Friday Photo #8: Mallee Sunset

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Late afternoon sun has cast a stunning red glow on this tree alongside the Sturt Highway which runs between Adelaide, South Australia and Sydney, New South Wales.

The Murray Mallee is the grain-growing and sheep-farming area covering parts of South Australia and Victoria. The area is predominantly a vast low level plain, with sand hills and gentle undulating sandy rises, interspersed by flats. The area was originally covered in thick scrub, but large expanses were cleared for agricultural development beginning as early as the 1880's. Most of the remaining natural vegetation is in national parks.

Mallees are the dominant vegetation throughout semi-arid areas of Australia where they form extensive woodlands and shrublands covering over 250,000 square kilometres. Thus mallee woodlands and shrublands are considered one of Australia's Major Vegetation Groups.

Just for the record, this image is exactly how it came out of my Canon Powershot S1 IS digital camera. It has not been touched up or enhanced in any way what-so-ever.

Photograph: Mallee Sunset, by Jim Lesses

Location: Dukes Highway, South Australia, April 2009.

With thanks to Wikipedia for information about the Mallee…

The Best-Laid Plans…

~ According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it was Robert Burns who wrote: “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley.” Or as we might say today: The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

I am ruminating on this after having spent nearly seven hours yesterday transferring footage from a series of video tapes onto my computer. The tapes, shot on my Panasonic video camera, are of my trip to Sydney during March and April earlier this year.

In addition to the four tapes I had from that trip, I have spent several more hours transferring footage from a number of other family events that have taken place this year. Add a box full of other cassettes to all this, and you begin to get a picture of a man who needs to find a workable system of archiving his numerous home movies.

As the self-appointed family documentarian, I am never far from my camera, and while I enjoy capturing the family at important family events, and turning the footage into short films, I often leave the work of transferring the original footage until long after the events have taken place.

When I returned from my trip overseas last year, I had dozens of tapes documenting my travels. In addition to the tapes, I had thousands of photographs in folders organised by month, week, and week day. I have yet to go through these folders and cull out the bad photographs: that is, the blurry, the poorly framed, the repetitions, and the just plain boring ones.

I guess all travellers have similar problems. Once the excitement of the trip is over, and we settle back into the daily grind of work and life, it is easy to forget we even spent that wonderful week in Hawaii, or New York City, or wandering the streets of London or Athens. Photos get transferred to hard drives, video tapes get put away in boxes or bottom drawers, and life goes on.

And so to my ‘best-laid plans’ to create exciting holiday films with which to wow my family and friends.

Even as I research my next travel adventure, my family and others are still waiting to see my videos, and the best of my travel photographs. They may be waiting for a long time, yet, unfortunately. However, as my forthcoming trip looms ever closer, I feel a need to get my ‘house’ in order, otherwise I will return from my next trip with even more tapes and photographs, and never find time to show off any of my handiwork.

So what has worked for you? Any suggestions or tips you can offer, dear reader, will be gratefully received.

Meanwhile, I’ve got work to do. There’s a box of tapes waiting to be processed and edited.

Image: Statue of Robert Burns in Central Park, New York

Photo courtesy of Wahaj Zaidi at Panoramio...

Breathtaking Temples To Explore On Bali Holidays

~ Whilst on your Bali holidays take some time out to visit the beautiful temples of the region. Whether you're exploring Hindu temples located in bat caves or a temple dedicated to the dragon god of the mountain, you'll be blown away by the myths and legends that surround these sacred places of worship.

The hotels in Bali may be opulent, but they have nothing on the decadent temples of the region. Of all the Bali temples the best known is the Besakih Temple, which is also known as the Mother Temple. The temple is located on the side of Mount Agung, with the mountain peaks giving it an almost mythical quality. On your Bali holiday take a tour to this temple which is perched at 1,000 feet up the mountain and named after the dragon god that is said to inhabit the mountain.

The Besakih temple is the only temple in which a Hindu of any caste system can worship, and this is due to the eighteen separate sanctuaries housed within the Besakih . The three main shrines in this temple are dedicated to the Hindu gods: Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, and on your Bali holidays you will see a number of Balinese people who have made the pilgrimage to lay yellow marigold flowers upon their deities' shrines.

A popular temple with tourists on their Bali holiday tours is the 'Goa Lawah' which literally translates to 'Bat Cave'. The temple is not only a popular visitor attraction but is also a place of religious importance to the Balinese people. It is one of the nine directional temples that protect Bali from evil spirits, with the Goa Lawah protecting from the evil of the South-East. The temple is not for the faint-hearted on their Bali holidays, as it is located in a temple filled with thousands and thousands of flittering bats. If you're not keen on bats then you probably won't want to hear that the bat cave is also considered the home of the giant legendary snake, Naga Basuki, who was thought to be the caretaker of the earth's equilibrium.

If you're after a temple that's a little less sinister on your Bali holidays then why not take a trip to the Pura Luhur Temple? This temple is considered to be one of the best places in Bali to catch a sunset. Pura Luhur is located in Uluwata, which is also home to some of the best hotels in Bali, and with the Indian Ocean located nearby this is an ideal place to visit on your Bali tour holiday. The temple, which is dedicated to the spirits of the sea and made exclusively from black coral rock, is also considered to be one of the country's archaeological wonders.

Another temple located next to the Indian Ocean is the Tanah Lot Temple, situated on a huge rock in the middle of the ocean. It was built in the 16th Century by one the last priests to come to Bali from Java, and like the Pura Luhur Temple, is also dedicated to the guardian spirits of the sea.

When you take a Bali holiday tour to the Tanah Lot Temple, you may want to watch your footing on the way up as the sea is littered with poisonous sea snakes. These are believed to be the temples guardians standing vigil against any evil spirits, or any would-be intruders who may want to visit the spectacular temple during their Bali holidays.

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Claire Bryant is a Bali holidays specialist for key2holidays, an online tour operator specialising in Bali hotels, as well as holidays to Australia, South Africa, the Caribbean, Italy, the Far East, the Maldives, Mauritius Sri Lanka and the Seychelles, and Dubai. key2holidays has a dedicated team of experienced travel consultants to share their knowledge and help you to plan and book your ideal holiday.

Besakih Temple image courtesy of Photobucket…