Sweet Wayfaring

Near Perthville The modern face of haymaking. Mark from Clarence Valley Today  has contributed a new Royal Hotel that I've added to the Royal collection.   Check it out and don't forget to visit Mark's blog which is a great daily read.

In Rockley I couldn't miss the opportunity to get some corrugated iron into the series. Summer flowers in a pretty town.

Lake Oberon The dams and lakes are rising higher but the big ones are not yet full to the brim. The council's website says it's currently 63% capacity so still a way to go.

Near Oberon Some people have found enough sunshine to make hay.

On the road to Jenolan Caves Its been raining lots - look at how green that grass is for the height of summer! I find it hard to get inspired to go wayfaring in soggy weather so in recent weeks we have just done a few short drives west of the mountains in places I have already photographed often. So this is a mixed bag of 10 shots found this summer.

The Australian bush may not be postcard perfect but I love it ... happy Australia Day.

The tranquil lake fills with boats over the summer.  I enjoyed it more in the peaceful season, though we bid it farewell with reluctance.

Towards the end of the week back at the camp the little houses were beginning to fill up with old folk with grandchildren it tow.  The paths started to come alive with pedal powered vehicles.  The windows lit up with Christmas glitter.  The season was starting just as we were bidding this lovely spot good bye.

I stopped myself mid gobble for this shot because I especially liked the pretty seasonal touch of the hydrangea flowers. Taken at the South Coast Cheese shop in Central Tilba, were the cheese is still locally made.

One of the things I really love about the south coast are the spotted gum forests with the straight spotted timber trunks in lovely contrast to the Burrawangs (cycads) growing in the understory. The spots on the gums are made by the way the bark falls of in irregular flakes.

Ah to have a home on a high hill overlooking the sea .. if you enjoy the smell of salt, and the breezy restlessness ... not what I would want always but it sure is great for a visit. "Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I've also gotta say I'm pretty impressed with the images from the iPhone.

We are heading back along the boardwalk. There is great crowd of little crabs marching back and forth across the sand.  Perhaps a common sight for those that live by the sea but for me magical and thrilling. Now I was really regretting not having a decent camera.   I looked up the collective noun for crabs ... it's a cast ... wierd huh.

Where the lake meets the sea. Estuary ~ Gwen Harwood "Wind crosshatches shallow water. Paddocks rest in the sea's arm. Swamphens race through spiky grass. A wire fence leans, a crazy stave with sticks for barlines, wind for song. Over use, interweaving light with air and substance, ride the gulls. Words in our undemanding speech hover and blend with things observed. Syllables flow in the tide's pulse. My earliest memory turns in air: Eclipse. Cocks crow, as if at sunset; Grandmother, holding a smoked glass, says to me,  'Look. Remember this.' Over the goldbrown sand my children run in the wind. The sky's immense with spring's new radiance. Far from here, lying close to the final darkness, a great-grandmother lives and suffers, still praising life: another morning on earth, cockcrow and changing light. Over the skeleton of thought mind builds a skin of human texture. The eye's [art of another eye that guides it through...

We walk through the seaside woodland to the sea. As always I was watchful for the flora on the way. JM recently showed a sand dune covered with the pigface (portulaca) flowers it was a very impressive sight. Actually I just took another look and it isn't a dune and I don't think it is pigface but is nonetheless impressive.

Wikipedia says " Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and ocean environments and are subject to both marine influences, such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water; and riverine influences, such as flows of fresh water and sediment. The inflow of both seawater and freshwater provide high levels of nutrients in both the water column and sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world."

I went cold turkey for a day but when we went down to the estuary where the lake meets the sea I had to take photographs.  I've not used the iPhone camera before but its gunna have to do. Come, let's follow the boardwalk to the sea.

I could not go to the seaside without adding to my sealine series. The camera battery has run out. I've been snapping away blissfully knowing there as a second battery in my camera case but it's gone!  I must have dropped it somewhere in my travels.  What am I going to do now ... I am feeling twitchy from withdrawal.

We've reached the rocks.  I still have a childish delight in those twirly shells.

Gosh this looks hard.

I like the way the beach creates it own ever varying works of art.

Yep I can see the camel. Can you? There was a time when I didn't know how to photograph the beach because it is not my natural setting but I love it now. Come let's go for a walk towards those rocks.

I love the way the paths to these lonely beaches open a window to the sea and how there is usually in the frame mesmerised surfers watching the waves.

The smooth lake looks perfect for gliding on with gentle dipping of oars.  I'm into the groove of relaxation now ... the cares of the city and work a past imagining. But the restless sea is also close by ... we'll go see the action tomorrow.

The morning silence was disturbed by the squealing gull toddler.  Here are some of the water birds.  No pelicans because horror of horror I left my camera's battery charger at home!   How will I survive when the battery runs out???

8:50 pm The Lake -- To -- IN spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide earth a spot The which I could not love the less -- So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that tower'd around. But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that spot, as upon all, And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody -- Then -- ah then I would awake To the terror of the lone lake. Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight -- A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define -- Nor Love -- although the Love were thine. Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining -- Whose solitary soul could make An Eden of that dim lake. ~ Edgar Allan Poe Sorry I didn't quite make the hour I was shooting hand held and the photos at 9 pm had camera shake.

8:45 pm In my sky at twilight you are a cloud and your form and colour are the way I love them. You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips and in your life my infinite dreams live. The lamp of my soul dyes your feet. My sour wine is sweeter on your lips, oh reaper of my evening song, how solitary dreams believe you to be mine! You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice. Huntress of the depths of my eyes, your plunder stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water. You are taken in the net of my music, my love, and my nets of music are wide as the sky. My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning. In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins. ~ Pablo Neruda

8:30 pm Into The Twilight  Out-Worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn. Your mother Eire is aways young, Dew ever shining and twilight grey; Though hope fall from you and love decay, Burning in fires of a slanderous tongue. Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill: For there the mystical brotherhood Of sun and moon and hollow and wood And river and stream work out their will; And God stands winding His lonely horn, And time and the world are ever in flight; And love is less kind than the grey twilight, And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn. ~  William Butler Yeats

8:15 pm Reminds me of the movie On Golden Pond .  I watched it again recently.  Ian would not watch with me, he said it is a silly story about a grumpy old man. Dreams in the dusk, Only dreams closing the day And with the day’s close going back To the gray things, the dark things, The far, deep things of dreamland. Dreams, only dreams in the dusk, Only the old remembered pictures Of lost days when the day’s loss Wrote in tears the heart’s loss. Tears and loss and broken dreams May find your heart at dusk. ~ Carl Sandburg

8:00 pm I was fascinated by a recent series titled Afterglow over at Sunshine Coast Daily  where Peter watched the changing light at sundown.  Let's relax, watch the sun go down over the lake and muse on a little poetry. It depends on which direction you look whether this is are blue hour or golden hour. This and the previous post were both taken at 8:00 pm. Have you ever seen anything in your life more wonderful than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone-- and how it slides again out of the blackness, every morning, on the other side of the world, like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils, say, on a morning in early summer, at its perfect imperial distance-- and have you ever felt for anything such wild love-- do you think there is anywhere, in any language, a word billowing enough for the pleasure that fills you, as the ...

8:00 pm One of the books I read by the lake was Blue Nights by Joan Didion. It begins thus, " In certain latitudes there comes a span of time approaching and following the summer solstice, some weeks in all, when the twilights turn long and blue. This period of the blue nights does not occur in subtropical California, where I lived for much of the time I will be talking about here and where the end of daylight is fast and lost in the blaze of the dropping sun, but it does occur in New York, where I now live. You notice it first as April ends and May begins, a change in the season, not exactly a warming—in fact not at all a warming—yet suddenly summer seems near, a possibility, even a promise. You pass a window, you walk to Central Park, you find yourself swimming in the color blue: the actual light is blue, and over the course of an hour or so this blue deepens, becomes more intense even as it darkens and fades, approximates finally the blue of the glass on a clear day at ...

I saw this photo out of the corner of my eye as we were setting up the van.  I couldn't wait to get my camera out.  This lake is pretty isn't it. Happy New Year everyone.  I hope for each of you it is it a wonderful, happy one filled with visual delights for you to photograph and enjoy.  Thanks so much to for the way you have shared your eye on the world, I look forward to following your stories throughout 2012.   Here is my blog plan for 2012.