Today I decided to have a look at the Cremorne Reserve at dusk. Here, the sun is setting over North Sydney CBD. I liked the juxtaposition of palm tree and sky-scrapers.
Cremorne Reserve ends at Cremorne Point Wharf, pictured here reflecting the sunset.
Looking straight up at a palm tree.
Some kind of dove with an interesting crest on its head.
One of the joys of living here is getting to watch sailing races just from our balcony. This morning the harbour was especially crowded.
And then they go and drive something like this straight through the middle.
Despite the severely curtailed weekend we managed to get to the beach yesterday morning and just fit in a bit of a surf. In waves sort of like this one. Then The Bread Winner left me all on my own for four days while he went off gallivanting around the world for some beer-token-related activity. It is now 24 hrs since he left and he has just arrived at his destination. It's a big planet.
Look what dropped in hoping for breakfast this morning...
Tonight's full moon rose early, a deep orange that turned out to be excellent for photographic purposes. Still needed manual exposure and a tripod but I'm very pleased with the result.
The location for today's photographic endeavours was the Botanical Gardens, always a safe bet. Caught this bat in flight.
Talking of bats, this ibis was sharing a tree with a multitude of them.
I'm sure this spider is poisonous. Looks deadly, anyway. See how the sunlight glints on the spiderweb?
I promised some flora as well. This is bamboo in the Chinese Garden.
A gnarled tree trunk.
Part of the sundial, in black-and-white. You can see what time I was there.
The Harbour Bridge and part of the Opera House in the background behind the tree.
This church is just around the corner from where we live. It looked pretty lit up so I used my gorillapod to steady the camera on some handy railings and took a night shot.
Before anyone asks, no, my camera isn't broken. It took a perfectly good colour picture of the beach, which I deliberately turned into a black-and-white shot. For added artistic effect. We had friends staying for the weekend, who produced some truly stunning photographs with a camera similar to mine. So I thought I'd have a go, too.
Back to colours. It was a beautiful day, and the rocks protected the water pools from the wind and surf. Hence excellent reflections of a rocky scene.
Close-up of the rocks next to the Bower Break.
Seagulls, fighting over the leftovers. This photograph was taken with my mobile phone camera. Not bad for that kind of camera, I thought.
Since the fine weather is holding for the moment I spent some time at Cremorne Reserve yesterday, a few minutes' walk from home. This bird looked me over carefully but stood still for several pictures.
Competition for sunny spots just next to the water is fierce. This cormorant was enjoying its perch, and not at all pleased when a seagull moved in.
And in Manly today, someone was blowing enormous soapbubbles. I'm sure he meant to sell the method of producing these but I just took a photograph.
Despite the fine weather the water temperature has now fallen to 19C so I bought a long wetsuit today. It was either that or no more watersports until spring.
While idly watching the surf at Manly I happened to be there just as a school sports lesson was taking place. When I was at school, usually it took place in a sports hall with special equipment. When we were very lucky we would go for a "cross-country run", "cross-country" inn this context meaning "along routes not too often frequented by cars". These boys had a surfing lesson instead. How neat is that?
Another huge cargo ship entering Sydney, shot from the Neutral Bay ferry.
If you look very closely there is a cormorant in this picture, sunning itself on the fence separating the swimming area from the sharks, erm, I mean, the mooring area.
I just saw something very strange coming into the harbour, so I took a picture of it with my trusy long lens. Despite the magnification I still can't quite make out what it is. Looks like a log being transported? I can't see the engines, nor a person steering the platform. Answers on a postcard.
Today I decided to go through Cremorne Reserve to Cremorne Point, take a ferry from there to Circular Quay, then walk to the Botanical Gardens. Cremorne Reserve never fails to delight. It coming up to winter I was surprised to see this tree, entirely devoid of leaves, still producing the odd brightly-coloured flower.
In the Botanical Gardens, my favourite site, the Main Pond, was closed for upgrade works. The birds that normally make it their home had to make other arrangements for perching. This ibis found an ideal spot, directly on this rather pertinent sign.
On the way back to Neutral Bay, the ferry hung back for several minutes just in front of the Opera House. The reason soon became clear: This enormous container ship was steaming out from under the harbour bridge towards Sydney Heads. Clearly the ferry captain thought that he'd rather be late than try to cross to Kirribilli in front of this behemoth. If you want to get an idea of the scale, look at the people in the loading bay (where the red arrow points to).
As the year inexorably moves towards winter it is still possible to spend days out on (or in) the water. These yachts were in the middle of their Sunday afternoon race when our Manly ferry chomped right through the middle. We, of course, were on our way to yet another afternoon of watery activities.
As we have been improving steadily in our ability to manage a body board (measured by the diminishing amount of salt water swallowed each session), neither of us wanted to use the "cheap" board any more. The one we picked up from Gumtree. It has done its job, and very admirably too, but we have now both outgrown it. Since the availability of beer tokens has increased recently with the acceptance of a "proper job", we acquired a second bodyboard yesterday. Hence we needed to try it out immediately. Shame there was absolutely no surf. Fortunately we had our snorkelling gear with us as well (honestly, these days it takes a mule to carry all the equipment we ferry around each weekend). We were lucky enough to witness a very rare sight: A column of tightly-packed striped juvenile catfish. Apparently, they do that. We wished we'd had an underwater camera.
All weekend there was some kind of surf lifesaving competition going on, taking up the middle of the Manly Surf Beach. It largely involved fast ribs going out to sea, jumping the incoming surf (what little of it there was), going around a mark, then coming back in again. I spent some time trying to catch a rib in mid-air. It was noticeable that every single crew, and every single surfer, was wearing a long wetsuit. Having nearly caught hypothermia today I am beginning to see why. Is it normal to need two wetsuits...? The Obsessive Surfer, of course, claimed to be toasty warm in his spring suit.
