On Leeches and Dragons

Looking at this post's title you might ask "What is Al on about?" 

Well let me ramble to the answer. As those of you who read my blog regularly will know, I was recently at my mum's place. Unusually for me I took almost no photos for the entire time I was there.

Mum's is on the Great Dividing Range in northern NSW. For those of you who don't know the Great Dividing Range is a mountain chain that runs thousands of miles all down the east coast of Oz. The range runs from Tropical Far North Queensland all the way down to temperate Victoria.

Unlike most of Oz, the range which lies just inland from the coastal plain is wet for most of its length. As an example most of the waterfall piccies I post are of drops in the Victorian part of the range.

Where Mum is in NSW is rainforest country. And on one of the days I was there I went for a walk in the forest. I had my camera but I barely used it although I did capture some wildlife with it.

The first was this fellow I caught sneaking up my boot.

I pulled him off to give you a better look.  

A leech; the reality is when you walk in this forest the question is not whether you will pick up one of these terrestrial leeches, but how many.

In truth they don't bother me. I like to catch them before they bite, because when they drop off the anticoagulant they inject means you end up with a nuisance bleed. And I get a minor reaction to them so I end up with a red lump which itches for days after.

But as I said I am not bothered by them. They were a part of my life growing up. A fact of life.

I was much more happy to catch sight of the creature that provided my WIIW.

Here s/he is

A lizard; this guy is a Southern Angle Headed Dragon (Hypsilurus spinipes) one of literally thousands of Oz reptile species.

They adopt one of two tactics when threatened; running off on their hind legs, or freezing and hoping their camouflage saves them.

 

This guy chose to freeze rather than fly which allowed me to take my time shooting his/her portrait from multiple angles.  

Which brings me to points: I said my WIIW was easy and as I thought most people guessed an eye.
SO here are the points I am awarding.
Kristen M - 100% for "eye" sorry but no bonus in either of your supplementary guesses.
Anne - 100% for "eye", and 100% for amphibian/reptile. 200%!
This guy is a reptile, the only native amphibians Oz has are frogs
Linda G - 100% for "eye" no bonus for either bird or crocodile :-(
Christine - - 100% for "eye", while bird didn't cut it reptilian does + 100%!
Marcy got - 100% for "eye" + 100% for lizard, a total of 200%
Susan I guess you deserve 100% for your late entry.
Which brings me to Old Kitty, 100 bonus points for your brilliant guess of "eclipse" 

The light at the end of the…

Well my guessing game wasn’t much of a challenge.

It was indeed the light at the end of a tunnel.On Sunday Deb and I drove up to the mountains of the Great Dividing Range north of Melbourne.Not far from the town of Yea is an abandoned railway. In recent years the rail lines have been torn up and it has been turned into part of a trail for bush-walkers (hikers), bicycle and horse riders.

On the trail is a single tunnel the Cheviot Rail tunnel. Completed in 1889 it was built from hand made bricks fired locally.
Now I won’t bore you with the details too much, but I recently bought a new lens for my camera.

As you may remember I paid my new camera off over several months. The camera is a beautiful piece of gear but it came with two cheap and just about functional kit lenses.
Well I have finally managed to buy my first professional quality lens to go with the camera. At $1,200 I won’t be getting any more in a hurry (I have about another $6,000 worth of lenses on my wish list).

Anyway to cut a long story short I had a great hour or so in and around the tunnel just playing with my new lens.With a good camera you get an awful lot of control over the image you produce.

The bright light I posted last time and this shot were taken from the same spot.
The difference: controlling, aperture and exposure for a different look. I think the tunnel frames a small slice of Oz quite nicely.

This young family were surprisingly thrilled by the idea of being silhouettes in my piccie
These next two were taken from halfway through. The first a long exposure with no flash to show one of the safety bays; this is actually a little brighter than it was to the eye (no lights in the tunnel)
The second is with a flash.Enough for one night.