Burnum Burnum

Standing at water level at Burnum Burnum reserve in Woronora, looking up at the hill with the same name. It looks a bit like a giant staircase, the sandstone blocks surprisingly squared, and the tree trunks as balusters. I was surprised, given that the lens is pointing at the sky, that it took a 1/70 second exposure at f3.5 to get this shot. When I have the option, I always try to shoot at much faster speeds to minimise the effect of hand shake. I knew I wouldn't be running today (trying to nurse a sore hip through to next week's big run) so I took down my little point-and-shoot Fuji. It's only defect is a lack of manual focus, but otherwise there's not much

you can't play with.

On other shots of the river taken previously, you might have noticed the power lines that parallel the freeway bridge; I always do. Burnum Burnum is the hill that the pylons are attached to on the north side of the river. There's a nice set of tracks up and around the hill, but I suspect many of them were started by the engineers and technicians who put these in. Like all the best engineering, they're simple and elegant in their own way. Presumably the green and white insulators have different functions.

It was a cold crisp morning. The left channel is the main Woronora; the right branch terminates just out of shot at the Sutherland Canoe Club. Liz had a paddling lesson there from one of the great Australian paddlers, Joan Morison. Amongst the extraordinary number of  her extraordinary achievements is the completion of her 26th Hawkesbury Classic (remember, 110 kilometers at night) at 81, in 2012. She's well worth a google. She died last week, so she's on everybody's mind.

The view NNW is of Illawong.

 I just can't resist these shots. Irritatingly the auto-focus has picked out a leaf in the extreme lower left, but it's not too bad.

It's been wet here for the last two or three days, so there are a lot of fungi around.

This picture was intended to illustrate the amazing number of grass trees all at very similar stages of development - I imagine because of a major fire through here around 15-20 years ago. However, looking at it now, I can't see a single grass tree - only the charred tree in the foreground (and the charring is not at all obvious in the picture) with the substantial uncharred re-growth that underpin the speculation about the date of the fire. Anyway, take my word for it, in every picture except this, tens and tens of Xanthorreas