August on Mount Tamborine, Queensland

About one and a half kilometres from my house on Mount Tamborine in the Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland is the Tamborine Mountain Gallery Walk it is the Art and Craft centre of the region.

The galleries and craft shops sell paintings, sculpture, ceramics, porcelain, glass, jewellery, woodwork, fabrics etc. Crafty crap in other words.

But there are lots of good cafe's for good coffee and lots of fudge and ice cream shops for the sugar hit.

My favourite spot however, is located at the southern end of Gallery Walk and it is the new Tamborine Mountain micro Brewery.

This impressive open plan complex is perfectly designed for the sub tropical SE Queensland climate.

It is located in a shared premise with the Witches Chase Cheese Company.

The cheese is made by hand on the premises in the cheese factory, and you can view production through large viewing windows.

Right opposite the Liquid Amber Bistro & Grill restaurant in the same complex. Perfect for a gourmet lunch after a few beer tasting trays.

Another must visit place requires a little bit more travel and as you criss-cross the plateau you pass many of these roadside stalls, all operated on an honesty system.

Also there are walks to the many waterfalls in the national parks that entirely ring the mountain. This helps prevent the leggo land estates from the Gold Coast ever being able to reach the plateau.

The place you need to get to is the Tamborine Mountain Distillery.

This is Australia's smallest operating Pot Still Distillery, but of world renown, and has won many awards at contests all over the world.

With the combination of rich red volcanic soils and fresh spring water and the abundant fruit and produce of the Mountain is fermented and distilled here.

Lemon Murtle, Cherry ripe, Chocolate Chilli, Wattle Toffee, Turkish Delight and all manner of exotic flavours in a base of Liqueur, Schnapps or Vodka, all distilled and made right there.

Tastings are a real challenge if you are driving . . .

Cape Daisy

Cape Daisy - Osteospermum ecklonis (Asteroideae)

From the sunflower family (Asteraceae).

It has been given several common names: African Daisy, South African Daisy, Cape Daisy and Blue-eyed Daisy and the plants prefer a warm and sunny position and rich soil and does not tolerate winter conditions. Perfect for higher altitude Queensland where I found this one.

Nikon D300, 105mm Macro lens ISO 200, f3.0 1/2500 sec

The Ekka

It's the Ekka and it's South East Queensland's largest annual event. The Ekka's official name is the Royal Queensland Show, but it's known by Queenslaners as 'The Exhibition' and the term ekka is short for exhibition.

It's held in August in Brisbane and along with the shows of Sydney and Melbourne, the Ekka is one of the top three agricultural shows in Australia and draws more than 600,000 visitors each year. Much like the Sydney Royal Easter Show, the New South Wales equivalent, the Ekka is both a festive, carnival style event with sideshows, showbags, thrill rides and food stalls along with a wide range of agricultural exhibitions including arts, crafts, farm animals.

These are some amazing arrangements of preserved fruit and vegetables.

The produce hall was a great splash of colour and a lot of work must always go into these displays.

Real banana benders . . .

Prize Queensland pineapples

Then of course its always fun down sideshow alley

Some interesting mobiles . .

mmm honey energy drink

Hello from QLD

Its August and typical 22 - 25 degree days, sunny and still. Mount Tamborine is very busy as all states school holidays have finished and everyone else can now venture out without being over run by screaming kids. The Tamborine plateau is about 8 kilometers long and about 5 kilometers across at its widest part and is about 600 metres above sea level. From the escarpment you look directly down on the Gold Coast.

Geologically it is very old formed by the volcano directly to the south the remains of which is a huge crater that can be clearly seen from the air.

Mount Warning is the volcanic plug near the centre of the crater. While taking a look at the sunset a short distance from our house we noticed a new addition to the mountains scenery.

Antone Bruinsma created "Visiting Earth Angel" at the Beaudesert International Sculpture Symposium in 2008. Sculpturs have now been placed at locations throughout the Scenic Rim area. The Sculpture, is located at the Hang Gliding Lookout at the top of the Mountain along Main Western Road with the valley of the Scenic Rim as a stunning backdrop. Meanwhile back at home I snapped this picture in the back yard while watching the creek being remodeled by a backhoe. This is a Mulberry tree and is just starting to shoot leaves after being bare all winter (6 weeks is a long time)

Photographing Smoke

Interesting patterns and shapes are revealed when you photograph smoke. This one taken with a desk lamp on the right and a SB-900 with a snoot on the left, with a black backdrop. To further block out the background I shot this with ISO 200 at 1/60 th second at f11 on Aperture Priority with the Nikon 105mm Macro lens. Apparently this is a popular pass time for some? http://photocritic.org/artsmoke-photographing-smoke/ http://www.gavtrain.com/

Macro Photography

Today while enjoying one of the beautiful sunny days that Sydney has to offer at present I noticed bee's around some flowers in the front yard. So using a Tupperware container I trapped one of the little buggers and put it in the freezer. Why? Well this is a little trick used by Macro photographers to slow the subject down, a few minutes in there and they slow right down. Don't leave them too long or they will die. I got quite a few shots off before the bee started to crawl around and eventually flying off. This one Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G , D300 on a tripod at f16, ISO 200, 2 seconds. I did this once before with a small skink, and lizards being cold blooded made this a very effective method of getting some close up photographs.