tiabunna's photos

I guess a ship's rail counts as a fence. Happy Fence Friday! I couldn't resist this stanza from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald....

As our ship sailed away southward, a patch of sunlight broke through the prevailing mist and low cloud.

Taken from the deck of our ship, which was surrounded by swimming penguins while at Lusitania Bay. Somewhat ungainly while on land, the penguins are agile and fast in the water - essentially using their wings as flippers.

Lusitania Bay, toward the southern end of the east coast is a "must see" destination for its huge King Penguin colony, estimated at 170,000 breeding pairs and covering the beach for several kilometres. Near the centre of the photo is the old hut installed by ANARE in the early 1950s. I once stayed there, a link to my 1968 photo is in a note at top left. The slopes are typical of the steep escarpment surrounding the island, inland it is essentially a rolling plateau. The island is about 34km long and 5km wide, running more or less north-south. Although tourists are limited to landing at either the Macquarie Island research station, or at Sandy Bay, there is no constraint on floating around other parts of the island close to shore: apart from rocks and safety constraints. I was concerned about water getting to my digital camera, so for this excursion I used a pocketable APS-C film camera. After this voyage, I never again used film: on my return I was so disappointed by the colour reproduction of the prints I asked for them to be printed again, but there was little improvement - so I went entirely digital. This is from a digital copy I made from the film negative, technically not great but far better than the original prints!

Although tourists are limited to landing at either the Macquarie Island research station, or at Sandy Bay, there is no constraint on floating around other parts of the island close to shore: apart from rocks and safety considerations. Lusitania Bay, toward the southern end of the east coast is a "must see" destination for its huge King Penguin colony, estimated at 170,000 breeding pairs, covering the beach in this photo and extending for several Km. Some details in notes. I was concerned about water getting to my digital camera, so for this excursion I used a pocketable APS-C film camera. After this voyage, I never again used film: on my return I was so disappointed by the colour reproduction of the prints I asked for them to be printed again, but there was little improvement - so I went entirely digital. This is from a digital copy I made from the film negative, technically not great but far better than the original prints!

The International Space Station put on a particularly fine showing tonight, passing right overhead. There was just a little thin broken cloud, which may explain the brightness variations.

This magnificent team of horses, pulling a dray, was in a street parade in a nearby town.

The flowering of the jacarandas is always welcome. Quite a windy day, hence the shutter speed.

My apologies for the anthropomorphism, these crazy Royal Penguins make it almost irresistible. :) Just bop along with the music.... I'll conclude my set on the penguins of Sandy Bay at Macquarie Island with this shot.