Camping at Thurra River Camp in Croajingolong National Park, I wandered along the beach and made a video from the view point of a digital still photographer, featuring a log washed up on the beach and half buried.
Tagged Backlighting, Camping, Croajingolong National Park, Landscape, Point Hicks, sand dunes, Thurra Dunes, Thurra River, treesWell, Nicky and I were enjoying one of our camping adventures when Nicky came out with the question “Was Great Grandpa an adventurer?”
Nicky is learning to read the GPS and to plot the coordinates on a paper map, so we don't get lost in the outback.
Well, it’s always nice to be camped somewhere near the toilets. Ya know, ya don’t want to walk too far in the night or even at bed time for that matter.
Pleasing vista of the toilets in the bush at Thurra River Camp in Croajingolong National Park.
The other day my grandson Nicky told me that flys spew on their food and then suck it up.
Nicky has a book filled with this sort of valuable information so I guess that’s where the info came from and I suppose it’s right. I’m guessing that march flys would work the same way. Bite you, soew in the blood and suck up, leaving the reisue spew behind. Well, if that’s the case, no wonder they hurt a bit and no wonder they swell up a bit and take a few days to heal.
Camping at Thurra River, near Point Hicks, in Croajingolong National Park in Victoria’,s East Gippsland, I had an experience with march flys that beats all other march fly experiences I’ve ever had.
There were a few march flys at my camp which was a couple of hundred metres inland, in the bush. About as many as is normal when march flys are bad. Ya swat the odd one and get on with it.
It was time to head to the river with soap and shampoo for a clean up after two days camping in summer weather. So off I went with my bucket, towel and bare minimum personal products.
On the beach, the march flys were worse as I headed along toward the mouth of the Thurra River, maybe half a kilometre.
On reaching the mouth, I managed to get across the small, tidal inflow crossing the sand bank, with the biggest waves salting up the fresh water, the Thurra River having stopped running due to the continuing drought conditions.
As I approached the bush beside the river, the march flys descended on me in hordes, my bare legs and arms a target for their bites, spew and feeding.
I’ve never seen so many march flys at one time in all my born days. It was not difficult to swat two with one swipe and sometimes I got three. Some stuck to my legs in a mess of blood and guts, while others fell into my boots, the majority falling to the sand at my feet.
The march flys were incessant. The more I killed, the more attacked me.
Finding a suitable spot near the river but a little way into the teatree scrub, I got my boots and socks off and waded in for a bucket of water.
With my gear off I was a proper target for the march flys and they took full advantage.
Wetting my skin down didn’t help but the soap beat the march flys.
There must be something about Palmolive Gold that march flies don’t like. Maybe it’s the taste or the smell, or maybe the soap suds get up their nose and they can’t breathe. Anyway, as long as I stood there, all wet and soapy, the march flys kept their distance, but as soon as I rinsed off they took to me again.
Well, as you can imagine, all sweet and lovely, I got dressed as quickly as I could. I wrapped my towel around as a skirt to protect my bare legs a bit and got going. March flys followed me along the beach, attacking my bare ankles and feet as well as my arms.
On arriving back at camp I hunted through the stuff and was relieved to find a bottle of insect repellent, effective for six hours.
The change was dramatic! I recommend Aerogard Insect Repellent Spray – Tropical Strength for march flys.
Ya know, I reckon I killed more march flys in those couple of days at Thurra River and Point Hicks that I have in all my life.
Croajingolong National Park, situated on the Wilderness Coast in East Gippsland, Victoria, houses many access points and camping spots.
My area is around Point Hicks, Point Hicks Lighthouse, Thurra River, Thurra Dunes, Mueller River, Camp Creek, and the surrounding tidal inlets and bush.
Point Hicks, or maybe it was really Mount Everard, about 15 kilometres inland, was the first land sighting of Captain Cook in the endevour. In fact it was Lieutenant Zachery Hicks, in the crows nest, who sighted land and cried “Land a-hoy!”
Tagged Camping, Croajingolong National Park, Point Hicks, Thurra RiverI like a feed when I’m camping!
On this occasion, camping at Point Hicks in Croajingalong National Park in Victoria’s East Gippsland, I had my small caravan. Ah, fridge, gas stove, comfy bed, out of the weather; the comforts of home, almost!
Well, I’d got set up at Thurra River camp in Croajingolong National Park, had some lunch and a well earned rest, and felt like a wander along the beach with the digital camera.
As a small boy, electrical storms frightened me. I’d had a few big frights and had grown to hate and fear lightning and thunder.
I’ve always been an adventurer, ya know. When I was about 14 to 16, a mate and I used to go camping on our pushbikes. This night we had a terrific electrical storm.
Looking out the front of the tin shed, we must have been facing east toward the gully and beyond to the bush on the hill, seen in the Google Earth image.
Camping in Seven Gates Hut at Lake Eucumbene, once again, I made a time exposure image, overlooking Lake Eucumbene and the town of Old Adaminaby.
Time exposure image of Lake Eucumbene and Old Adaminaby from Seven Gates Hut.
With the camera on a small tripod, sitting on the box on the front of the ATV, I cocked my head around on the side to manually focus on infinity.
The aperture priority setting was 6.3 or some such so I reckoned that would be OK.
I guess the exposure was about 30 seconds.
Anyway, this is what I got, looking to the west, half an hour or so after sunset with the new moon heading toward the western horizon.
Tagged Lake Eucumbene, Landscape, Night photography, Old Adaminaby, Time exposure, trees, TripodThe outback adventure and photography trip planned for April 2010 came a step closer with a practice load up of the ute and trailer.
Looks like everything will fit OK. The two bikes and the box fit on the ute tray without too much trouble. It’s a relief to find Nicky’s bike fits in the available space with no trouble.
The box has been welded up to get it in good order and now needs only a few little jobs such as painting.
The ute, loaded up with the two motorbikes and the box. It all fits well.
The box, having been bought from the recycling depot for ten bucks, has about two thirds the capacity of a 6 x 4 trailer filled to water level.
With a measure of security and weather proofing, the box will house the stuff we’ll need for camping during the trip to and from South Australia. It will be somewhere for gear that just won’t fit in the cab on such a long journey. A ute does have it’s drawbacks and this box overcomes some of them.
Inside of the box that will carry quite a bit of our gear.
The small trailer has come together well. I’m keen to have a camping trip to test out it’s loading capability. I’d like to see how easy it is to get loaded up securely. Can’t afford to have things falling out or getting damaged during the trip.
The green trailer is heavy on the draw bar as it is with the orange trailer unloaded, so I’ll need to reorganize that.
With the box right on the back of the ute tray there will be a fair bit of weight on the rear axle so can’t afford to have a heavy draw bar as well.
Two trailers, critical to the photography adventure trip.
The trip, of course, is another of my wilderness photography trips in the South Australian outback, traveling on the ATV (quadbike) with a small trailer for the camping gear.
But on this trip, I’ll be taking Nicky, my grandson, on his 80cc, two wheel bike. It’s quite an exciting time, getting ready for such a great undertaking. I bought Nicky the bike with this trip in mind, some time back and he’s been learning to ride as well as learning to handle the hardship of adventure travel in rough country. Nicky is going well!
We’ll start off at Kootaberra Station, about an hour north west of Port Augusta and head east, past the southern tip of Lake Torrens, via Swindens Crossing, toward Mount Eyre, picking up the track of the explorer John McDouall Stuart.
From Mount Eyre, we’ll follow Stuart to Stuart Creek, near Lake Eyre South, visiting the explorer’s campsites and camping in them where it works in with our travels.
At some campsites I hope to make a cup of tea from Stuart’s waterholes and thus identify with him, Forster and their aboriginal guide.
We’ll be riding about 800km, mostly on station tracks with some cross country.
It really is a thrill to travel country that has changed little since the first white men saw it in 1858.
Walking up the dry creek bed in Aragunnu Creek, the going got a bit tough so I climbed up the rugged bank and headed along through the coastal bush.
Exposed roots of a tree by the creek bank at Aragunnu.
Among the tangled scrub, this tree caught my eye. Nothing very graphically outstanding about it except for the exposed roots making their captivating, random design.
The soft, filtered light of the bush enhanced to scene, the diffuded illumination bringing out the colour and form of the leaf litter strewn about the foreground of the photograph.