There’s something almost regal about River Red Gums.
Some are centuries old, weather beaten yet magnificent.
Two such trees frame Rawnsley Bluff, part of the eastern wall of Wilpena Pound in the central Flinders Ranges.
(Google Maps – Wilpena Pound or Rawnsley Park Station )
A remote unidentified cattle station homestead somewhere between Thargomindah in Queensland and Broken Hill in New South Wales from 9,500 feet.
An image which is close to being the start of this photographic journey.
Some of the gifted aboriginal artists have the ability to visualise the land from this height. I find that remarkable. It’s a lot easier to do it from a plane or a helicopter.
Sorry, but there’s no really polite way to describe this situation.
It’s a real barney in the barn yard and a perfect illustration of a very Aussie expression.
Clearly a bit educational too, as the youngster seems mesmerised by the action.
There were thousands and thousands of goats in the Flinders Ranges. They were brought by early settlers for milk and meat but got out of hand.
They do untold damage in arid country where plants are destroyed by their eating habits. This impacts too on the native animals.
Fortunately in recent years there’s been a real effort to get rid of them. Usually they’re trapped and sold, providing an income for pastoralists in tough times.
To hell with horse races, lets kick the footy.
The inevitable pastime of kids all over the country for nine months of every year.
It’s finals time too.
The last in the dust series for a while – it gets a bit depressing doesn’t it?
However I find a certain beauty despite the desolation and the approaching storm.
Thanks to everybody who’s made a comment on the website over the last few months.
It’s really encouraging to get all the positive feedback you have been sending. It makes picking the photos and writing something about them worthwhile.
The site seems to be getting a steady group of readers which is slowing expanding too.
A road much travelled by the Sentimental Bloke.
Once grazing country, the drought is turning the country into shifting sands again.
It’s happening in many parts of Outback Australia.
The not-so-pleasant side of spring and the dust storms just keep coming.
Is it climate change?
If you ask some of the blokes who have grown up around here and have run sheep and cattle stations stations all their lives, they say the wild weather we’re getting now is like conditions they experienced about 40 or 50 years ago.
They reckon we’re going through an awfully long drought this time though.
This is Mt Gee on the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in the northern Flinders Ranges.
The South Australian Government has announced that in less than a month it intends to renew the exploration license of a company that wants to mine uranium here.
That company held an exploration license which they lost because, among a number of incidents, they illegally buried 23,000 bags of low level radioactive material and general waste. They also illegally buried another twenty 200 litre drums of similar material in the beautiful Yudnamutana Gorge a couple of kilometres from the Paralana Hot Springs.
It is now feared that when their exploration lease is renewed, they’ll be permitted to resume high level exploration and expect to go on to mining uranium.
The company won’t be allowed to mine uranium by open-cut, the only alternative would be by tunneling to Mt Gee.
Whichever way the uranium is mined, it would produce an enormous amount of waste and much would be radioactive. Vast amounts of earth and rock from the tunneling and mining would be dumped and stored in the surrounding countryside. Giant air vents and escape shafts would need to be installed across the mountains with tracks to maintain them.
Rehabilitation will be required, but in arid mountain ranges with irregular, low rainfall, rehabilitation does not guarantee regeneration. Past experience shows this can take up to 80 years.
The company has already advised Federal authorities that to run the mine and process the uranium will require 2 to 2.5 gigalitres of water per year – an average of 6 million litres of water per day!
Where’s that coming from and at what cost to the plants and animals of this arid environment?
Mining in the Outback is a fact of life and there’s a lot of well managed operations in this region which produce much needed resources and provide employment for thousands of families. That’s not the issue here.
Hopefully people who have visited this country over the years will understand the significance of what mining on Arkaroola would do.
There’s already one avenue to register your opposition to further exploration and mining on Arkaroola through a Wilderness Society peitition. It’s pretty easy to do and you don’t have to join anything – just register your thoughts which will get passed on to the decision makers.
So far more than 2100 people have signed the internet petition and even though the number is growing, it’s early days yet.
Here’s the site Wilderness Society petition
If you want to find out more about the uranium mining issue on Arkaroola go to mining at Arkaroola..
The spectacular red flower with the distinctive black centre is the state emblem of South Australia and they’re starting to come out again.
When photographing flowers, generally the best effect is achieved by shooting them at ground level, rather than from above.
A bit of canvas on the ground to protect from the three-cornered jacks and all the other thorns is generally a good idea, but I forgot one possibility.
It was a cloudy day and when the clouds covered the sun there was good diffused light, ideal for bringing out the colours.
The only trouble was that I had to wait for the right light and eventually the ants found me.
I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. It took a lot of shots to get the one I really wanted and about the same amount of ant bites, but who was counting!
The Sturt Desert Pea mostly grows in red sandy soil and outback sand dune country but needs good rains to be seen in big numbers when they can cover a large expanse of ground.
While I’m posting a few portraits, this handsome fellow was just willing me to bugger off.
He’s a Bearded Dragon trying to be a fence post. I swear I could feel the vibes .
