Pearses Bay Blairgowrie for Sunday Best

 

You may well grow weary of my sunset photographs from Pearses Bay in Blairgowrie, yet it remains the most convenient refuge whenever the weather softens and the winds permit. With Joel away in Adelaide for his weekend concert, I have embarked once more upon my solitary wanderings. Earlier, I accompanied my mother as she browsed the latest round of house auctions, drifting from one prospect to the next with quiet curiosity.

Meanwhile, a measure of discord has arisen from my recent contract work: the hospital has declined to honour the agreement even after the tasks were fully completed. It is, perhaps, another expression of the familiar tyranny of bureaucracy, a reminder of why the health system here languishes in such unwell condition. I have had to call upon my agent to advocate on my behalf, for fairness seldom comes unbidden.

And so I return to the shore—to the calm, to the last light spilling over the bay—where the day ends with more grace than any institution can muster.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sunday Best

Cormorant for Saturday Critter

 

Each time I returned to Lakes Entrance, that long, salt-edged breath of water along the Victorian coast, a familiar silhouette waited for me. The cormorant—dark as ink, slender as a brushstroke—was always there, perched on a weather-beaten post or gliding low over the tidal shimmer. It felt less like a sighting and more like a quiet reunion, as though the lake itself had appointed this sentinel to greet those who remembered its rhythms.

Lakes Entrance, with its winding channels and brackish lagoons, is a realm shaped by water and constantly rewritten by tide and wind. Here, the air trembles with the calls of pelicans wheeling in broad, lazy arcs, and the sandbars are stippled with the quick steps of herons and sandpipers. Swans carve slow crescents across the mirrored surface; egrets stand as pale exclamation marks against the reeds; and in the hush between waves, you can sometimes hear the soft clatter of wings lifting from the shallows.

And amid this congregation of water birds—this feathered parliament of the lake—the cormorant remained my constant. A single, faithful note in the wider music of Lakes Entrance, turning each visit into a small homecoming, as if the lake whispered, You have been here before. You are remembered.

Linking Saturday Critter

Maldon Night Sky for Skywatch Friday

 

Another photograph emerges from my earlier endeavours to capture the Milky Way arcing over the night sky of Maldon—a small Victorian town whose silence after dusk seems made for stargazing. The Milky Way hangs there like a memory etched in light, undisturbed by the slow breathing of the land below. Standing beneath that celestial sweep, I recall a decade-old exchange: my tentative enquiry with the local hospital about employment, and their firm insistence that only the most renowned specialists in the country were fit for service in this quiet town. It felt an irony of scale—a remote settlement with modest economic activity aspiring to impossible standards—one that gently closed a door before it ever opened.

Time, however, has a curious way of circling back. Over the years, invitations and requests to provide services here have drifted my way, as persistent as the evening breeze that moves through the gums. And yet, I find myself declining, not out of resentment, but from a quiet shift in purpose. I have come to prefer observing Maldon rather than working within it—studying its contours through the lens, not the clinic. These days, I arrive only with a camera, drawn more to its stories than its needs.

Maldon itself is a place where history does not lie dormant; it glows softly beneath the surface like embers of an old fire. During the gold-mining era of the 1850s, this was a town alive with feverish promise. Its hills, now calm and draped in native scrub, once rang with the clatter of picks and the rumble of quartz-crushing batteries. Tents rose like temporary dreams, shops and hotels sprang up overnight, and fortunes were made or shattered in the dust of a single day. The goldfields carved the character of Maldon—its wide verandahs, its brick shopfronts, its still-standing chimneys—and left behind a heritage precinct now cherished for its rare preservation.

By daylight, the remnants of that past lie scattered across the landscape: abandoned shafts, rusted machinery, and slopes reshaped by human determination. But under the night sky, these relics recede into silhouette, and Maldon returns to a kind of primordial quiet, older even than the gold rush. It becomes a meeting place of eras—the ancient light above and the colonial history below, with my camera simply bearing witness.

So I wander through the town not as a clinician, nor as a would-be specialist, but as someone content to capture what remains when ambition has faded: the curve of a starlit street, the loneliness of an old mining headframe, the way the Milky Way spills over Maldon as though blessing both the glory of its past and the gentle obscurity of its present. Photography, here, feels like the truest work I can offer.

Sony A7RV

FE 16-35mm f2.8 GM

Linking Skywatch Friday

Mount Cook in New Zealand for Water H2O Thursday

 

There are countless photographs from my journey to New Zealand earlier this year that remain unshared, held back like quiet memories waiting for the right moment. I remember the scene with clarity: a sky veiled in cloud, its muted light softening the contours of the land, and below it the striking blue-green water of the lake—glacial, cold, and luminous—as if lit from within. Across the hills, snow settled lightly on the brown, wind-worn grasslands, creating a stark and beautiful contrast unique to this region.

Beyond these shifting elements rose Aoraki / Mount Cook, the great summit of the Southern Alps and the highest peak in New Zealand. Born of immense tectonic uplift where the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates collide, the mountain has been shaped over millennia by advancing glaciers, winter storms, and the long patience of erosion. To Ngāi Tahu, Aoraki is more than a landmark: he is an ancestor, a figure of sky and land intertwined, forever fixed in stone.

In the quiet interplay of clouded sky, glacial water, and ancient hills, the natural history of this place becomes almost audible—a reminder that these landscapes carry stories older than any traveller, and yet remain generous enough to offer new ones to those who stand in their presence.

Sony A7RV

FE 70-200mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Bi Shan Yan Temple, Neihu, Taipei for Sign2

 

I have shared photographs of this temple before, and now I have posted a few new ones. It stands not far from where I once lived in Taipei, a familiar presence along the mountainside. This place is woven tightly into my childhood memory. I often climbed the mountain with my father, step by step, until the red roof of the temple came into view. Those walks were quiet lessons in patience and wonder, the air scented with earth, incense, and the faint echo of bells drifting on the wind.

The first sign simply reads Bi Shan Yan — just that. Yet the name carries the weight of centuries.

Bi Shan Yan sits on a high ridge overlooking the basin below, a vantage point that feels both protective and timeless. Its origins stretch back to the early years of settlement, when a small shrine was first erected on the rocky slope. What began as a modest shelter of stone gradually grew into a full temple complex as generations added halls, terraces, and carved adornments. Over the years it has been rebuilt after storms, expanded by devoted hands, and shaped by the quiet resilience of the community around it.

The temple is dedicated to the revered protector known as the Kaizhang Holy King, a guardian spirit brought from the Fujian region by early migrants. His two loyal generals stand at his side, their presence carved into wood and stone with the solemnity of old devotion. These figures have watched over the hills and valleys for centuries, their legends mingling with the land itself.

Approaching the temple, one passes through a long ascent of stone steps, each bordered by greenery that shifts with the seasons — cherry blossoms in spring, thick shade in summer, the clear sharpness of winter air. The architecture is richly layered: sweeping rooflines adorned with dragons and phoenixes, bright ceramic tiles catching the sun, and columns carved with scenes from myth. The incense coils inside burn slowly, releasing a soft haze that turns the light golden.

From the upper terrace, Taipei stretches out like a living map — rivers winding, buildings rising, mountains holding the horizon. At night, the city becomes a tapestry of lights, and the temple feels like a silent guardian set high above the world.

For me, Bi Shan Yan is not merely a historic site but a place where memory settles gently. Each visit recalls those childhood climbs with my father, the warmth of his hand guiding me, the sense of arrival when the temple finally appeared above the trees. It remains a place where history and personal memory meet — steady, enduring, and filled with the quiet beauty of the past living on in the present.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sign2

Kisume continued for Treasure Tuesday

 

Ocean Trout sashimi cured 

Gold leaf wrapped toro 

Caviar on top of Merrin 

Wasabi sorbet with water squash 

Blue cod stew

Beef sukiyaki 

I did not manage to share all the photographs from my birthday celebration with Joel last week. The evening unfolded in a gentle crescendo, each of the thirteen dishes arriving as though part of a carefully choreographed feast—small artworks set before us in steady rhythm. I have now posted a handful of those images, fragments of a night where candlelight, conversation, and culinary abundance combined to form a quiet tapestry of contentment. The colours, the steam rising from warm plates, the hushed clatter of cutlery—each detail returns to me with a soft, lingering clarity, as though the celebration still flickers in the background of my days.

In the week that followed, life settled into a muted cadence. Nothing much stirred in the realm of hobbies or personal pursuits; the air felt still, as though the world had briefly paused to inhale. My mind drifted between tasks without urgency or direction, finding its anchor instead in the gentle company of three Netflix series. They filled the silent hours with borrowed stories, their episodes weaving themselves into the margins of my evenings.

There was something almost consoling in that simplicity—in allowing myself to be carried along by the quiet, by narrative instead of activity, by rest instead of aspiration. It was a week both unremarkable and tender, shaped not by accomplishments but by the ease of letting the days unfold exactly as they wished.

Sony A7RV

FE 16mm f1.8 

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Gin distillery in Sorrento Mornington Peninsula for Mural Monday

 

A few months ago, Joel and I visited a small gin distillery, its car park walls enlivened by whimsical cartoons that caught the eye before one even reached the doorway. I took those photographs almost instinctively—quick reflexes, a moment of colour and charm preserved without a second thought—only to let them slip into the quiet darkness of my hard drive, forgotten until now.

In the time since that visit, life unfolded in its own peculiar symmetry. I was found to have hypothyroidism; Joel, soon after, was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. It seems we are friends bound not only by shared history but by parallel passages through unexpected chapters of health—an odd, intimate echo of each other’s burdens.

The distillery itself stood as a testament to the gentle renaissance of the gin industry on the Mornington Peninsula, particularly around Sorrento. What began as a modest coastal curiosity has grown into a craft movement rooted in the region’s crisp maritime air, its wild botanicals, and the quiet patience of makers who treat distillation as both science and art. Sorrento’s small-batch producers draw inspiration from the Peninsula’s salt-breeze gardens, native herbs, and citrus groves, capturing the landscape in each aromatic bottle. Their gins speak of limestone cliffs, shifting tides, and the bright, wind-swept mornings of the coast.

Remembering that day now—the murals, the subtle hum of copper stills, the clean bite of botanicals on the palate—feels like returning to a place where craft, companionship, and circumstance briefly converged. In those moments, before diagnoses and the weight of the months that followed, the world tasted simple, fragrant, and clear.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Mural Monday

Pulpit Rock Cape Schanck for Sunday Best

 

It has been a long while since I last found myself here. These are a few frames gathered earlier in the year, moments I never quite managed to share until now. Returning to them feels a little like returning to the cliff’s edge itself—wind-washed, salt-stung, and alive with the ancient pulse of the coast.

Pulpit Rock at Cape Schanck rises where Bass Strait exhales against the Mornington Peninsula, its basalt columns forged from volcanic fire long before any eye beheld them. The land here was shaped by eruptions millions of years ago, when lava cooled into dark, rugged stone that now stands like an altar to the restless sea. Beneath it, the waters swirl in ceaseless ceremony, carving, smoothing, and reshaping the shoreline with patient force.

Walking the boardwalk and tracing the steps down toward the rock, you feel the story of the headland underfoot—its long geological memory, its storms, its calm blue intervals, its steady endurance. These images carry traces of that place: the raw grandeur, the deep time etched into every cliff face, and the way the horizon always seems to pull a little farther into the unknown.

Perhaps that’s why I return, even after long absences. The land remembers, and the sea keeps speaking.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sunday Best

Butterfly Macro for Saturday Critter

 

I have packed everything and left for airport early this morning. This post was prepared earlier. A macro shot of butterfly compound eyes was once my obsession as well

Linking Saturday Critter

Mount Alexander Post Box for Skywatch Friday

 

A mackerel sky hangs over Mount Alexander, its blue-cyan wash streaked with soft brown, as though the heavens themselves remember the dust and mineral veins that once drew thousands here. The mountain rises with the quiet assurance of an old storyteller, carrying in its ridges the memory of the gold rush that transformed Bendigo and Castlemaine, when hopeful hands sifted soil and the world’s footsteps converged on this corner of Victoria.

Along the roadside, the rustic tin mailboxes stand like humble sentinels—weather-beaten, crooked, and utterly honest. They belong to a landscape where history is not polished but lived in, where every dent and patch of rust feels like a faint echo of the pickaxes, tents, and fevered dreams that once pressed into this earth. And as the sky ripples overhead, Mount Alexander feels close—not just in distance from your home, but in spirit, a familiar presence holding centuries of stories beneath its quiet, enduring form.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Balnarring Jetty Mornington Peninsula for Water H2O Thurday

 

I have spent the past few days in a state of unrelenting toil, as if bound to some cruel taskmaster. The town in which I find myself—Mingham in New South Wales—is a place seemingly forsaken. There is no supermarket, no fast-food outlet, not even a solitary restaurant to offer relief. The unit I occupy is tainted with mould; dampness clings to the walls, and the bed linens, upon first touch, were sticky and sullied, as though long neglected. The local health service is scarcely better, staffed so poorly that it recalls the worst of neglected nursing homes. Fate, it seems, has played a bitter jest, offering hardship in abundance, comfort in none.

Yet, amidst this weariness, I have managed to compose a few posts, a small defiance against the exhaustion that presses upon me, before returning to endure the remainder of the shift.

In my mind, I often escape to a place long cherished: Balnarring Jetty, that weathered pier of Victoria. Its creaking boards, the gentle undulation of water beneath, the hush of the waves—these memories are a balm, a tender refuge far from the harshness of my present surroundings.

Mingham bears its own melancholy. Not long past, the town and its surrounds were consumed by floods of unprecedented fury. Torrential rains transformed roads into rivers, swallowing homes, and leaving streets marooned beneath waters swollen beyond memory. The river, once modest and tranquil, surged to heights unseen in a century, breaching its banks with merciless force. Entire neighborhoods were evacuated, bridges rendered impassable, and the land bore the scars of that relentless inundation for months thereafter.

In this place of lingering adversity, I find a strange resonance between the land and my own condition. Just as waters overflowed, unrestrained and unstoppable, so too has the neglect and hardship of this town broken through the fragile walls of my endurance. And yet, even amid such trials, the memory of Balnarring Jetty persists—a quiet, enduring symbol of stability and grace—reminding me that even in isolation and turmoil, beauty and calm can still be glimpsed.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 

Linking Water H2O Thursday

More Light ups in Lightscape Melbourne for Sign2

 

Knowing it will be rather demanding to begin anew in an interstate post, I have taken the liberty of preparing this entry ahead of time, so that my small rituals of regular posting may continue uninterrupted. We all harbour our gentle obsessions, and mine—flickers of beauty caught between work and travel—seem to follow me like familiar constellations.

In the midst of these preoccupations, my thoughts often return to Lightscape, where the night itself becomes a gallery and the earth a living canvas. There, luminous pathways wind through shadowed gardens, and the air hums with quiet enchantment. Most arresting are the installations inspired by Aboriginal culture: towering totems glowing with ancestral colours, their forms rising like spirits of country, guiding the wanderer with a dignified, ancient presence. They stand as eloquent testaments to stories older than memory—symbols of kinship, land, and the unseen forces that thread through all living things.

Thus, even as I step into the busyness of unfamiliar work and distant horizons, I hold close these moments of contemplative light—reminders that art, tradition, and wonder accompany me wherever I am compelled to go.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Linking Sign2

Kisume Birthday Dinner for Treasure Tuesday

 

My cocktail before the meals 

Toro sandwich 

Sea Urchin in egg chawan 

4 different sorts of fish nigiri 

There are, in all, thirteen dishes in the course — thirteen small revelations arriving one after another like chapters in a quietly extravagant tale. Each plate is a whisper of colour and temperature, of textures that startle gently and flavours that linger as if unwilling to leave. The food is, quite simply, exquisite: composed with the kind of precision that feels effortless, and yet carries the unmistakable weight of deep craft. And surprisingly, almost disarmingly, it is priced with a humility rare in a city where fine dining often comes wrapped in hauteur.

What elevated the evening, though, was the chef’s table at Kisumé in Melbourne — that slender crescent of seats where you are close enough to see the breath of the kitchen as it moves. From there, you witness not just cooking but choreography: knife flashes, a small brush painting soy across a gleaming fillet, a bowl lifted and turned as though it were something delicate and living. The chefs speak softly among themselves, attentive to rhythm and timing, but every now and then one catches your eye and offers a quiet explanation of a garnish or a coastal origin of a fish no larger than your palm.

You taste the ocean in a curl of sashimi, the smoke of a charcoal kiss in a morsel barely warm, the brightness of sudden citrus over rice that has been coaxed into perfect tenderness. The sequence feels intimate — a series of personal offerings from people who love their craft without ceremony or arrogance. Time slows. The restaurant hums dimly behind you, but at the chef’s table you inhabit a small world of clarity and intent, where the boundary between diner and maker dissolves.

When the final dish arrived — the thirteenth note of the evening — it felt more like a benediction than an ending. I left Kisumé with that quiet fullness one experiences only after meals that feed both hunger and imagination, grateful for a night that was not merely delicious, but deeply, surprisingly memorable.

Sony A7RV

FE 16mm f1.8 GM

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Fairfield Bridge Mural for Mural Monday

 

Joel and I havent ventured into mural hunting for some time. This one was a lady portrait and the artist unknown. The place smells quite bad too. But it would be a good location for abstract and geometrical photography

Sony A7RV

Laowa 9mm f5.6

Linking Mural Monday

Pearses Bay Blairgowries for Sunday Best

 

Apart from my frequent photographs along the coast at Pearses Bay, Blairgowrie, I find myself increasingly drawn to the curious rock and sand formations that lie scattered across the shore. Their surfaces, hardened by time and tide, are edged with such sharpness that they can slice the skin with ease—nature’s own austere sculptures.

Today I set out for Manning, New South Wales, to undertake a locum contract. The decision was made at the last moment, prompted by a simple wish to replenish the coffers. As a result, I shall be less present online and slower to comment. I beg your indulgence for the coming week.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 

Linking Sunday Best

Red Imported Fire Ants Melbourne for Saturday Critter

 

I am not sure if this is meat ants or red imported fire ants. They are certainly everywhere in summer here in melbourne. 

Pentax K20D 

A 200m f4 

Linking Saturday Critter

Cadillac Gorge San Remo for Skywatch Friday

 

The day at Cadillac Gorge unfolded beneath a brooding sky, the kind that promises both revelation and ruin. The rocks at the edge of San Remo glistened with the residue of centuries — dark volcanic shelves scarred by relentless tides, their surfaces mottled in lichen and salt. The wind carried the scent of brine and kelp, mingling with the low thunder of the Bass Strait. I had turned my lens toward the gorge, drawn to the strange geometry of stone carved by time and sea — but it was the sky that truly captivated me. The clouds swirled in elaborate layers, their forms restless and alive, the kind of sky that seems to think its own thoughts.

Five seconds later, the world turned. A rogue wave — silent until it wasn’t — rose from the depths like a living wall and struck the rocks with merciless force. I had no time to retreat. The surge crashed over me, drenching my gear, soaking through every seam and stitch, and in that instant, all sense of separation between self and sea dissolved. From the hill ridge behind, Joel was filming the scene — my small figure caught between water and wind, framed by the vast grey theatre of the Southern Ocean. Later, he said the footage looked almost staged — the sea claiming its own drama, the sky its witness — but in that moment, there was nothing contrived about it. Only the raw pulse of nature at Cadillac Gorge, San Remo — beautiful, treacherous, and impossibly alive.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Pearses Bay Blairgowrie for Water H2O Thursday

 

Joel and I lingered far too long at the souvlaki shop on our way here, and by the time we arrived, dusk had already deepened into shadow. We hurried to our respective corners, cameras in hand, striving to capture what little light remained before the sun slipped entirely beyond the horizon. There was no time for the elegance of long exposure—only swift, instinctive shots taken in haste.

In my rush, I stumbled and twisted my ankle, the sharp pain dulled only by the chill of water seeping into my shoes. Joel, ever steadfast, came to my aid—only to meet misfortune himself, slipping and taking a fall soon after. Thus the evening unfolded: a pursuit of fading light, marked by mishap and the quiet grace of shared endurance.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Lightscape Melbourne for Sign2

 

Each winter, Joel and I make our annual pilgrimage to Lightscape Melbourne, a festival that transforms the Royal Botanic Gardens into a luminous wonderland. This year’s edition, running from 20 June to 10 August, stretches along a 2‑kilometre winding trail through the gardens, where every step reveals a new marvel of light and color.

We wander beneath glowing floral canopies, through neon-lit tunnels, and past shimmering “Effervescence” carpets, cameras in hand, capturing moments where art and nature intertwine. Interactive installations respond to sound and movement, while reflections dance across the garden lakes, offering endless opportunities for striking compositions. Even the simplest of lights—an illuminated stem here, a glowing petal there—possess a quiet charm that draws the eye and rewards patient observation.

For photographers like us, Lightscape is more than a festival; it is a playground of luminous textures, shadowed pathways, and ephemeral beauty. Joel, ever the devoted heavy metal fan, occasionally pauses to imagine the lights pulsing in rhythm with a driving guitar riff, while I linger, chasing the perfect reflection on the water or the fleeting glow of a neon tunnel. Warm drinks in hand, we move through this nocturnal garden, grateful for the magical interplay of light, art, and winter night air.

Sony A7RV

FE 135mm f1.8 GM

Linking Sign2

Pearses Bay Sunset moment for Treasure Tuesday

 

Last weekend, Joel immersed himself in the intensity of a Metallica concert, their first Australian tour in eleven years—a testament to his enduring devotion to heavy metal music. I, on the other hand, wandered the coastline alone, finding quiet solace in the rhythmic rise and fall of the high tide. Pearses Bay, now celebrated as a prime vantage for sunsets, cast its golden reflections across the water, offering the perfect scene for my photography and a gentle reminder of the beauty found in solitary exploration.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Wulai creek fruit mural, Taipei for Mural Monday

 

Last week, I wrote about the Wulai Creek region in Taipei. Recently, I came across a mural there depicting an assortment of fruits. The entire artwork has fallen into decay, its surface mottled with mould and weathered by time. Yet, in its deterioration, I found it hauntingly unique and strangely beautiful.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Mural Monday

Wulai, Taipei for Sunday Best

 

Wulai, a small mountain township south of Taipei, was a place my father often took me to during my childhood. In those days, its beauty was dimmed by neglect — the river that wound through the valley was choked with refuse, and litter drifted upon its surface with every passing day.

Many decades have since passed, and Wulai has undergone a quiet transformation. The once-polluted waters now run clear and green, reflecting the verdant slopes that rise steeply on either side. Though the old timber houses and narrow lanes of the hot spring town remain, their weathered facades speak not of decay, but of endurance.

Wulai, whose name in the Atayal language means “hot water,” has long been known for its natural thermal springs and its place within the cultural heartland of the Atayal people, one of Taiwan’s indigenous groups. Once scarred by industrial waste and unregulated tourism in the latter half of the twentieth century, it has in recent years been restored through sustained conservation efforts and local stewardship.

Today, the air is fresh with mountain mist, the river shimmers with jade clarity, and Wulai stands as a living testament to renewal — a place where memory, nature, and history quietly converge.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sunday Best

Angel Fish Melbourne for Saturday Critter

 

Another image from my old home aquarium, captured years ago with the faithful Pentax K20D. The colours remain surprisingly vivid — cool, fluid hues that seem to breathe anew with each glance.

At the centre drifts an angelfish, elegant and deliberate, its fins like silken banners unfurling in slow motion. Native to the quiet, shaded tributaries of the Amazon Basin, the angelfish glides among submerged roots and dappled light in its natural home, where the waters are soft, warm, and rich with life. Its form — tall, slender, almost ethereal — evolved for that still world of reeds and reflection.

In the glass confines of an aquarium, it retains its ancestral poise: a creature both ornamental and ancient, carrying within its gentle movements the memory of a forested river far away. Even after all these years, the photograph recalls that serene moment — the living jewel suspended in liquid light, timeless and tranquil.

Pentax K20D

DA 70mm f2.4 limited 

Linking Saturday Critter

Stingray Bay Warrnambool sunset for Skywatch Friday

 

This small estuarine inlet adjoining Stingray Bay is a hidden gem, lying less than a kilometre from where I once stayed, with road access that remains remarkably convenient. The still waters below capture exquisite reflections of sky and vegetation, a mirror to the tranquility of the surrounding landscape.

Stingray Bay itself forms part of the sheltered mouth of the Merri River at Warrnambool, where freshwater mingles with the tides of the Southern Ocean. The area is renowned for its tidal flats and rock platforms, rich in marine life and bird activity — herons, cormorants, and sandpipers frequent the shallows, while stingrays glide silently over the sandy bottom from which the bay takes its name.

Along the inlet’s edge, the weathered wooden barrier now stands as more of an ornament than a necessity, its timbers softened by time and tide. Once built to define or protect, it now blends into the natural scene — a quiet relic of human purpose slowly yielding to nature’s rhythm.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Waixi Creek Taipei for Water H2O Thursday

 

Waixi Creek winds quietly through the misty hills of Pingxi, its water a shade of deep green that seems to hold the reflection of the forest itself. Upstream, I crossed a semi-abandoned bridge, its timbers darkened by age and softened by moss. The air was still, save for the low whisper of water and the faint creak of wood beneath my steps. Ahead, a small fan-shaped waterfall spilled gracefully over rocks, its delicate spread catching the morning light. I lingered there, letting the sound of the water wash over me, not yet in sight of the great Shifen Waterfall but already feeling its presence—somewhere ahead, where the creek gathers itself into strength.

Shifen Waterfall lies deep within the Pingxi Valley of northern Taiwan, where the Keelung River winds through layered stone and forest. The name “Shifen” dates back to the Qing dynasty, when ten families settled in this fertile gorge and divided the land into ten equal portions. Over the centuries, the river shaped the valley into what it is today: a landscape of cliffs, pools, and narrow ravines, where countless tributaries like Waixi feed into the main flow. The region’s bedrock slopes against the direction of the water, forcing it into a magnificent arc as it drops nearly twenty meters across a span of forty. When sunlight pierces the rising mist, a rainbow sometimes forms across the pool, and locals call it the “Rainbow Pond.”

The Shifen area once thrived as a coal-mining settlement during the Japanese colonial period. The Pingxi railway line was built through the valley to carry black coal to the port cities, and its narrow track still runs alongside the river today. Over time, as mining faded into memory, the valley’s rhythm returned to one of water and forest. The old bridges, tunnels, and stone paths remain, quietly reclaimed by moss and vines, linking the past to the present with every weathered beam and rusted nail.

As I followed Waixi upstream that morning, I felt that mixture of age and renewal in every sight—the rustic bridge standing like a remnant of an older world, the creek’s green current alive and changing, and the fan-shaped waterfall fanning out in a quiet gesture of welcome. The larger Shifen Waterfall waited farther down, roaring and majestic, but here in the upper stream there was a gentler beauty. It was a place of pause, where time moved as slowly as the drifting ripples on the water’s surface.

Walking toward the main falls, I realised that what draws one to Shifen is not only the grandeur of the waterfall itself, but the quiet journey toward it. The bridges, the green pools, the minor cascades—each holds a story, a small breath of history and nature intertwined. In that gentle space before the thunder of the falls, the world feels balanced between motion and stillness. The creek, the valley, and the waterfall together form a kind of living memory—Taiwan’s heart reflected in water, stone, and light.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Vivid Signs light up Sydney for Sign2

 

These photographs, taken during my visit to Sydney in May this year, capture moments I had not yet shared — fragments of a city transformed beneath the luminous spell of Vivid Sydney. Each evening, as twilight descended upon the harbour, the city awakened into a living tableau of light and imagination.

The familiar landmarks of Sydney assumed an otherworldly grandeur. The Opera House, that timeless symbol of grace and geometry, stood resplendent as its sails came alive with shifting hues and intricate projections — a celestial dance of pattern and story. Images of oceanic depths, constellations, and dreamlike abstractions swept across its curved façade, as though the building itself drew breath from the tides below.

Along the harbour’s edge, the spectacle deepened. Sculptures and installations of light rose from the darkness, some bold in stature, others delicate as whispers. Neon phrases glowed like poetry suspended in air, while radiant structures pulsed and shimmered in measured rhythm to unseen music. Even the most familiar forms — the bridge, the quay, the promenade — seemed reborn, veiled in an ethereal luminance that rendered the ordinary sublime.

The city skyline itself became a symphony of colour and reflection. Towers mirrored the hues of the harbour, and the water carried back those same tones, multiplying the beauty until it seemed the heavens had descended to mingle with the sea.

Crowds moved as one body through the illuminated avenues — children with faces upturned, couples strolling hand in hand, and solitary wanderers pausing in reverent stillness. There was, in that mingling of light and humanity, a rare harmony: the sense that for a brief season, Sydney had transcended its material self to become a city of pure light, where art, architecture, and imagination converged in radiant accord.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sign2