Exploring again

Once the morning showers had passed we loaded the picnic box in the car and headed South to Ballina. Our first stop was at the Ballina Manor, we had been recommended to take a look at this historic building by our son, Steven. The building itself is timber and not particularly remarkable.

It was built in 1925 as a Wesley Girls School and has been through a few transformations – but in 2000 it was purchased, Heritage Listed and restoration was undertaken – additions to the building removed and painting undertaken using the colours of the era, furnishings used between 1925 and 1931 (the year the school closed) were purchased and later that same year the refurbished Manor House was opened with great pomp and ceremony.

We were given a guided tour through the building calling in to see the rooms (they are hotel rooms with en-suite bathrooms) and given a description of how the room was originally used.

This picture is a small part of the dining room (it was originally the dining room for the girls). I found the décor very attractive and we both found the story of the building really interesting.

Leaving Ballina behind us we made our way to Thursday Plantation, a Tee-tree plantation, once again we enjoyed a free tour, this time of the gardens and rainforest. Throughout the garden and rainforest are sculptures.

There used to be an annual sculpture competition at which there would be an acquisition prize – but apparently some of the sculptures just never went home even if they had not been awarded the acquisition prize! Being a gardener I was very interested in all the varieties of ginger and herbs that were growing there. The young gardener came over and talked to us and he responded enthusiastically to all my queries. I even had the temerity to beg a little piece of root of one of the gingers! Yep! I have some to see if I can get it growing!!! One of the rather unusual flowers we saw there was a “bat flower” what a wonderful thing it is.

No! I didn't ask for a bit of it!

Our next interesting stop was Victoria Park. That is a pocket of unspoiled natural timber – a tiny patch that had never been logged by the timber getters in the early days of white settlement. Originally it had contained a massive fig tree that could be seen from miles away – it had been spotted from out at see by Captain Cook as he sailed up the east coast of Australia in 1770. However that tree is long gone. It was struck by lightning many years ago.

I took many photographs in the rainforest but I will not include any here. . . . because the little town of Alstonville might be more interesting to show here.

The town is attractive, small and popular. It has a country market that draws people from far and wide. Here we are on a Wednesday and the pub is humming with the voices of the many patrons which proves that the town is popular everyday, not just on market days.

My eye was caught by an obelisk standing near the war memorial.

The young man who was awarded the VC was killed in Ypres at the age of 20 in September 1917.

AJ

The Barossa

Umbrellas were loaded into the car – the forecast was not particularly good. However we didn’t need them. Today we drove to the Barossa Valley and we were not disappointed in what we found.

Our first port of call was the Yaldara winery – but it has changed hands and changed name. since it was coffee time when we arrived we made use of the picnic table outside the grand building and opened the flask of hot water.

The scenery in the Barossa Valley is stunning and we found ourselves stopping often to take photographs of the grapes and of the vistas.

Many of the grapes still have not been picked so the vines are covered with green leaves, the grapes are not so obvious from the road but the lines of vines make for many “wow” moments as you drive around.

One place I really wanted to visit was the Chateau Barrosa – a beautiful building with a huge rose garden. I remembered it from a previous visit. The place has changed hands twice since then the most recent change of ownership was only a few weeks ago. The place was a bit of a disappointment, the roses were no where near as magnificent – in fact they looked in desperate need of a rose expert, the pruning was all wrong and they looked very puny and small and a lot of bare patches where once there had been magnificent displays.

I managed to find a place where there were plenty of roses in bloom. I prefer to show something good!

Inside the Chateau the grand ballroom that was filled with antiques is still as magnificent with its huge chandeliers but since Sue and Keith were not interested in going in to have a look ($10 a head) none of us did.

A fascinating place we did find was a Sculpture Park. This is similar to the one at Broken Hill – but is a bit older (2008) and contains many more sculptures. The rock brought in for this Sculpture Symposium was a lot softer than that for the Broken Hill sculptures so there was a better finish to the works.

 Of course the majority of the sculptures were abstract but I did find a couple that were recognizable!

The Sculpture Park is high on a hill right beside a wonderful viewpoint. From here we could look out over the expanse of vines and farming land. It is a pity that the signage and maps are so inadequate – many people will miss out on finding many of the interesting place in this area because of that.

AJ

Spring on the Range

I have just uploaded a little video I have made from the photos and bloggie video that I took on Friday of the beautiful gardens that won prizes in the Toowoomba Flower Festival. I hope you enjoy it.
Click on the title at the top left of the video if you would like to see the video in Youtube - in this blog the sides are trimmed off!
AJ

The colours of Toowoomba

It is Spring and every year Toowoomba celebrates Spring in a big way. Toowoomba is a good two hours drive west from where I live on Queensland's Gold Coast and it has a completely different climate to here. Being on the top of the Great Dividing Range at an altitude of 700m it has a more temperate climate with cold winters and low humidity during summer. The soil is an amazing orange red colour and is the envy of every gardener working the heavy clay soils of Mudgeeraba (my home!) Things grow in it!
A Spring Festival is held at Toowoomba for a full week during September and it culminates in a Grand Parade on the last Saturday of that week. I joined a two day tour to Toowoomba that included a tour of the gardens on one day and the parade on the second. Today I will share a mere handful of photographs that I took in the gardens. More photos will be shown in a separate link to a web album later.

Wisteria is one of the plants that would grow here - I have tried but with limited success, the flowers were not as impressive as on this vine - so I dug it out! The cooler climate seems to suit the Wisteria much better and many of the parks and gardens in Toowoomba have either a purple or a white wisteria.

The brilliant mauve and sheer mass of blooms really is a treat for the camera!

Not all the gardens in Toowoomba are filled with colour like this. The majority of residents do not have the time nor inclination to create a flower garden. But the few people who do have a passion for plants must spend a good part of every day at work in their gardens to have them look so fabulous. This is one of the smaller gardens but the grand champion garden was over an acre in size.

Flowering trees give colour above the head as you walk through the prize gardens. How everyone managed to get all their plants blooming at the same time amazes me! I wonder if these prunus will grow here - I guess there is only one way to find out!

Here is one more garden - I was lucky to be able to take a picture without people in it! These gardens are "crawling" with people wandering through them. One gardener said that last year he had 23,000 people through his garden!

Finally, a little indulgence! I tried not to take too many close up shots of "flowers" - I was supposed to be admiring the gardens rather than individual specimens! However this one just begged to have its picture taken!

Click on any of the pictures to see them larger, then click on the "back" arrow to get back to this blog.
I will share my album of photos tomorrow.
AJ

My tropical garden

After a very chilly start this day turned out to be a glorious sunny and warm one. I managed to get quite warm working in the garden, digging things out and moving them around then tossing mulch all around the new plantings. Nothing goes to waste in my garden, whatever I pull out gets put through the mulcher and is returned to the garden.
After an hour I had used up my energy for digging and mulching so cleaned up and grabbed the camera. I had noticed that the staghorn fern was looking rather magnificent.

 f6.3  1/10  ISO 200  18mm

 This wonderful plant needs no looking after at all, it is not a parasite, it does not send roots into the trunk of the tree it grows on, it is an "epiphyte" drawing moisture and nourishment from the air and rain that touches it. This particular plant was given to me when it was so small it would fit into the palm of my hand. For the first couple of years it was left on a piece of chip board to grow a bit - it came originally from the surface of a rock. Then it was put onto this tree and held there with a strap of plastic covered television aerial wire. The wire is still there holding it but the main leaf now hides it. Without the wire it may fall to the ground from its own weight.

 f6.3  1/15  ISO 200  20mm

The fence behind the tree gives some sort of scale to the Staghorn fern - that fence is two metres tall and is only a metre away from the tree that is supporting the Staghorn fern.
Many people make the mistake of calling this fern an Elkhorn fern. The Elkhorn fern is also an epiphyte but it does not have a magnificent large top leaf like the Staghorn fern. This is the Elkhorn.

 f6.3  1/6  ISO 200  30mm

It does look rather a mess but this is how the Elkhorn grows - it has lots of "pups" and they seem to crowd together. This one is on an African Tulip tree and it seems to really enjoy being here. Both these epiphytes love the deep shade so these heavily leafed trees provide the ideal situation for them - the Staghorn fern is on a Blackbean tree.
Sharing the same Blackbean as the Staghorn fern is a native orchid. This orchid is known as the King Orchid and has sprays of yellow flowers. Obviously it is not the time for the flowers just yet!

  f6.3  1/6  ISO 200  27mm

My garden is full of imported "exotic" plants but it is also home to many natives too. If it will grow in my garden I don't mind where it originated!
AJ

Fun in the sun

After three days of grey skies and wet weather it was with delight that I awoke to blue skies once more. Once all the chores were out of the way I had a little time to play with my camera. This time I had the 50mm lens fitted on the front so I decided to leave it there and see how I managed. Its a lovely little lens but I find it rather restricting in that I can't always get far enough away from my subject. I really found that to be the case today too - I could not go any further away from where I had set up my backdrop or I would have been in the swimming pool!
I grabbed a handful of little dog biscuits and a sheet of firm plastic board - the sort used for real estate signs - and allowed one dog at a time into the pool yard. For food, my dogs will do almost anything!
First off the blocks was Byron and I managed to get a few good shots of him - but because of the restriction on distance I could not get any further away and head shots were my only option - and even then I was only just far enough away!

On a bright day, perhaps white was not the best colour to have as a backdrop! However it is nice to be able to get a couple of shots with nothing distracting behind the dogs. Byron is now eleven and half years old. He is a "designer dog", an Irish Poodle which is a cross between an Irish Water Spaniel and a Standard Poodle. We get his wool cut every three months. It is about a week since he had his last session at the poodle parlour so his coat is like that of the astrakhan sheep, soft and curly.
Now here is Samson.

Samson is a Curly Coat Retriever and he always looks this sad! He is as black as the Ace of Spades - but picture two makes him look rather blue! Oops! When we bought Samson from the Council pound (six years ago) we were told that he was two years younger than Byron but now he is looking a bit older than his woolly mate! The Curly Coat Retriever is one of the oldest breeds of dog, apparently the breed was used in England by the Game Keepers who looked after the grounds and pheasants for the Lord of the Manor.     
Before I close for today I am going to include two more pictures, this time from my garden. There are a few things in flower - there always are! But these are quite spectacular at the moment. The Calliandra pompoms are a favourite with the Little Wattle Birds. I hear them and see them a lot but they never let me get close enough to take a photo - they zip behind the tree to feed out of range!

I love this small tree because it seems to have these colourful flowers on it for many months, there are always new ones opening up. That little raspberry shaped bud is one of the emerging flowers.

Lastly the Poinsettia that stands beside my mailbox. This is a double one and the flowers would be 30cm across - or more. They are only just wide open, they and all their smaller cousins are brightening our gardens at the moment.
There is a round bush that is smothered in tiny little white star shaped flowers that is a type of Hibiscus that we know as the snow-ball bush and it is just making itself noticed! They seem to be in everyone's gardens - even gardens where there are only lawns and shrubs!
Click on any of the pictures if you wish to see them larger!
AJ

Playing with the Canon macro

Wanting to use the camera and without a car to go some place other than home, I had to content myself with searching for subjects in the garden. Selecting the Canon D40 and the Macro lens as my "weapon of choice" for this venture I started by setting up a table with a white cloth as a backdrop - with an ingenious method of creating a back support with a surfboard strapped to the back two legs! I should have taken a photo of my "studio"!
To begin with I thought that I would try to take plants in isolation from their surrounds by draping white material over the surf board and over the table. I found a piece of florist's "oasis" foam to support the plants. Once the stem had been pushed into the foam the extra white material that fell down the front of the table was doubled back and gently positioned over the oasis block. This acted as a reflector. So the plant was in front of a white draping backdrop and its underside was brightened with reflected light off the white fabric over the block.
Rather than use the macro lens as close as I could to the subjects I needed to find out how much depth of field I would get if I were further away. (I need to know this for a future project). Here are a couple of my white backdrop results.

 Red Salvia         f/8  1/160     ISO200    100mm (fixed focal length)

Plumbago    f/8  1/250    ISO200    100mm (fixed focal length)

 The camera would have been about 700mm from the subjects (for all the photos included here today) I still need to learn a bit more about the Canon camera - I could not remember how to lock the aperture! I was using Manual focus but the camera was in Aperture priority.

Since only one of my roses is flowering and there are only two roses on the bush, I did not want to pick the flowers so clambered onto the raised flower bed with my tripod and camera to get these next two shots.

  f/11    1/500     ISO200    100mm (fixed focal length)

f/11      1/320     ISO200    100mm (fixed focal length)

 I really love orange roses! This one is called "Just Joey" and another orange one that I have taken photos of is "Whiskey".

The macro lens does an excellent job of isolating a single subject and my experimentation showed me that I can get a bigger depth of field by moving further away from the subject. Strangely though, in the viewfinder I cannot tell that the background is so out of focus. It looks almost as sharp as the main subject.

All my photos today were taken outside (Its almost winter and the temperature is a warm 27 degrees!) in the sunshine. All the experts tell you that no one should take photos any time except during the "golden hours" of early morning and late afternoon. In the tropics the golden hour is a mere ten minutes long so that is too restrictive for me!!! I love the full sun, shadows make subjects more interesting. I guess shooting in the midday is why I shall never be considered an expert!

AJ

Another garden

I really enjoy wandering around Botanic Gardens and when a couple of friend suggest I meet them at the Gold Coast Botanic Gardens I jumped at the chance - and of course made sure that my camera batteries were charged and that I had a few lenses to play with!
These gardens are not very old - they have only been converted from parkland to Botanic Gardens in the last five years - but I really enjoyed my time exploring.

f/10 1/250  300mm  ISO200

The first image I am sharing is of a very common bird found in gardens everywhere in Australia. It is known by its common name "Mickey Minah". Not only do they enjoy nectar - here taken from a grevillea - but they eat all sorts of things and can often be found at picnic spots waiting for handouts to be tossed to them.

f/5.6  1/250  300mm  ISO200

The cormorant is not an uncommon bird either - this one is found all over the world. The Chinese have managed to train cormorants to fish for them in a rather novel way. They do not have a great deal of oil on their feathers so they do get water-logged and it is not uncommon to find them on the banks of waterways with their wings held out from their bodies to dry! This fellow was doing his brush and comb job before hanging himself out to dry.

f/5.6 1/250  300mm   ISO200

A black duck was trying to snatch forty winks in the sun when three camera wielding females noticed him! First the eye opened to see how close the danger was and then, since we wouldn't go away, he came awake and made plans for further action.

f/7.1   1/125  300mm  ISO200

He really had been curled up and comfortable, his beak had been tucked under all those glossy outer feathers and snuggled into the down!

f/14  1/250  240mm   ISO200

I couldn't resist including at least one flower! This one looks to be a member of the Tibouchina family.

f/5.6   1/400   300mm  ISO500

In a lovely shady patch under some Malaleuca trees (paper bark trees) at the edge of the lake were several water dragons of various sizes. It was a challenge to take this in an acceptable (to me) way because I do not like taking animals from above and since I was standing on an elevated timber walkway I had to get down really low and poke my lens through the railings and shoot from a slight distance. I like to have my creatures taken at "their eye level". There were eels and turtles in that same patch with the lizards but I shall have to return to that garden to take a few more shots!
Just a reminder - to see any pictures in my blog larger, click on the picture, then click on the "back button" to return to see other pictures.
AJ

Green gardens

Being back in the land of the mundane - housework and grocery shopping - I look back on one of the walks that Colin and I took last weekend when we were in the higher altitudes of the Blue Mountains. Our motel was in walking distance from some Rhododendron gardens so we donned our jackets and walking shoes and tramped our way to investigate them.

 

Of course the bushes are not flowering at this time of year, the brochures told us of a Rhododendron Festival in November, but we were not to be put off by this, we just felt like taking a walk and having a look! Perhaps we shall visit one November to see the place at its best but this isn't all that likely.

 There were several walkways among the trees and shrubs, this row of bushes look to be azalea so there will be colour at other times of the year as well as November. Many of the trees look to be deciduous so they will create an autumn show of coloured leaves in May and June.

A shelter with seating provided me with interesting framing for the view of the gardens.

Walking back to the motel after our short walk I spotted a magnolia tree in flower and couldn't resist getting a little bit of colour other than green! The tree was in a private garden and overhanging the edge of the road so I did not trespass to get my picture! Since this magnolia is so obviously healthy it surprised me that there were not more varieties of magnolia in other gardens.
AJ

Yet another bird

I was feeling rather sorry for myself after a visit to the dentist when a large bird flew into my front garden and successfully took my mind of my soreness. I straight away ran to get my camera and change the lens to the 70-300mm one and patiently waited inside the house for my visitor to come closer. Unfortunately the Blue Crane is rather timid and would take flight if I were to step outside. The noise created by the sliding door would be enough to make him startle so I remained indoors and took my pictures from behind glass.

f/5.6  1/320  300mm  800 ISO

This bird stands about knee height and eats insects and small fish and frogs - it paddles on the edge of ponds. It looks absolutely magnificent in flight and one day I will succeed in capturing a photo of one with wings outstretched! One day!

f/6.3  1/640 200mm  800 ISO

The Blue Crane is also called the White Faced Heron. a very similar bird can be found in South Africa too. I saw one when on holiday there a few years ago but the South African blue crane/heron looked to be slightly larger.

F/6.3  1/640  255mm  800 ISO

Here the bird is peering into a small pond that we have in our garden. Perhaps he was hoping to find a small frog or lizard. The lizard you may be able to see near the top of this photo is a pottery sculpture! Not edible!
Do click on the photos to see them a bit larger then click on the "back" button to return to the blog.
A shower of rain this evening will freshen things up in my garden. I will take my camera out again tomorrow.
AJ

Changes

After all the rain and dark skies it was wonderful to awaken to a clear blue sky - so good in fact that after taking the dogs for a walk I had half an hour in the swimming pool with my husband. Wonderful! The water was warm too!
At last I could have some time with my camera. A house filled with visitors and so many things to do have kept me away from my favourite hobby. But once lunch was over and everyone had left the house I became very self centred! The Nikon was taken out and the garden explored! There were some new things to aim at such as some little pink berries on the Lilly pilly bush but it was the flowering gum that finally held my attention. I had willed this little tree to flower for Christmas - and it obliged! Although not very big yet it is giving me hope for a wonderful garden centre-piece for the future, and even the lorikeets have given it their lick of approval!

f/5.6  1/160  ISO200  55mm

This photo was taken about two weeks ago and I was not fast enough to be able to capture the bird actually in the tree! But as least I did get him in the picture!
Those flowers have now gone. They did not last very long, unfortunately. But in their place I now have some rather fun seed pods.

f/5.6  1/400  ISO250  50mm

The centre stamen will eventually fall out of all these seed pods but at the moment they look like ice-cream cones with a spoon stuck in them! The pods will become darker and woodier as they mature and then fall from their stalks to litter the ground below.
I did manage to find one flower that had lasted longer than all the others.

f/5.6  1/1000 ISO250  55mm

Finding the right place to take a photo of it required climbing over all sorts of prickly plants! Working out what to use in the background also involved squeezing between plants and taking care that I did not trample on them!
As I backed away and looked for other subjects I became aware of a rumbling sound. I thought at first it was an aeroplane but it was thunder! So the clouds rolling up became the next focus of my attention. The temperature had climbed to over 34 degrees and this must have generated a thunderstorm.

f/10  1/1600   ISO 250  50mm

The blue cloudless sky was being attacked from the south! At the same time the temperature was dropping quite noticeably.

f/10  1/200  ISO250  18mm

By the time I walked over to the path near the house and looked back at the garden the sky was completely covered in cloud. Not ominously black and threatening, but definitely less attractive than the blue we had earlier!
Now I am inside it is almost dark enough to turn the lights on and the temperature has dropped to 28 degrees. That is in only 30 minutes.
I will show you the other "finds" in my garden some other time!
AJ