Australia no cities

With a texture overlay of rusted corrugated iron. From my digital archive and first digital camera a P&S Kyocera S3.

Out and about with a loaner Fuji XE-1 camera. JPG image converted to mono in LR5.3 preset "black and white look 3"

Out and about with a loaner Fuji XE-1 camera. JPG image converted to mono in LR5.3 preset "black and white look 3" *Dunny= Australian slang for toilet, bathroom, privy etc This one provided by East Gippsland Shire at popular picnic spot.

Out and about with my Fuji X100. This detail from a carved street sculpture memorial at Lakes Entrance. Processed to faux HDR using one of my user presets in LR5.3

Out and about with Fuji XT-1. A great day with my X100 and Pauls XT-1 and XE-1 Very sunny outlook over this popular viewing spot.

IN 2002 a small colony of about 200 grey headed flying fox visited the Victorian rural city of Bairnsdale taking up residence along the Mitchell River. 12 years later over 30,000 of these animals are roosting in trees along the river amongst the best residential real estate. They are now resident for about 8 months of the year. The constant noise and bat crap has played havoc with values. Water tanks, swimming pools, outdoor furniture and toys are contaminated, washing cannot be hung outside, cars are covered nightly in you know what. Government controls on this native wild life mean that attempts to move them on have largely failed to date. Bit of a problem to say the least.

IN 2002 a small colony of about 200 grey headed flying fox visited the Victorian rural city of Bairnsdale taking up residence along the Mitchell River. 12 years later over 30,000 of these animals are roosting in trees along the river amongst the best residential real estate. They are now resident for about 8 months of the year. The constant noise and bat crap has played havoc with values. Water tanks, swimming pools, outdoor furniture and toys are contaminated, washing cannot be hung outside, cars are covered nightly in you know what. Government controls on this native wild life mean that attempts to move them on have largely failed to date. Bit of a problem to say the least.

Look closely in the trees. The people in this house are surrounded by grey headed bats. Official count is 30,000 in a concentrated area along the river. I walked around it this morning and I suspect that is an under statement.

While all the talk is about the mining industry the traditional strong rural industries still provide much of Australia's export income. Photo at Meerilieu in the East Gippsland region of Victoria.

Seen in my travels on the New South Wales mid north coast near Forster.

Roadside scene in southern New South Wales near Bombala.

A couple of hundred clicks north of Adelaide where the dry interior of South Australia seems to begin is the former copper mining settlement of Burra. 2 shot panorama Nikon D300

The brilliant blue from residual copper salts can be seen in the water. On the dry hills in the distance can be seen the ubiquitous arms of a wind farm. In the mid distance are 2 grain silos.

Local farmer still works a team of Clydesdales. From my old digital catalog.

The Tambo River in the East Gippsland area of Victoria rose to record levels in the 1998 floods. As the water receded it looked something like this. You can see the debris settled high above the normal level. From my B&W negatives.

In 1993 the then government closed our railway and on 21st August this was the last train out of town. I stood at the highway crossing as she left with this image in mind. This a VLine N class diesel electric "City of Ararat" Following heavy local lobbying the train was reinstated in 2004. Photo made with Nikon F3 camera 28mm lens. HP5 film

Nobody around this week.

There are a couple of old WW2 ammunition bunkers surviving in our district. In reality the war did not touch this part of Australia. However there were large RAAF training facilities at nearby Sale and Bairnsdale. Not much remains from that time. This is in a farmers paddock about 20ks out of Bairnsdale.