Rottnest Island - The Non-Feathered Land Critters

There is a good selection of land based non-feathered critters on Rottnest. The Quokka is probably the most famous inhabitant being directly responsible for the naming of the island. Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh thought the quokkas looked like rats - I guess you did not need any biology degree to be put in charge of a flotilla in those days .. probably not today either(?) - Well, Vlamingh named the island "Rattenest" which is Dutch for "rat's nest" and over the years the name transformed into Rottnest.

The selection of reptiles on Rottnest is good, more importantly though is that your chance of seeing reptiles is excellent! The lack of dogs, cats and foxes and probably the fact that there is next to no traffic on the island has made the crawling inhabitants feel very safe. Particular in the afternoon they will happily present themselves out in the open, trying to suck the last bit of heat out of the tarmac road. So choosing to do a afternoon ride on your bike around the island can be most rewarding. Do not drive to close to the edge of the road and bring your camera :-)

Once again we managed to spot the local Bobtail subspecies called Tiliqua rugosa konowi, which is endemic to Rottnest Island. Also King's Skink Egernia kingii is a sure spot, I have never pulled out the lunch box at Cape Vlamingh (West End) without a specimen showing immediately afterwards :-)

We did not see any snakes this time around, but a great surprise was a line of Processionary Caterpillar, Ochrogaster lunifer, making their way across the road. Great way to prove that size matters :-) obviously they try to imitate a larger creature by forming a gap-less line, similar to how starlings seek protection in large flocks, "sort sol" and how striped catfish forms dense schools.


Excellent weather, some food heavy backpacks and time off - what more can you hope for? Out at Cape Vlamingh we were treated not only with the views of the Osprey family, but also with some hair raising performance by a couple of surfers in combo with helpers on two jet skis.


I have always though that it was cheating having a friend on a jet ski setting you up for the wave, but watching the battle against those waves at West End, I must admit that there was nothing looking like cheating there! Underwater reefs, massive surf and razor sharp rocks all along the coast - if it was me, I would have like a support vessel or two as well :-D

Surfs Up in Bondi - A Good Excuse For a Photowalk

Once again I teamed up with Yiing for a photowalk around Coogee. We had not really planned where to go, but with the sun shining and a generally quite fantastic day the vote took us north along the coast .. and there was something about a surf competition at Bondi.

As we got closer to Bondi we realized that the surf competition was indeed well and truly on and a few celebrity surfers had made their way to Bondi - including Kelly Slater.

Taking surf pictures is soooo rewarding and dare I say easy(?), at least compared to the struggle I normally have when trying to frame those birds - the surfers are where the waves are - simple as that! :-D Despite arriving late we probably ended up in a near perfect position up on the wall just south of the beach, where we had great views to the action on the water and the shenanigan on the beach.


Fantastic stuff! Great seeing an event like that and fun trying to shoot a very different type of pictures. However, it had taken us close to 2 hours walking to Bondi and "yes" we could probably do the return journey faster, but still it would take a while making it back to Coogee, so we decided to leave before the price ceremony.

On our way to Bondi, we had actually "practiced" taking surf pictures of a couple of surfers at Tamarama. I have included some of the pictures here, this particular day I guess the organizers would have been better off relocating the competition a beach further south, Tamarama was sporting some super good waves and the closeness of the break made it a pure joy to take pictures there.

Big Waves In Coogee

Fantastic stuff! It is not very often the really big waves hit Coogee, indeed it is not very often that you can even claim that it is worth surfing around Coogee - the waves are simply just not good enough. This late January day, however, things were different.

[Notice the surfer to the right taking on this monster!]

I had finally decided to do what I should have done from the very beginning; put the new lens on and keep it there till I felt comfortable with it! That is how all new lenses should be treated! At work I had heard that it was looking like it would be "good" surf conditions along most of the coast, so why not take advantage and go for a little surf watching - photo walk combo.

Standing watching these gigantic waves coming in was absolutely gob smacking and when a group of 5 surfers started paddling towards them it attracted a crowd of probably up towards a few hundred people standing there watching the battle.

In about 1 hour all in all we saw one(!) single surfer actually being able to make it out to behind the point where the waves started breaking, probably ca. 500 meters from the beach. After a few minutes of resting he received an epic cheer from the crowd when aligning his board and catching one of the monsters of the day - fantastic stuff! First of all making it out there was only achieved by him - his 4 mates were still struggling in the foamy waters closer to the coast - but someone actually taking on and riding on of these waves was everything you could have hoped for as a spectator ... I would seriously have loved bringing the Bigma, but for keeping the wave in the shot I must admit the macro was probably better suited - exactly the purpose of exploring what you can do with your new lens! ;-)

After his ride, he had been pushed back probably around 100 meters and it was like the water had been infuriated by him conquering a wave and a set of 4 to 5 even larger monsters were rolling in, pushing everyone even further back - at some stage it started looking slightly dangerous since the pounding waves gave very little time for recovery. It broke the spirit of most of the surfers and as we left it looked unlikely that anyone else would be able to ride the waves.

It is weird only having 150mm - at that distance it becomes quite a significant task to "zoom with your feet". At first I was considering running home to pick up the bigma for the surfer pictures, but in reality I should probably be happier with what came out of the prime. With the zoom I would probably have made a close up of the surfer as he plunged down the slope of the wave, but would have lost the shear magnitude of the wave. Being forced to include the wave might indeed have made it a more interesting picture. :-)