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.

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.

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

Posted via email from Watershed Lite

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

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.

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.

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

As I type the last few drops of rain are falling on the verandah. A storm just crossed the Illawarra coast. There was quite a great deal of lightning. I managed to capture one bolt. I left the shutter open for 10 seconds and narrowed the aperture.

Not too high tech or professional but it worked, at least for the photograph above. I have played around with the photography of lightning in the past. I am quite happy with the photograph below. After that shot was taken I went inside. The storm was too close for comfort.

Last weekend Shao Ping and I took our Taiwanese homestay student Jenny and her boyfriend Ho Yen for a drive. We went north across Sea Cliff Bridge via the Grand Pacific Drive and up to Bald Hill to take in the view of the Pacific Ocean. We then paid a visit to Sri Venkateswara Temple which is located south of Helensburgh.

It is a beautiful temple. I shall be posting more photographs over time. The temple’s history goes back to 1978. The temple’s web site has a gallery of excellent photographs. We also had our lunch at the temple. We ate some prata with a rather nice curry plus some masala tea. Very nice indeed. I took a few photographs.

A couple of weeks ago the students of our school participated in a walkathon to raise money for several charities. The students walked along the southern shores of Lake Illawarra to the mouth of the lake where it meets the Pacific Ocean. The journey there and back was about 13 km. I took 23,748 steps according to a pedometer.

During the walk I took a few photographs with a small Casio digital pocket camera. I photographed the Illawarra escarpment. I was standing on the eastern shores of the lake and, pointing west, took a few photographs of the escarpment. I stitched a couple together using Photoshop Elements. To make up for the differing exposures I adjusted the levels slightly. The yellow spot on the Google Map above marks my approximate position.

Simply click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the panorama [4703 x 959 pixels at 72dpi ~ 1.7mb]

This afternoon Shao Ping and I took our homestays Jenny, Aya and Shiho for a drive to the ocean in order to view the high seas. We have had quite a good bit of rain during the last two days. I captured a quick movie of the seas.

Recently Bill Kerr wrote a thoughtful post on the Cotton wool culture. This is a culture in which children are mollycoddled by society and kept out of harm’s way. His post was inspired by an article in the Guardian, ‘Kids need the adventure of risky play‘ [print]. I commented on Bill’s post and he responded with a selection of related links which I have listed at the foot of this post.

The article in the Mail online, ‘How children lost the right to roam in four generations‘, is particularly telling. It sets out quite clearly how from one generation to the next children are not roaming as far as their parents and grandparents. The article also mentions how walking through parks and gardens can reduce stress levels. It mentions that adding plants to your environment can also reduce stress. Recently, news that the German government plans to ban the Kinder Surprise chocolate egg as they pose a health risk to children has also generated comment regarding the cotton wool culture.

The view from our home in Bellambi looking towards the Pacific Ocean back in the 1960s.

Now, when I was seven our family moved house to a place called Bellambi. Between us and the ocean were open areas and an old rifle range that was rarely used. There were beaches, creeks, rock platforms, bush tracks and large sandhills.

The same stretch of road in 2008. Open space replaced with houses.

It has been turned into a suburb now. One end of our street was actually a dirt road back then. All that free space has largely disappeared. This Google map shows the area today.

Where I roamed as a young boy. Click on the map to view a larger map with a scale and labels.

As kids we would roam around the area. There was so much to do and so much to explore. We would go fishing, swimming, sliding down the sandhills on cardboard or sheets of masonite, look for bullet shells, let off fire crackers, search for geckoes, build massive sand-castles and so on. We would be gone all day, returning home at dusk. No worries, no fears. [We even smoked cigarettes at times, something I never took up thank goodness. You could buy a packet of Rothman's Tens for 21 cents. We would look for empty drink bottles. The bottles were worth three cents each. Seven bottles could buy us a packet of cigarettes. We even smoked at primary school in Year 6 at St Columbkille's when we were on incinerator duty.]

When I was eleven years of age I began riding my brother’s bike around the area. Peter had recently resurrected his old bike and I was keen to learn how to ride the old thing. When I turned twelve I received a Speedwell bike for my birthday and the area in which I roamed with my siblings and friends extended regularly to seven or more kilometres. I remember riding up the hills of Corrimal to the home of my good friend, Robert.

Even before that I used to ride my Cyclops scooter to the home of my friend Peter in Corrimal. At the age of 10 a group of us climbed Brokers’ Nose, on the escarpment west of the Illawarra. My sister and I rode our bikes from primary school on the highway in Corrimal all the way home to Bellambi. Sometimes we even walked home, a journey of several kilometres, if we missed the school bus. We were aged 10 or so at the time.

Things have certainly changed. How far did you roam as a child? How far did your parents and grandparents roam? Would be happy to read your own stories…

Perhaps this could be a meme, How far I roamed as a child… Would you like to help me get it started?

Addendum: Today I was interviewed by ABC radio here in the Illawarra. One of their interns discovered this blog post yesterday and arranged for an interview with Nick Rheinberger during the ‘Mornings‘ show. The interview went live to air as I was teaching my Year Eleven Ancient History class. The interview covered such points as real versus perceived dangers, the degree of violence in the world, the role of the media, taking risks, and the debate over to what extent one should allow children to freely roam. At the conclusion of the interview I returned to teaching. There was a talkback session on the topic with the general public on the radio afterwards. I am hoping to secure a recording of that as I was not able to listen. I shall add links and audio as they come to hand. I added some more links below.

Links:

Bill Kerr ~ Cotton wool culture; just the facts about online youth victimisation; 5 or 6 dangerous things you should let your children do [inspired by..]

Ted Talks ~ Gever Tully: 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do

The Guardian ~ Kids need the adventure of ‘risky’ play

Waraku Education ~ Playing with stuff

Sydney Morning Herald ~ Charlie Brooker: Egg the youngsters on so that life tastes better

Sydney Morning Herald ~ Surprise ruled bad for health

BBC ~ Analysis: Rearing children in captivity

Times Online: Children who have everything, except freedom to play outside

Mail Online: Children who play unsupervised, turn out fitter and more sociable, study says

Spiked: Don’t blame parents for ‘Cotton wool kids’

Times Online: Help! How afraid should I be of stranger danger?

Lenore Skenazy: Free Range Kids

Times Online: Let ‘cotton-wool kids’ hang out on the streets

Times Online: Our cotton-wool kids

Telegraph.co.uk ~ The danger from our ‘cotton wool kids’

Telegraph.co.uk ~ Get a life and take sensible risks, says safety chief

Guardian.co.uk ~ Cotton wool revolution: Instilling resilience in children is a vital lesson but only makes sense in a supportive society

UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis  ~ The Capable Project 

UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis  ~ Children who play unsupervised are fitter

Babies online ~ Unsupervised Play is Good for Children

HTI ~ Cotton Wool Kids

Times Online ~ ‘Bring back the conker fight to re-educate cottonwool kids‘

Spiked ~ Unwrapping the ‘cotton wool’ kids

Updated the Year 9 and 10 history pages last night. Added some links relevant to the local and national sites studies currently being undertaken by the students in those years.

Year Nine History links

Year Ten History links

Some of the sites are worthy, others not so worthy. The students will provide feedback on that. Included some Wikipedia entries as well. Referencing WIkipedia does not always go down well in some academic quarters. Often the external links at the foot of a Wikipedia page are useful.

I shall encourage the students to suggest more links. If you would like to suggest some local Illawarra History site or Australian historical sites of national interest please comment below.

Last Sunday I paid a quick visit to Bulli Beach. It was a sunny morning and I was able to take a few photographs of the rocky shelf.

This post was sent to the following accounts via email simultaneously: Wordpress, Flickr, Twitter and Posterous.

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted by email from Watershed (posterous)

Addendum: The post and gallery above was more of an experiment than anything else. I set up seven digital photographs. Each was 650 pixels wide. I emailed them to my Posterous account as attachments and by using a dedicated Posterous email address I was able to simultaneously create this blog post, an elegant blog post in Posterous with a slide show, a gallery in Flickr as well as a Twitter alert. All with a single email.

The only problem that took place was that the seven photographs were each resized to a width of 500 pixels for the blog post in Wordpress. I have a narrow custom template and as a result it was thrown out a little. I manually resized each image to a width of 400 pixels. Normally I would not upload the seven images to a blog post as above so this is not really an issue for me. This feature in Posterous is not even a day old as yet and I am sure it will improve. Posterous continues to amaze.

This afternoon about 1.00PM the skies opened up and we experienced a hail storm. They are not that unusual in our region. The storm passed and there was a lull. Then there were a few claps of thunder and a second hail storm began. This was quite an intense storm.

Sootie went outside to investigate despite his initial fright with the thunder claps. He took cover under the barbecue but when the storm was finishing he decided it was all too much and raced back inside. Shao Ping and I took a few photographs and some movies on the Casio digital camera. I took a screen shot of the weather radar. The storm came up from the south.

How did I create this post and the gallery? The digital photographs in the gallery were taken with a Nikon D70 and a Casio digital camera. The video was taken with the Casio digital camera as well. I resized the digital photographs to a width of 650 pixels using Adobe Photoshop Elements. I auto corrected the colour and levels of each image. Finally each was saved using the Save for web… option in Elements. This option gives the user a great deal of control over the quality and file size of the image. I created the gallery using the Create Web Photo Gallery… command in Photoshop Elements. I converted one of the supplied templates to one that matches my web site. A little clunky but it works.

The combined file size of the two original video files was 67mb. I opened each in Quicktime Pro, added one to the other via a copy/paste and saved the combined file using the Broadband Medium setting. The size of the output file is 2.1mb.

The screen shot of the weather radar was named and saved using Sharpshooter. The image above is a collage of four of the gallery images. I created a blank Photoshop Elements file with dimensions of 400 x 266 pixels. Resized four of the gallery images to 200 x 133 pixels and dragged each onto the blank photoshop file canvas. Then saved it using the Save for web… command. I uploaded the files to my host using Cyberduck. The blog post was created using Wordpress. All of this was done on an Apple MacBook Pro 15″.

Several weeks back, after driving home from my sister’s home in Cowra, my wife and I decided to stop at Mount Keira and take some photographs of the storm clouds out to sea. As we stood there taking in the view a storm blew in from the north. It was just before sunset and a specatcular rainbow formed. It was one of those rainbows that was clearly defined and quite bright. Managed to capture a couple of photographs before the rain reached the lookout. That is the Pacific Ocean in the distance. The city of Wollongong is also visible.

More photographs of Mount Keira over at the “Adventurers’ Club”:

Mount Keira Gallery
Mount Keira Adventure

How did I create this post? I took the photograph with a Nikon D70 and uploaded the image to the MacBook using a USB2.0 card reader. I backed up the original image and opened the duplicate in Adobe Photoshop Elements.  I used the Clone Stamp Tool to remove some imperfections in the image. My camera needs a clean. I adjusted the levels [Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels...] to bring out more colour, particularly in the sea. I resized the image to a width of 400 pixels and a dpi of 72dpi for display in this blog. I saved it as a jpeg using the Save for web… option in Elements. I then uploaded that saved image to my host using CyberDuck. Of course the blog post was created using Wordpress.

Shao Ping, Lucia and I drove across to the Nan Tien Temple this afternoon. Shao Ping will be conducting some Mandarin lessons at the temple commencing July. We checked out the projection facilities.

We then took Lucia for a tour around the temple. We have been there many times. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere. I have photographed the temple before and the images are included in this gallery. The weather was brilliant today. Deep blue sky airbrushed with wondrous cirrus clouds.

How did I create this post? The photographs were taken with a Nikon D-70, uploaded to the MacBook with USB 2.0 card reader and processed with Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. I resized each image to a width of 400 pixels and a resolution of 72dpi. I adjusted the levels for some of the images to highlight the light and shade. Sometimes digital images seem a little ‘flat’ and playing with the levels can alleviate that lack of ‘depth’. These processes are debscribed in a guide, step by step. Available in pdf format. Download the images referred to in the guide from this page.