It's been over a month since I posted a new story on the blog.
Three reasons for the pause.
Firstly I have not been anywhere to take new photos of interest. I am now into my third year of no international travel. Last year my road trip provided some welcome photo opportunities but then we went into nearly a 4 month lockdown.
Secondly it has been hot and very humid or pouring with rain. Nothing unusual about that at this time of year except the humidity is affecting me more nowadays. On a very hot day with high humidity I don't feel like picking up a camera even if there was something interesting to photograph.
Finally my enthusiasm for the blog has waned. I am suffering from pandemic lethargy like so many others.
But there is hope. Last week I visited my friend, Laura, in Kiama south of Woollongong and I took some photos.........
Kiama is a 3 hour drive for me much of it on motorway. The drive down on Tuesday was in very hot and humid conditions. The aircon in the Mini is excellent and my drive was comfortable but as I skirted Sydney on the M7 the external temperature was showing 35ºC and I knew that the humidity was 80%+ and I though of all the people who live out there in those vast new treeless housing estates and the children on their first day back at school sweltering.
Kiama is a pretty seaside town and the atmosphere reminds me of how my home town Terrigal used to be a few years ago. The major attractions of Kiama are its two blowholes-the big blowhole and the little blowhole.Waves enter natural pipes in the igneous basalt rock on the shoreline and when the air pressure is high enouth a water spout blows out of a natural pipe into the atmosphere. The strength of the blow is dependant on the wind, wave sizes and the currents.
Laura lives just across the road from the little blowhole and the first photo below was taken on Wednesday where the blowhole conditions were good and the temperature was much lower than the previous day.
After taking this photo I walked along part of the Kiama Coastal Track to East Bay and then Love Bay. At East Bay I spotted this wonderful sign from the Dept of the Nanny State. After reading this you'd be brave to set foot on the beach yet alone venture into the sea!
On Thursday the weather was a little brighter and Laura and I headed into the hills of the Southern Highlands to Robertson and nearby Fitzroy Falls which I had not previously visited. It's a beautiful part of New South Wales.The foothills with rolling pastures and dairy farms remind me of Devon and Cornwall.The plateau area is very Australian and there are large pockets of National Park with temperate rainforest where some very large, old trees should count themselves lucky to have escaped the timber industry's axes and chainsaws.
Fitzroy Falls is worth visiting particularly after rain but it is not Niagara or Victoria Falls.
Not exactly exciting photos. I know I could have taken them on my iPhone but at least I went somewhere and I packed a camera. In these covid impacted times for me that's progress.
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