Thoughts on teaching, technology, learning and life in an era of change.

Archive for the ‘ Illawarra ’ Category

Eerie red dust storms across New South Wales
September 27th, 2009

This week I experienced something for the first time in my life. During last Wednesday morning the Illawarra region, as well as most of New South Wales, experienced an amazing dust storm.

The dust storm had its origins in South Australia and reached the coastline of New South Wales not long after sunrise. The dust had traveled more than 1400 kilometres (about 880 miles). It was an eerie experience. The orange and red glow streamed through the curtains and I immediately grabbed my camera and went outside to diocument the experience.

The Sydney Morning Herald has created a site dedicated to the event and there is also a Flickr group ~ The Red Sydney Project The Dust Storm Days. I took the first nine photographs on the morning of the 23rd September 2009, from my home, of the suburb in which I live. The final five photographs were taken three days later on the 26th September when a less substantial dust storm also crossed the region early in the morning. The sun was nicely filtered by the dust. A display of fourteen images can also be viewed over at my online gallery.

Dust Storm NSW September 23rd 2009
Looking west from our home
Dust Storm NSW September 23rd 2009
Looking towards the south-east
Looking towards the north-east
Looking towards the north-east
Looking towards the East on Saturday morning
Looking towards the east on Saturday morning
A battle in the sky above Australia
May 16th, 2009

During the night the Illawarra coast of NSW experienced gale force winds as a low pressure system and a high pressure system battled to the south and east of the continent. I awoke during the night and literally cleared the decks just to ensure that some of the outdoor furniture decided it suddenly preferred life in the kitchen via the rear windows.

There were some very strong gusts early in the morning, well before sunset, so I climbed out of bed, got dressed, brewed some coffee and sat out by the back deck to observe the impact of the wind. I felt it was a good idea to keep an eye on our home and those of our neighbours just in case any decided that they wished to shift their location to one east of their current position.

As I sat and waited for the coffee to finish brewing I observed that some of the higher altitude clouds were beginning to show hints of red as they captured the rays of the sun which was still well below the horizon from my perspective on the ground. I grabbed my camera and took a number of photographs of the clouds to the west, south and east. Those shown are not in any chronological order. It i simply the order in which I resized them.

 

Frog waiting patiently
April 14th, 2009

This is a small frog that I spied upon in our garden. He is waiting patiently.

 

Posted via email from Watershed Lite

Pacific Ocean by Windang Beach
April 10th, 2009

Shao-Ping, Mary and I have been beachcombing down at Windang Beach. It is a great afternoon. A change is on the way.

 

Sent via iPhone from the sea-shore.

Posted via email from Watershed Lite

Evening clouds
December 1st, 2008

Evening Clouds 1

Late this afternoon, as the evening approached I went outside to see check the extent of the cloud cover in the western sky. I was hoping to photograph an interesting astronomical alignment of the moon, Jupiter and Venus. As I write this I am still hoping.

Evening Clouds 2

Anyway, the sun was setting and the I felt the sky looked quite spectacular. There had been some brief showers that afternoon. I grabbed my camera and took a few photographs. I noticed that the light from the sun was bending through the icy clouds generating some nice prism like effects. Hope you enjoy them.

Evening Clouds 3

Thought I might add this photograph I took of a sunset a few weeks back.

Sunset over the Illawarra