Above: There's a wee gang of wee silvereyes that's been swooping through our front trees when they think no ones looking. Below: Occasionally they stop for long enough to get a photo.
Below: If you can see one, if you look carefully you'll find another.
Above: Backdoor area of cottage. Below: New garden beds begin to take off. Judging by evidence elsewhere, it has taken a bit of persistence on behalf of the owners of the property to get things established. It will be good to see what the end result is in a year or two.
Easily the dominant feature of the backyard enclosure of the cottage we stayed at in Clare was this fountain/statue. It's continual burble was gentle music through the night.
These roadside photos were taken on the road between the small townships of Seven Hills and Mintaro, at the Southern end of the Clare Valley. Above: archetypical roadside panorama of south eastern australia after a long hot summer. Below: similar, rich agricultural country (sheep/wheat mainly).
For a video (nearly 50 Mb, so be careful if you're on dialup), click here.
This photo was taken from swiftly moving car, between Gawler and Roseworthy. We had been seeing a pillar of dust from several kilometres away, itself moving across the landscape at a speed in the tens of kilomtres. It was whipping up quite a wind within itself, and looked like a dust devil. This high zoom photo is of its base. Not very spectacular looking, but you get an idea of its scale. I have seen these tornado like winds pick up objects weighing over 50 kgs and hurl them a hundred metres, out of the blue on an otherwise calm day.
Above: Rose and church from Billy Goat Lookout, about a kilometre's walk from the cottage where we spent a weekend in Clare in March. Below: White Rabbit in Mintaro Maze - scene of an infamous Annual Easter Egg Hunt.
Above: Mishka enjoys a contemplative view from his 'contraption'. Below: This remarkable architecture was built by our friend Paul when Mish had outgrown his kitten sized scratch pole. Since he's had it, Mish has tended to be a well more well adjusted adolescent cat (he's about 7 months old). Note that His Haughtiness has registered my presence and is doing his best to ignore me.
Mishka relishes the fact that there is a bit of the house which is purr-ly his. In fact, he's quite territorial about it. He often uses it as an ambush point against people or bugs walking by. Below: Concerned.
These are my last photos of the air displays from the Clipsal 500 as viewed from our balcony. The RAAF F18 did its thing just before the races started, was bloody noisy and bloody quick. I didn't catch a photo of it at all the first day, which is a pity as it did a stalling climb which left it stationary in midair only several hundred metres from us! In the photo above it is rocketing by, I was panning the camera pretty quick. Below, it pulls away.
Just before the final race, a pair of F18s did a power climb as their 'salute'. Awsome. For a video (in which you can't actually see much because of digital degredation and the speed of the little planes combined), click here (might take a while for dialup).
On both of the main racedays of the recent Clipsal 500 motor race held in Adelaide, the aerial opening of events was heralded by a flyby of an RAAF Orion (coastal surveillance) plane. Above, it has just completed the flyby. Below, it arrives through the fog and mist to the North of our kitchen window. Note, it's landing gear is still down!
(Photo fairly heavily modified)I took a brief video of it flying by the balcony. You can see it if you click here (note, it may take awhile if you still rely on dialup).
Adelaide recently played host to the Clipsall 500 motor race, when the whole city puts up with traffic delays and alienation of public land for several months for the sake of four days of carfest. Part of the festivities involved flying a blimp around for the week prior, advertising one of the competing local car makes (General Motors Holden). By the way, Holdens came first and second!
Although it was eerie at night, the Blimp looked quite stately floating over the suburban landscape. That is, unless you look closely at the small dark objects not far above the horizon in the left of the above photo. For the life of me, I don't know what they are. Which makes them UFOs on this blog. What do you think?
(UFOs detail)
