Monthly Archives: March 2015

Flinders Island – Castle Rock

Australia, coastal, Flinders Island, Landscape, mosses/lichens, Tas, Tasmania

A photo from The Doc’s recent visit to Flinders Island. This is Castle Rock a granite monolith on the edge of Marshall Bay. The rock is 4 or 5 stories high. The “small” rock on the right side is taller than a human. That is orange lichen growing on the rock, something not uncommon in Tasmania. The earlier image The Doc posted had even more lichen, click here.

The picture is two images stitched together. The Doc was testing a new tilt + shift lense. Nothing special in post processing, just a small re-crop, plus some saturation and sharpening.

FI Castle Rock

The Cape – Australia’s far north – the final day

Australia, AWC, Brooklyn, Cape York, Landscape, landscape, Piccaninny Plains, Qld, river/creeks, trees, Wildlife

The final day of the trip from Weipa to Port Douglas, via Piccaninny Plains, Oyala Thumotang National Park, Archer & Coen Rivers, Coen, Lakefield National Park, AWC’s Brooklyn Sanctuary and its luxurious mountain rainforests of this World Heritage Listed area.Report and photos here. Enjoy.

 

Cape York – tricks used

Australia, Cape York, Landscape, mountains, Qld

There are a few challenges spending 4 days shooting from a helicopter. A few tricks The Doc used:

  • he fitted a 24-70mm lense. This gave enough range to take different landscape shots from the helicopter. This Canon lense is very sharp. Because you are further away from the subject in a helicopter you, can shoot at F8, rather than F11 or higher. However you cannot zoom close in, the reason why the helicopter got close to the first crocodile. You could have 2 cameras, but that becomes hard to handle – The Doc tried and gave up after the first session;
  • focus one third down the frame. So The Doc moved the focus point to the bottom of the frame for many, but not all photos;
  • be conscious of the horizon. In a helicopter it is changed all the time, tilting left, than right or up and down. Be conscious of the camera being level when shooting. Exceptions can be made, for example, when the horizon is not in the shot;
  • take several shots, you have fewer keepers. Extra memory cards are much cheaper than hiring the helicopter again;
  • constant autofocus was used, not one shot mode as the helicopter is moving most of the time;
  • use the camera which has the best autofocus, one that can lock focus quickly;
  • the closer your focus point is to the helicopter, the more likely the photo will be blurred. Pointing sharply downwards needs a higher shutter speed, than looking straight out the door. More blurry pictures resulted from this than all other causes added together on the Trip.
  • There is harsh light around the Cape, so early on The Doc attached a Singh Ray Circular Polarising Filter (CPF), perhaps the best choice he made. The CPF reduced significantly, but did not eliminate, the harsh reflections. The CPF needs to be readjusted occasionally.

Cape York HeliTrip Day 1 - 0141

Picca in the wet season

Australia, AWC, Cape York, Landscape, Piccaninny Plains, Qld, Wildlife

Last year The Doc visited Piccaninny Plains on Cape York, an AWC event. That visit inspired the helicopter Cape York trip this year.

Bungie, who The Doc met at the Piccaninny event, was the pilot who flew him all over The Cape. This time we flew over Picca (its nickname) on Day 4. We were going to land but a late start due to rain meant we could not. The Doc took some wet season photos and the Report and photos are here.

Back in Sydney – all cut up

Australia

The Doc has returned to Sydney after a trip to Flinders Island and a brief stopover in Tasmania. Time to sort through Cape York and Flinders Islands photos.

Two more skin cancers cut out yesterday, that makes three in total. The Doc has a few stitches 17, 11 and 8 plus the internal stitches. The first operation has gone well with minimal scarring (17 stitches), let’s hope the other two work out the same.

Outback Driving Tips

Australia, Nissan Patrol

Some driving tips The Doc has learnt on the Adventure, in part inspired by the excessive roadkill he has seen.

  1. If you cannot see the where the road is going, slow down.
  2. Stay focused on driving (not talking, listening to music or day dreaming), especially on the ever changing road surface and keep a lookout for wildlife on the side of the road. If you are part of a convoy, communicate material information on the UHF.
  3. When approaching dips in the road (often at floodways), slow down or the car will bottom out on the exit of the dip. You can damage wiring or puncture a fuel tank.
  4. People drive too fast in the country. A good off-road track can be travelled at 80kph, as the quality drops so should your speed. At night I travel between 40-60kph on good roads and slower when needed. If wildlife is around the speed drops to 30-40kph, even on good roads with spot lights.
  5. A dirt or travel track has far less grip than a bitumen road, so slow down.
  6. More corrugations, means less grip.
  7. Slow down before corners, as corrugations and soft edges mean you can skid off the road.
  8. Road tyres and suspension have less grip in off-road situations, so slow down.
  9. Emergency braking is far less effective on a dirt or travel track, you often skid when braking hard and the car can angle sideways and in extreme cases skid off the road. So slow down.
  10. During dawn, dusk and night-time, slow down. Many Australian mammals are nocturnal.
  11. Do not swerve to miss wildlife, more lives are lost by the dramatic swerve than hitting wildlife. The best way to minimise roadkill is not to drive between dusk and dawn, but if you do, slow down to 30-40kph and hit the animal head-on. Large animals like cattle are problematic, I once saw a Kenworth Double B semi-trailer, with a bullbar, disabled after hitting a cow, if is was a car the driver would probably be dead or severely injured.
  12. Know your wildlife and your surroundings.
    1. Emus often travel in groups of 2 or more, so if you see one emu, look for others. If they are located on different sides of the road there is a high probability one will cross the road. Once you see one, immediately start to slow down. Even if they are one side of the road, emus can use a zig zag pattern to avoid capture, so they may cross or recross in front of you. Track the emus until you safely pass them.
    2. Some animals like wallabies can be blinded by headlights at night. When blinded the animal freezes and you must either brake or swerve to avoid – a gentle swerve only so you do no lose car control. Some drivers think the animal is dumb, which is not the case, they are blinded. If safe to do so, turn down your lights and they will often run away.
    3. Kangaroos and wallabies also swerve or zig zag to avoid capture, and they can swerve in front of your car. Sometimes they will start to cross the road in front of you, stop, then go back. This significantly increases the chance of hitting them.
    4. If there is fencing close to both sides of the road and there is a kangaroo or wallaby be very, very careful as the animal is trapped by the fences and may panic and the chances of a roadkill shyrockets. The incidents of roadkill in this scenario seems to be much higher, and they can be multi impacts – the most I have seen is 3 wallabies at once.
    5. Feral goats rarely pose a risk, they seem to be smart enough not be hit. I have only ever seen one dead and the experienced outback drivers were very surprised.
    6. Wombats tend to run to the side of the road, get into cover, often just leaving their backsides showing. In their burrow they use their backsides to crush any intruder into the roof of the burrow. However, I have seen the “backside” gesture done in the middle of the road, while the wombat remains stationery. So beware, as wombats can do a lot of damage if hit. Its like hitting a slab of concrete.
    7. Speed, a car travels much faster than any predator, so animals struggle to react in time and a collision occurs, so slow down.
  13. Even when you take all these precautions, you only ever minimise the risk of an accident, you cannot eliminate it. After 55,000km, much in remote parts of Australia, The Doc has run over a small snake which was only spotted just before it was hit, and no he did not swerve. A small bird flew under his car. One possible roadkill of a nocturnal bird, which was slightly hit but hopefully not kill when it run under the car. Several close calls with wallabies and emus, but no hits, because The Doc was driving slowly and managed to avoid a hit!

In summary slow down, concentrate and know your wildlife.