Wow, look at me, look at me !

 Hanging basket in the garden. Bought at a small nursery for very little a few months ago. Provided I keep it very well watered it just keeps blooming and blooming. Best buy of the year by far.

Second time around.

 I was searching for a photo in my Lightroom library over last weekend and I came across the photos I had taken in Myanmar last year. Two years ago I started deleting all the photos I decided were not useful after a trip. But after doing this after two trips I decided that it was too time consuming and I fortunately discontinued the practice.
I had previously thought that after the Myanmar trip I had really worked over all the usable photos but a close look at the complete set last weekend revealed a few gems-either photos I had missed previously or photos which would benefit from different processing. Perhaps this is the photographic equivalent of the people who go out to old mine sites and work over the mullock heaps-the spoil from the mines-looking for nuggets or gems the miners had missed.
The availability of affordable and more sensitive metal detectors has encouraged more and more amateur prospectors to work the mullock heaps on mines across Australia and few find anything of value but chance big lucky finds such as this one-see Nugget mean that they all search in hope.
Anyway here's a belated selection of bonus photos-either newly found or with alternative processing- from Myanmar 2018. Finding these has encouraged me to go through other rejected photos. I know that not every egg is a bird but it seems that there are more eggs with birds in them than I thought.

Water saver

Due to the drought the water situation for many communities in inland NSW is already serious and on the brink of becoming critical. In Armidale they are literally counting the days until the reservoir is empty unless they have rain. In the motel we stayed in there was an egg timer in the shower supplied by the Armidale Regional Council so that you can time your shower.

Slow mover

Eastern Snake- Necked Turtle. Approx 25cms in length.

During the recent road trip to New England-see story below - I was driving down a gravel road in the Oxley Rivers National Park when I spotted from a distance what looked like a large flat stone on the road but as I came close was I saw, much to my surprise, a tortoise. I managed to straddle it, stop and pick it up and put it on the verge and then took the above photo. A little further on the same thing happened. Another tortoise on the road. Same outcome. No flattened tortoises on my conscience.
However when I got home and looked them up I found out that there are no native tortoises in Australia and they were both Eastern Snake- Necked Turtles. What they were doing so far from water in very dry, drought impacted country I will never know. But at least they both had the good sense to cross a road where there was almost no traffic. If you are a slow mover it's best to stick to crossing the backroads.

Boxing on the beach.

 Early morning workout session on Town Beach, Port Macquarie, NSW last week. The orange/brown haze out at sea is smoke from bushfires to the north. It would be many times worse today.

The Big Dry

It was a a big family celebration in Port Macquarie last weekend. We were very fortunate that our plans were not derailed by bushfires. There was a huge fire burning south of Port Macquarie and another one to the north of Taree but the wind was blowing the smoke down the coast and it was enveloping Newcastle, the Central Coast and Sydney and the Pacific Highway was open. If we had been travelling this weekend it would be a very different story with catastrophic fires in the area closing the Pacific Highway and many other roads and destroying many properties. The problem is that the bush is tinder dry and even rainforests, which by definition are usually damp, are now dry and ready to burn.
After the weekend we headed inland into New England and up to Armidale. The original plan had been to drive the wonderful Oxley Highway from Wauchope up to Walcha and then onto Armidale. This is one of my favourite driving roads but it was shut due to a number of fires. So we headed north on the Pacific Highway and then onto a good substitute -the Waterfall Way via Bellingen, Dorrigo and Ebor to Armidale-a 298 km drive and there was virtually no traffic on the road once we had passed Dorrigo.
It's a beautiful part of the country. Vast National Parks on the Great Dividing Range and many waterfalls. Well there would be waterfalls if there had been rain but sadly the drought means that most of the waterfalls are dry or reduced to just a trickle.
The impact of the drought goes far beyond the poor farmers and the rivers. The towns are really suffering. Shops have closed and long faces are everywhere It is very tough time for people dependant on the land for their livelyhood.  Many cattle and sheep are on the Long Paddock-meaning they are grazing on the vegetation on the edge of the roads. Out in the paddocks cattle and sheep are being fed expensive bought in feed.
Although the coastal strip to the east of the Dividing Range is in drought some areas are quite green due to recent rain and as we drove back home on the superb Thunderbolts Way from Armidale to Gloucester we passed through one area which was really green. A local in the general store at tiny Nowendoc explained that this was due to a localised snowfall being slow to melt a few months earlier.
It was unseasonally cold and windy whilst we were in New England but there was no snow and the  light was, as always wonderful, and the sky was big. Here are my photos from the inland journey.

A green area on the Waterfalls Way north of Dorrigo looking south west towards the Gumbaynggin National Park

Ebor Falls on the Waterfalls Way. Usual a roaring torrent now just a trickle.

Roadsign for northern hemisphere tourists

Abandoned threshing machine near Dangersleigh south of Armidale

Mailbox for 133

Dangars Gorge, Oxley Wild Rivers NP. There was just a small pond of water under the huge drop which should be a waterfall.The gorge is a refuge for the brush-tailed rock wallaby but I was there too late in the morning to spot any.

Beautiful bush vegetation -above Dangars Gorge.

Abandoned farm buildings on road out from Dangars Gorge.

Where sheep may safely graze.Near Dangersleigh.

Werona Station, near Gostwyck

Near Gostwyck.

Cressbrook merinos

Rivendell

South of Nowendoc on the Thunderbolts Way.

Leica X Vario photos.