Roadside Dustdevil

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.

Happy Easter!

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.

I'll be posting a few photos from our trip in the near future. Until then, have a safe and happy easter!

I'm Back!

A couple of weekends ago we went to the town of Clare in South Australia's midnorth. On one of several walks, I scaled Neagles Rock on the outskirts of the town. This was the view down the valley to the South. I'll be back to my regular posting habits now, I hope.

Real Rain Clouds Roll In

Although we had a bit of rain on Friday, Saturday saw a true monsoonal front roll over the Adelaide Plains and Hills. This was the view from the balcony as it did so. If you haven't gathered, I'm pretty excited about the fact that we then got about an inch of rain over the following two days!

Pre-rain Sunset

Just after the sun had set behind looming clouds last night we got a magnificent lightshow. The weather system is being dominated by a trough of monsoonal air coming down from the north. So, no comet.

Rain!

This building on North Tce has long intrigued me, what with its only door being way off down the side street and its odd for Adelaide architecture. I quite like it though. I just happened to be catching a bus opposite it today with camera in hand, sheltering from the rain (!) under the bus shelter.

Bushfire Sunset

This was sunset on Wednesday, at the same time as the bushfire at Mount Bold (see below) was taking hold. The fire was 90' to the left from the following view of a plane coming in overhead on a flightpath to Adelaide Airport (taken from the balcony, of course).

Having recently had some Canadian relatives come through, a plane picture seems appropriate!

Bushfire Plume

We are having 40'C weather again at present. There's a fire bug roaming loose in the adelaide hills. It's bad enough without that. This fire took off over a couple of hours to produce this plume at sunset this evening. It's over 20 miles away. The view is from the balcony.

Last Sunset of 2006 ...

Lightning Night Sunset

On the 29th of December 2006, Adelaide was treated to a wild display of lightning that lasted for around 6 hours. It started with an amazing sunset, which gave not too much a hint of what came almost immediately afterwards.

Sky views

The above photo was taken a couple hours before sunset, there was little indication of either the brilliant sunset or the electrical storm which followed.

As the sun sank through the horizon, the sky started changing colours in eerie ways.

This photo was taken towards the sun, but from poolside, rather than from the front of the house (most of this night's photos were taken from the balcony).

Night Light

I caught this sky of curious green, and thought it might have been an anamoly with the camera process. Then next day, however, I heard someone mention how the sky sometimes goes greenish before a bolt of lightening. Sure enough, when I looked at the photographic record of my night, I noticed that shortly after the above photo was my first 'capture' of a lightening bolt.

Power

The sheer power of some of the bolts was awe inspiring.

The nearer strikes crackled as they played.

Sky Dancers

At times it seemed to dance all around us.

Symphonies of Light

l

Whiteout

For hours afterwards there were numerous flickers of light and rumbles of thunder, but I didn't see anything much more of the lightshow because I went to sleep!

Golden Sunset

This photo was taken from our balcony yesterday evening. I increased the shutterspeed to about the highest I've consciously used. The chimney is our next door neighbor's.

Golden Sunset Details

The above photo is on a higher zoom. The one beneath is both on high zoom and had noise reduction applied.

November balcony dusk

My first application of noise reduction software (see post below the one below).

Balcony moon at dusk

Totally unprocessed.