Posted 6:03 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Return from the Dead

I'm not really dead. Not yet, anyway. I'm getting better!

It's more a matter of what Lileks wrote about here: a great big heapin' helpin' of Who Gives a Shit.

I now live in a beautiful area. I have taken a zillion pictures. The film is still in its little cannisters. I have not had the money to get it developed. I sort of wish that I had a digital camera, and wonder how long it would take me to save for one if I didn't buy any film or processing for this one. I think the time scale is on the order of about ten thousand years.

Anyhow, that's why I haven't posted any pictures of the new area in seven long months, and hardly any pictures in the last couple. I runned out. And my scanner is still in its box in the closet, where I put it when I moved in.

Oh, great, now you got me depressed.

Anyhow, here's my last good piccie of Uluru.

Uluru, Aug. 2000

I think I didn't want to show this because it's scanned from a print -- a print on the back of which I wrote the details of the picture in bleedy marker, so that you can see dark marks in the upper right hand corner of the print. It showed up in the scan, too, so I spent a lot of time trying to touch it up with the clone tool (I can work for Reuters now!). This was done with a regular scanner, before I got the photo scanner. You probably can't tell at this resolution.

My dad used to say that kind of thing all the time. We moved a lot, so we were always living in a new -- i.e. different -- house. I think I was in my thirties before I realized that you don't have to show the house to everyone who comes over. Anyhow, Mom and Dad were always painting or panelling or wallpapering, and often they'd get some little bit wrong and have to try to cover it up. Dad was always saying, "Now you see this here, well, we messed that up. But you'd never know it if I didn't point it out!"

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 2:53 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Far Uluru

I'm digging around in the dusty photo vault. I don't think I've used this one before:

Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia
Aug. 2000

This was taken from quite a distance away. I think it might have been taken at the same time and place as this. It was certainly taken on the same day, but I think I must have taken one picture, turned around, and took the other. But I'd have to dig out the negatives to be sure, and I'm too lazy.

I love the haze in these pictures -- it adds a dreamlike quality. Makes me want to follow the mirage over the horizon.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 10:30 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: It's Baaaaack

Hi, I'm back. Didja miss me? No, huh?

Anyhow, here's a Foto Friday. If you didn't see it on Friday, it's because I forgot to remove the stealth pixel paint. Yeah.

Anyhow, here 'tis. I don't have a good idea of how it looks, compared to previous efforts, since I don't have the big Samsung monitor (which I used exclusively before) hooked up, and am using only the laptop screen. So I hope I haven't over-tweaked.

The Blue Mountains, Australia, July 2002

Here's an interactive web cam of the Blue Mountains, although I couldn't get it to work. And here are some more photographs. I am very generous in linking to this site, since his pictures are far better than mine (be sure and check out the other two Blue Mountains galleries there, as well as galleries of other places around Australia).

This was taken on my last full day in Australia. Due to incredible stupidity on my part, I didn't get around to seeing this particular sight until then. It was winter; I should've gone in spring and summer and fall, to see the changes. But I was more interested in sitting around and moping. (In my defense, I didn't have a car then.)

Now I live in a photo-rich environment, and I must guard against the inclination to mope.

The Blue Mountains are just west of Sydney. There's a bit of history here. The Blue Mountains supposedly get their name from the haze of eucalyptus oil droplets. However, some note that mountains (or anything else) at a distance tend to look blue and hazy (cf. the Blue Ridge Mountains, which contain negligible amounts of eucalyptus oil).

When I was a child I read this fairytale, in which a man goes to great lengths to find the Blue Mountains. The "Blue Mountains" sounded so beautiful and romantic, I wanted to find them too.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 10:02 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Three Weird Sisters

Finally had a chance to scan, but mostly I did my mother's stuff. Got a few of my own in though, like this one:

The Blue Mountains, Australia, July 2002

This is the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney. Of course there is a legend.

That was taken on my last full day in Australia. It was a damned shame (and entirely my own stupid fault) that I did not get up to the Blue Mountains earlier. This was especially true since they were doing construction work when we were there, and everything was all in a mess. I believe the observation platform shown in that page was torn up, for example. I should have been up there constantly taking pictures, but I'm a goof.

I think I have some pictures taken a little later in the day that are better. You'll get them one day. Betcha can't wait!

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 10:29 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Crofts Bay

The rocks out in the bay are kin to the 12 Apostles a little further down the road.

Crofts Bay, Victoria, Australia
Dec. 2000

I love the colors in this picture -- the blue sky, the green sea, the golden cliffs and the red land. Unfortunately I couldn't get more of the red land in on the left there. Must...get...20mm...lens...

What I don't love is the strange scanner artifact in the sky. Think of it as a UFO.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 8:46 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Always Hoped That I'd See an Apostle...

Well, not always -- just since the Sydney Olympics. The equestrian jumps were modeled after various Australian landmarks, and the Twelve Apostles jump was so beautiful... I should post some pics of that one day.

Didn't look anything like this, however.

Last year I posted this view:

Twelve Apostles, looking east
Victoria, Australia, Dec. 2000

Turn around, and you get this:

Twelve Apostles, looking west
Victoria, Australia, Dec. 2000

I love this view because it looks like this Michael Whelan painting. It's titled Sentinels. What are the sentinels watching for, and why? If after long eons the sea should wear them down, would they become the Twelve Apostles?

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 9:21 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Uluru -- the Red Centre

The Red Centre[1] is what Australians call the red desert heart of their country.

Um, there. I've told you pretty much all I know about it. Did I mention that it's red?

Uluru at Sunset, Australia, Aug. 2000

I now wish I hadn't tried to fill the frame with the rock, and had allowed some distance between it and the edge. Maybe there was a tour bus parked there, I don't know. The creepy black arms writhing over the right side are bottlebrushes. I'll post a picture of those in daylight some other time.

I showed another sunset picture here. I have dozens more! Isn't that exciting??

[1] Note ye olde quaynte Brittish spellynge[2]
[2] Which I just now unwittingly tried to use in positioning this thing. Note: "text-align:centre" does not work. American imperialism!

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 8:59 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: A Room with a View

40 in. Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory
Oct. 1999

As the caption suggests, this is the 40" telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. According to SSO's Wikipedia page, this telescope is scheduled to be de-comissioned on Jan 1, 2008, but I couldn't find anything about that on any official pages.

I know this building has a library inside it, and I believe there's a kitchen. There probably used to be living quarters, but now these are elsewhere.

Really: a telescope, a library, a kitchen, and a terrific view. Throw in an internet feed and a satellite connection, and you have pretty much all life affords, right there. Besides, you know, food and stuff.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 3:34 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Many Heads Are Better Than One

The Olgas/Kata Tjuta
Northern Territory, Australia, Aug. 2000

This rock formation is similar to, and a shortish drive from, Uluru/Ayers Rock. As I recall, on the road between them there's some sort of observation platform you can climb to get a look from afar. The native name is Kata Tjuta -- Many Heads -- but European explorers named the primary peak Mt. Olga (and therefore the collection became "The Olgas") in honor of Olga, Queen of Württemberg.

Actually, Mt. Olga was originally named Mt. Müller[1], after German-Australian scientist Ferdinand Müller, but Müller requested that the name be changed to honor the queen. According to Wikipedia, (WARNING! Wikipedia!) there was a little quid pro quo, in that Müller gave up the mountain and got a title instead, and the right to add von to his name, becoming Ferdinand von Müller.

It's obvious that Olga never saw a representation of the mountains, or she would have given it a second thought. The viewer's first reaction, on learning that these hummocks are "the Olgas", is to wonder what part of Olga they are meant to resemble. Most unfortunate.

These things mesmerize me, producing that familiar itch: "What's over there? What is that? Let's go see..." They're far more fascinating to me than Uluru, which is just a big ol' rock. I wish we'd had another day or so in the area to explore the Olgas. There's a three hour walking tour ("A three hour tour!") you can take, but we got there an hour before sunset on our last day, and I didn't feel like hiking.

This was scanned from a print, but I posted it anyway because I love the colors -- the dark sky and layered clouds, the golden grass, and the many-colored shadows on the hills.

Here's the national park site.

[1]Actually, he gave the King of Spain a lake, and the Queen of Württemberg a mountain, but accounts differ as to whether it was originally supposed to be Lake Ferdinand and Mt. Müller, or Mt. Ferdinand and Lake Müller. Do you care? I don't. But I do care that the Sydney Morning Herald link I posted above believes that Olga was Queen of Spain. No, Amadeus of Spain got the lake (now Lake Amadeus).

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 1:52 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Archimage

Arch, Great Ocean Rd., Victoria, Australia
Dec. 2000

I've tried to find the real name of this object, but everything just comes up "Arch". This is on the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the southeast coast of Australia, southwest of Melbourne. We drove from Adelaide to Melbourne, and a few hours from Melbourne there are a number of beautiful bays with islands, like the 12 Apostles.

Erm, that's pretty much all I have to say about it. I was going to put up a different image, but I decided that those scans were all out of focus, and needed to be redone.

OK, here's the official Great Ocean Road website, and since it's so cool, a route planner for driving within Victoria. Put in "Melbourne" to start and "Port Campbell" to finish. And then it'll ask you if you want Melbourne 3000 or Melbourne 3004. Hell, I don't know, but Melbourne 3000 will be the city center. The route it gave me did not actually go along the coast. You're gonna wanna take dat left toin at Albuq -- er -- Geelong to drive along the coast.

Dagnabbit, you young whippersnappers don't know how good you have it, by gum. When I took this trip, back in the Year Aught, we didn't have no fancy schmancy web-based travel guides. We had to make do with static maps on dead trees! And they was hard to fold! And the good Lord help you if you lost your way, because if you was caught out after dark, the bunyips and drop bears would getcha! Why, I knew this one feller...

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 9:37 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Sydney Morning Harbour

Well, this is the first Foto Friday under the new Blogger. Let's see what they've managed to screw up.

Morning at Circular Quay, Sydney, Oct. 1999

Hmmm, suspiciously OK.

You know, you look at pre-photography paintings of everyday life, and think that no one would paint those scenes today. Imagine a painting with modern cars or highways or tractors. It would be silly. (Of course there are such paintings, and they often look silly.)

But this scene, this you could paint, and it would look fine.

This is at Circular Quay -- pronounced "key", not "kway" -- which is the main drag of Sydney Harbo[u]r. I don't know why it's called that -- it's actually sort of U-shaped. That is of course the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge; the Opera House is way off to the right, but there are several buildings in the way.

I'm sure there are better views, but this is where I had to wait for the ferry to the zoo. I took three shots of this, mainly because I was bored. I find I take my best pictures when I don't mean to. The lesson is to take pictures of everything, which I do, much to the disgruntlement of my companions. I also waste a lot of film.

I've caught something over on the left side of the picture, in the sky above the near bridge support. I don't think it's a flaw on the film or a scanner artifact. It could be a bird or plane or even frog, or one of the enormous fruit bats that infest the area. Looks like a B2 bomber, but I think I would've noticed that. They're rumored to be noisy.

UPDATE: I've changed the title on this post slightly since I first published it. In retrospect the new title was sort of obvious.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 9:48 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Uluru

Uluru is the politically-correct name for the Formation Formerly Known as Ayers Rock. It's a local Aboriginal family name. I had never heard of the name "Uluru" until I moved to Australia in '99.

Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia, Aug. 2000

In his book In a Sunburned Country[1], Bill Bryson rhapsodizes over the great mystical throbbing that emanates from it. But no. It's just a big rock. It's a lot more interesting up close than from far away. There are petroglyphs, and caves which hold "secret men's business" which tourists are not supposed to photograph, or even glimpse (the trail shies away from the Rock at these points), and places where captured rainwater has made little oases in the desert at its base.

There's also a path you can climb up the rock, but you have to be fairly athletic, and willing to ignore the fact that the locals don't like it. This, they believe, is the path their ancestors, the Mala (a type of wallaby) took, and they don't like outsiders tromping on it. So far as I know, they confine themselves to frowning about it, not having progressed as far as fatwas or jihad.

More impressive than Uluru, in my opinion, is Kata Tjuta, which means "Many Heads". The name the imperialist white oppressors gave it is The Olgas -- which no doubt leads the immature to much sniggering speculation over the original Olga's attributes. I have some nice pictures of them I'll post one of these days.

In truth it was named after Queen Olga of Württemberg. Ayers Rock was named after the then-Chief Secretary of of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers. You see that a lot in Australia; explorers didn't name things after themselves, or their loved ones -- they tended to name them after some remote bureaucrat. (Or, in the case of Katherine, NT, after the loved one of some remote bureaucrat.)

We saw busloads of tourists toasting the Uluru sunset with champagne. It turns out that this is an ancient custom -- handed down from tour guide to tour guide -- whose roots go all the way back to that far-off day when a tour operator realized he could squeeze an extra few bucks out of the punters by ginning up a rummy champagne tradition.

[1]Which, down under, is known as Down Under. Newsgroup speculation at the time was that Americans were not familiar for this designation for Australia, and a phrase from an obscure poem (or possibly song; I'm too lazy to google it up) was considered so much clearer.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 11:01 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Warrumbungles

Sunset at Warrumbungles National Park
Australia, July 2000

Warrumbungles N.P. is in central New South Wales. It takes eight hours to get there from Sydney by car (less if you're a lead-footed Indian, but I digress), and looking at the map you see there's still plenty more NSW where that came from.

As you can see, the landscape there is stunning. Off to the left of the picture the land flattens, and, I was told, remains flat until you get to the other side of the continent. A Google image search on "Warrumbungles" leads you to many beautiful photographs, most better than any I have. I was unable to do the actual hiking required to get those pictures while I was there, but I did play "Astrogulf" at the Skywatch Observatory in nearby Coonabarabran. I have pictures of that, too, but they're less than stunning.

This Coonabarabran page has a nice close-up of the same view. The layered hill in the center of that picture (and to the right in mine) is called the "Wedding Cake".

I had forgotten exactly when this picture was taken, so I was surprised to find that it was on the same roll as the Tasman Bridge photo from two weeks ago. That means that was the time I left Hobart before dawn, flew to Sydney, and drove straight to Coonabarabran, arriving in time for dinner. This itinerary is not recommended.

Got a good picture out of it, though.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 6:23 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Tas-mania!

Tasman Bridge from Mt. Nelson
Hobart, July 2000

This is one o' them there arty type pictures. I was aiming for something more like this, but it was an overcast winter day, and I had to take what I could get.

The Tasmanian parliament has a batch of web pages on the gripping saga of Derwent bridges, including the actually-gripping story of how an ore freighter smashed into the bridge in 1975, killing twelve people. Here's a contemporary article from the Melbourne Age, reporting "dozens killed". (That's part of the Age's 150th anniversary, and you might wait another 150 years before the page loads.)

In my photo you can see a gap in the supports at the highest part of the bridge, and another on the right. That right-hand gap wasn't meant to be there; it's one of the two that the freighter took out. They decided there was too much freighter at the bottom of the river to put in a new one (it's still there, by the way).

Hobart cam!

Wikipedia entry.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 10:57 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Hit the Beaches!

Baby, it's cold outside![1][2]

It was in the low 70s and muggy Wednesday night, so we put on the air conditioning. I knew a front was expected, so when I woke up I opened the window to find a cold breeze blowing. I turned off the air. Niles objected, saying it was still warm when he brought in the paper, about twenty minutes before.

But in that twenty minutes the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. This morning the paper said that it had dropped twenty degrees in an hour, but I think that's only because they only take the temperature once an hour.

Sometime yesterday it was snowing in Dallas (although I don't imagine they got more than a dusting). They were predicting 2-4 inches in St. Louis and 2-4 feet in Chicago (or something like that; it wasn't very clear).

Is Al Gore on one of his global warming warning tours? That's usually good for a sudden cold snap.

UPDATE: Niles says that Al Gore was on the Tonight Show on Wednesday. Ah-HA! It's a miracle we're all still alive!


So: December! Let's see what they're doing in Australia...

Coogee Beach, Sydney, Dec. 1999

(Technically, Coogee Beach is in Coogee, but let's not quibble.)

Ahhh. It's summer down there, of course. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that it'll be 80 down there today (which, strangely enough, is what it was here, Wednesday afternoon). Perhaps Al's legacy is still lingering down there. The above photo was taken later in the month, around Christmas.

Can you find Tim Blair in this picture?[3]


[1]This one's going out to my very special friend, Sayyid Qutb.

[2]Oh, and I blame Bush.

[3]Actually, Tim lives in Bondi.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 11:31 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Birthday Boy

Someone has a birthday today, which means he is home from work, hanging around bugging me again.

In retaliation, I get to post this picture:

Katherine Gorge, N.T., Australia, Aug. 2000

Here we see the famous explorer Sacageekwea in full Pommie-Seppo tourist mode.

Well, for anyone else it would be, but he dresses like that at home, too. No floppy hat, but he makes up for it with Hawaiian shirts and sandals with his socks. (Back off, ladies. He's all mine.)

N.T., for the shut-ins among us, stands for "Northern Territory", aka the Top End of Australia. We went there after visiting Uluru on the advice of my Australian boss, who urged us to see Kakadu National Park. "It's bigger than most US states!" he said. Wow!

That sounded kind of funny, so I checked it out, and he turned out to be absolutely right! That is, in some alternate universe where the US never expanded beyond the original 13 colonies, and the South succeeded in seceding. (Kakadu is about the size of New Jersey.)

Katherine Gorge is not in Kakadu N.P., but quite a bit south. We drove down there, which enabled us to experience the famous speed limit-free Stuart Highway, and partake of quaint local customs such as not getting squashed by road trains and avoiding roving psycho murderers.

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but Niles is standing on cliffs overlooking the river. We went on a tour boat with a couple dozen other people, but there were many people out on their own, paddling down the river in canoes -- despite the obvious presence of crocodiles. (The crocodiles could be detected by a glimpse of their eyes or snouts above the water, and by the signs saying CROCODILE NESTING SITE: PISS OFF at certain points along the shoreline.)

These were freshwater crocodiles, and so (nominally) harmless. Occasionally, they told us, they did get dangerous "salties" in the river. These they laid traps for: cylindrical metal cages baited with a dead pig. (Or tourist, in season.)

During the dry season, the boats can't get all the way up the river, so you have to keep getting out and scrambling over rocks to the next boat. This would be OK, but the river was very low and there was sometimes a drop of two feet (looked higher to me) between rocks and river. This sort of thing was not made clear at the beginning of the trip. It's a wonder no one broke anything. My knees would never stand for that sort of thing, nowadays.

When the picture above was taken, our group had clambered up the cliffs to a waterfall-fed pool above the river. This is a charming idea, recalling romantic visions of secluded jungle spots where Tarzan and Jane might canoodle. Not so romantic with pasty tourists and screaming Spawn of All Nations along, however.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 11:57 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Grand Ole Opry House

I realized last week that my last three or four (or five or six) photos have all been of Hawaii. I didn't mean to do that, it just worked out that way. Since each was from a different island, I toyed with the idea of completing the set, posting a different island each week until I was finished with them. But, I thought, to hell with it. Let's go somewhere different.

So today's photo is for gentle Emily, who just can't get enough of the establishing shots in Lost.


Sydney, Oct. 1999

That was taken from a ferry on the way to Taronga Zoo, which is on the north side of Sydney Harbo[u]r. Betty, a friend of mine from California, was coming through town with a friend, and the three of us went to the zoo together.

The remainder of this post is a little depressing. Just ignore it and look at the pretty picture if you like.

Betty was a fascinating lady. She must have been 75 or so when I met her, and she was still working. In her youth she'd been a computer, back in the days when that word applied to people, and in the '60s had been on many exciting projects for NASA.

She and her husband had become wealthy over the years, and during her last few years she traveled to Egypt and China and, for her last big trip, Australia. She also went once a year to Vegas with some girlfriends. She was a millionaire, but she told me that she allowed herself twenty (or it may have been fifty) dollars to gamble away, and when that was gone she was done.

When she came through Sydney she was having a little trouble with her arm. She had strained it, she thought, and it was taking an awful long time in healing. Then again, she was getting on in years.

After she got back to California she found out that she had ALS. I got to go back to the US for a visit in 2001, and was able to see her on my last day. She couldn't speak much by then. She had a little keyboard to type on, but she was mostly beyond that, too. So I had to do most of the talking, and bored her with accounts of what I'd been doing in Australia.

When I left her, I found I had nothing to say, no words of parting. When you leave someone you don't see very often, you say things like, "see you soon," or "hope I can get back in town before too long". When you leave a sick person, you say, "get well soon". None of these was appropriate. She wasn't going to get well, and I wouldn't be seeing her again.

She died about a week after I got back to Sydney.

This post turned out to be kind of a downer, though I didn't mean for it to be.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday