Away again, but a quick WIIW anyway.

I am away in New England at the moment (the Australian New England, not the American region) so I will keep this quick.

A couple of weeks ago I posted this WIIW.

For those of you who said "feet" - well you were half right.

The feet are Lu's (my youngest)
As to what she was standing on - it is a tree root.
The tree is a lovely old (maybe 300 years) Blackbutt (Eucalyptus pilularis)  that leans out over Coffs Harbour Creek. Lu kindly agreed to be a scale.


Which leads to this week's WIIW.
What on Earth do you think this might be?

Not Dead - Just Away

My blog has been rather quiet for the last week or so.

The reason is just under a week ago I was up well before dawn to head down to the regional airport at Coffs Harbour.

I snapped this with my phone before I boarded, yes that is the sun coming up behind the De Haviland Dash-8 I flew to Sydney for a conference.

A Dash-8  is about the smallest plane I ever want to fly in. The smaller they are the bumpier planes seem to be.

So I was in Sydney for a few days before heading home on Friday. My conference ended a couple of hours before my home-bound flight.

Things got a bit stressful for a while as I tried calling a taxi. A rainy Friday afternoon and after 30 minutes I was still on the phone queue.

A quick change of plan, I jumped on an express bus which went into the CBD across the Coat-hanger (Sydney-sider slang for the HarbourBridge)

From Wynyard station in the city centre the airport is a convenient train ride.
A bad piccie I know, but it does show that Sydney suburban trains are double deckers.

The flight back to Coffs was in another Dash-8, an even smaller one! Just a thirty seater
It was a miserable flight; turbulence most of the way with ice forming on the propellers which flew off and banged on the fuselage with a real racket.

Then to add to the joy it was pouring at Coffs  and you have to walk across the apron to get into the terminal.

Thank goodness we had a relaxing weekend with our girls at Yamba to celebrate our Lu's 20th birthday. It is hard to believe our baby is 20!
 Lu our baby, when she was still a baby (more or less)

Shameless Comercialism

Well, as you know I have  posted the odd piccie on this blog over the years.
Like this:

 I have decided I am going to try to make my camera habit begin to contribute to its own upkeep.

With that in mind I have been looking for a way to sell some of my piccies.

What I have hit on is a site called Redbubble.
The way it works is you upload your work, tell them what format you want to sell it in. They manage sales, printing and postage and then pay you a royalty.

The upside is it is a very easy way to make your work available.The downside is like any product on the web you pretty much have to market it yourself, and your images are likely to be drowned in a sea of other people's work.

So with nothing to lose I have made a start.
I have put together two calendars (figuring Christmas is near) and so far most of the images in the calendars are available in various other formats  from prints, to greeting-cards, to posters.

 The first features piccies of sunsets I have taken along the southern Oz coast.

The second features some of my favourite waterfall piccies

If you click on either it will take you to the Redbubble site where you can have a look at them and the piccies I have added to my portfolio.

If you don't want to pay for the calendars, the cards and small prints are much cheaper.

I'll also be adding some more photos from my archive - things like cute Oz animals.  If you "follow me" on Redbubble, you will automatically be sent updates on what I add.  Go on, you know you want to :-)

Two answers, one question.

Well unlike last week 

 

we had four guesses for this week’s WIIW

 

Linda G guessed: “Hmm. Looks like sunlight shining on a rock formation, maybe something with opals?”

It is bright sunlight shining off something smooth, so that earns 50%. But it isn’t mineral.

Marcy guessed: “I was thinking a cement bench or stone seating of some sort - maybe. And I thought the other one was someone's shadow being cast. but I don't think I'm right on either count.”

Well your first guess is just dead wrong.

But your second earns 50%, it is a shadow but of something much smaller than a person.

Dawn guessed: “I think the first is the shadow of someone's head on a book or car. Or a sidewalk? The second is a flat rock patio with moss growing between the stones. Right? Am I right on that one?!

 Alas No.

50% for the shadow. But the second is way off.

Susan guessed: “The first one looks like a layer of frost or snow on a windshield, and I have no idea what the second one is. But it sure is interesting. I especially like that prismatic patch of color.”

Alas the first is wrong.  The surface those colours are refracting on are probably going to surprise you.

First to the older WIIW.

The shadow on this paper daisy petal was cast by another petal.

 

So what is the smooth shiny surface?

This handsome fellow is a Land Mullet (Egernia major)   they are a giant skink lizards that are fairly common in the rainforest here. Although you don’t often see them.

I snapped this fellow crossing our track a few weeks ago. He was a large fellow about 60cm (2 feet) long.

 

Which brings us to this weeks WIIW.

What on Earth do you think this might be?

WIIW?

Well no one had a guess at last weeks WIIW.

So I haven't provided an answer.

Which leads me to this week: What on Earth do you think this might be?

Choking, Dodging, and In The Weather

Well, as you know we have been hot and dry down this way.  We hadn't had rain of any kind since June.
I posted a few weeks ago about a nervous few days and nights as a bushfire got very close.
Ever since then we have been living in a cloud of smoke.
Not from that fire, but from other much larger fires about 16km (10miles) to the west.
Not really close but not far in deteriorating conditions.
The main fire is in pretty inaccessible mountains and despite RFS crews and water bombers it grew from 800 hectares (2,000 acres) to 2,000 ha, then 5,000, 8,000 and is reported today at over 11,600 ha (29,000 acres).
With prevalent winds in the west the smoke was frequently choking.

To give you an idea of what it is like: I took this piccie just after dawn on Saturday.
That isn't a morning mist the sun is shining through. It's a blanket of smoke!

Then the promise of relief, rain was forecast for yesterday and today.

Only it didn't just rain. Instead we had pounding hail and spiking lighting.
Poor Lilli alternated between hiding under Deb's desk and trying to climb onto my lap.
Labradors are not lap dogs!

At the height of the storm lightning struck very close and blew our land-line phone off the wall!

As I write this this afternoon, clouds are moving in again, this is one of my favourite shots, looking down the valley. As you can see one of the joys of being in the mountains is that you are really up in the weather.
A joy, but a bit unnerving sometimes.

So, finally some longed for rain, and hopefully goodbye fires (for a while at least)

 Postcript: Poor Lilli is under the desk again, and lighting is stabbing down all around!

Beauty or Beast?

I did mean to post before now. Ah well such is life.

I had better answer last week’s WIIW before I post this week.

There were two guesses:

Marcy guessed “Either a close up of a picture frame or maybe it's the edge of a railing looking down to water. That's what comes to my mind though I suspect I'm way off the mark.”

 It is a close up, but it is a living thing not a frame or railing

Old Kitty said: “A hermit crab's leg encrusted with sand.”

It isn’t a crab, but it is another kind if arthropod.

I shot this mosquito like insect last weekend, 

 

Although it is mozzie shaped it is gigantic in comparison, that piece of timber it is sitting on is a 2 inch thick bench-top.

 Which brings me to this week’s WIIW, what on Earth do you think this might be?