Sculpture by the Sea

A standard feature on the WA calendar, and an interesting hour or two of wandering past sculptures ranging from the bizarre to the beautiful. 

Beautiful, delicate and frames the view

' Roo Shooter '

Cottesloe Beach, on a sunny autumn morning. There were still plenty of people swimming, it's not like a Scottish autum. 

WOMADelaide

YFantastic music; cruisy, happy, slightly hippy people; alcohol freely available throughout the festival but no drunken people; kids happily running around with faces painted like fairies, butterflies or superheroes; great food. And not to forget the company, Lisa and Aaron were as enthusiastic as I was. 

What's not to like ? I would go again anytime, but would certainly recommend a day off afterwards to recover. For any lovers of world music, it's a great, well organised and mellow festival. 

 Pigs in the streets of Adelaide

 The beautiful flags, and tall trees, of the Botanical Gardens of Adelaide. 

WOMADelaide Day #2

Another amazing day at the festival, followed by a stroll through BLINC, the digital art festival, after seeing the Buena Vista Social Club on their farewell tour. 

The inside of Exxopolis, the inflatable sculpture I photographed yesterday. It's lovely Inside, all curved lines and surfaces, glowing with the sunlight shining through the fairly him plastic panels. 

You have to walk through barefoot and they go to a lot of effort to make sure you know it's not a bouncy castle !

It's inspired by geometric shapes, and Islamic architecture, this space was one of the highlights. 

Artists from Barcelona doing fantastic things with people's hair and make up. The kid on the right had no hair, speculatively I'd suggest due to a health issue, so they glued in fur strips into a Mohawk. It looked fantastic, and she lied it, walked away with a huge grin on her face.

Now we're at BLINC, the digital art festival, and the limitations of the iPhone camera really show here. So there are only a couple of photographs, it was a lovely, small scale but interesting and quirky display of digital art and video art using city scapes and buildings. Walking under a giant elephant through a mocked up Arc de Triomph was just fun. 

Lisa on the banks of the Torren. After a long day of walking and watching and listening, we were both very happy to get back to our cosy apartment. 

There aren't many photographs of the festival and artists themselves, the limitations of the phone camera are now coming evident. The lack of zoom is annoying, and it doesn't handle bright light directed onto people very well, they look washed out. 

The highlights were, obviously, the Buena Vista Social Club, Astronomy who feature the lead singer from The Herd ( a surprise find as it's not one I would have picked), and Depedro, a great high energy Spanish singer. The South Korean girl playing traditional instruments ina thrash style, well the less said the better. 

WOMADelaide day #1

Sitting in our beautiful apartment in Adelaide, drinking coffee on a grey morning, after a great first evening at WOMAD. 

It's a world music festival, with a very laid back atmosphere and great music. Last night was a slimmed down version of the Buena Vista Social Club ( the whole Orquestra is on tonight), they were such professional, suave, smooth musicians it was inspiring to watch. Prior to that, was Charlie Musselwhite, a Mississippi blues singer, guitar and harmonica player, who was raw and gusty. Rufus Wainwright, well a bit nasal and depressing for us ( Lisa, Aaron & I). 

The atmosphere was magical, lights in all the trees, kids running around with glowsticks and balloons with lights in them, happy people everywhere. It's not like WA, here you can grab a drink, or bottle of wine, and just walk around everywhere. 

There's an interactive inflatable sculpture ! Today we can go inside this cool looking bouncy castle, hopefully with the sun shining through the panels lighting it up inside.  

All these photographs in Adelaide will be taken on my phone, I'm curious to see how well it will handle my photographic needs. I'm not a keen photographer, so if I can make the iPhone well enough for my requirements it'll save lugging around another cable, charger and piece of fragile stuff. 

Stirlings & Porungurups - mountains of magic & mystery

Well it's stretching a point to call them mountains, most of them are big hills. However they are pretty spectacular, and there's some lovely day walks. We didn't walk up Bluff Knoll this time, but I went for a walk at the bottom, and we both walked up to the walkway around Castle Rock. Here's a few other day walks, for the next trip. 

A misty, grey day with beams of sunshine lighting up the landscape, and glistening on the wet leaves. It had been raining lightly, so everything had that warm, damp smell to it. Behind that heavy cloud is an impressive part of the Stirlings, however I walked on a track at the bottom of the range. 

The local wildlife were out and about, including the possums at night raiding any scraps of food. 

Andy at the start of the scrambling up rocks section of the walk, up to the top of Castle Rock. It's an easy walk on a well made path, until suddenly you get to the granite some and boulders that form the top of the hill. From this point it's a bit of a scramble to the first platform, and a real scramble to the second walkway, all around the top of the rock and an amazing ( in clear weather) view to Stirlings and to Albany. 

The view from the top, we could just sort-of make out Albany but on a clear day it would be really clear. 

Andy used his walking poles, I didn't use mine, and the difference in our speed was really noticeable. I am a huge fan of walking poles, they take a small but continual load off your knees and ankles, and give you an edge of stability. You get into a really good rhythm with them, and I would have found the Camino harder without them.  So I would strongly recommend them to anyone. 

The walkway around the top, it was lowered in by helicopter and attached by absailers - amazing as you walk around thinking how they installed it. Don't go if you are scared of looking through grating, you can see to the forest below you !

Stirlings & Porungurups - the camp, wine & windmills

The Stirlings are a surprise as you drive up to them. After many kilometres of flat, arable land, suddenly these mountains appear out of nowhere, they look small then as you approach they get larger and larger. Mountains of mystery and magic, I've heard them called, and that seems pretty fitting, particularly when the mist is low over the peaks.

The campsite ( Stirling Ranges Retreat), with the RV5 with all panels set up, and the fox wing of Andy's car. One of the main reasons for this trip was to test out the camping gear for the Kimberley, and I think we learned a few useful lessons. The current set up was great for a multi-day stop, but way too long for the Kimberley where we'll be moving every day. So we will take the basic RV5, without all the extra panels, but many nights it'll be camp beds under the foxwing. 

I reckon the Great Southern is an under-rated winery area, so we had to support it of course. Less people than Margaret River, less showy but you get to chat to the wine maker while sampling some really good, cool climate wines. Dukes remains the clear favourite, but Galafrey and Gilbert's are good as well, we didn't visit Castle Rock winery this time but it's well worth a trip for the Riesling, which ages very well if you can manage not to open the bottle for a year or two. 

Some of the loot we carried away 😄

There's a windmill just near the Stirlings, and an old plane that's been converted into accomodation - that just has to be done on another trip ! 

The windmill is an authentic, replica, 16th century windmill, a phrase I had to think through until I grasped the meaning. It's a true replica of a windmill, and is used to grind flour for the local market i.e. it's a working windmill, in the wide open spaces near the mountains so it gets good wind all year. It's incongruous when you first see it, then when you hear about the Dutch couple who bought the land 20 odd years ago, from distant relatives of theirs, and have turned it into a little Dutch oasis in the Great Southern, it makes a wierd kind of sense. 

The couple also bought an old Dakota, which they have now restored and turned into accomodation, how cool is that ? A plane to sleep in, fully fitted out with tiny kitchen and toilet, and a view of the Stirlings to wake up to. 

A different side to WA

To capture a different side to WA, here are a few photographs form my recent trip offshore, to the 

North West shelf, and the North Rankin complex. I was really happy to get out there, as I worked on the project during design so it was a feeling of completion to get out in the operational phase. 

The platforms at night always look really good, all lit up. 

Sunset from the helideck. I went up to the helideck every evening, to do some stretches ( no need to exercise after climbing up and down stairs and ladders all day) and listen to some music. 

A few people just enjoying the evening, after a hard day of work.