30 July 2006

Australia All Over

These photographs come fro all over Australia, no theme.

This is a man-made ford ,or crossing, to allow vehicles access
to a settlement on the opposite bank of the Daley River in the
Northern Territory.
The river on the left of the photo is tidal and quite salty, while
the right side is fresh water and a favoured site for Barramundi
to go to spawn, fishermen with spears patrol the crossing at
night during spawning season to spear the fish while they are in
the shallow water and quite vulnerable.
There is a downside to this activity, in that Barramundi are a
favoured food of the deadly saltwater crocodile, while I have not
heard of any attacks on the crossing, it was enough to keep me
from trying out a new fishing method.

During the late 1800, early 1900 era there was an overland
telegraph line built across Australia from South to North, this
project required the building of not only a transmission line but
also "telegraph stations" to pass on messages along the line.
The most Southerly of these stations was at Eucla, a tiny remote
settlement on the SA/WA border, due to the encroaching sand
dunes this is all that remains of the Eucla Telegraph Station,
In a relatively short time this will also be swallowed up by
those unstoppable sands.

This is Jim Jim Lagoon ( or Billabong) in the Kakadu National Park,
in the
Northern Territory, The depression in the foreground is a
Buffalo wallow, formed during the wet season when this area would
be under water for 3/4 months.

Water buffalo were introduced to Australia from Asia as a beast of
burden, when released into the wild they bred into large herds
it
was unfortunate that they contracted and spread TB into the
NTs
large cattle industry, the buffalo (and the cattle) were all
shot to
stop the spread of disease to the rest of Australia
during the
1950s.


This is the Mt. Tom Price iron ore deposit in the Pilbra in north
West of WA.

There are millions of tons of this almost pure iron ore in this
area, so pure is the ore that it needs to be mixed with some dirt
from the overburden to be on specification for export to Japan.
The development of this resource has led to the building of huge
deep water ports, several sizable towns and a huge rail network
between the mines and the ports.


This is Mt Connor, located only 30 miles from Ayers Rock (Uluru)
it is often mistaken as the first sighting of the Rock by tourists
travelling to the Rock. This tabletop mesa is however not a
monolith, so is not similar to the Rock
in anything but location
and similarity of size.

3 comments:

Merle said...

Hi Peter ~~ I see some new pictures and they are nice and the billabong is my pick. Thanks for your comments, I
do hope that this is the last we hear of Kathy's finger - 3 surgeries in 7 weeks.
And you reckon it was Colin the Chinese. I notice you have 2 different sized prints here. I wasn't game alter mine, as I thought it was decided to use
just one. Take care, Merle.

Jeanette said...

HI Peter
Nice photos and comments of your travels, the only one i recognise is Kakadu.I shall return to see more .
Take Care, Jan

Anonymous said...

What wonderful pictures and stories. Crocodiles would sure scare me off! LOL

Thanks for sharing - hope you have a wonderful day!