River Extension Road

The day before we drove over to meet Lesley and Steve I drove along a forestry road called River Extension Road to see how it had been changed. When we were here in ’06 Cath and I cycled it a few times. Unfortunately the path of these back roads don’t always remain the same – they are after all to help the forestry industry – and this one had changed quite a lot by going a lot further up Morrissey Ridge than it used to resulting in a 10% slope at one point (this part of the road was also pretty narrow with a long drop on the right). Anyway, past that and I was in and out of the car with my camera seeing what I could take photos of. Loads of meadows up there, and wildlife as well. Unfortunately I was usually driving when the animals were about, but I did see half a dozen white tail deer, a coyote, chipmunks and a couple of bald eagles. Cows are a bit of a surprise, only because you don’t tend to see them in forests in the UK, and the deer looking out from the bushes was a bit of a character. He could see me in the car with my camera, but was determined to eat the grass. A few minutes later he hid behind a bush and kept poking his head up to see if I was still there. We played hide and seek for a few more minutes before I had to race off for an appointment at Freshies to take some photos. I’ll show you the results of that later in the week. Finally, one little critter that I did take a photo of looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him, and he/she just stood and stared at me while I tried to take a couple of pictures. A second later and the foal was diving off into the grass to join its mum.

Coop

I’ve finally got my sh together and I’ve printed off all five of the pictures needed to take down to the artist coop. It looks like they’ll be viewed over the next month by five “panel members” who will decide whether to go on to the next stage or not. If they get through this, I will probably have to go for an interview and talk about the photos and such like. So wish me luck! These are the pictures that I’ve put together:

Out and About in Elkford

Elkford advertises that it is in the centre of the wilderness, and you know, I think it might be true considering the wildlife we saw while we were out there. First of all there was some woman on a bike cycling up one of the steepest hills in the area (you might want to look on Cath’s blog at www.cathliversidge.com for more information there. We saw bald eagles, an osprey’s nest, mountain sheep, elk, whitetail and mule deer, and bears! Bears! You heard me. We see them so infrequently that we almost forget they are knocking around. Ironically Colin was only asking 15 minutes beforehand if they were up and about yet. I think the gallery on this post proves that they are!

Look at your wall….

….look at your wall!!!!  The words we were greeted with today when we walked into Freshies by Kim – well, I thought she was going to burst!

Yes, we looked at the wall where Jase’s pictures are – and there was ONE LESS!  Next up was for Kim to give Jase his proceeds for selling one of his pictures – a tourist had seen it, fell in love with it and bought it there and then!

Now, Jase has to ok this blog from me to make sure it’s not too gushy – but suffice to say, as Kim was bursting with excitement, I was bursting with pride!  Oh, it was the boats picture 

Also, we were chatting to one of the guys in there who used to judge photography competitions – when he and I were chatting while Jase was elsewhere, he said that of all the pictures that have ever been up in Freshies all the time it’s been open, Jase’s boat picture was the best!  How about that, eh?

Good Saturday Morning

Well here we are prostituting our house again. We had a couple of couples in last night and the second pair are jut getting ready to leave. We’re definitely getting into the swing of things now. We’re organised, but could still be more efficient. That’ll come in time. My range of breakfasts have increased: full english (usually met by stares both before and after I tell them what you get – sausage, bacon, beans, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, egg), eggs benedict (if I’m in a good mood, I’m good with hollandaise sauce, but it’s still a clat), porridge (with raspberries and pumpkin seeds – sounds odd, but definitely works) and then smaller things like poached eggs on toast with or without beans and fried mushrooms.

Cath is also the hostess with the mostess as she has them jumping out of their skins with a loud and jaunty “Gooooood Morning!” first thing in the morning. I’ve seen some startled faces over the last couple of weeks. Thing is we’ve already been up for half an hour before so we’re raring to go as they are still trying to wake up as they stumble down the stairs.

Well this morning is a good one here. We’ve had the pineapple express come though over the last few days bringing a thaw in town and constant rain. The pineapple express, if you remember that far back, is a tropical wind that brings warm moist air from Hawaii or somewhere similar. We’ve had two so far this year, so hopefully we won’t get an more – that El Niño doesn’t half play havoc with your weather. So this week the ski hill had about 40cm of snow and today is blue skies and wispy clouds, white mountains and icy rivers. We’re going to wander into town later and get some air, I might even get out with the camera this evening if the clouds stay off.

New Spaces

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by the owner of Rip ‘n’ Richard’s if I’d like to hang photos in his newly refurbished restaurant. Well of course I jumped at the chance and said yes. Definitely. Yes! I’m thinking it’ll be the same deal as Freshies – put the photos up and if someone wants to buy one then all I have to do is replace it and put the cash in the bank. Anyway, I’ve been printing photos all hell over the last few days and I finally have a system that is 99% infallible. Originally I was using Epson gloss paper, but the Epson printer didn’t seem to like it (eh?) – a photo of a bright sunny day would look as if it’d been taken at three in the morning and no amount of cajoling would make any difference. I was getting very frustrated, using up a lot of ink, and on the verge of throwing the thing through the window – not an easy thing to do in the basement as the window is 5ft up the wall and only a foot high. Those of you who know me know that I wouldn’t give up, so I spent days trawling the internet reading horror stories of other photographers with the same printer having the same problem so I decided that gloss paper wasn’t for me. Then two weeks ago I got a shipment of semi-gloss from the USA along with a set of inks (kerching!) and to my wonderment I found that everything printed perfectly! Unbelievable! In the time I’d wasted getting one decent print I was now producing four or five – and believe me, with everything else we have on at the moment, time is of the essence.

Soo, I’ll be very pleased to get the photos in front of Richard on Wednesday for him to look at. As I haven’t seen this wall, I’m going to take quite a lot over and provide him with more than is needed so we can choose some together, then it’s just a case of hanging them and onto the next project. If all goes well, I’ll post a photo of the photos when they’re up. Anyway, another step on the road eh?

Cue Cath making gushing noises about me

Garden Animals

You know, I remember when we lived in Hebden Bridge we had huge problems with rabbits invading the garden. Luckily they weren’t too bright and ate the lawn, not the vegetable patch. Thinking about it, it I had been able to train them to line up in a row while they ate I could have sold the lawn mower! Well, that was then, and this is now. I was on the phone with Lesley this morning when I shouted down the phone, “Oh golly, there’s a moose on the lawn!” Well, it was close to that – Lesley there’s no need for you to fill in the blanks there. A moose was right outside my window.

Luckily I had my camera, but I was so excited I was shaking, so the photos aren’t great. The moose and it’s calf quickly started to move off.  A couple of minutes later and it was in the back garden as well! To give you some idea, moose are about the same size as horses and a whole lot uglier – in looks as well as temperament!

Oh, and now it’s snowing

Straddie Island

Here we are again at North Stradbrook Island, paradise on the edge of the south Pacific. We are in an absolutely amazing apartment that’s a part of the Straddie Island Hotel. Apparently a couple of years ago this was a right dive, but it was done up, and now when you walk in to the apartment it feels like you are walking into the pages of a house magazine.

The sunsets are amazing here as the sun dips down over the edge of the bay shining a glancing warm light onto the fishermen and their kids. Would you believe that one family was joined by a pelican who hung around for quite a while – especially after it was given a fish by the father.

The whales are pretty amazing as well. We saw at least half a dozen in one go, some of them breaching by jumping out of the water or slapping the water surface with their giant flippers. Unfortunately my lens isn’t a superhero one, so the photo here is a good as I can get!

Anyway, having a great time. Wish you were all here.

Bushwacking Falls

Well I’m turning into a bit of a mountain-man (well, a mountain man without a clue) as this is the second time in two days that I’ve been out in the hills until dusk. Bob and I met up at Freshies this lunch time and after a fair bit of faffing (from both of us), we headed up to a creek not far from the house. This is the creek that contains all of the waterfalls that saw me climbing up a fall the other week. Well that was just an appetiser for today as we climbed fall after fall after fall. I’ve included pictures of eight of them, but there were others that we didn’t have time to stop for, of and a fantastic canyon area.

The water this time of year is really low; the snow run-off having dissipated a couple of months ago. This alowed us to climb much more easily than would be the case in, say, June. The trip would have been impossible in May because the creek would have been in spate.

So, the clambering upon rocks was great fun. Mind you the climb out of the creek valley was difficult because it was loose shale, and when I say loose, some of it was positively dangerous! I don’t know what the slope was but it looked almost vertical from the bottom. Anyway, we made it out safely, and managed to not encounter any bears on the long walk back to the car – always a good thing even if Bob did have his bear spray.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures, I’ll try to find some lake reflections ore something next time, and of course, the leaves will be changing colour when I get back from Oz. Oh, and then there’s Oz of course! Bob and I have agreed to look at one more set of falls before, er, Fall, but we believe that we pretty much have them covered technique-wise now.

You can view the photos below (obviously), or have a go at viewing them, and the locations they were taken in, in Google Earth by downloading the Waterhfall Photos kmz file. You’ll need Google Earth to view this file. Let me know how you get on with this file

Freshies

Here you go, a couple of the photos that are up in Freshies. Only had time to take one photo of them I’m afraid. There’s another I couldn’t get in the photo on the right – it’s the one of the geese in front of the Three Sisters early in the morning.