Tag: Nature

Eclectic Corner: Edge

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The scariest edge I have been on is in the Taihang Mountains in Central China. We were visiting the Guoliang Tunnel—hand made over  5 years by 13 men to connect the village of Guoliang to the outside world. Prior to this they were living on the edge with only a sky ladder to physically take every thing up.  The tunnel itself is described as one of the scariest roads in the world and the video shows why. You can see the edge at every twist and turn.

 

 

China 1-9-13 G Tunnel 210

http://eclecticoddsnsods.com/2015/04/07/eclectic-corner-9-edge/

 

 

Share Your World – 2015 Week 14

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What type of music relaxes you the most or do you prefer silence?

I love silence. Working in mental health I spend most of each day talking so the days  I come home to no one and can control the noise even for 15 minutes are a blessing.

Show us a two of your favorites photographs?  Explain why they are your favorite.   If you are not a photographer, think of a two favorite scenes in your life and tell us about them. 

20141227_095952

I love this photo I took on a moving dog sled ride in Canada last year. It shows the beauty of the area and the action of the dogs as they excitedly pull our sled.

My second choice today is in contrast—it is taken on Hyam’s Beach on my birthday last year. It too was a peaceful way to spend time with nature.

012 - birthday girl getting wet feet

 

What is your favorite tradition? (family tradition, church tradition, whatever)

My extended family has a colour theme for Christmas every year. It is voted in by all members of the family—there are over 30 and once the colour is chosen everyone dresses in the  colour theme. No excuses.  My sister who is queen of Christmas baubles, decorates her house in the colour theme matched with contrasting silver or gold. It is a great day and some of the clothing is outstanding. This years theme is berry—any colour you can find in a berry is allowed. The photos below are from our – 50 shades of red theme – a few years ago.

 

If you could go back and talk to yourself at age 18 what advice would you give yourself?  Or if you are younger than 25 what words of wisdom would you like to tell yourself at age 50?

Follow your gut instincts and believe in yourself. You know what to do and your life will be a success. Accept who you are and don’t worry about if you are going to be popular or not. Your unique personality makes you popular where it counts and the rest is often fake and doesn’t matter.

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

Last week I was grateful for the inspiration on ways to move my chapters around and make them flow better.

Next week I am looking for ward to remembering 100 years of the ANZACS on Saturday.

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/04/06/share-your-world-2015-week-14/

G – Goanna #A-Z Challenge

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Last month while on a road trip around northern New South Wales I saw a goanna in the wild for the first time. My husband and I had pulled into the car park at Minyon Falls when I excitedly noticed the large goanna in the middle of the picnic area. She appeared to be pregnant and was not disturbed at all by the people keeping their distance and taking her photo.  It was a great experience to see such a beautiful creature in her natural environment. We were actually doubly blessed that day as we saw a smaller goanna on the path back from the falls however this one was nervous and scurried into the bush at the sight of people.

Goannas are the common name for Australia’s monitor lizards. There are about 25 species in Australia. Ours was a Lace Monitor, the second largest species growing up to 2 metres— the size of ours.

Goannas

  • are predators
  • can run fast over short distances
  • have loose skin round their neck
  • have sharp teeth and long claws
  • can climb trees fast
  • range in size from 20 cms to 2.5 metres
  • are dark in colour
  • lay eggs
  • have oral venom glands
  • have mistaken humans as trees and run up them when under threat
  • are protected in Australia except indigenous people who have traditionally hunted them

The true irony of us finding—Joanna the Goanna—was only the day before friends of ours were telling us about a showdown in their back garden between a snake and a goanna. Result goanna 1 snake 0. Now we understand why. The snake wouldn’t have had a chance.

Weekly Photo Challenge:Afloat

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This week, show us what afloat means to you.

My inspiration for this weeks challenge comes from Lotus Square, Xuanwa Lake, Nanjing, China. Lotus Square is an entertainment area of the park covering 5000 metres and can accommodate 3,000 viewers. It has a musical fountain as well as water and lasers screens.

The centrepiece of the area is 12 metre high Lotus Fairy and 4 charming naïve Lotus Boys—surrounding her are masses of Lotus plants in various stages of life floating above the lake. As an Australian the beauty of this area was different to anything I had seen before. It was relaxing and inspirational.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/afloat/

My Places

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Beach, mountain, forest, or somewhere else entirely?

To me connecting with nature is healing. I attempt to do it everyday even if only for 5 minutes. It clears my head. Any form of nature will do—smelling a flower on a short walk or a day trip to the beach or mountains. I love them all. As a child I spent many hours at the beach as well as walking in the bush so both have pleasant memories attach.

The higher my intensity of stress the more I will ensure that I take time out of my day to walk barefoot on the grass for 5 minutes. My other easy to go to places  are the river, Sydney harbour, local parks or wetlands—all are close to my work or home.  Half an hour in the silence does the trick of dealing with my stress nicely.

Last Christmas we wanted to experience nature in a different way and left sunny Australia for the cold winters of Canada. While we enjoyed our time there, it was only our last week that allowed us to experience the force of nature in this way—snow and ice. The first 5 weeks were above average temperatures and it was the first green Christmas in over a quarter century. Our proof that mother nature is to be enjoyed not controlled—she will always win.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/places/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Orange

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Time for another multi-photo challenge! Wow us with punchy pops of orange.

Orange isn’t a colour usually found in my photos however, most of these were taken on our recent trip to Canada. Surprising how much colour could be found intermingled with the sky’s grey. The cake and biscuits were made by my niece Laura for our family ‘Sunshine’ themed Christmas.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/orange/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reward

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What does reward mean to you?

Last year on my birthday I was rewarded with a walk along Hyam’s Beach. Situated on the pristine Jervis Bay Marine Park, New South Wales. Hyam’s beach is recorded in the Guiness Book of Records for having the whitest sand in the world.  The water is spectacular—crystal clear—with a blue-turquoise coloring.  The beach boarders on Booderee National Park, which gives it a natural feel. I loved the stream.

It was an amazing winters afternoon—complete with a pod of dolphins and friendly rainbow lorikeets that we watched for an hour—a truly beautiful part of the world. The only thing missing was a my celebratory glass of champagne.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/reward/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Rule of Thirds

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 This week, compose your subject off-center, obeying the Rule of Thirds.

For this weeks photo challenge I have chosen photos taken last winter when kookaburras decided to visit our yard on separate occasions. Taking the photos was a challenge as I didn’t want to scare them off, but wanted to get up close enough to use the rule of thirds. For a beginner photographer I was happy with the results.

Kookaburra sits on our back fence

 

Kookaburra sits on our house trim

 

 

Two visiting Kookaburras

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/rule-of-thirds/

https://mutafariqkhayalat.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/my-best-of-feb15/

Blue Mountains – Australia

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What’s your dream tourist destination — either a place you’ve been and loved, or a place you’d love to visit? What about it speaks to you?

The beautiful Blue Mountains are located 60 kilometres from my home in Sydney. For this reason I don’t take my annual holidays there but like to visit for a weekend getaway with my husband. I love the peace and ruggedness of the area that includes rare and endangered flora and fauna. Blue Mountains are also home to some of Australia’s greatest writers and photographers due to the serenity and beauty of the area. People find it truly inspiring.

The mountains get their name from the colour they appear to be when the sunlight mixes with the oil from the eucalyptus trees that cover the area. There are 91 species of eucalyptus trees here—13% of the global total. This is one of the many reasons that in 2000 UNESCO appointed the Greater Blue Mountains Area World Heritage Site—14th in Australia. This area encompasses 7 amazing and individual National Parks some of which I have not yet explored—Blue Mountains National Park, Wollemi National Park, Yengo National Park, Nattai National Park, Kanangra-Boyd National Park, Gardens of Stone National Park and Thirlmere Lakes National Park.

The above photos are from our last visit and are from the Mt Wilson area—six weeks after devastating bush fires had raged through. We were excited to see that new life was emerging.  Internationally Australia is known for its beautiful beaches but just as important is its natural bush land very different to other parts of the world. If you ever get the chance come and spend a few days exploring any part of our beautiful Blue Mountains—they are so large you won’t be able to cover it all—do so as you will be greatly rewarded.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/tourist-trap/

Clone Myself – Never

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If you could clone yourself, how would you split up your responsibilities?

My life is fairly balanced now—I don’t want a clone. I have spent fifty years trusting my own decisions. I am not about to give over any of my responsibility to a duplicated version of myself. Yes, there are parts of my life I do not like—commuting to work—however, changing this, changes my whole life. I wouldn’t even give this job to my clone as what I do on the train makes up who I am—writing, reading and sleeping.

If I am running short of time to do the things I want—I realise it is time to reassess and prioritse what is important to me. I believe you can have time to do anything if it is important enough to you. I wrote a third of my book on my daily commute. Although now, editing doesn’t work as well on the train.

Now I am looking at ways to make sure I get enough exercise in each week. I haven’t come up with a definitive plan yet but handing this responsibility over to a clone is not going to get it done the best way for me.

The other problem, of course is cloning is an identical copy of my DNA—not of everything I do. My clone would be the age of my daughter unless I was cloned at birth, but would live its own life—like Dolly the sheep—cloned in 1997. For now I will focus on rearranging my time to get what I need done and leave the scientists to worry about the cloning.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clone-wars/