Strange days, indeed.

I had to drive down to Chatswood in N Sydney this morning. Chatswood is known locally as Chinawood. It is not a typical Chinatown as it is more like an affluent part of Hong Kong transported to Australia. The transport of choice is a late model Mercedes and most of the shops and restaurants are now catering for the locals of Chinese origin.
Today there were a fair number of locals wearing masks because of the fear of the coronavirus. I was not wearing one but in the unlikely event that I had wanted one it seems as if they are already in short supply as this sign on one pharmacy shows.

It's been a very hot day and they are forecasting more of the same for the weekend which is a pity as I am off to watch the Bathurst 12hour GT race on Sunday. Watching motor racing in 38ºC plus is not fun as I know from previous years. On the motorway on the way home the car's external temperature reading was 41ºC and I took this shot  in West Gosford with the temperature showing as 40ºC.  Despite what all the climate change deniers tell us this ain't normal folks.

Finally on this very strange day to complete the set- a photo of Nigel Farage- a world class idiot. We have some pretty appalling politicians in Australia currently but I would not swap any one of them for Nigel Farage. What a truly horrible piece of work. I know where I would like to insert his union jack and it's not a place where flags are usually flown.
But he has his wish and the UK leaves the EU today. I fear this saga is far from over and it will end in bitter tears and disappointment in the future. Go the EU.

A very hot Hot Shop

Whilst in Canberra last week we visited a favourite, the Canberra Glassworks. It's always fascinating to see the glassblowers at work and the works they have for sale in the small shop are superb.
The area where the glass is heated and blown is known as the Hot Shop. They had 6 furnaces going when we visited and the gas bill does not bear thinking about. When I visited the Hot Shop was even hotter than usual as it was over 36ºC outside. We could only watch for a short time before seeking aircon and water.

Photo taken from the public viewing area in the Hot Shop with my Leica X1. Who needs a big camera on a very hot day?

Capital times, sad times

I spent three days in Canberra last week. The purpose of the trip was primarily to see the Monet/Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery but I also went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the excellent Eye to Eye exhibition.

Whilst walking back to the National Gallery from the Portrait Gallery I decided to take a look into the High Court of Australia-a building I had never previously visited. It was the day after the very sad crash of the C130 Hercules firefighting waterbomber in the Snowy Mountains in which three American crew members were killed. As a mark of respect all flags on Australian government buildings were at half mast. I took this photo of the Australian coat of arms with the flag at half mast outside from inside the High Court building.

There were no other visitors in the High Court and the court was on summer recess. A  guide, Alison, gave me a really excellent  presentation on the workings of the Constitutional Court. Sounds dull I know but Alison made it really interesting. Many thanks Alison -pictured below.

Raindrops keep falling on my head....

It's been raining heavily across much of South Eastern Australia since yesterday-Friday-morning. It has not been uniformly distributed but there have been big falls inland in drought stricken areas and some areas in inland Queensland and NE NSW have received their first rainfall in a decade. Yes, that's right their first rain for ten years. Some school age children are seeing rain for the first time. Farmers are literally dancing with joy in the mud. Empty dams on rural properties have become small lakes. Dry creek beds have become raging torrents.
Many of the fires have been extinguished and others have been dampened although some are still burning. Here, in Terrigal on the coast, the rain did not start until yesterday afternoon but it's been raining steadily since then. This our first serious prolonged rain for over 5 months. Our 7500 litre capacity rainwater tanks are full again. Now the garden will no longer be gasping for water but the stressed trees will need months to recover and sadly some will die-even gum trees which are very drought resistant are looking sick in nearby Bouddi National Park.
Photo above taken at midday from my house of the nearby Illawarra flame tree as the rain poured down.

Bushfire blues

I drove up to Kulnura this morning to see if a favourite coffee stop, Jerry's Gourmet Kitchen, had survived the fires. It is intact and undamaged. There are areas of very burnt bush along the road to the north and south of Jerry's but it seems that they managed to stop the fires at the main road. I did not venture more than a few kms north of Jerry's towards Wollombi but I understand it is very burnt out up there.

The areas burnt by the fire are a total mess. I was unwilling to walk into the burnt out bush due to the danger of falling branches and trees.The intensity of the fires is very evident. Burnt bush is not photogenic. It is going to need a lot of rain and a long time for the bush to regenerate but even without rain there are a few hardy green shoots amongst the leaf litter. It's difficult to comprehend that there are tens of millions of hectares which look like this in south eastern Australia. A mess of burnt trees, fallen branches and saddest of all dead animals. And most worryingly the fire season has a long time to run yet.

I drove down Bumble Hill Road from Kulnura into the Yarramalong Valley and it seems that there has been a storm in part of it as it is green and there was a white horse munching away on the grass. Millions of sheep, cattle and horses in drought affected regions would  love to be in that horse's place.

Ten years ago....

Ten years ago to the day I was on a riverboat sailing down the Mekong in Vietnam having just crossed from Cambodia. It was a great trip and I was reminded of it recently when I saw a set of photos taken in Cambodia. They were black and white photos. I am not a black and white enthusiast nowadays. Don't get me wrong-it has its place but to my mind that place is now very small.
I’m no stranger to black and white as for the first 40 years of my photographic life I shot, processed and printed, predominantly black and white and so I have taken tens of thousands of black and white photos. Whilst I used to enjoy working in the darkroom economics dictated my long embrace of black and white. Colour film was expensive and slow. As soon as digital offered a means of shooting acceptable colour I switched to it and I have done very little black and white in the past 15 years.
So the photos I took ten years ago in Cambodia were, of course, colour and to my mind IndoChina is such a colourful region that to not use colour to photograph it is to miss recording an essential part of the culture of the region.
Some of the photos from my trip are below. They were all taken with my then camera of choice - a little Canon G7. The G7 and its replacement the G9-there was no G8 -were superb cameras in their day. They have metal bodies, a very good zoom lens, straightforward menus and controls and an integrated optical viewfinder. The G7 only took JPEG files and that shortcoming was corrected in the G9 which also shot RAW. By today's standards the low light performance of the small sensor in the G7 and G9 was poor but for most of the time this was not an issue. The early G series cameras from G7 to G12 are still exceptional cameras. As I type this my G9 is currently on active service in Morocco in the hands of my son-in-law whilst my daughter has taken along her personal G9.
The good news is that you can find a low mileage G9 on eBay for as little as A$100 today. What a bargain.

The Canon G7

Our lost summer

 For me summer in Australia has always been very special. Hot. Often very hot-with clear blue sky and lazy hours in the pool. Beautiful early mornings with crystal clear water-yes. But this year has been different. Depressingly different.

 Ever since early November when we drove upto Port Macquarie for the family anniversary and smoke blanketed the Pacific Highway going north the bushfires and the terrible drought have been always present.The smoke haze has rarely gone away. Some days it is barely present but other days it has been suffocating here and elsewhere.
We went down to Manly on Sydney Harbour on the Monday before New Year's Eve to have lunch with visitors from the UK. It should have been a perfect day as above the brown haze the sky was blue but the smell and the haze took the edge off it.

Worse than our trifling personal woes has been the continuous stories of the death and destruction from the fires. Our beautiful country is being destroyed along with its beautiful wildlife. Every hour brings news of fresh destruction. Now over a thousand homes destroyed along with hundreds of shops, businesses and farm buildings. It's like listening to an account of a war where we are losing and that is what it is. The firefighters have done an extraordinary job and have saved many more properties than have been lost but nothing can disguise the horror of it all and most of us are suffering from fire fatigue.
As bad as the fires themselves are there is the feeling of total despair at the response to the fires of our politicians, both state and federal, and now we have the climate change deniers -led by the Murdoch media in full fake news mode- putting out fake news that the fires are the work of arsonists. Yes, there are a few arsonists-there always will be - but all the major fires are the direct result of lightning hitting tinder dry vegetation.
What I do not get is what is the motivation of the climate change denialists. What is driving them to their extreme position?

This week we have had two old style summer beach days when the wind kept the smoke away and in years gone by I would have gone out with my camera but these days taking photos on or near a beach with a serious camera instead of a smartphone-particularly if you are a man on his own-is not a good look. So the photo is a golden oldie- Terrigal Beach on Christmas Day 2011. It was taken with my Leica X1.

A right royal seachange

At a quick glance this photo-from the Guardian- looks like the Queen with Prince Philip and Kate and William-a very typical "wooden" royal photo. It is in fact a tableau from Madam Tussauds after the Kate and Megan figures had been removed yesterday.
The way some in the media have been carrying on the past 24 hours you could be given for thinking that Harry and Meghan are people of real significance. I heard one Australian TV presenter saying "that the whole world was shocked by the news of Harry and Meghan's split with the royal family". I can state categorically that 99.99% of the world's population don't care a tinker's cuss about Harry and Meghan. In fact most of the world's population would not even know who they are.
Every bit as bad as the inane Australian comment was the British "royal observer" who appeared on the Australian ABC yesterday evening. He spoke as if he had a mouthful of plums and he was almost incandescent with rage with Harry and Meghan. He nearly implied that the ravens were about to leave the Tower of London. It was total and utter drivel. Pure codswallop. I was waiting for him to make a racist comment. I am sure the producer had his finger on the mute button as this ancient old fool ranted on.

My view is good on Harry and Meghan. I don't blame them for wanting to leave the stifling royal family. Today's editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald says it all-see link click  HARRY AND MEGHAN

I hope that they make a success of it although I fear that very powerful forces will be at play to make them change their stance. It will be very suspicious if they are involved in a car accident in the next year or so. Always wear your seat belts folks.

Rain,rain,rain!

A big storm started at 17.15 today and it lasted until 20.45. Our first rain here in Terrigal for over 5 months. It's very localised and is not enough to impact the fires nearby but every drop is welcome. Now we need more for days and days and we need it over a much bigger area. At least some of the local wildlife particularly the lizards, dragons and birds will get a drink and it will bring some relief to the garden.
We have a big sloping roof which is an excellent rainwater collector so this will help put some water into the rainwater tanks which have been empty for all these months.

The New Year's Useless Objects

USELESS OBJECT #1

It's a rather unusual start to the new year's blogging but I felt that I should warn readers about two useless objects. The first is a Karcher K2 pressure washer. I won't carry on about it but suffice to say you don't always get what you pay for and this junior el cheapo pressure washer is no more effective than a garden hose when it comes to pressure washing -as I know from personal experience. Karcher is a reputable brand and I am sure that the more expensive models really do pressure wash but if you cannot afford one of those save you money and use your garden hose.
 Note to Karcher I really tried to love my washer but every time I used it I came to the same conclusion-it's useless.

USELESS OBJECT #2

The second useless object is Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister of Australia.
The last three weeks in Australia have been horrific.Our Prime Minister has been totally pathetic. If he had acted to provide adequate resources-such as water bombers from Canada and the US-and made plans and provided adequate funding when warned about the developing catastrophic situation by experts many months ago the situation could well have been much less severe. But of course, like his hero D Trump, Morrison does not believe in experts-unless they work for the fossil fuel industry. His response to the crisis by taking a family holiday in Hawaii and then showing a total lack of empathy with victims who literally had lost everything was an absolute disgrace. In the past 24 hours  he has put a short self-love video clip on social media showing what he is doing to tackle the fires. It makes me want to vomit. Talk about Nero fiddling.
Let me quote in full from a media OP today:-

Sadly unlike the pressure washer I cannot leave Morrison in a box at the back of my garage much as I would like to. I, along with 25 million other Australians, are stuck with him for another two and a bit years. It's easy to say that people just voted him in to which my response is but they would not vote him in today now that we have all seen his true colours.

He has just been holding a press conference ( Midday Sunday) and I was astonished to hear him complain that he felt that he was being unduly criticised. I cannot believe it. Unfairly criticised. He's lucky that he has not been lynched.