More Photos

  Queenstown, New Zealand
Wednesday, September 3, 2003

I've just got back a load of photos that I've had developed. Since there's no heli-skiing today because of the bad weather I thought I'd pop some on the Internet. They're a collection from South Africa and my trip through Australia.

First some photos from South Africa:-

We were lucky to catch these hippos out of the water during the day


Normally they spend the whole day in the water


Some impala grazing at sunset - the two males in the front are sparring.

And now Australia - first of all some photos from Kangaroo Island just off Adelaide on the South Coast - I did a two day trip here.


View from a lookout on Kangaroo Island


An emu


Wallaby on Kangaroo Island


Remarkable Rocks - these wierd shaped rocks are a geological oddity, just sitting on top of a granite outcrop


Kangaroo Island has a large colony of New Zealand Fur Seals


There's also a large colony of Australian Sealions


Australian Sealion with pup


You can get quite close to the sealions - provided you don't get between them and the sea!


But you really want to avoid the big males when they're fighting!


There's also a colony (or rookery) of Little Penguins. After dark you can see the penguin parade as they all waddle in from the sea to their burrows - you're not allowed to use flash photography though as it disorients them for up to 20 minutes so this is the best photo I could get.


Kangaroo Island also has a large population of Koalas in the wild - so much so that they're becoming a problem as they're killing some of the Eucalyptus trees by eating too many of the leaves.

After Adelaide and Kagaroo Island I travelled north to the Red Centre and Alice Springs


Alice Springs at Dusk from Anzac Hill


The Todd River, Alice Springs - while normally dry, the riverbed will be covered in water 1-2m deep in times of heavy rain.

While in Alice, I went on a one day tour to the West MacDonnel Ranges - a range of mountains that cuts through the red centre - Alice Springs is located by a gap in the mountains.


Again there are dried up river beds galore but the colours of the rocks make the scenery quite spectacular


Although the riverbeds appear dry, if you dig about 1m down you'd find water and at various places along the river there are pools of standing water - leftovers from the last time the river flowed.


Perched on some of the rocks were Rock Wallabies - very small and impossible to get close to - this is the best photo I could get.

Another thing I did in Alice was to take a hot air balloon over the outback


In order to fly without strong winds, we had to fly at sunrise


But the view of the outback from the air was pretty special

There's a reptile centre in Alice where you can meet some of the "locals"


This little fella's called a Thorny Devil

After Alice I took the train down to Melbourne. I wasn't there for long and the city itself isn't very photogenic. The photo I have from Melbourne worth sharing is the inside of Melbourne Gaol where the infamous bush ranger Ned Kelly met his demise - the gallows where he was hanged are still in the jail today.


Inside the main wing of Old Melbourne Gaol

Then I hired a car and travelled out along the Great Ocean Road


It was a stormy night when I first got there - here's the famous 12 Apostles - an Australia Icon


The weather cleared the following morning but the storm from the previous day meant the seas were very rough


The famous 12 Apostles - you can't see all 12 at once!


London Bridge on the Great Ocean Road. It used to be 2 arches and the one closest to the shore famously collapsed a few years ago stranding a couple of tourists on the island. The story goes that one of them had taken a sickie from work and was not impressed when the TV cameras came over with the rescue party as his boss would see that he wasn't really sick at all.


Not quite on the same scale as the blow holes I saw last year in Samoa - this huge hole is connected to the sea through the tunnel you can see at the top of the photo - it's a cave that runs about 200m under the ground. The waterlevel rises and falls with the swell of the ocean.


This arch has been created as the sea has eroded the rock underneath - one day soon it'll probably collapse.

After Melbourne I flew over to Tasmania for a very whistestop tour.


Cataract Gorge - a very pretty gorge just 5 minutes walk from the city centre


Kangaroos resting at the Tasmania Wildlife Centre


I also went walking in some of the very lush forests in Tall Tree country, Tasmania

After Tassie I flew up to Cairns. After my live aboard boat I went on a tour of the Atherton Tablelands just West of Cairns.


Terrapins in a lake in the Atherton Tablelands


Millaa Millaa falls, Atherton Tablelands - apparently Millaa Millaa is aboriginal for 'much rain'


Another beautiful waterfall in the Atherton Tablelands

Well that's all for now - more skiing tomorrow with a bit of luck ......