Walking Out

2 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

After breakfast, we packed up and prepared to walk out of the national park. Here the ponies are being fed prior to taking our stuff back along the trail.

Our villager support crew is packing everything up with remarkable speed and efficiency.

A view of the frozen river.

The ponies pass us by carrying all our baggage. The chairs appear to be going back to Leh too.

One pony has slipped over crossing the ice on the frozen river. He is soon lifted up and got on his way.

Back in the cars, here are some views of the River Indus.

You may remember, this bridge was in the first image of the post Walking In. With some symmetry, this is the last image for Walking Out. These ponies are from another group.

On the Roof of the World

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1 February 2018, Hemis National Park, Ladakh, India

We are on our way to climb a high plateau behind Rumbak village. Passing through the village, here is a pony and three donkeys in a sheltered pen attached to a house.

A blue sheep skull in front of a house with animal feed on the roof.

Here we are climbing up to an intermediate ridge. In the high altitude, climbing is very slow going.

Turning around, Jools is behind me. Further back, Emma (wearing red) is pausing for breath and Tashi, our chief guide and organiser, is monitoring her progress.

We have reached the intermediate ridge. There is a stupa on a high point in the middle though you may need to click on the image to see it. They occur in places where you wonder about the effort to build them. You can also see a trail up to there.

I paused for this panorama. Stok Kangri, to the right of the cloud at the left, is the highest peak in Ladakh at 6,150 metres (20,200 feet).

Some of the others set off immediately for the small high plateau. I followed them after a time and missed the brief period of calm with no wind that those others encountered. This and following images are from the high plateau.

We are at 4,300 metres or 14,100 feet.

I called this post “On the Roof of the World”, a phrase which normally relates to Tibet. Well, we are on the Himalayan plateau in an area that is historically and culturally Tibetan (though part of India) and we are at one of the highest levels of Ladakh.

A closer view of Stok Kangri, highest peak in Ladakh.

Back in camp, I decided to venture out late at around 9pm when it was dark (and cold) for an image of the stars with the land illuminated by the light of the full moon.

We are at the same point where we viewed the three snow leopards. They were at the skyline at far right or perhaps further to the right.

There may be some constellations visible, for those who can pick them. Click the image for a larger view.

Grand Canyon Monochromes

Jul2

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th to 31st October 2014.

Monochrome images from the Grand Canyon, some from infrared originals…

Grand Canyon (IR)

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Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 29th to 31st October 2014.

Some infrared images from the Grand Canyon…

Grand Canyon Walk

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Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 30th October 2014.

There are trails that you can take all the way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Most of the time you are likely to need a hat and lots of water. We went on one of these but did not go all the way down.

At one place there were pictograms beside the path.

There have been many peoples living in the Grand Canyon over a long period of time. Clovis hunters 10,000BC to 7,000BC hunted large mammals and left behind their stone spear points. Archaic Indians 7,000BC to 500BC were hunter-gatherers, hunting smaller animals and gathering wild foods. The Basketmaker Culture of 500BC to 800AD used bows and arrows, introduced agriculture, lived in pit houses and made pottery.

Note the line of deer going down the stone.

Puebloan cultures from 800AD to 1300AD grew corn, beans and squash. Ancestors of Hualapai, Havasupai, Southern Paiute and Navajo Indians arrived in the area between 1300AD and 1500AD.

I think a Pinyon Pine, growing on the canyon rim.

Over time immemorial, layers and layers of different sediments were laid down. Then 70 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau rose up. The Grand Canyon was cut by erosion from the Colorado River. This is mainly thought to have occurred from about six million years ago and would have been more intense during period of glacial decline. The rocks at the bottom of the canyon date back to pre-Cambrian times.

What do you see here? A dolphin? A tortoise?

This reminds me of a Stupa, as though there were Buddhist Indians in ancient times.

That’s a fire in the distance, not clouds.

I’d like to say that’s an ancient Egyptian pyramid in the background but I’m afraid someone might believe me.

It is now late afternoon and the sunset is drawing closer. This is looking past the canyon at the distant landscape.

Here we see Desert View Watchtower, built in 1932 and intended to mimic an Anasazi watchtower.

The sun has gone down.

Walking back to the bus, I had an encounter with a dead tree and the moon…

Boolcoomatta Monochromes

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Boolcoomatta Station, South Australia, 28th-30th March 2015

On the way in to Boolcoomatta Station.

Old wheel, Boolcoomatta Station.

Kangaroos in the evening, Boolcoomatta Station.

Mawson’s wheel, Boolcoomatta Station.

Oonartra Creek.

Salt bush country near Oonartra Creek.

Nighttime lights, Mundi Mundi Lookout (?).

Dawn vista, Boolcoomatta Station.

The yard of old cars, Boolcoomatta Station.

Old farm machinery, Boolcoomatta Station.

White’s Whim and Well.

Near White’s Whim and Well, looking towards The Saddle.

At The saddle.

Mawson’s wheel and moonlight view.

Boolcoomatta Station Woolshed.

The yard of old cars, Boolcoomatta Station.

For more information on these images, see the colour posts on Boolcoomatta Station.

Dome Rock

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Boolcoomatta Station, South Australia, 29th March 2015

Some time after breakfast we headed off along the Kalabity Track and the Dome Rock Track. Here is a view of some salt bush country with even some hills in the background.

We stopped at the Dome Rock Copper Mine, in production from 1908 to 1969, producing 250 tonnes of copper over that period. This trench was used in processing the ore. First they crushed the ore and separated it into piles. Then they pumped acidic water from the bottom of the mineshafts over the piles. This caused copper to separate out in solution at the bottom of the piles. That liquid was then removed to a concrete vat and combined with ribbon iron to form a copper cement. Transport costs were high from such a remote location so this allowed them to transport a more concentrated copper product.

I haven’t tried to present an overview of what the mine would have looked like because in many ways there is not a lot left. One unfortunate event that happened shortly after Heritage Australia purchased the property was that former farm workers or managers stripped the mine site of metal to sell as scrap.

A few of the rocks lying around spectacularly show the presence of copper.

The whole area is very geologically rich, part of a large geological entity called the Curnamona Province. This includes Mt Isa and also the Broken Hill lodes which are the largest accumulation of lead, zinc and silver in the world. For example, there was a side road to a working gold mine on the way in to the homestead.

The rocks in the region are 1.7 million years old, then buried to a depth of 15 to 25 kilometres and subjected to great heat and pressure, before rising to the surface again due to mountain building events.

These last two stones were cemented into a structure at the site.

The Day Shaft, the main shaft at 220 feet deep (66 metres) is still there though boarded over and you can walk over the top of it and peer down though of course there’s not much to see down there.

We went further on to Dome Rock itself. I thought that was an interesting rock structure on the top and then I realised it was an eagle. I changed to a long telephoto lens just before the eagle flew off but couldn’t get a shot in focus. Then I realised I’d accidentally knocked the camera into macro mode. Ah well, you can’t win them all.

Here is our little group: Myself, Jenny, Ingret, Jacqueline and Boris. (Photograph by Boris).

From Dome Rock, the countryside stretches away, very flat.

Next we visited White’s Whim and Well. This is the remains of the well, used to provide drinking water for cattle. Someone had to live out here for many months of the year to operate it. The well was dug by hand to a depth of about 25 metres (82 feet).

A horse walked around a capstan to draw the water up. This is the yoke for the capstan.

We proceeded along the Wiperaminga Track and this is the saddle between the Wiperaminga and Eremophila tracks.

Kangaroo footprints in the sand.

After dinner and after the sun had gone down, we returned to the woolshed. This is Mawson’s wheel with the homestead and the stars in the distance.

Inside the woolshed by night.

This was our final night for the workshop (though this is not the last post).

Oonartra Creek

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Boolcoomatta Station, South Australia, 28th March 2015

Before dawn at Boolcoomatta Station…

The light was coming up and here is the rest of our party and the station in the background.

Here comes the sun….

(It’s alright but no Beatles in sight and it’s autumn, not winter or spring).

After dawn, we visited the old woolshed. Probably obviously enough, this is where the shearing was done and the shorn sheep were dispatched outside through the sliding metal doors on the left wall.

Inside it was dark, apart from a few shafts of light and the open door at one end. Spiderwebs in the light were harder to catch than one might think because the changing light meant patterns were quickly gone.

In a side room there were some interesting wheels. Perhaps this is the wheel of an old motorcycle.

And this, apparently, is the wheel of Mawson’s truck. There must be a further story behind that but I don’t know it.

After breakfast we headed off along the Noonflower Track and the Oonartra Track and stopped at the Oonartra River near the Oonartra Waterhole.

The Oonartra River was dry, as is usually the case, though historic photos with boats show that this may once have been different. Magnificent river gums line the bank of the dry river.

Here is a tree with a tenacious hold on life, still alive notwithstanding losing most of its lower trunk. The waterhole was close by. I did not photograph it because it was dry, though there were places where kangaroos had been digging for water in the sand.

A tree growing parallel to the ground and only just above it.

Salt bush country on the way back.

Much later we went somewhere north of the station for an evening meal under the stars, perhaps Mundi Mundi Lookout. Sunset is approaching.

It appears as though lighter but this is now after dark by the light of about a half moon (which rose before sunset). You can see a few planets or stars in the sky. It’s a 30-second exposure. Any more and they would be streaks.

Boris organised a kind of a fireworks display for us with burning steel wool. You can see him in the centre.

Moonlight exposure with moon.

Arriving at Boolcoomatta Station

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Boolcoomatta Station, South Australia, Australia, 27th March 2015

We met for the workshop, all five of us, at a café in Broken Hill around noon. After lunch we headed off over the border to South Australia. We stopped briefly at what was once a schizophrenic pair of conjoined border towns but now a couple of buildings with hardly any inhabitants. Soon after the border we turned right onto Mingary Road towards the Station but you had to know where it was to even know there was a road.

After a while, we stopped at a dramatic rock outcrop, including this one seemingly balanced on a few pebbles.

Beyond it the flat country stretched out endlessly to the horizon.

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Just below the rocks I found this feather from a wedgetail eagle. It is 53 cm long (or 21 in or for that matter over half a million microns). It seemed to me unusual in shape and unlike a couple of other eagle feathers I have picked up over the years. One edge is almost flat against the shaft and the feather looks aerodynamic when viewed edge on. I suspect it is from the leading edge of the left wing.

I also amused myself with some patterns in the rocks.

Somewhat later on we arrived at Boolcoomatta, which some time ago was a thriving sheep station. There are still many interesting artifacts of its history lying around.