Category Archives: coastal

Cape York – Day 2 – Revisited

4X4, Australia, birds, camera, Cape York, clouds, coastal, Landscape, landscape, Plant, Qld, reptiles, river/creeks, rock, salt, sand, sand dunes, Textures, trees, Wildlife

This morning we leave Haggerstone Island, then see downed aircraft, crocs up and close, Captain Billy Goat Waterfall and finally we land near a WW2 wreck of a P39 Aircobra which crashed on its way to Papua New Guinea.  Flying up the coast we see bauxite deposits, sands, rivers and finally hover over the tip of Australia. Then an aerial trip around the Torres Strait, we did not land as you can wait for hours before customs turn up (they work on Island time). Last stop Punsand Bay Campgrounds to stay.

Day 2 was as stunning as Day 1 – Revisited here.

Click on an image to a slideshow. Enjoy. Viva Cristo Rey.

Morning

Northern Cape York – eastern side

The Tip and Torres Strait

Punsand Bay after sunset

Cape York – Day 1 – Revisited

Australia, Cairns, camera, clouds, coastal, Landscape, ocean, Plant, Qld, river/creeks, salt, sand, sand dunes, seascape, Textures, trees

Leaving from Port Douglas and ending on Haggerstone Island. The original Cape York images and reports are here.

Enjoy. Viva Cristo Rey.

Lorella Springs Station revisited – Part 2

4X4, Australia, coastal, Landscape, landscape, Lorella Springs, NT, other, river/creeks, sand, seascape, Textures

Part 1 is located here.

Part 2 are images from a Pentax Medium Format camera, were the number of missed shots were lower on this camera than the Canon posted yesterday in Part 1. Every other time it was the reverse.

The Gulf of Carpentaria is an under explored part of Australia. Only this week AWC announced a new species of legless lizard, Lerista munuwajarlu, has been officially accepted after 10 years of the research.

Click on an image to see a slideshow at full size. Viva Cristo Rey.

Lorella Springs Station revisited – Part 1

4X4, Australia, coastal, Landscape, Lorella Springs, NT, Plant, sand, Textures, trees

The hardest lighting conditions The Doc has had on a helicopter trip was at Lorella Springs Station in the Northern Territory. The pilot was Nick, who also took The Doc around Arnhem Land and Kakadu.

There was low light, overcast and the moving helicopter meant many missed shots (blurred due to movement).

Lorella Springs is a working cattle station, and the flight went over the Lost City – one of many using that name in Australia, out to the Roper Region of the Gulf of Carpentaria, following Rosie Creek.

Part 1 was taken with a Canon 1DX camera. Coming in Part 2 are the Pentax Medium Format images. Click on an image to see a slideshow at full size. Viva Cristo Rey.

Part 2 is here.

Derby helicopter trip – medium format style

4X4, Artesian Range, Australia, AWC, Charnley River, Charnley River - Artesian Range, coastal, Derby, Kimberley, Kimberley, Landscape, ocean, Plant, river/creeks, trees, Uncategorised, WA, WA

The Doc also took his Pentax medium format camera on the helicopter. A selection of a few images from that camera are below.

The original images are massive in size (around 250 megs), and have stunning details even when heavily cropped. Not an easy camera to use in a helicopter because of its size and its slow autofocus. Plus you do not want to take too many images with large file sizes, which are slow and hard to work with. But the images, when they work out, are just gorgeous.

Click on an image to see the slideshow. It is worth it. Enjoy.

Plus some assorted images from Yampi Sound Training Ground, Charnley River Gorge up in The Artesian Range and the Buccaneer Archipelago.

Derby mud flats

4X4, Artesian Range, Australia, AWC, camera, Charnley River, Charnley River - Artesian Range, coastal, Derby, Kimberley, Kimberley, Landscape, landscape, sand, Textures, Uncategorised, WA, WA, , , ,

The massive tidal changes in King Sound reveals extensive mud flats across the southern part of the Sound, around Derby.

Derby township itself is surrounded by mud flats which The Doc drove on several times (being careful not to break through the dried surface). These mud flats are not fully tidal every day, probably only on King tides. However, anytime The Doc felt the surface get soft he headed back to drier parts.

After taking off, in the helicopter, the first place we see is the big house, the Derby Prison. The Prison inmates look after the graves at the nearby Leper Colony, aka the old Bungarun Leprosarium, just north of Derby (Blog report here). The Doc drove up to Bungarun using the mud flats, not the road.

The mud flats reveal one of nature’s fractals, the repeating patterns you see when water is draining away on the mud flats (what The Doc calls the recurring tree pattern). To be precise “Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales.” If you look carefully, you will see the same pattern repeating itself. Admittedly it is more obvious in the helicopter where you better appreciate the scale of these fractals.

There is endless variety in the mud flats, including their shapes, colour and textures. While they are many images, the total was culled hard to give a good cross section.

The Doc finds the mud flats fascinating. Enjoy.