Easter take 2

Easter wouldn't be complete without some eggs! We tried to boil them in our hotel room, but alas, they were very cold & cracked spewing out their white parts into the water. It was super gross, lets be honest.

Cam built a "tower of heat" alternating coffee cups with saucers and wrapping the whole thing in a towel. It worked, a bit. At least they were really pretty. Cam tried to eat one & luckily held it over a trash can as it was barely cooked.


We were in Woomera, a rocket testing facility with a 1950s community. The outdoor park was pretty wicked. This photo had me surrounded by about 15 rockets.


The rocket behind us is what is left from a joint project between the US, Britain, and Australia. It crashed landed after a successful launch.

Cam is super awesome at taking shots like this one, it was a rocket that launched the first satellite from down under.




I thought that Woomera was an amazing town, built in the 1950s and generally fantastic. My favorite part were the bus stops.

Cam was on TV!

I was very lucky to recently join a team doing an archaeological survey on Kangaroo Island for burials related to the Loch Sloy shipwreck of 1899. Hard work but a beautiful place.

 

The ABC thought it was interesting enough to follow us around for a day for a story on 7:30 SA. It came out well - beautiful photography. I provide some wisdom on an excavation we undertook - you'll have to watch to see what we found.

 

6 1/2 mins long - Enjoy!

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-23/tales-emerge-of-tragic-loch-sloy-sinking/3966856?section=sa

 

Cameron

Easter...mining style Part 1 of 5

Cam & I went on a 4.5 day road trip up north in South Australia to a bunch of different single mining communities. We began the trip to Andamooka, opal mine country.

There were dugouts built by the miners into the side of hills from local timber and mud. Well furnished and dirt floors, these places were like nothing I've ever seen. Nice and cool, which is important that far up north.


There were a row of 5 of these all built in the 1920s and 1930s. All not occupied for the last 30 years, but quite amazing.

Andamooka also is home to the beer hive room: a round room made completely from beer bottles. The light showing through and giving the glow really was special.


We pawed around in the mines that had been abandoned. Lots of quartz, some sandstone but alas, no opal. We even went "noodling" next to Andamooka's playground.


We went to the Arid Recovery Land outside of Olympic Dam. BHP has paid to reintroduce both fauna and flora into a fenced off area. The fence has a floppy top so when a cat or fox climbs up, they get afraid and fall off before getting inside. It works, trust me! Stay tuned for more shots of our Easter vacation.

Flinders Dig at Mallala

On Friday we exercised our archaeological brains with Flinders University field school. They were investigating a former pub located at the intersection of 7 roads. The remains of the pub have been plowed over for decades and most of the stone was removed.

The students flagged each artifact and then were gathering the spacial information of their location. Each one was bagged and labeled with the point data to plot back in the lab.


I surveyed a bit outside of the area plowed up recently to see how far the scatter went across the field. A beautiful working environment.


Back in MI we saw a track of a small animal in the snow & out in this field, the tire tracks reminded us of that shot. Ahh, the serenity.


The sun was setting & the pub was calling us to discussions over the historic pub we were recording for the day. One last recording before everyone packed up.

Swimming Trials @ Marion

Cam & I went to the Australian Swimming Championships the week of March 20th and really had a fantastic time watching all the swimming. This is the qualifying race for the London 2012 Olympics.

Check out the two Beefeaters down in the lower left of this photo. Two guys in red coats with the tall black hats. Adelaide's version of guards for the royals weren't as stiff as those in London, but they were entertaining & they danced.


Lots of finishes were extremely close like this one. I really love the butterfly, people powering through the water only raising forth to look ahead every few strokes. Its really powerful (my version, not so much). The guy that is two from the top has already won this race and is lifting his head as the guy second from the bottom just reaches the wall.


This is Libby Trickett, who has returned from retirement to enter her 4th Olympics. She just made the team when I took this shot & she was elated. Not only an amazing athlete, but also a spectacular role model. Keep an eye out for her in London everyone.


Cam snapped this "best shot" of the night - the start of a women's backstroke, I think. I hope the woman at the bottom closes her mouth soon.


Of course there was lots of competition, but also quite a bit of camaraderie. These two have been training together for years and they placed right next to each other. A healthy rivalry if I ever saw one.


My favorite moment over the course of both nights was this victory. I can't remember the whole story, but she has just found out that she won the race & I think she managed to beat her personal best record. When they interviewed her, she was so happy, she couldn't talk.

Neither Cam nor I are really much into following swimming as a sport, but these trials were really exciting. We rode our bikes to the pool & had a great couple of evenings. The scent of chlorine with a dash of Beefeaters and lots of splashing has set the stage for us for the Olympics.

Endeavour - in Port Adelaide

A huge replica of Captain Cook's ship that came to Australia in the 1700s came to Port Adelaide over Cam's birthday weekend. I thought, what an opportunity NOT TO MISS! So we signed up to volunteer & sleep on-board overnight. Our job (for 2 hr shift) was to make sure no one came on board from the water side of the ship. I guess there have been attempts to take it over in other ports & the volunteers help to prevent that. All we did was fill out some paperwork, have a federal police check (easy since we've had one from the visa), and show up. It was an AMAZING experience, we're both happy that we did it, and one night was enough.


We got to the boat about 7:30 pm and were there till about 8 am. We snapped some nice shots, and are going to have a contest (see below & vote carefully because a beer is riding on the winner). This shot has the Endeavour in the foreground and another tall ship that lives here in Adelaide in the background. The best story is that when the Endeavour arrived to dock, no one bothered to tell the bridge people when they would be arriving. They had to sit just outside Port Adelaide for about 1 hr before the bridge lifted.

We got to wander around, before either of our shifts & before we tried to sleep. This is at the back of the ship where the head 5 or so people including Joseph Banks (botanist) and James Cook (captain) would eat. It really reminded me of the ship from Peter Pan.


Like I said, we tried to sleep in these hammocks, but really neither of us did. We were docked and every time anyone on one of those hammocks moved, the other 3 of us felt it. I can't begin to picture what it would have been like at sea, swaying back & forth. I had a hard time because of my knee hyper-extending. I moved to that hard bench in the foreground and "slept" much better.

My shift was the 4-6 am shift and I spent most of my time trying to translate this photograph into a drawing. The perspective was really challenging and the light was dim, but serene. The rudder runs from the back to the right out of the photograph. All the ropes and details didn't quite come out in my pencil drawing, but it wasn't bad.


Cam had the 6-8 shift, so he was on deck while the rest of us swept up under the hammocks. The boat was built as a coal transport vessel & converted for Cook's voyage. Thus, one deck is about 1/2 the size in height as a usual deck. That is where most people slept. I guess since they would be lying down, no need for a full-height deck. C & I weren't too tired, but we went home & slept a couple of hours.

NOW onto the photo contest. Two were mine, two were Cam's. We are asking YOU to pick 1 image and vote for that image in the comments part. The one with the most votes after Sat March 31 5pm EST will win and the loser must buy a beer.

Ghost or Not?

Sunset or Sunrise?

All a-glow.

Picture perfect night.

Sydney & the Family

Cam & I headed to Sydney to check out all the new additions to his family. It was a great weekend and lots to eat. I went with MaryEd to get her haircut, the guys hung around the house, and we went on a super long walk at the north head (the entry to Sydney Harbor). On this trip too, Cam went to see The Wall in concert with Steve. There were lots of kids and less sleep than is our usual, but a great weekend overall.

The newest addition to the family was Aidan, son of Ted & Song. He was not very fussy at all, although he smelled like milk, all the time.


Here are Tony & MaryEd with all 6 of their grandchildren. They range in age from 12 to 3 months. How adorable are all of them?

Toby & Yalda traveled with their little Andia all the way from Chicago. She did well on the plane, and really liked spending time with her cousins. I even think I was able to convince her that the Superbowl was quite a fun game... She sat with me for the whole first quarter! Toby was convinced that was just because it was TV, but I think she enjoyed hearing all about it. Lets face it, this year's game was pretty exciting too.

The Bowral clan was also there in flying colors. We had a bit of a windy day, but that just made the Chinese lanterns and red or pink balloons take off.

Both Michelle and Nick are Godparents to the Shanghai crew. Here's a photo of Michelle, who spoke about the Chinese astrology. Sydney (in the front) was keen to inform me that the city was named after her. I tried to explain who came first, but I wasn't convincing.

All of the grandkids and their parents joined together to hold onto a red ribbon, symbolizing the blood line that runs through them all. I think the symbolism may have been missed by the little ones, but the photos will help tell the story when they are a bit older. Cousins unite!