NixPixMix: outback

Showing posts with label outback. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 January 2019

MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #103 - CHALLENGE: INCONGRUOUS

The rules are simple:

1) Create your image according to the "CHALLENGE" theme, and post it up on your blog;

2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;

3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;

4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately!

A road train or land train is a trucking vehicle of a type used in rural and remote areas of Australia and the United States and in Europe to move freight efficiently. It consists of two or more trailers or semi-trailers hauled by a prime mover.

The term road train is used in Australia. In contrast with a more common semi-trailer towing one trailer or semi-trailer, the prime mover of a road train hauls two or more trailers or semi-trailers. Australia has the longest and heaviest road-legal road trains in the world, weighing up to 200 tonnes. They transport freight across some of the harshest environments on Earth.

In the remote areas of the Outback, amongst the desert environment, where one may drive for a couple of hundred of kilometres and see no other traffic, the sound and sight of a Road Train can be quite an amazing experience. Nevertheless, in the middle of nowhere, the sight of such a huge vehicle can seem a little incongruous!

Last week the theme was "CITY" and Jeanna in the USA posted some photos of extreme weather in the city where she lives. The photo below was my favourite this week! Please visit her blog to see the other great photos!

Tuesday, 13 March 2018

GORGEOUS GORGE

Nitmiluk National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 244 km southeast of Darwin, around a series of gorges on the Katherine River and Edith Falls. Previously named Katherine Gorge National Park, its northern edge borders Kakadu National Park. The gorges and the surrounding landscape have great ceremonial significance to the local Jawoyn people, who are custodians of Nitmiluk National Park. In Jawoyn, Nitmiluk means "place of the cicada dreaming".

Katherine Gorge, a deep gorge carved through ancient sandstone by the Katherine River, is the central attraction of the park. Katherine Gorge is made up of thirteen gorges, with rapids and falls, and follow the Katherine River, which begins in Kakadu. During the Dry Season, roughly from April to October, the Katherine Gorge waters are placid in most spots and ideal for swimming and canoeing.

There may be freshwater crocodiles in most parts of the river, as they nest along the banks, but they are harmless to humans. Saltwater crocodiles regularly enter the river during the wet season, when the water levels are very high, and are subsequently removed and returned to the lower levels at the onset of the dry season. Thus, swimming in the Wet Season is prohibited, as crocodiles don't respond to swimmers' questioning them if they are fresh or saltwater ones. Cruises of various lengths go as far as the fifth gorge.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

IN OUTBACK AUSTRALIA

The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush" which, colloquially, can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. Because of the low and erratic rainfall over most of the outback, combined with soils which are usually not very fertile, inland Australia is relatively sparsely settled. More than 90 percent of Australians live in urban areas on the coast.

The total population of the Outback in Australia declined from 700,000 in 1996 to 690,000 in 2006. Largest decline was noted in Outback NT, while Kimberley and Pilbara showed population increase during the same period. The sex ratio is 104 males for 100 females and 17% of the total population is indigenous.

Other than agriculture and tourism, the main economic activity in this vast and sparsely settled area is mining. Owing to the complete absence of mountain building and glaciation since the Permian (in many areas since the Cambrian) ages, the outback is extremely rich in iron, aluminium, manganese and uranium ores, and also contains major deposits of gold, nickel, iron, lead and zinc ores. Because of its size, the value of grazing and mining is considerable.

There is much beauty within the Outback, with vast, unspoilt tracts of land, desert and scrubland, hidden oases and watercourses, striking rock formations, unusual vegetation, striking soil and mineral colours, our native animals, and amazing vistas at sunrise and sunset. There is terror also, with droughts, bushfires, floods and other natural disasters...

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

Sunday, 22 October 2017

MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #37 - FLATTEST CONTINENT

The rules are simple:

1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;

2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;

3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;

4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately!

For 11 days in February 2000 the space shuttle "Endeavour" circled the world, using a sophisticated radar to chart all the land between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south, and 80 per cent of the Earth's land was mapped with a resolution of 90 metres. After more than four years' work, the final topographic maps, covering Australia, New Zealand and more than 1000 Pacific, Indian and Atlantic ocean islands have been released.

NASA noted that Australia was the flattest continent in the world. "Its low average elevation (300 metres) is caused by its position near the centre of a tectonic plate, where there are no volcanic or other geologic forces of the type that raise the topography of other continents.

"Prominent features of Australia include the Lake Eyre Basin, the darker green region visible in the centre-right. At 16 metres below sea level, this depression is one of the largest inland drainage systems in the world, covering more than 1.3 million square kilometres. "The crescent-shaped uniform green region in the south, just left of centre, is the Nullarbor Plain, a low-lying limestone plateau, which is so flat that the Trans-Australian railway runs through it in a straight line for more than 483 kilometres."

Colour coding used in the map "is directly related to topographic height, with green at the lower elevations, rising through yellow and tan, to white at the highest elevations".

This post is part of the My Sunday Photo meme,

and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

Sunday, 13 August 2017

MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #27 - WAVE ROCK

Welcome to the meme, "My Sunday Best", which is a photographic and creative meme that allows you to showcase your talents in imaging. Every Sunday, you can post here showing an image you have created using your camera, (and/or) image processing software, and/or painting and drawing in the conventional way and have scanned in.

The rules are simple:
1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;
2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;
3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;
4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately!

Wave Rock is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave. The “wave” is about 14 m high and around 110 m long. It forms the north side of a solitary hill, which is known as “Hyden Rock”. This hill, which is a granite inselberg, lies about 3 km east of the small town of Hyden and 296 km east-southeast of Perth, Western Australia.

Wave Rock and Hyden Rock are part of a 160 ha nature reserve, Hyden Wildlife Park. A wall lies above Wave Rock about halfway up Hyden Rock and follows the contours of the wall. It collects and funnels rainwater to a storage dam. The wall and dam were constructed in December 1928 by the Public Works Department for the original settlers of East Karlgarin District. Both were renovated in 1951 to increase water capacity for the Hyden Township. Such walls are common on many similar rocks in the Wheatbelt.

Wave Rock has cultural significance to the indigenous Ballardong people. Local tribes believed that the rock was a creation of the Rainbow Serpent, and was created in her wake by dragging her swollen body over the land after she had consumed all of the water in the land. They respected this area as an icon of cultural learning; a moral from this Dreamtime tale was to be remembered for life. More than 140,000 tourists visit Wave Rock every year.

This post is also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,

and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

Please leave your link below using the Mr Linky tool:

Wednesday, 11 January 2017

ALICE SPRINGS, AUSTRALIA

Alice Springs is the third largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated roughly in Australia's geographic centre. The area is known as Mparntwe to its original inhabitants, the Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for thousands of years.

The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Lady Alice Todd (née Alice Gillam Bell), wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. Alice Springs has a population of 27,972, which makes up 8.7 percent of the territory's population. Alice Springs is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin. The town straddles the usually dry Todd River on the northern side of the MacDonnell Ranges.

The surrounding region is known as Central Australia, or the Red Centre, an arid environment consisting of several different deserts. In Alice Springs temperatures can vary dramatically, with an average maximum temperature in summer of 35.6 °C and an average minimum temperature in winter of 5.1 °C. Alice Springs has faced many problems in recent years, largely stemming from an increase in crime and a strong racial divide that has existed for years in the town

This post is part of the Waterworld Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

Tuesday, 26 July 2016

THE BUSH

The concept of "the bush" has become iconic in Australia. In reference to the landscape, "bush" refers to any sparsely-inhabited region, regardless of vegetation. "The bush" in this sense was something that was uniquely Australian and very different from the green European landscapes familiar to many new immigrants. The term "Outback" is also used, but usually in association with the more arid inland areas of Australia.

"The Bush" also refers to any populated region outside of the major metropolitan areas, including mining and agricultural areas. Consequently, it is not unusual to have a mining town in the desert such as Port Hedland (Pop. 14,000) referred to as "the bush" within the media.

Bush poets such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson revered the bush as a source of national ideals, as did contemporaneous painters in the Heidelberg School like Tom Roberts (1856-1931), Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) and Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917). Romanticising the bush in this way was a big step forward for Australians in their steps towards self-identity.

The legacy is a folklore rich in the spirit of the bush. Australians affix the term "bush" to any number of other entities or activities to describe their rural, country or folk nature, e.g. "Bush Cricket", "Bush Music", etc.

The "bush" in these photos is in South Australia, a fair way out of Adelaide.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Trees & Bushes meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

THE OLGAS

Kata Tjuta, sometimes written Tjuṯa (Kata Joota), and also known as Mount Olga (or colloquially as The Olgas), are a group of large domed rock formations or bornhardts located about 365 km southwest of Alice Springs, in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. Uluru (2nd photo), 25 km to the east, and Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga form the two major landmarks within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

The 36 domes that make up Kata Tjuta / Mount Olga cover an area of 21.68 km2, are composed of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock consisting of cobbles and boulders of varying rock types including granite and basalt, cemented by a matrix of sandstone. The highest point, Mount Olga, is 1,066 m above sea level, or approximately 546 m above the surrounding plain (198 m higher than Uluru).

This post is part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme.

Tuesday, 26 January 2016

AUSTRALIA DAY 2016 TOUR

Australia (officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia), is an Oceanian country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.

For about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages grouped into roughly 250 language groups. After the European discovery of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788.

The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies were established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Since federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy comprising six states and several territories.

The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated in the eastern states and on the coast. Australia is a developed country and one of the wealthiest in the world, with the world's 12th-largest economy. In 2014 Australia had the world's fifth-highest per capita income. Australia's military expenditure is the world's 13th-largest. With the second-highest human development index globally, Australia ranks highly in many international comparisons of national performance, such as quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organisation, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the Pacific Islands Forum.

Here is my photographic tour of our country, through the major urban centres and a taste of the Outback.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!