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We’ve been here a bit over a month now. Time has been weird, it’s only a month but it feels like forever. I suppose I’m feeling this way because, I haven’t been working so a lot of my days have been spent pottering around the house between mercy dashes to The Bakery or 8CCC Cafe for ice lattes and a quiche or croissant. We’re basically finished with the house. We scored a great couch the other day, so now we’re in the position to to have folks over! (Though, I did break the mattress on our folding couch putting it away the other day, so I’ll need to sew the velcro back on to that.)

In the last few weeks the weather has taken a turn. It’s no longer a sun blasted and dry 40ºC every day, but overcast, 30º and humid. I preferred the dry heat. The change is here with some spectacular weather: Desert storms! The lightning has been great to watch too, lots of sheet lightning turning the clouds a purple-tinged blue. The Todd, normally just a sandy riverbed with pockets of water hiding under the surface stuck on the shallow granite bedrock, has closed a few low lying roads. Even the Stuart Highway is closed north of town.

On the evening of the day that the rain started we got a message from one of Nat’s workmates saying the river was up. We immediately ran down to have a look, I regret leaving my tripod at home but managed to get a few snaps I like nonetheless.

Nat and I have also found the energy to get out into some nature and go on some walks now that we’re not spending most of the weekend looking for, or building, furniture. We went for a walk at the Telegraph Station, leaving a little later than ideal. We missed the tour, but that might have been a good thing because it was a bunch of boomer tourists (one of whom looked right at us while cutting in front of us in the line for the cafe only to end up arguing with the poor staff member over a single bottle of water). 

After finishing up the museum we had a walk in nature, just south of the station. We saw a few red kangaroos, my first time seeing them in the wild! They’re so much bulkier than eastern greys. And look those luscious lashes, no dust in those eyes! 

I also spotted two wedgies in the river. I think they also spotted Nat and me stopped and gawking slack jawed at them because they didn’t stay long after I whipped out the camera. 

After we spotted the wedgies, we continued down the riverside path and were treated to some absolutely lovely views.

Back closer to the Telegraph Station, I stumbled upon a rather more bold butcherbird and ring neck in the same tree. Ring necks seem to have a similar squeaky demeanour of the rainbow lorikeets that give evenings in Melbourne a constant low-level hum of bird chatter. Earlier in the day I’d spotted a pair of grey-crowned babblers, but didn’t have my camera out. I’m so happy to out with the camera again! The heat of January really sapped my creative energy. 

After the telegraph station we went for a look at town from Anzac Hill and were surprised with an amazing view of some rain rolling in. It made for some very dramatic photos!

We also got a walk in on Valentine’s Day while we were headed to a pool party at the Gap View Hotel. We took a path following the river, doing our best not to slip on the still mud-covered path. We got heckled by a few groups of kids out enjoying the water, including one danger seeking kid who seemed to be looking for permission to do a flip into 20 centimetres of water. It’s so lovely to see how the river brings people out.

I cannot wait to get out into the ranges to see some waterholes and all that beautiful nature that’s currently off limits to us because of the flooding closing a lot of the roads.

I’ve been progressing with my move away from Adobe, I just can’t justify the ever increasing cost anymore. I’ve trialed a few freeware options, digikam for photo organisation and importing, and Rawtherapee and Darktable for RAW processing. I have no complaints about digikam at all. It does everything I need it to: Put photos in folders labeled with their capture date. The RAW processing programs I’ve been trialling are not working out so well.

RawTherapee isn’t behaving on my system, refusing to update several settings and recognise updates to file locations, so I’ve benched it for now. Darktable is a very powerful piece of software, when it isn’t crashing. It’ll take a lot of getting used to because of the vast difference to Lightroom, but I think it might be worth it. The few hours I’ve but into poking around and trying to replicate outputs have been fascinating! So many tools and options you just don’t get in Lightroom. However, as I mentioned before, it crashes a lot. I haven’t lost any work because of it, but it is really annoying. 

I’m thinking I might have to give DxO Photolab a go. DxO are a French company (a nice change from the American domination of software), the noise reduction tools get rave reviews (something I’m very interested in given my often high ISO astro and birding), and it’s not subscription based. It is about $350 though. I’ll see how I go with a trial, but I’m worried I’ll like it too much and have to spent money on it. 

I hope to get onto some film scanning soon too. I have a much better macro lens just arrived in the post, weeks later than I’d hoped. Infuriatingly it was available for shipping when I ordered it. I haven’t had an explanation or apology from the shop yet, just a “heads up” a full two days after placing the order letting me know it was delayed. I’m basically ready to get back into some scanning now, though I might need to track down another piece of anti-Newton ring (ANR) glass (or something similar) for flattening film. In the last 5 years the cost of ANR glass has exploded, what I bought on eBay in 2020 for less $100 is now about $300 if not more. I might have to roll the dice on AliExpress. I’ll start posting some film roll blog posts if I can remember anything about the roll! There’s some from the USA and Canada trip I took with Nat in 2024 in there, and that’s some of the more recent rolls I’ve got to get through!

Next on the list will be picking up some new developing chemicals to get back into processing my own black and white film. (I’ll leave the very temperature sensitive C41 developing to the pros with automated systems.)

Technical aside, I’ve found I’ve really settled into a style lately. I’ve been poking around with some film emulation presets, editing and improving them to my liking. I’ve got the polariser back on my landscapes camera, making plant life and the sky pop a lot more. 

I’ve also managed to get back into some painting. The local hobby shop has a paint and build night I’ve managed to make it to a couple of times, I see myself becoming a regular. The scene here is much more focused on smaller and more narrative games, like Necromunda, Mordheim, Kill Team and Infinity. I’m not up for getting into a new system, so I’ve been working on some Kill Team appropriate models I have with me; an Inquisitorial Retinue and some Navy Breachers. I’m enjoying the different models and colour scheme, the grey and orange of my Space Wolves was getting to be a bit boring! These are a couple of work in progress minis, a Navis Endurant and a Servitor, there’re a few touchups, particularly on the metal, and the bases to be done: 

The crew there are also starting a Mordheim campaign I’m keen to get in on. I’ve cracked out a few Gloomspite Gitz I’ve had kicking around for a while and will get those into a state I feel comfortable bring out in public over the next few weeks. I love these Gitz, they’re funny little guys who love getting high on mushrooms and rampaging across the land when the moon is out.

While taking a break from getting this post sorted I locked myself out of the house and bruised my ribs when I slipped while climbing in over our back fence. So, I’ll end this here and go lay down on the floor in the lounge. I’ll just have to hope I can get back up again when I get hungry.

I’m currently sitting in the office of our new place in Alice Springs with the evaporative cooling (known locally as swampy) up as high as it goes. The outside temperature is 40ºC, the same as every day since we got here. The heat is ever present, it’s in the bricks of the house and in the water. A cold shower is anything but here. We drove up from Melbourne over the course of six days about two weeks ago now. The drive was a wild mixture of emotions; stress, awe, boredom, relief. 

Day 1: 

We left on a mercifully cool day after a scorching 45ºC in Melbourne. We had our lives packed up in the car and trailer. Our first leg was a short two and a half hours to Ararat to stay with Charlie’s parents, Jenny and Russel. It served as a good, and very necessary, test run for pulling the full trailer. Our fuel economy was shot, somewhere around 20 litres per hundred kilometres. We were pulling the equivalent of a small car behind us after all! With a little bit of care (and taking over from the cruise control to accelerate a lot slower) Nat kept it down at 15-16 litres, which was far less scary as we’d actually make it between all the road houses on the Stuart without any spare fuel now (we carried a bit just in case).

In Ararat I could finally slow down enough to think about the future beyond packing up the house. I looked at a photo of the car and trailer that Liv sent through, and had to write something about how it made me feel at the time: 

So, I had to try to get to sleep with that rolling around in my head. I did have a little space to reflect on the community we have in Melbourne coming out to help us. Everyone helping out was so lovely. I love them all. They’re good people, great people. I’m going to miss them all a lot. Caitlin, James, Cat, Charlie, Olivia, Daniel, Shannon, Mads, Amelia, and more I’ve no doubt forgotten in the haze of packing stress. 

Day 2:

The drive from Ararat to Moana, on the outskirts of Adelaide, was uneventful but beautiful. We stopped at Nhill for an iced latte, pie, and a leg stretch. We also stopped in Keith for a few photos because it’s just a funny town name. Keith. We took a route through the Adelaide Hills off the main highway and got some beautiful vistas of vineyards. We had been through so many cute little towns that I’d love to stop in at and explore. After pulling up at the caravan park, and settling into our room, we hit the beach for a bit of gentle evening sun and a stretch. We were immediately surrounded by seagulls. We grabbed dinner at the closest open restaurant then headed next door for some local beers at the Prancing Pony brew pub (we didn’t see any hobbit sized rooms). 

Day 3: 

We started the day with a trip to pick up some emergency fuel supplies (a jerry can and mount of the trailer) then hit up a very well reviewed sandwich shop. Then we hit the road to Port Augusta. We stopped at Snowtown for a bit of grim tourism snapping a photo outside the murder bank, amongst other buildings and a big ol’ wind turbine blade. We stopped at Port Pirie for petrol and a selfie for Nat’s mate who used to host a show on the region’s ABC Local. The rest of the drive through to Port Augusta was quiet, but with beautiful views of the very southern tip of the Flinders Ranges. We spent a bit of time by the pool in Port Augusta and cobbled together some dinner from some bits acquired at a mercy dash to Woolies before they closed. 

Day 4: 

This was our big scary day with a 264 km stretch with no road houses/petrol stops. We had a few stops to make before that part though. We went to the rocket park in Wimmera and had a look at parts of the museum. Ten years ago I think I’d have been much more interested in the rocketry and planes, and had some sense of pride that we’re doing this in Australia. However my politics have changed significantly and the engineering nerd within me is silenced by the part of me that says “maybe we shouldn’t be making missiles and warplanes? Why not spend that energy making things that aren’t solely designed to kill and maim?” Here are some photos though, because the rocket park itself is such an oddity!

After Woomera things got flat. Spotting a tree became our game, everything was knee high shrubs. Eventually these shrubs gave way to tailings piles and warning signs about unmarked mineshafts. We were in opal country. I tell you what, the miners have utterly ruined that sensitive beautiful desert landscape, and for what? Shiny wet silica. Leave it all in the ground! I regret not taking any photos of this, but to be fair to past me: It was 43ºC outside. So hot that the transmission fluid temperature warning light would come on 20 minutes from Coober Pedy. Fortunately, we just needed to pull over and idle for 5 minutes to cool it off enough to get to our accomodation.

I tried to get some cool photos of the inside, but the lighting was no good and my flash kit was very buried in the car. I settled with cracking out the 150-600 and got some telephoto shots of the distant hills in a series of panoramas.

One thing Coober Pedy has going for it is that it’s DARK. I got some great photos of the night sky out there testing my new-ish 85mm f1.4, Orion and the Large Magellanic Cloud. 

After a bit of standing around in the warm night, I retreated back inside to watch some Fisk before bed.

Day 5:

We got moving a bit late and found some coffee. It was okay. We weren’t overwhelmed with options as most of the town was closed for the off season. After sucking back our iced lattes we went to a gallery/kangaroo rescue but were informed by the very sour proprietor that we were 6 hours early for the viewing of the joeys (this time wasn’t advertised anywhere). We also dropped in at an opal mine museum and got a bit of the history of Coober Pedy. The town is named for a phrase used by the local indigenous folks that translates roughly to “white man’s holes” and was said to carry a subtext of “why are they living there?” which I totally understand. Most people were on tank water carted into town until the 80s. Tap water there is amazing though because it all comes from a reverse osmosis desal plant. Just the free section of the museum was very informative and had lots of fossils (and casts) that’d been dug up over the years. I couldn’t help myself and bought a tea towel with an unmarked mine shaft warning on it. 

Day 6: The final stretch 

At this point in the drive everything was a blur, the standout here was when we had lunch at Kulgera. I had a great beef burger, and Nat tried the camel! Camel is like lean cut of lamb, it’s got that grassy metallic flavour. 

We got into Alice Springs and manically unpacked the car so Nat could go to Bunnings and buy us a trolley so we could move the fridge and washing machine. Despite the 40 degree heat, we got everything inside and in place without much of an issue! We hit the Club Eastside for a celebratory pint (or 4) and a schnitty. We have been back there at least twice a week, it’s a cool place with an interesting cross section of the community. We’ve met a few cool people there too! 

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting settled, taking myself on morning walks before the temperature climbs over 35, and moving all of my photo library and processing workflow out of Adobe and into some open source/free tools: Digikam for file management, Darktable for RAW edits, and Affinity for astro stacking. Also, building this new website! I hope to get out into some nature with my camera soon, but it’s just been so very hot lately. The cabin fever will get to me and I’ll be out in the 40 degree heat looking at birds soon enough.