The Ghostgum Chronicles

Its what you do …

Its what you do when the weather is inclement and you have a new camera to play with.

A quick sortie between wind squalls and showers, and a dozen or so clicks later you return home, fire up the computer and see what you’ve got.

Here are two examples, both of which are only showing about a 10th of the full image. Both show impressive detail in shadows and highlights in a potentially difficult high-contrast lighting situation.

I’m impressed. The new camera, a Sony NEX-5N, with an 18-55mm zoom and a 16mm prime lens, is an amazing little camera.

Light, versatile and easy to use, it handles tricky lighting situations with ease. Focus is swift, the shutter impressively smooth and fast (thanks to its mirrorless design), and initial results indicate it is a keeper.

Rather than list its technical capabilities I’d refer you to this review which says it all.

I’m looking forward to putting it head-to-head with my Nikon D100.

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Wall of green

This splendid wall of green overlooking the Meander River at Deloraine was taken through the back window of Madam Plush early this morning.

With office views like this, and the gradual return of energy following the traumas of the medical dramas earlier this year, I am beginning to feel rather restless.

A lot of ideas have been simmering through the fog of surgery and recovery, and I’m looking forward to some new creative adventures.

It could be interesting …

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Back for Summer

While waiting to board the Spirit of Tasmania ferry in Melbourne yesterday afternoon, the temperature sat above 33°C. It was also humid, and a large thunderstorm was building up in the west.

I was not a happy camper, high temperatures and muggy weather did not suit me at all and I was looking forward to a change of scenery.

After an uneventful, very calm crossing, I knew I was back in Tasmania this morning when I hit a coffee shop in Latrobe for an early breakfast and captured the scene above of a young German backpacker cosily rugged up for the weather.

She had been camping and bushwalking for the past five days and was quietly tapping out a series of long emails to friends and family concerned about her whereabouts for the duration.

She was also annoyed with her former male companion who had reneged on the classic Overland Trek just 5 hours into a three-day hike.

“He was a wimp,” said this waiflike young lady, “I thought I’d be struggling to keep up with him, and instead it was me who led the walk until he quit.”

She said she would make sure she did the trip before her visit to Australia was over. In the meantime her goal was to catch sight of the elusive platypus in the wild. With her determination I don’t think it will take long.

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Nature’s cure

Been camped next to the freezing snowmelt waters of the Ovens River near Bright for nearly a week and I am convinced it has restorative powers.

True, the camp might simply have coincided with my ongoing recuperation, but I’m giving Mother Nature the nod.

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Dead River Beach

Despite its ominous name Dead River Beach is a delightful, peaceful campsite on the Victorian side of the Murray River.

It is a popular stopover for river travellers — lone kayakers, groups of schoolchildren on rafts, motley convoys of river craft travelling together, and the usual hoon or two in a beer-fuelled tinny.

Behind the campsite was a small brackish pond where one evening I spotted a pair of wild ducks and their dozen young. Unfortunately I ran out of ‘film’ on my digital camera at the crucial moment and captured this less than ideal exposure of the family outing.

Two days later the adults were back, but without any of their brood, likely taken by foxes.

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RIP Steve

For decades I have made a living as a publisher, journalist, author, photographer, web designer and blogger.

At the heart of all these ventures for the last quarter of a century were my Macintosh computers — starting with the Mac Plus in 1986 with its 8Mhz processor, 800Kb floppy drive and tiny mono screen.

Over the years many iconic Macs came and went through my small enterprises and all played a major role. They made the ventures viable and profitable, and were always a joy to use.

Today, they are still essential tools as I travel full-time across Australia. They include the MacBook Air, a stunning lightweight powerhouse, the iPad 2 (a wonderful machine for web browsing, reading, email, and a multitude of other tasks made possible by magical apps), and my iPhone 3GS — a miniature computer with more power than the computers that sent man to the moon.

The genius who made them possible was Steve Jobs, the enigmatic CEO of Apple who sadly died this week at the young age of 56.

The wonderful products he inspired were more than technical marvels of the computer age — they were magical for their users, powerful creative tools … agents of change.

In Steve’s own words:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

And a prescient quote from his famous commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.

It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

The logo silhouette of Steve Jobs was created by Jonathan Mak, 19, a Hong Kong student.

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Getting along swimmingly

From a distance, the wake coming across Numurkah’s Broken Creek looked like a snake at first, but its course was too direct. A platypus perhaps, but again too determined, and the platypi I had observed before always left a meandering trail.

Grabbing a camera I trailed the creature as it cruised ahead along the bank of the sluggish creek.

I froze as it changed direction and headed my way. No platypus had short spiky ears like this. It spooked and dived and as its brown body disappeared I saw its white-tipped tail.

It was Hydromys chrysogaster — the Australian water rat, once trapped for its fur, but now a protected species and making a comeback.

Its body length, not including tail, can be up to 40cm, and our mate shown above was pretty close.

The species have partially-webbed hind-feet, water-repellent fur, and abundant whiskers.

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Surrounded by the past

Thought I’d head off about noon today, but was cut off at the pass.

One by one, from mid-morning on, an amazingly eclectic collection of classic and vintage cars began to surround my Mt Franklin campsite.

One that caught my eye was the 1927 Double-T Ford truck, above, that came from Kyneton. It started its working life trucking fruit at Harcourt.

There are about four dozen so far, and they’re lovely. Spotlessly clean and polished, and lovingly restored, they indeed evoke fond memories of a different era.

Madam Plush has even been sharing in the glory as the other campers flock over to view them.

Of course, my fickle friends, the Guinea fowl, immediately made a beeline to a 1950s Studebaker and preened themselves in its mirror-bright hubcaps.