3 posts tagged “south australia”
Adelaide is currently going through a record breaking heatwave. I went to bed earlier tonight but I just couldn't nod off. The two fans in my bedroom are just moving the air hot air around. So I decided to hop in my car and just drive around the city for a while. The airconditioning in my car doesn't work so I wound the windows down. I had no particular destination in mind but I ended up driving through Adelaide's industrial area. I received a text message on my mobile phone. Surprised at getting a message so late at night, I did the right thing and pulled over to the side of the road to find out who it was from. As I was retrieving my phone from the pocket of my shorts there was a tap on the windscreen. I nearly cacked myself. There was a scantily clad woman in her thirties asking me "what was I after?" I didn't immediately understand what she wanted but then it dawned on me. She was a prostitute. I didn't see her standing in the shadows waiting for her next "john". If you could have seen my face I am sure it would have appeared bright red. I apologised profusely to the lady and stated that I was just pulling over to answer the phone. She seemed to accept that. She walked off down the road and I drove off feeling most embarassed.
It has been a while since I have written a personal blog other than to brag about my photographs. Some would say that I have my priorities wrong.
Let me start by telling you that my Nanna died on September 16th, 2007. It was painful to see her withering away to nothing. By the end she made survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp look healthy. I feel guilty that I couldn't do more for her. I also feel guilty that the only way that I could afford a house was to move in to the one that was hers. While I am grateful for the gift, it still hurts nonetheless. While I have more or less moved on, her death is still affecting my Mum. Evidently she still has her down days according to my Dad. I actually haven't seen her happy in quite some time. There is only so much that I can do.
My partner and I have more or less moved in without incident. It doesn't feel quite like "home" yet but I guess that will pass with time. There is a lot that I would like to do with the place such as replace the carpeting, repaint the entire house, buy new recliners, install airconditioning in the master bedroom etc plus a hundred other things. All of this of course costs money which I have precious little of. The ongoing drought and water restrictions has severly affected my business. It is down at least 70% for me. The lack of incoming money has greatly reduced my spending and I proabably should talk to someone about the depression in me that it has created. The things that keeps me going are my partner and my pet project at the moment - converting one of my sheds into a games room and bar. I have bought a small billiards table and dart board as a starting point and I hope to buy at a later date a foosball and/or a air hockey table. They seem to be cheap and readily available on eBay, however they are always in another state. The cost of a courier would negate any savings that I might make by buying second hand. I have also put several advertising signs up (Marlboro, Coca-Cola, Holden, Chiko Rolls etc) plus several dozen licence plates from Australia, the United States of America and Canada. I am hoping to buy more over time and basically fill one whole wall of the shed with them. I have an obsolete South Australian taxi plate coming which I am looking forward to displaying. Once upon a time ago I used to collect Coca-Cola memorabilia. I had a huge collection which was estimated to be the largest in the state at the time. I sold it many years ago through auction but I kept a few pieces. These items are now displayed in my games room. Like the licence plates I will proabably add to it over time. I still need to clear out some junk - most of which belongs to my Dad - but he has promised to clear it out within in the next few weeks.
Coming up on two months ago we were given a kitten. He was eight weeks old at the time and is now approximately sixteen weeks old. Described as being black he is actually black and grey. We called him "Merlin". In hindsight, "Fang" would have been a more suitable name. However this name is already taken by my pet python. He has had his shots for seemingly every disease known to man however he is too young to be desexed. That will happen when he is about six months old. He is a little terror. One minute he can be nice as pie and next he is biting your hand off. I reckon he is bi-polar. I am hoping that he will calm down with age. For the moment I will just have to get used to his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine.
In early December my partner and I took a short break and went down to the South-East of South Australia. It was sort of to make up for the disastrous photographic trip that we took in late 2006 (see my earlier blog from that time). This time around it was a lot more satisfying. We took my partner's new Honda Jazz instead of my rapidly ageing ute. We took turns in driving. It was a pleasant drive and the Honda performed very well depsite that it has only an underwhelming 1.3 litre engine. Having not driven a lot of front-wheel drive vehicles before I noticed that it understeers to a point. I don't particularly like that, but then, I don't have to as the car isn't mine. We set up base at Robe. Robe is quite nice. It was central to the places that I wanted to visit plus it is an easy drive to get to. The motel that we stayed in was quite nice. It had a pool and spa plus a cooking area which we used a couple of times. There was a state government owned truck parked in the lot for the time that we where there. While that in itself was nothing to be concerned about, it was the fact that it was embblazoned with several radioactive nuclear warning signs that had me worried. Since Australia has no nuclear facilities other than the one at Lucas Heights, New South Wales, the only thing that I could think of was that it had something to do with medical isotopes.
We visited Robe's famous Obelisk several times plus the windfarm near Millicent and every scenic town in between. The flies at the windfarm were unlike anything that I have ever seen. There was quite literally a swarm of them following my every move. I only spent several minutes outside of the car and I spent the rest of the afternoon eradicating them from inside of it. It was a lot better at Southend and Beachport. The weather wasn't too warm and there was a nice breeze coming in off the ocean. I would have liked to have stayed another couple of days but I had to go back to work. Our next visit, whenever it may be, will probably be to Kangaroo Island.
I mentioned before that my business is struggling. Because of this I have actually applied for a job in a different industry. He hurts me greatly to admit that my business has seemingly failed but I have to move on. We all need money to live so I will start looking around for other work. I am now actually earning more through stock photography however I cannot live on it. I would like to work full time in something to do with photography. We'll see if anything crops up.
Christmas Day is usually quite a hectic day for us. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we would have have to visit everyone. It is a very tiring affair. This year was different though - everyone came to us. It was nice to stay home for once. First up was my folks. I cooked up rainbow trout which was marinated in a honey mustard marinade on the barbeque. I was absolutely beautiful. I am always nervous about cooking fish however it turned out a treat. My partner spent the day before making salads and cooking filo pastries and little treats. My Dad brought over some prawns so it was quite a seafood feast. This Christmas I think I will try Atlantic Salmon. It is beautiful eating and reasonably priced. My parents left after lunch and my partner's parents arrived just as they were leaving. I have an uneasy relationship with my future father-inlaw for reasons I will not divulge here. On this day nothing happened nor did I expect it to. They stayed for and hour and half or so. It was the first time that they had visited our place and were seemingly quite happy with it. I did expect them to pick out some minor yet noticeable defects with the house however they said very little about it. When they left, my partner's brother and his finance came over. They took it upon themselves to invite a friend of theirs. I was annoyed by this as it would have nice to have been asked first. However I like the person in question, she brought with her food and drink and she didn't stay long anyway. We spent the night playing eight ball, darts and video games. They stayed over the night and finally left the following evening. We indulged a bit too much and dirty dishes that we had proved it. I seemingly took a week to clean them and then there was New Years Eve to come!
On New Years Eve we decided to invite some of our friends over. Understandingly, not everyone invited could attend however we had a nice group show up. I was very annoyed that one our friends decided to use most of the time talking to my partner about his personal problems. I thought it was not the place nor the time. However I digress. We spent the night playing snooker, eight ball and darts. Later in the night my partner's SingStar titles came out and put on my PlayStation 2. One of our friends whom I will dub "V" scored amazingly high for Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby". It was truly amazing. I as a whole suck at SingStar but I gave it a go anyway. We saw the year in by waving to the passing traffic at a nearby main road. More SingStar was to follow. The last of the people left at 4am. One person stayed over. He works for a surveying company and as a consequence he gets to see some of Australia's truly beautiful scenery. The next day we spent the afternoon looking at his photographs and playing Buzz! More of Nina's friends invited themselves over during the afternoon however everyone had left by tea time.
Well it has taken me over three hours to compose this blog so I should get off my bum and do something else. So until next time, ciao.
I have been in the Mid-North of South Australia for most of the week and hopefully I have taken some decent shots.
looked yet because I am dead tired and can't bothered. Just before the trip the Manfrotto 055PROB tripod that I had ordered finally came in, but the ball head that I ordered at the same time didn't. The tripod is useless without it. I was mightily annoyed at that because I was hoping to use my new legs on the forthcoming trip.It wasn't to be.
I decided to go off the beaten path and explore the region north-east of Burra. There are some amazing sights to be seen but you will need a decent car or 4WD to get there and I was glad that I had my trusty utility. I hired the Sigma 10-20mm lens and went nuts with it. On the first day I found a location in the North Mount Lofty Ranges that I will return to at
sunrise sometime in the future. I think it would look even more spectacular then. The photos that I took will make for some good panoramic images, however I have never tried stiching photos together
so I should be a learning experience for me. The trip didn't go quite as planned as I got lost for a
short period of time. Despite the drought conditions, there was wildlife to be seen everywhere. Everything from kangaroos, emus, sheep, cattle, snakes, shingle back lizards, feral goats and bearded dragons, which for one
very unfortunate soul, was accidentally run over. I thought it was a branch on the road however by the time I realised what it was, I couldn't pull up in time. I tried to steer the car over the little guy but he must have freaked and ran into the path of my back wheels. When I did stop I got out and ran back to it to see if maybe I had just injured it. It looked fine however it wasn't moving, I could feel no pulse and it was bleeding from the mouth. The blood didn't stop dripping. I picked it up and placed it by a nearby bush. I still feel awful over it. People reading this may think I am a pussy but I love animals and this is by far the worst thing I have ever done to one. By the time I had finished the sun was rapidly slipping below the horizon and I was glad for the high intensity halogen spot lights that I had fitted a couple of years
ago for this very purpose. Both me and my partner were glad to see the blacktop again after travelling on some very unforgiving dirt tracks for most of the day
.
When we got back to the hotel that we were staying at, we ordered a nice counter meal, I cleaned my equipment while watching some telly and then we went to bed. We were exhausted.
