Morning has broken

Terrigal Boardwalk. Leica X1 photo

 

Smudge

 A cat photo-yes but one I'm really pleased with. Smudge, the smallest of our two rescue cats photographed sitting on the kitchen windowsill keeping an eye open for birds in the olive tree outside.

I pulled out my heavyweight Leica SL2 fitted with the equally heavyweight, and superb,  APO-Summicron-SL-1:2/50 ASPH lens for the photo.Taken at 1/100sec at f2.0 - ISO1200.

Photo taken today, 19th January.

 

Climbing Uluru and all that

 The massive sandstone monolith located 335kms south west of Alice Springs in the red centre of Australia was known as Ayers Rock when I first visited it in 1984 but since that time the move to recognise local aboriginal names has resulted in Uluru being adopted. Officially it is now gazetted as Uluru/Ayers Rock but straight Uluru is more commonly used. 

Back in 1984 mass tourism was only just starting to arrive at Uluru.There was a short dirt airstrip but the usual means of travelling there was by a domestic flight to Alice Springs and then a long bus/coach ride through the desert .

I cannot remember the accommodation I stayed in with the family back then but I do remember that I climbed the rock which at that time was something visitors did.

It was not an easy climb. It is steep and the rock surface is very smooth. There are big sheer drops on either side of the climb track which was marked by steel posts linked by a chain. The chain was very important. One misplaced step or stumble and you could be in very serious trouble. Fortunately there is a small flat rock platform at the top.

Uluru is a very sacred place for the local Aboriginal Pitiantiatiara people and as tourist numbers grew opposition from them to climbing the monolith increased. This was not solely for cultural reasons -the numbers of visitors being seriously injured or dying on the rock was also becoming a major concern. Additionally rescues on the rock were very hazardous and rescue workers were regularly being put at risk. 

Finally in 2019, the inevitable happened and climbing the rock was closed to visitors. The posts and chain were removed so now for those who ignore the prohibition the climb is even more perilous than before.

After my 1984 climb I climbed it again in 1996. It was high summer so a small group of us went out very early to avoid the heat and did the climb.

I did have a camera with me when I summited in 1984 but I cannot find the print of the photo I took that morning. I did not have a camera in 1996.

Looking back I feel guilty that I have done the climb twice but at the time there was very little awareness of the cultural sensitivities of the local people. If I had known then what I know now I definitely would not have done the climb.

I know it's easy for me to say that now having done the climb twice. However when I visited Uluru for the third time in 2016, 3 years before the climbing ban, I felt very differently and the climb was definitely not a consideration.Times have changed and so have I.

The 2016 visit was mid winter and the red centre is very cold in winter with often a frost overnight.

Here are a selection of the photos from that trip from ten long years ago. So much has changed in my life since then and I have very fond memories of that trip.

All the photos were taken with my Leica X Vario. 

The aerial shots of Uluru were taken from a helicopter and the surprise is how sharp they are  despite being taken through a perspex side window. 

 

 

Memories of Porsche days

 Whilst I was putting together the previous story on my dream garage I spent time looking through dozens of photos of my two Porsches. Here are just three of them.

The first is of the 2.7 parked just off the Peats Ridge to Wisemans Ferry road east of Gosford near the NSW, Central Coast. This was one of my favourite Porsche driving roads. Go back ten years and there was very little traffic although the road surface was very poor in parts. I have not driven it for years but I fear that the man with the double white line painting machine will have been busy designating most of it 'no overtaking' whilst his mate would have followed him putting up 60kmh speed limit signs. I count myself very lucky to have driven this road when I did.

The next photo shows the two Porsches parked on my driveway .The photo was taken from the front deck of the house looking down on the driveway. Both these photos were taken with the amazing Leica X1.

The final photo shows me driving the 2.2 litre car at Phillip Island Historic races in March 2010.

 

The garage of my dreams

 For 14 years from 2008 to 2022 I owned the garage of my dreams. It was a four car garage under my home in Terrigal, New South Wales, Australia.

 

It was wonderful working space-home to our two everyday cars and my two Porsches. And when I wanted to work on the Porsches I just reversed the everyday cars out onto the wide driveway.

The walls were covered with vintage Porsche and motorsport posters and photos as well as trophies from my motoring life.

I spent many happy hours down in the garage often just polishing and tinkering with the Porsches or sometimes on serious preparation work for a rally, a track event or just a social run. 

 

 

I acquired the first Porsche, the yellow 2.7 in 2000 and the 2.2 litre in 2008. Sadly at the end of 2020 with my wife in the last stage of a terminal illness I decided to sell the 2.7. 

Through the horrible Covid year of 2021 the silver car rarely turned a wheel and with my changed circumstances in 2022 I decided to downsize my home and put my Porsche days behind me and so I sold the second Porsche.

In the great clearout for the house sale the vintage posters and other items were given to friends although I kept a few special items.

Now I only have a two car garage and the cars it houses-both EVs- are not candidates for home tinkering. However I do have a few photos as momentos of many happy hours in that wonderful garage.

Photos-Leica X1

 

 

A hard rain's going to fall

 Late yesterday afternoon-4th January- the Ashes Test Match-between Australia and England at the Sydney Cricket Ground was called off for the day due to poor light. A storm was gathering.

Further north in Terrigal the storm swept in and for 20 mins or so the rain lashed down and the wind howled.Then, as quickly as it came, it was all over. 

Photo taken looking out from my home with my Leica SL2 and the F4 16-35mm lens.

 It was a very different story this morning when a beautiful, hot day dawned.

 Photos taken on my early morning walk with the Leica X1.

First of 2026

 Happy New Year to all followers of the blog. Let's all hope that 2026 is a better year for the planet than the disaster which was 2025.

The last 10 days have seen very strange weather here in Australia. In the north of the country there has been record rainfall in many places, with extensive flooding. It is the wet season but this year is proving to be a very big"wet". 

In the south, in Tasmania, they saw snow on the highest peaks in Xmas week and in Melbourne over Xmas Day/Boxing Day the temperature was down at winter levels.

 Here in Terrigal it's been a mixed bag with some overcast and cool days although it is warming up again now and soon we will be complaining about the heat I'm sure.

 It's been slim pickings for photos but I did capture a  photo of one of our cats, Smudge, showing a situation familiar to most cat owners-a cat wanting to be let out-soon to be followed by the same cat scratching at the same door asking to be let in again!

Photo taken with my Leica Q3 43.
 

 

 

Best of 2025

 It's that time when 'the best of 2025' lists are posted in the media. 

For me 2025 was an unusual year as far as photography was concerned. I took quite a few photos but predominantly in three big bursts -on our trip to South Australia/Kangaroo Island in April, on our trip to Portugal and Spain in June and finally on my Leica Akademie photo tour in Morocco in October. 

Apart from a few photos of our two cats, Smudge and Holly, I took few other photos. 

However culling the 2025 photos down to just ten was not so easy particularly as my Moroccan photos contain quite a few I consider as amongst my best efforts. 

One surprise is that all the photos in my selection were taken with just one camera, my new Leica Q3 43. My superb Leica SL2, a beautiful camera, with its collection of very expensive lenses did not manage even one shot in the final ten. The reason for this is very straightforward-it is just too heavy to be used as a travel camera whereas the Q3 43 is my definition of an ideal travel camera.

I've made a new year's resolution to use the SL2 more in 2026. Let's see how that resolution holds up.

Here's my 2025 top ten selection. The first 5 were all taken in Morocco.

 

The photo below was taken on a wet, miserable winter's afternoon on the seafront in Terrigal. 

 

 

The next two were taken on the Portugal/Spain trip.The woman with the hat in a tourist crowd in Salamanca, Spain, is a personal favourite. It also looks good in monochrome.

The man is fishing on the Douro very early on a Sunday morning. The light was beautiful. He was still there an hour later but the light was too harsh by then and I was glad that I had been awake early to capture the scene when I did.

 

 

The cat photo above is particularly sad. I consider it one of my best, if not the best, cat photo I have ever taken and I've taken more than a few. It is of Myles, my daughter's beautiful cat. Three weeks after this lovely portrait was taken poor Myles died from cancer.

The last photo is of a Kangaroo Island sheep farmer taken during shearing. I should have come back with many more photos from that trip but the heatwave conditions sapped both my energy and my enthusiasm. When the camera is too hot to hold it's time to head to the nearest bar!

 

 

Seasons Greetings

 Seasons Greetings to all Rolling Road readers across the world. Have a happy holiday wherever you are.

Photo-high summer at Avoca Beach, Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia. 

 

 

Goodbye Mini, hallo Mini.

 The last few days have been a time of mixed emotions. I've said goodbye to my beautiful Mini Cooper S. I took delivery of it on the 20th December 2020 so last Friday I had owned it for 5 years less one day. It has been a fantastic car. Not a single problem and its handling and performance certainly lived up to its esteemed name. It had only done 50,300 kms when I said goodbye and it was in beautiful condition. It had done a few long trips. The first was a 3,000km road trip into western NSW and Queensland. Then twice to Noosa, once to Canberra and the wonderful trip down to the southern most tip of Tasmania at the end of 2021.

Every time I drove it I smiled but it was time to change. It was just too small for me now with my back problems. I have found getting in and out of it increasingly difficult and I have barely been able to walk after a long drive. For months Rosie has been telling me that it was making my back worse and finally I relented when I realised that she was right.

To replace it I have chosen another Mini but this one is a Mini in name only. It's significantly bigger than the Cooper S and it's an EV. It's a Mini Aceman JCW which is made in China and sold by BMW.  The Aceman was developed and is produced by Spotlight Automotive, a joint venture between  BMW Group  and Great Wall Motor, at a manufacturing plant in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu. 

I took delivery of it on Friday and I am delighted with it. It is actually faster than the Cooper S and it is more comfortable and the electronic driver aids are superb. However the Cooper S lives on as I had the ELF 09F registration number transferred to the new car.

 

 

 

Terrigal Early Morning 18th December

It was another beautiful morning in Terrigal today. For once I remembered to pick up my camera when I left for my early morning walk. Here are the photos I came home with. It's always about the light.