Month: October 2012

Australia · Changes · daughter · Mount Warning · spring

Ten Minutes of Sunset (and a wet kookaburra!)

Joanne11 Comments
5:52 pm

The rain crashed suddenly onto the car as I drove south along the M1 Motorway. Sitting beside me in the passenger seat was my daughter Emma. She said nothing at all and I didn’t dare look at her although I could feel the tension in my girl, as I struggled to see the road.

At first, I wasn’t sure whether the loud crashing was due to millions of huge raindrops on the car, or hail. It could have been either.

5:52 pm A close up of Mount Warning in the south-west. Yes, there’s a mountain behind those clouds!

When Emma did speak, all she said was, “we can’t even pull over mum, we’re on the freeway”.

She was right. The visibility of the road ahead was perhaps two metres, we couldn’t pull over safely, freeway or not, as I couldn’t see to find a safe place to park for a while, whilst we waited for the deluge to pass.

5:53 pm, the southern sky.

I continued to drive, oh so carefully and ever so slowly. I knew Emma was scared; so was I.

Our exit off the freeway seemed to take forever to arrive and thankfully, by that time, the rain had eased slightly, so I could actually see our exit! We could have ended up having to continue over half an hour further south on to Byron Bay. Not that Byron Bay isn’t a lovely town to visit, but please, not today, not in this weather!

5:53 pm Looking directly west.

Five minutes later, (after we had reached our destination!) the rain had stopped.

Showers of rain continued on and off for the rest of the day, but nothing anywhere near as ferocious as the rain Emma and I had driven through, for perhaps ten minutes, on the freeway.

5:55 pm Mount Warning has been completely hidden by the clouds.

Late in the afternoon, when safely home and standing in my back garden, camera in hand, this is the series of photos I took, which also spanned a ten minute period of the day.

5:55 Looking south again, the sky is changing rapidly.

Did we need to endure the sudden colossal downpour a few hours earlier in the day, to be rewarded by this amazing sunset? I suspect we did, as I don’t remember ever having seen the sky on fire in such a beautiful and magnificent way!

5:57 pm Mount Warning is completely hidden behind the clouds.

In some of the photos you will notice Mount Warning peeking through the clouds here and there. Mount Warning is an extinct volcano and has been there for as long as time. I can imagine the sunsets that the mountain has seen over the years.

5:57 pm Within moments the view has changed again, and the top of Mount Warning is just peeking through the cloud mass.

These photos are straight from the camera, just as I took them, no editing other than reducing the size to download them here. This is the colour that I saw, standing in the garden, shivering, after what had been a sunny and pleasant morning. Isn’t it spectacular? I just had to share these with all of you.

5:59 pm Hello Larry!

And look who came to visit, just as I was about to head back indoors to the warmth of the house!

6:00 pm As Larry and I enjoy the fading sunset.

One poor, wet, bedraggled kookaburra. This is my very tame friend, who I have named Larry, due to his Three Stooges hairdo!

6:01 pm Here’s a close up of Larry. He really is very tame and will take bacon rind from my hand. 🙂

I would like to think that Larry was there to enjoy the sunset with me, but in all honesty, I have to admit that I know he was there for the bacon rind I feed him!

6:02 pm As the night sky overtakes the incredible hues of the setting sun.

I wouldn’t have missed this sky show, only lasting for ten minutes, for anything.  🙂

Australia · ducks · photography · spring

Weekly Photo Challenge ~ Silhouette

Joanne14 Comments

Two days ago I visited a park in Tweed Heads, which you may recall visiting with me in May of this year. We walked over the bridge and had a wander around beneath the shade of the trees, looking at the river with all the boating activity, the picnickers under the trees, and the mangroves.

When I returned the other night it was just on nightfall and the photos I took were totally different to those taken in May. Included in my nighttime images was a silhouette of the jetty, so different to when we saw it during the day in May, with the activity of boats coming and going.

Silhouette of the jetty, with not a boat in sight.

Just before I reached the jetty I noticed movement on the grass and when my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, there I saw six Australian Wood Ducks, out for a moonlit stroll in the park.

You may remember my handsome pair of wood ducks who have visited my back garden during the winter, turning my swimming pool into a winter duck pond!

Six little ducks went out one night….

It was such a beautiful night, just a slight cool breeze and overhead the moon peeked at me through the silhouette of a tree.

Hello Mr. Moon! Hmm…or is that Mrs. Moon?

A blipfoto friend in England told me that our Australian moon is upside-down to the Northern Hemisphere moon! I didn’t know that, and always think the moon is smiling down on the world when it looks like this.

Yesterday morning, when my email arrived in my inbox, announcing that this weeks WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge was “Silhouettes” I was delighted, the timing couldn’t have been better!

It was meant to be…. 🙂

Australia · birthdays · blessings · Changes · gratitude

Happy 100th, Joe!

Joanne22 Comments

It was on this day, one-hundred years ago, that the first child was born to Percy and Esther Kelly, exactly nine months to the day after the young couple were married.

Today, Andrew Edward Joseph Kelly, better known as Joe, turns 100 years of age.

After Joe, Percy and Esther went on to have another eleven children. They had eight sons and four daughters, and Joe has outlived them all, except for one.

Joe’s youngest sister, Irene, is twenty-one years younger than Joe, and along with other members of the family and some longtime friends, celebrated his birthday with him last Saturday night in Sydney.

My husband wouldn’t have missed his uncle’s one-hundredth birthday for anything. Let’s face it, it’s not often in one’s lifetime you have the privilege of knowing a person who has reached such a grand age!

The year of 1912 is well remembered as the year of the sinking of the “Titanic”. George V was the King of England and the Commonwealth of Australia was a mere baby of only eleven years old.

It was in 1912 that Australia saw its first air crash. The Commonwealth Bank was established with Australia’s Prime Minister of the day, Andrew Fisher, being the first account holder at the bank.

The Maternity Allowance was granted to new mothers in 1912, giving them a five-pound “Baby Bonus” upon the birth of a child. I guess Joe’s mum just missed out, with him being born on October 2, and the allowance being introduced on October 10!

Uncle Joe would have seen many changes during his one-hundred years; the progression of cars through the years, aeroplanes becoming common place in the skies, the opening of The Sydney Harbour Bridge, the introduction of television and so many other wild and wonderful inventions that have changed the world!

And speaking of cars, Joe still has his driver’s licence! I was very surprised to learn also that he has only had his licence for the last fifty years. Driving around the streets of Sydney is not for the faint-hearted, so he is doing very well indeed!

Before my husband headed off to Sydney for the birthday celebrations, I asked him to find out if Joe had received a “telegram from the Queen”, as I recall that being a highlight for those who reach this wonderful age.

What Joe did received was a letter from the Queen, and the Governor General, the Prime Minister, the State Premier, the Federal Member of Parliament and the Local Member also!

He even received an O.B.E! ~ Old But Everlasting, signed by Father Time and Mother Nature….how wonderful!

You’ll have to excuse the poor quality of the photos of the letters, as they were taken with a mobile phone, but I’m sure they will be clear enough for you to see the mail you can expect when you also reach one-hundred!

In a lovely gesture, to mark the occasion himself, Joe presented each of his five children, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren with a 1912 Australian penny.

I don’t know what everyone else thinks, but I believe that to reach the age of one-hundred, in a fit and healthy state, still living in your own home, and having the independence to drive yourself about is something to strive for!

Happy birthday, Uncle Joe, and wishing you many more years of good health to come!! 🙂