A quiet pottering sort of day

The flurry of activity to get some aspects of my life and with it my blog in order has kinda died down a bit but there are still loads of photos to be used to get the great Kimberley journey finished.
Michele is recuperating from her "day surgery",  I am recuperating from nothing other than rushing around pretending to be a nurse, gathering provisions for dinner and for our trip to Rawson tomorrow, while trying to keep out of my mind the trip to the dermatologist and the checking for my own skin cancers tomorrow before we head up the bush for our scrapbooking retreat.
I have mountains of photos printed off, I have some sort of plan for them in mind but will need to access/ download some page plans so that they don't end up in a mess.
I have even managed a little work in preparation for one of the school reviews I am doing later next month.
And given that I haven't taken my camera out today I thought I would pop in some of my photos from the Greece cruise done in April.

A boat on Delos

The poppies on Delos

Waiting for diners

Steps in Stamos

Ephesus

Blue beyond blue

At home in Oz

Things have not eased off at all! But I have this small window of time to try to catch up on at least my blog.

The backyard in Footscray

My plan is to try to back track a little so that the trip I have just been on is documented a little.

I am currently at home in Footscray, Melbourne, Australia and trying to cope with the cold especially after the warmth of Northern Western Australia. The cold kinda seeps through you especially sitting at the computer with the chill creeping over ones legs and arms and eventually the heat making it too you from the heaters in the house.

So why am I here? Other than to catch up and be with family and friends? Some reasons are  for holidays/vacation (school summer vacation in US) other reason is to get the dreaded visa process done. You may recall the anxiety of that two years ago- the memory still lingers, so much so that I went into complete panic mode when it cam time to fill in the forms on line. But thanks to the support of friends and colleagues I managed to get that done and have arrived home from the  US Embassy confident that my passport will arrive in the post in the next few days appropriately stamped and containing my visa so that I can head back to NYC later in August.

While I am here in Victoria I will again be doing work in schools (four this time) so will have some trips around the city and the country.

So the journey continues...

The Bungle Bungles

Great excitement as we headed to our gorges and our walks for the day we passed  or it passed us ... a dingo! Many stories of what the dingo may have taken.

My favourite "dingo" joke  at the time of dingo jokes was the one about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior which goes...
Question-"Do you know who they are looking for the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior?"
Answer- "A dingo with an aqua lung."

And so back to the Bungle Bungles....

First the walk  to Picaninny Gorge

 

Then we got brave and did a helicopter flight- you do not get airsick in a helicopter!

After lunch we headed to Echidna Gorge

The cold showers, the tent, the early get up all were truly worth the joy of seeing this beautiful part of Australia.

Travel from Lake Argyle to the Bungle Bungles

Statement of the "bleedin'" obvious at Ivanhoe Crossing. The Ord River in flood.

We stopped at Warmun (used to be called Turkey Creek). Warmun is one of the main centres for east Kimberley Aboriginal art. It is a small Aboriginal community, 200 kilometres south of Kununurra in far north Western Australia. It was known as Turkey Creek for many years, but has reverted to the Aboriginal name for the area. The main language of the region is Gija. But we only stopped for lunch. The link to the website with details of the history and the work of Rover Thomas, whose photo and details were  displayed in the shop at "Turkey Creek". Some of the art work was on display from the Warmun Community art centre but the art centre itself was closed due to the floods earlier in the year. Reports of the flooding are linked here and the photo is proof, for you in particular Martha, that I couldn't get there and try to buy you your own Rover Thomas art work.
 
However I did sneak a few shots of things.

 Even the rocks in the carpark/parking lot,  were works of art.

El Questro to Lake Argyle

The full moon was still in view as we left El Qustro

We stopped to look at the raging torrents of the Ord River and spotted our first fresh water crocodile

The Ord River surging along

On Lake Argyle the euros came down to the water's edge for grass and water

Sunset and reflections on Lake Argyle

and again

Lake Argyle is part of the Ord River Irrigation System which has transformed this dry region into a lush agricultural oasis.

Day four began with a laze in the hot springs

What a lovely way to begin the day- however one had to arrive early to find a spot in the idyllic hot springs.

A waterfall at Zebedee Springs, located in the El Questro Wilderness Park in the Kimberley of Western Australia. Zebedee Springs is a warm thermal spring nestled in amongst a small pocket of lush rain forest. A very magical place. Visitors can go for a swim in the springs. 


As we were traveling Michele and I were constantly on the lookout for a range of things one of which was trying to get "that" shot which depicted in our minds the view most like a Fred Williams painting.. given that his photos are of the Pilbara and we were in the Kimberley it was a fairly ambitious thing to attempt- made even more ambitious by trying to take the photo from the "truck" as we drove along the ever so bumpy Gibb River Road.

Hopefully you can see why we attempted this.

The other thing that took my fancy was a painting by Lin Onus that I had seen before we came away...

    and then the rocks underwater in this creek just illustrated to me why he painted the things he did.