Storm Approaching - Rain in Coogee

Driving back from work Thursday was quite an experience. As the Magna started the decent from Randwick down towards Coogee the view was absolutely stunning. Some seriously bad weather was approaching from the sea, Dark blue clouds were building up and I could see two rainbows. At the same time the sun was setting in the East on a cloud free sky given of a warm orange color. The play of the colors ended up being quite amazing with velvet black clouds being lit by the fading sunlight.

It was all changing really fast, so as soon as I was home I grabbed the camera and ran to our roof top terrace. Getting the colors right is quite hard and if I had been home maybe 5 min before my guess is it would have been even more impressive.

Trying to capture a massive storm front approaching with a minimum focal length of 50mm in your arsenal of camera lenses makes you wonder if you bought the right setup ;-) Well, well thanks to autostitch, which is an absolute fantastic easy to use, free piece of software for making panoramas, you can actually still manage to capture a good wide view over Coogee, having nice blue sky left in the picture and tremendous rain coming in from the right.

Still I might pull the plug on a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 when the Australian dollar starts showing a bit of strength again :-) Remember to click the last picture to get a better resolution version of the panorama.

Walking Back to Carlon's Farm - Bushwalk Part 2

Early morning in the bush - sorry about the picture, must admit it was probably taken during the very last available light the night before - After a super duper sleep and some good solid breakfast we packed our gear and prepared for another day in the boots.

Jarrod, who's blog you can find here, had planned for us to do the walk as a circuit, meaning that we would not have to battle the 41 river crossings on the way back out - I was very happy about that, instead we would climb straight out of the valley and then follow the ridge back home ... sounded good ...? I promise the readers that after about 20 min of scrambling up the hill trying to follow the determined New Zealand mountain goat, who was speeding up the hill like a Tour de France rider high on EPO, I started considering if I would have been better off by swimming all the way back up Breakfast creek instead :-D

It took 1.5 hours to reach the top, gaining somewhere close to 600m of altitude making it equivalent to conquering Himmelbjerget "The Heaven Mountain" back home in Denmark 4 times in a row with a good solid backpack and 3kg of camera hanging from your waist - excellent exercise :-D I sneakily managed to get in front of Jarrod for just enough time to take a picture - that will come in handy one day when I need proof supporting my story about how I spearheaded an expedition out of the Cox's River Valley ;-) A picture never lies and there is no sound revealing me huffing and puffing like a steam train running out of water.

The views at the top were absolutely stunning and after having done all the climbing as the very first bit of the walk the rest was literally "a walk in the (national)park". There were quite a few things to look at on the top of the ridge. A Wedge-tailed Eagle was cruising its hunting grounds, we saw wild orchids growing and aboriginal sharpening grooves used to sharpen tools by grinding them against the rock and aboriginal waterpots drilled into the rock.

Absolutely fantastic walk, thanks to Jarrod for arranging it. One of those that gets even better when you are back home, have had your shower and sit and look at the pictures :-) I have put together a Picasa album that you can access by pressing the map below.

Cox's River

Carlon's Farm to Cox's River via Breakfast Creek

Saturday morning I picked up Jarrod and pointed that shiny bonnet of the Magna towards another action packed weekend with all the fun and excitement the Blue Mountains can deliver. Jarrod had talked me into a bit of bushwalking in the Megalong Valley and I had said yes without knowing exactly what would be on the menu, except it would be a two day walk and I had therefore packed the tent, a good supply of gnocchi and a spare pair of knickers - be prepared! ;-)

Standing at the car eating a few bananas and drinking some water I realized that this trip was slightly different from my usual bushwalking exercise, Jarrod insisted on me reading the description of the route, which is a good idea(!), but what was this thing about 41 river crossings - that sounded very wet ... well, well - maybe the author of the book had chosen a not-so-clever route or we could even be lucky and the creek would be dry ... we took off into the wild.

Walking in Blue Mountain rainforest during winter is cold and wet, but amazingly rewarding. The cold and wet bit is easily solved by bringing the right clothes and shoes (I remembered this time) and left is just to enjoy the nature and wildlife.


On the way towards Breakfast Creek we encountered a flock of Glossy-black Cockatoos, probably counting more than 10 birds, peacefully sitting feeding in the casuarinas. Even though I have seen them before it was worth a few pictures, as was the Eastern Shrike-tit Jarrod pointed out after less than 5 min of walking :-)

The book had been right, scrambling down the banks of Breakfast Creek was as though the path had been made by a creature severely suffering from "The grass is greener on the other side"-syndrome. I did not count number of crossings, but 41 is not far off. Jarrod "Bambi" Amoore decided early on to put both his boots well and truly under water and from then on he did the crossings with the determination of a New Zealand tractor - I on the other hand jumped from rock to rock with the grace of a ballet dancer and managed to stay dry until about the 30th crossing after which I adopted the tractor approach - I do not think all that dancing from rock to rock slowed us down much more than an hour :-D

It was great arriving at Cox's River. When you are wet and hungry there is nothing better than to set up camp, get some food and get those wet boots and socks off. At the campsite we discovered yet another plaque, this one was in memory of Miss Oonagh Kennedy, who had died trying to cross the Cox's River in 1967 after a horse-riding expedition had gone wrong due to heavy rain.

I have pointed out before that bushwalking during winter means reduced daylight. When you camp in a valley you cut off at least another half hour in the evening as well as in the morning i.e. you have the chance of a proper monster sleep :-) When you have finished eating there is not much more to do in a dark valley, so we hit the tents and sleeping bags around 7pm. I had no idea what Sunday would bring, but knowing that I had 11 hours to spend sleeping before anybody expected anything from me was very nice indeed :-D

Good Quality Relaxing in Long Bay

It is quite fantastic to have a "secret" spot only 5 minutes drive away from where you live, with albatrosses, whales and nature galore ... even producing a surprise tick once and a while ;-) All of this happening in a crowded city of 4.5M people and still you can sit alone recharging the capacitors with a million dollar view and not a soul around! :-)

It was all happening, a Nankeen Kestrel eating while on the wing - I have spared you for the pictures where it was getting bloody - and an Eastern Reef Egret performing on one of the rock platforms, great bird - and a new one for me!

The slightly more ocean going wildlife was in place as well, a few whales were heading North approximately a kilometer from the coast, at least 2 species of albatrosses were seen and I was lucky to get decent BIFs of some feathered wildlife flying close to shore.


Walking back after a couple of high quality hours I guess the mood got the better of me and turned a bit "arty" - sorry about that :-)

With a bit of help from the Nikon I even produced the HDR below, 5 raw images taken with one stop between combined and tone mapped trying to capture the sun setting behind Long Bay - in real life it was even better :-)

Long Bay, revisited

Taffy's Rock, Bushwalking in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Jarrod and Adelle had again made sure our weekend would be action packed! This time the event was going to take place in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and we, Iain, Jarrod, Adelle and yours truly, were all set to depart the vibrant township of Cowen early 9.34am Saturday morning heading into the wild.

I really like walking in Ku-ring-gai, wildlife is not the best around and the trees are a bit scrubby, but the vistas are absolutely fantastic! The combination of rock, bush and water is gob smacking and gives an excellent opportunity of doing a bit of landscape photography ... and carrying 3kg of camera up and down the track makes you very fit ... or just sweaty!

We were heading for Taffy's rock, a not so well traveled part of the park, but famous for its views and apparently the presence of a hard-to-find plaque in honor of Taffy, hence the name of the place. As we arrived to "the first" Taffy's rock, a search for the plague was unsuccessful and after a bit of debating and a thorough examination of the map, it was realized that we were indeed not there yet - it was a very nice rock though, see the picture above.

Well, well - no worries we headed for the next one :-) Arriving at the next hill, it all gave sense. Views were absolutely stunning and Adelle "hawk-eye" Shasha/Amoore spotted the plaque honoring Taffy faster than any of us boys could have zoomed in on a "for sale" sign in clothes boutique :-D - this time we were definitely on the right rock.


The only problem about bushwalking in winter is that time is limited - we could have used longer time enjoying the views - but at the moment sundown happens just slightly after 5pm and we had a bit of climbing on the way back.

Great walk, a good long day in the boots and how good is it to come home and know that you deserve your gnocchi ;-)
A few more pictures are included in the Picasa link below:

Ku-ring-gai Chase NP

Whales and Albatrosses Galore

After having gone through a couple of scary saltwater incidents with my camera at my usual albatross spotting site. I was very pleased when I received a tip about another site a little further South that apparently was much more camera friendly. Combined with the presence of hundreds of whales making their way North in the waters just of the Sydney coast, I reasoned that being at an elevated position overlooking the ocean, on a sunny crispy clear winter day, just the Bigma and I alone, would be an excellent way of recharging the capacitors.

It was action-packed! Before I had found a good seat on the rocks the first two whales had already started performing approximately 700 meters from the coast - when something has whale size, 700 meters is no problem for the Bigma and I got a picture or two ;-)

Starting to scan the water I realized there was an albatross sitting feeding on something "floaty" not that far from the coast, great having floaty stuff around, the entire time I used down there this spot was constantly being visited by seabirds flying in, eating and eventually leaving again, giving great bird in flight/landing/takeoff pictures (BIF, BIL and BIT).

I realized after my first two attempts that it is impossible to show pictures of albatrosses taken with a telelens and make the viewer realize how big these birds actually are ... except if you get something else into the frame. The attraction of the floaty stuff gave me the shot I wanted :-)

A seagull had been having a little go, but wisely decided to move when an albatross landed, luckily I managed to catch the situation while they were both there and the albatross still had its wings out.
All fired up about my luck with the birds I started focusing on the whales again and managed to get a pictures with a little (compared to the whale) boat close to the surfacing whale - some people just cannot get close enough.

All in all an absolute top spot! With birds flying so close that the 3 meter focusing distance of the Bigma (@500mm) nearly became a problem :-D