Cartoon of the day ! – Michael Leunig - 21-02-2014

Leunig cartoon – The Age - Melbourne  21 February

Mount Gambier – South Australia 20-02-2014

The Blue Lake – Mount Gambier

Due to calcite precipitation when the lake warms during the summer – the lake is a deep blue.

Artist  George French Angus  -  Mount Gambier with one of its volcanic lakes - 1846

Photo shows the floor of this crater was filled by a shallow lake that had a ‘leg of mutton’ shape. With falling water table levels over the last century, the original lake has disappeared. This has occurred to a number of small crater lakes in the area.

 

Weeping Eucalyptus and seeds

Mount Schank youngest volcano in South Australia 15-02-2014

A line of volcanos – the oldest having erupted about 20,000 years ago

Artist George French Angas     In his 1844 journal describes Mount Schank ‘Heaps of black cellular lava lie at the base of the crater, which rises very abruptly from the plain to an elevation of about 700 feet: the outer sides being clothed with grasses and scattered over with she-oak trees ….’ 

 

Mount Schank taken from our campsite. This volcano last erupted 4500 years ago, hence its eruptions have been reported by the Bunganditji  people, and woven into their Dreamtime Legends.

 

View  part way up the slope of Mount Schank – underlying the plain is limestone, an ancient seabed.

Rim pathway and native grasses ?

Mount Schank crater - looking benign

Sheaoaks growing on the rim again, as recorded when the first Europeans arrived

 

Black Box – A beautiful tree with a dark, rough fissured bark similar to a cork tree.

 

Black wallaby seen in this area of South Australia

Lower Glenelg National Park – Victoria 12-02-2014

 

Limestone banks - Glenelg River

 

Female Superb Fairy wren  feeding young                        Male of the species

 

Possum with black bushy tail

Yellow breasted Robin

Trundling along –Echidna with golden tipped quills

Glenelg River

Polperro and Kingsand – Cornwall UK 08-02-2014

Photo  Brian Morgan

Polperro Harbour  - waves overtopping inner harbour wall! In the distance sits the Old Netting Shed (stone construction ) and rocky outcrop overlooking the main entrance to Polperro Harbour.

  

Kingsand Clock Tower -  Its balcony hanging on!

Photo Jonny Williams

Engineers removed a balcony from the storm-damaged Kingsand clock tower after it was hanging on with one bolt.!

The balcony provided outstanding views of Cawsand Bay with its small fishing boats, lobster pot buoys and yachts.  Also of Penlee Point, a wooded rocky peninsular with its smuggling history. The Clock Tower has always been a special place, from cream teas in the summer months to yoga and get together functions during the winter

The Great Western Railway line – Dawlish Devon UK 05-02-2014

 

The main railway line from Paddington Station to Penzance Cornwall was severed by huge waves breaking through the sea wall and removing bedrock support to rail track. Dawlish is a very popular seaside town and fortunately the Victorian stone built station further along, has survived!

More Otway National Park - Victoria 03-02-2014

Franklin Beach –  Cape Otway and Cape Otway Lighthouse built 1848 on the horizon

 

 

 

Seaweed                                                                    Dinosaur’s tooth!

Franklin Beach

Cool stringybark forest – Great Ocean Walk

Crayfish Beach  –  Otway National Park

Funnel web spider’s art                                                               Grasses at our picnic spot, overlooking Crayfish Beach

Otway National Park - Victoria 31-01-2014

Coastal Stringybark forest

 

 

Fossilized Mudstones

 

 

Coastal Banksias                                                      Stringybark in flower     

 

                                                                                  Cotton tail grasses?