are busily planning our first assault on Alaska for August, but its important not to let previous trips fade away….here's one from awesome Ofu Island. We had this one mile stretch of beach all to ourselves for the afternoon, certainly one of the highlights of our visit to the National Park of American Samoa, our 51st USA National Park - only 8 to go!

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Barbed 'Beet

Out to Lake Burrumbeet on Friday evening with some nice clouds building up on the way out. Decided to look for the fencepost I have photographed before, thinking that the receding shoreline wold allow me to get pretty close to it. Exactly as expected, except someone had hung this old coil of barbed wire on the top of it that gave me a something a bit different to work with.

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Creek Colour

On Thursday I couldn't resist a return visit out to Birch's Creek at Smeaton. Some terrific colours all round as the autumn continues to drop leaves all over, and then some nice reflected light late in the day due to the blood red skies from local burn offs. I've been to this spot so many times, I feel it deserves a name - so from this day forth I'm calling it Smeaton Cascades. If you are out that way looking for it, its located almost under the bridge, a few hundred metres downstream from the Mill.

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Smorgasbord

Quite a range of images from Wednesday here in Ballarat. I went for a run over to Victoria Park, and passed some very interesting growths of fungus, so later in the day I popped over to grab a few frames of this furry fungus. And then Deb and I wandered up to Lake Wendouree to see what the sunset would bring. Though it was very cloudy, there were some nice clouds, and the sun managed to find a gap just for a few minutes. And to finish off, this proud gull paraded in front of us…is he the same one you can in the previous 2 images?!

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The Moon Eclipse

With a lot of buzz around about the moon eclipse on Tuesday, I decided a good location would be on the west side of Lake Burrumbeet, up in the north west corner. The clouds decided against that idea, and it wasn't until way after moonrise that a very faint, pale moon became visible in the fading twilight. So I headed back to Ballarat, and a few miles down the road at Windermere the darkening sky really gave the moon some prominence, so I pulled of into a side road and got to work. It really was quite a sight, with the distinct red glow we had all been reading about quite apparent. I took a range of images, packed up the gear, and just as I was reversing the car, the headlights lit up this patch of grasses along this fence line, with the moon sitting serenely above it all….out came the gear again for what I think is the most interesting image of the evening. Earlier in the evening whilst waiting for the action, I caught some nice images of this "Southern Cross" brand windmill on the side of Mt Callender - this was the image I thought I was going home with until the moon put on its show.

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Almost Full at Lake Burrumbeet

I made the trip out to the west side of Lake Burrumbeet on Monday to catch the almost full moon, in fact it was 98.1% full, about 40 minutes before sunset. It was still quite light when it came up so it took a while before it made any real impact. In the first one thats a flock of pelicans basking in the late afternoon sun, oblivious to the moon behind them…or maybe they were all watching it in awe! Its the 3rd one here that I like the most, and it was almost an after thought as I was driving off. And a good solid, strong moon with the big lens to finish off.
Tonight is the eclipse of the moon right on sunset, really looking forward to that!

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