National Museum of Australia – outside

Tags

architecture, National Museum of Australia

My tendency to arrive early served me well yesterday. Despite a wrong turn which had me speeding with peak traffic out towards Tuggeranong, wondering how I could ever turn back, I got to the museum early enough for a photo-prowl outside. As I headed up the orange curl, careful of my feet on the surface bulges, my path intersected with that of a procession of five ducks. At the top I had a splendid view out over Lake Burley Griffin.

A slow amble took me past grey walls made up of hundreds of rounded breast-like shapes, wooden moths with beautifully textured surfaces, and tantalising glimpses of the lake. A great angular curved loop that looked like an escapee from a funfair marked the beginning of museum terrain. Geometry, both curves and angles, sharp reds and oranges, shadows and light, were all part of the drama of its architecture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Walking old paths

Tags

burning and clearing, Eurobodalla NP, Jemisons Headland

I've been slow-reading Robert Macfarlane's “The old ways” since the beginning of the year, savouring his power of description and his rich vocabulary as he walks old land ways in England, Scotland, Palestine, the Himalayas; and traverses old sea ways in the Hebrides. My only complaint is that his paths are not Australian paths. A few weeks ago, I had a chance to encounter Australian old ways with John Blay who is working with Aboriginal communities in southern NSW to restore the Bundian Way, the ancient route linking Kosciusko to Eden, moth country to whale country.

As I contemplate the old ways of these two walkers, I realise that I too have my not-so-old ways, paths that my feet have walked many times in the last eight years. Things have changed on the headland tracks since I walked them last July. Some tracks have narrowed where the bushes erupted over them in a manic growing season. In other places big trees have toppled and new paths have shaped themselves around the edges. The spotted gum forest behind the lake, burnt a few years ago, is now clear beneath the trunks and easy to cross, following reverberative motor bike tracks. However the track in from the road, bulldozed to destruction a few years ago, taking out patches of geebungs and ti trees, a grand hakea and a solitary Banksia spinulosa, is undergrown with bracken. The brutality has done one service. Before the knocking down, I had to walk through thickly-woven swampy grass, on high alert for snakes, to get close to the banksia with giant flowers. Now I can stroll across levelled turf to admire the tall cylinders with their yellow coils.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Phototheme: Holes and hollows

Tags

art, beach, bush, words

I've been collecting images with this theme in mind for some time. I like collecting words too: cave, niche, recess, cranny, nook, slot, pigeonhole, cavity, trench, crater, depression, orifice, vent, chink, cavern, chasm, canyon, ravine, crevice, fissure, cleft, slit. As I list these words I can think of many ways of arranging them: by size, into a series of haiku, by shape.

My photos of holes and hollows are on a small scale, taken on the beach and in the bush near my home: more crevice than ravine; more depression than crater; more niche than alcove; more chink than canyon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was accumulating hole-and-hollow images I came across this image on the Redbubble site to add to my collection. It's also a good chance to share the site that has given me a lot of visual and cogitations pleasure.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/carbine/works/9438834-skull-nest

 

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Hawassa: Lounging Along Ethiopian Rift Valley Lake

This is one of my favourite blogs. Of course I can’t remember how I came across it, but I’m delighted by every post. Ethiopia has a place in the history of my family. My mother-in-law was there, under fire, playing scrabble, singing hymns, protected by a mattress, at the beginning of her adventuring with a missionary society in Africa in the 1970s. Then in the early 2000s my daughter adventured there on a push bike, en route to study in Jordan. Sara’s blog enables me, not so adventurous, to armchair travel in the footsteps of these two intrepid women.

Ethiopian Wanderlust

Heading 275 km south of Addis Ababa leads to a tranquil lakeside city. It is the largest city in the Ethiopian Rift Valley, was once the capital of Sidamo region, and today it is the capital of Southern Nations and Nationalities People’s region is known as Hawassa. The Sidamo word Hawassa represents – extensive natural suitable for grazing – and the city is indeed affectionate.

Hawassa city situated at 1685 m in the Rift Valley and the main attraction of the city is the remarkable Rift Valley Lake that it embraces and known as Lake Hawassa. The 9000 ha prolonged lake set in an ancient volcanic caldera, is the smallest in the Ethiopian Rift Valley and it is nowhere more than 22 m deep.

This virtual tour is to strolling the dyke runs along the shore of Hawassa which is covered with dense scrub and woodland. The dyke built to…

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A stroll to the shops

Tags

mangroves, Narooma boardwalk, reflections

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Misty morning

Tags

headland

High tides at walking time have nudged me back out onto the headland. This morning the air was damp and droplets hung from needles; dangled from berries; lazed on grass blades. I followed rutted tracks, and came out onto a misty beach, arrogant headland houses reduced to shrouded blurs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Shadows

Tags

family visit

Suddenly, during the family deluge, downstairs and front drive became living space. For fifteen years, I've used it merely for transit, and then, for two weeks, it was an attractive dappled place. Kidlets explored, crawling in and out of kayaks, playing with dogs and practising walking. Grownups yarned over a beer, or retreated from the upstairs melee. The backyard also became a shadowed haven, a good place to paint a flowerbox or hang a hammock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the beach, shadows operate differently. They are sharp and distinct. They duplicate rather than dapple, or block out the beach in a different composition, echoing the curve of the sand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Morning light

Tags

bereft, light, Potato Point beach

I have emerged from the wonderful deluge of family into my old world of a 6 am walk, albeit it in a state of deep bereft. The amazing light welcomed me back and gave me a view of the northern end of Potato Point beach that I have never seen before. The tide was low and the light that beautiful golden-pink, which seems to have a dimension of its own. I walked through shallow waves way beyond what usually requires a rock clamber and looked back on a world of mossy green rocks illuminated by the morning glow. This is not really a compensation for the absence of my four grandchildren and my four children and their partners, but it offers some delight in a world without my mob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Beach numbers

Tags

beach

My senior grandson, now 10, has always been interested in numbers. One of the first books I remember leafing through with him as a kidlet was a hefty mathematical volume his grandfather was reading. His interest was in the page numbers. His tiny fingers sought them out and fixed on them. His presence on my beach walks inspired me to make a collection of beach numbers. He was my co-editor, making his preference for one image over another very clear. None of these images have been tampered with – they are the unaided work of the sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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