Monthly Archives: November 2012

Noisy Miners

November 27, 2012Photographyfractalthoughts

Eclipse 2012 Holiday

November 22, 2012Photographyfractalthoughts

This year’s solar eclipse so close to us (i.e., only a two-hour flight away and in the same state and country) provided an excellent excuse for a week-long holiday in tropical North Queensland. Best of all, the weather played ball and let us see totality, the black disk of the moon with the sun’s corona around it. That experience really can’t be beaten, and can’t be photographed either, not without special equipment. Even just the sun’s corona is completely beyond the dynamic range of what even good amateur equipment can handle. Nevertheless, we had a great holiday and took many, many photos — believe it or not, the selection below has been pared down to the essentials. Enjoy!

Bird Hide — Cattana Wetlands shot through the openings of a bird hide.

breakfast — Breakfast in our serviced apartment. A tradition we started on our honeymoon.

Eclipse — This was taken during the eclipse but I wasn’t trying very hard. I was focussed on enjoying the awesome experience!

I tried to identify this bird but no luck.

Double-Chaz! — Playing with the panorama feature, Chaz got doubled!

Mud skippers, not muddy for the moment.

See where it got its name from?

Mud skippers, being muddy.

It took eight kms of unsealed road and a 2km walk in blazing sun to get here.

The capital of spiders!

Leaves, partially eaten, make a pretty pattern.

A palm seed pod. Sometimes I do Art.

Where there is a spider exoskeleton, there may also be a spider…

A palm leaf that had dropped onto the boardwalk.

An egret, hunting.

A tern, hunting in Cairns Harbour.

“I’m pretty!”

Aah, cute!

Apparently, these can be quite impressive during the wet season; however, most of the water gets diverted for electricity generation.

Metal art around the Barron Falls canopy walk, to go with the rainforest.

Hail storm!!

November 18, 2012Photographyfractalthoughts

Monster hail storm. The noise is deafening. Satellite TV in the pub has just failed.

Time travel to the 1950s

November 16, 2012Photographyfractalthoughts

Since we loved the rainforest so much yesterday, we decided on a second dose today. Having gone North yesterday, today South was the order of the day. Problem: there is nothing much South of Cairns – the rainforest bits of the Atherton Tablelands are more like SW, and 150km+ over windy, though pretty, roads. Enter the town of Babinda, around 50km South of Cairns, marked on the map as having a tourist information centre, and an attraction called The Boulders. Good enough, we thought.

On arrival at Babinda, marketed as the rainiest town in the country, it turns out that it’s a time machine, ca. 1950:

However, The Boulders turned out fantastic, and well worth the journey. Apparently so many people died there that the council closed the creek on pain of fines. Viewing only permitted from designated lookouts – and the views are gorgeous:

On the way, we found a monster spider, even by Australian standards:

It was really hot and humid, and eventually the permitted bathing area proved too much of a temptation:

Sea and rain forest

November 15, 2012Photographyfractalthoughts

Today we headed further North to Port Douglas. There is only one road to there, called the Captain Cook Highway. It has only one roundabout between Trinity Beach and Port Douglas, so no chance of getting lost. The road runs along the coast, with breathtaking views:

The ultimate target was Mossman Gorge, 10km from Port Douglas. They have created an excellent Visitors’ Centre, and we spent a happy time walking through the rain forest: