We took the boats out at Deadman's Creek this AM - really the first unambiguous day of spring. It's a tributary of the Georges River, as is the usual spot on the Woronora, so the landscape is similar.
It looks beautiful, and it is, but the roar of traffic is omnipresent. It doesn't have the remote air of the Woronora, although looking at the map there probably isn't much in it.
It's about 18 months since the verge garden project, and last spring was a bit early to get the full effect on the streetscape, but now the difference is significant. I need to find some "before" shots to ram it home, but there's no denying it looks a bit more welcoming.
I haven't quite managed to group them all sensible below, but these would be the best eight; there's another nine or so, but they need more weeding! I think there are four of us who take the gardens reasonably seriously, in terms of weeding and mulch and design, plus a couple of others who would like to do more but can't through infirmity.
We were deceived by the technology, which suggested that the clouds would pass us by. Fortunately Liz insisted on wet weather gear (the voice of experience) so it wasn't too bad. Tempted to wait under a bridge, but who knows how long for?
There were a lot of birds - as usual, I didn't recognise many of them. But I think we saw - a greater cormorant, great egret, a white ibis (of course), a random duck, a royal spoonbill and a little black cormorant.
Not my bird pictures! Not sure if I've posted a link to this guy's pictures before - certainly better than mine.
I took the class to Manly via the Spit Bridge walk. They were a bit startled by the distance involved - 9 km - but I guess I do more walking than most. It's a good introduction to bushwalking, as it's hard to imagine that there's an easier walk with actual bush, plus the views are amazing and as a bonus there's Washaway Beach, which only a local is likely to find and involves climbing down a small cliff for added excitement. Additionally, we had a nude bather for the authentic Sydney experience. (The locals are always tearing down all the signs; the people of Balgowlah deserve a private beach.)
For me though, the highlight is the trip home on the ferry. I took this with my "real" camera, and the auto focus got a bit confused, which YouTube offered to fix - hence the dancing bridge.
One of many Red Hands pieces around Sydney - unfortunately I didn't get to take my classes to any of them this time around, partly due to the weather and partly due to injury. Yo have to be impressed by the chemistry that has kept this in pretty much pristine condition for, I imagine, 200 odd years. I doubt much re-touching has been going on since then. There are quite a few other grey/black images, but they are certainly harder to see.
One of the original design studios in the gentrification of Marrickville, Red Dog, has moved on. We picked up a couple of prints in their fairly characteristic blocky style for an acceptable "last days" price, and here's one of them. The flowers are dead, but I buy Liz so few that she usually keeps them well past their use by date. This lot has stood up well.
Vivid, below.
The first picture shows off the new phone technology; it takes two pictures at once and blends them together. What it doesn't do is offer much control over the inset picture - still, getting this kind of stuff right is as much trial and error as it is anything else, so no doubt when I get my next phone in two years time it will all work much better.
We're at a restaurant called Portobello - not clear why - on Circular Quay. Surprisingly they didn't gouge us for the view, and the bill was less than is would have been at our local pub.
These two shots give a fair idea of the "Light" aspect of the festival. There's notionally an "Ideas" and maybe an "Art" element as well, but really the whole thing seems a bit over-sold. I mean, I like colour and movement as much as the next person, and I like a crowd too, so I absolutely enjoyed myself, but I can fairly say that if I had missed it I would have missed nothing, The more serious sides of the festival are under promoted - well, to be fair, since I don't pay a lot of attention to the media, I'm probably a hard person to promote to - to the extent that I missed Pharoah Sanders, one of my all time jazz heroes, performing.
This video, assuming it works, will give a good idea of the crowd. It was shot in front of Customs House. The light show there was perhaps the most pleasing, as it exploited the architecture as well as decorating it, but not amenable to video recording on a phone,
I was very impressed at how well the camera coped with the low light - I have a famously shaky hand, as well.
Finally, MCA looking like a 1980's arcade game. Kind of appropriate!
