Trees Give Us Peace and Serenity

I had been feeling the need to visit some more trees. There is nothing like being among the tall gums trees of the Australian bush. Often the colour of these trees is not bright green but a dull, muted, blue-green, the colour of the Aussie bush trees. 

We went on a road trip for a few days to visit some trees.

We found some tall gum trees with grey-green foliage along the Murray River. They were offset by the bright emerald green of the lush grass. 

Along the Campaspe River we found some young trees just starting to grow. These will be beautiful, large trees the next time we visit them. 

The trees also also stand in their stark splendour against the evening sky.

You might also like to see the kookaburra that befriended us while on our trip. 

Friendly Birds

We have just met some overly friendly wildlife. We visited Moama and Echuca, towns on opposite sides of the Murray river, the dividing line between Victoria and New South Wales, two south eastern states in Australia. 

We stayed in a lovely cottage with very friendly birds. 

 This lovely Kookaburra sat on a tree near our unit most of the time we were there. Every now and then he would fly down and catch a worm from under the grass.

Kookaburras are known for their wild and loud that they make. Koo koo kaa kaa koo koo kaa. It sounds as though the birds are laughing. The sound echos through the Australian bush.

This lovely fellow was so friendly. He came up to 30cm or 1foot from my feet. These birds love meat. I had a meat pattie left over and broke it into little pieces. My friendly kookaburra enjoyed it bit by bit. 

My kookaburra had a friendly rival for the meat pattie. It was a magpie. This cheeky bird visited inside our unit on three separate occasions. He visited every room in the house and even checked out under the couch. Here he is strutting his stuff in the kitchen.

A Visit to China

A couple of years ago we were lucky enough to have a month in China. 

Chinese Architecture

I just love the architecture of the beautiful temples. We were at one temple where they were building a new temple in the grounds. With the detail being used, you would think the temple was a thousand years old. People in China love to visit their temples.

A Chinese temple

Chinese Colours

Chinese people love the colour RED. They like sparkling gold also or a rich deep yellow to go with the red.

My husband and I both love to do art. He likes to do woodblock printing. A design is carved out into a piece of wood, printing ink applied, then it is pressed onto a piece of paper. He uses many carvings and many colours of ink in one print. This is very complicated. If he makes a mistake there is no going back.

Many years ago when he was in China, he was given a Chinese name. That is now his signature on his prints. 

A Visit to China

China is a place to be visited. Although we have not visited the big cities like Shanghai or Beijing, we have been lucky enough to visit some other areas in the country and some smaller cities in the south east of China.

The smaller cities in China are not what we would call small but are the size of our major cities here in Australia.

We visited many temples. They are very beautiful and have such wonderful architecture.

A temple in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China

It still feels incredible that I was standing in this temple to take this photo in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province.

Fujian Province is on the eastern coast of China. Taiwan is just across the sea from there. Fuzhou City is the capital city of Fujian Province.

We took planes, long train rides, many taxis and buses in our journey. The train rides varied from the fast train between Fuzhou City and Xiamen in a brand new fast train going at 200km an hour to a long ten hour ride in and out of the mountains. There would be a few seconds of sunlight then we were back inside a mountain again and again and again.

A train ride is certainly a way to see the countryside in China, passing through the cities, country towns and farmlands. It is a big country.

Although Fuzhou is a large city of 5 million people, it is not a place where international visitors frequent and we were the subject of many photos - like thousands.

If you get the chance to visit this wonderful place, take the opportunity. We were lucky enough to be taken there by a good friend who comes from this city and is used to travelling in the country and so we saw the real China.

We ate in the streets with the people, we bought local food from the ladies who plied their food on the buses when they stopped and we ate fish balls out of an old steaming tin can off the back of a bicycle in the city.

We visited the back alleys, had foot massages, a hair wash and cut at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon (oh, so different to home). We ate at countless restaurants from the flash and expensive to lavish meals at 10am to McDonalds - again, so different to home.

After four and a half weeks we were ready to return home with lots of good memories.

Free Wallpaper for your Laptop

Recently I made some wallpaper for my laptop, you know, the pretty pictures you see when you turn on your screen. I thought someone might like to share it too.

Its a photo of the beautiful beach at Airey's Inlet a small community along the Great Ocean Road along the southern Victorian coast. We are talking Australia here.

The size is 1920 x 1080, 884Kb, just right for a laptop.

Here's the link in Flickr. Hope you like it.

While you are there you might check out some of my other photos.

Cheers

Sunsets in Winter

Here in Australia it is the middle of winter. We were driving along the highway to visit our granddaughter for her birthday - happy birthday young lady - when we saw this beautiful sunset.

We could expect to scenes like this in summer, but not in winter.

Twenty minutes later the colours had changed as the sun went further down.

I take lots of photos through the tinted window of the car as we speed along at 100 kilometres an hour. Some photos don't work so well but there are always a few that do. They get a lovely blurry look to them as though they were painted in pastel. I quite like it.

Enjoy!

Weather Patterns

July in southern Australia is probably the coldest month of the year. Usually there are grey skies, lots of rain and very cold weather.

Well this year the weather patterns seem to have been turned upside down. The last half of June was beautiful weather. We had warm days, some up to 18 or 19 degrees Celsius, just unheard of.

In July we visited northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. The weather was very cold at night but very sunny in the daytime. Some days we had to take our jumpers off because we were so warm.

Arriving back to the southern coast of Australia again did bring a chill to the air. Our southerly winds blow directly across Bass Strait, the large stretch of sea between Victoria and Tasmania. Beyond Tasmania the sea rolls down to the Antarctic where it is below freezing all year round.

So yes, it can be brisk living here but also invigorating. The air is always fresh with a salty tang to it.




Murray River from Barma, New South Wales

The Murray river, above divides Victoria from New South Wales. We captured it here on a lovely sunny day in July where it was meandering past a small country village in NSW.