Boathouses (2)

Sky Watch Friday

This is the shot I have been trying to take for months.

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How the other half live (3)

Because the houses are high on the hillside, most have elevators to take goods and people to their boatsheds on the waterfront.

How the other half live (2)

This one I really like and could live in with no trouble whatsoever.

Boathouses

Australia Day

To celebrate Australia Day, and with help from Dorothea Mackellar, I would like to show you some of my favourite parts of this country.

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

Glen Helen Gorge, Northern Territory

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

Ellery Creek Big Hole, Northern Territory

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Kalbarri, Western Australia

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Hammersley Gorge, Western Australia

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

Hancock Gorge, Western Australia

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Big Merton, Kimberley region, Western Australia

Mitchell Falls, Kimberley region, Western Australia

Bungle Bungles, Kimberley region, Western Australia

Echidna Chasm, Bungle Bungles, Western Australia

Bungle Bungles, Kimberley region, Western Australia

Kununnurra, Western Australia

Warm colours for a warm day

Playing with macro

Sky Watch Friday

Playing tourist.

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Sydney Redgum on Sydney Sandstone

How the other half live

Big house, pool, boat house and they were probably out on the water somewhere in an equally big boat. Different world, really. Shame the house is so ugly.

She's a Lady

Or even a Laiidy. She also had a cute, pink, round car (Nissan Micra).

Play Me, I'm Yours

Pianos have appeared throughout the streets of Sydney. They are there for anyone to play as part of the Festival of Sydney's Play Me, I'm Yours. So far I've found one near the Queen Victoria Building at Town Hall (above) and one in Cook and Phillip Park (below).

Sydney Festival First Night (7)

There was street theatre.

Sydney Festival First Night (6)

There was street art.

Sky Watch/Sydney Festival First Night (5)

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Sydney Festival First Night (4)

There was dance, which was also projected on to the surrounding buildings for the majority of us who couldn't get anywhere near the stage.

There were performances on top of things.

Sydney Festival First Night (3)

There was music.You could listen to a balkan inspired band (Michaelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen)

or dance to a big band.

Sydney Festival First Night (2)

People, people everywhere. It became much more crowded than this, I left before the real crush. I don't like large crowds and as the evening wore on there were more and more youngsters wandering round swigging alcohol from brown paper bags and urinating in the entry ways to office blocks.

Hyde Park early in the evening.

The Domain, almost full by early in the evening. This was the venue of a free concert by Grace Jones. I didn't stay as I'm not a fan and don't cope well in this kind of crowd.

Martin Place, where the stage for the dance companies was located.
Hyde Park again, later in the evening.

Sydney Festival First Night

Each January Sydney does what she does so well - put on a show. The Sydney Festival runs for 3 weeks and as well as ticketed theatre, music and dance performances, puts on several free outdoor events.

Last Saturday was Festival First Night which involved previews of the Festival's music and dance across 10 stages throughout the city and attracted hundreds of thousands of people.

All week I've been watching the construction of this structure, but what is it? Is it a stage for DJs to use, a climbing frame for dancers or something else altogether?

Its the world's larges pyrophone.

Messing About in Boats (7)

Messing About in Boats (6)

Sky Watch Friday/Messing About in Boats (5)

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Messing About in Boats (4)

Messing About in Boats (3)

Messing About in Boats (2)

Sydneysiders love the water and take to it whenever and however they can.

Messing About in Boats

This cute little ferry runs scenic cruises on Port Hacking and into the Royal National Park on the southern outskirts of Sydney.

Its (slightly) bigger sister, the Curranulla, makes the regular ferry trip from Gunnamatta Bay in Cronulla across to Bundeena.