Sunday, December 29, 2013

D'entrecasteaux National Park and Windy Harbour - A quick WA escape


Another set of photos from some lovely days visiting WA. The south western corner of Australia manages to produce great holidays all year around. Going towards an Australian winter, there is not a place much better for some wind and vistas. In particular, I find the beaches down around Windy Harbour and D'entrecasteaux National Park simply stunning.

A low setting sun gives a fantastically warm, lovely light that is well worth a few shots and some photo stitching. I am fairly pleased with the outcome of the first pano in this post, and equally disappointed about the last one - these two panos were shot with only a few minutes between, but very different light. Click the various photos to be taken to high(er) resolution versions of them.






There was a decent number of waders hanging out at windy harbour. I guess a name like that does not necessarily attract hordes of tourists longing for long strolls along a wind blown beach, and indeed that day windy harbour lived up to its name and those birds seeking refuge at the beach had very few visitors to keep an eye out for.
 

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Wentworth Falls in the wet


Rainy weather and still up for some tramping? Danes are not too scared of getting a bit wet, if we were, we would end up sitting inside our houses waiting for better weather most of our lives - at least true for the Danes having decided to use most of their lives back home in good old DK.

This "not too scared" approach has gotten me into some epic wet walks with Jarrod, who seems to have a even more extreme joy for feeling miserable, wet, lost and cold while tramping the Australian wilderness

Hence, it was not a big surprise that Jarrod was keen to come along for a bit of waterfall spotting in Wentworth Falls after a few weeks of big rain in the Blue Mountains. All that rain had secured record amounts of water in the falls and we were both keen to see the Wentworth fall at its best .. even with the forecast predicting more rain. From the beginning it all looked like a terrible idea. We used the first little hour walking along the Charles Darwin Walk towards the fall in heavy rain and misty conditions - no wildlife, no visibility and no dry clothes. Arriving at the falls, at first, we still did not have much visibility, but the roaring sounds of the fall was pretty impressive. I have seen the falls during a dry Australian summer as not much more than a trickle, the falling water hardly being able to make it to the bottom of the valley beneath, since most of the water evaporated into the dry hot air. Needless to say that waterfalls are more impressive when full of water - Our trip suddenly started to make sense. Standing at the top of the falls, we realized that luck was on our side, it had stopped raining, a breeze had found a way into the valley and the clouds surrounding us slowly began to lift - revealing some of the prettiest views I have had in Australia - A proper goosebumps moment! It is unfair to try to pack all that greatness into a 400 pixel wide photo and clicking to go to the higher resolution version only helps a little. Being wet, tired and having used three hours to get to the top of the falls also helped in making it all feel a little special - even the takeaway pie and coffee seemed to taste better that afternoon, how lucky can you be?..!