Friday 23 October

A quiet day, a perfect day. Mal painted, played his guitar, read a book, and photographed some birds.

We had a damper for late breakfast and then a camp oven tea of curried sausages.

Sue had wandered far and wide and filled her camera with small birds.

We relaxed in our camp chairs as the setting sun warmed the clouds above the ridgeline. A light appeared in the heavens heading East, was it a plane, was it a satellite? We were not sure. The half moon beamed a happy face upon the evening and all was quiet on the western front.

We did some thought for tomorrow, will we move will we stay.

Maybe we will stay.

Saturday 24th October

Mal had found a tree he was interested in photographing and Sue was just as happy to stay as move, so we stayed.

Mal had set up his studio underneath the awning and so he pottered around, played the guitar, painted and tended the fire.

When the fire was ready, Sue popped a damper on and we drizzled on some honey and had a cup of tea and called it breakfast.

It was one of those days without a clear structure, we both came and went. On one occasion Mal came back to find Sue very excited, downloading some photos - "no you can't look yet, but I'm so excited."

When Mal was finally given a showcase, Sue had found a nest with baby Willy wagtails all curled up and the mother and father on guard. Sue was able to get beautiful photos of the little fellows.

Later she took Mal back to congratulate the parents on their beautiful babies (he lied, they were pretty ugly) and their wonderful nursery (he did not lie, it was a nest of brilliance).

In the afternoon, we had a short rain shower which is much needed.

We stoked up the fire and had an evening in front of the bush tele. The sparks were flying like in all good TV drama. We watched intently to see if the good guys would win, but it was like SBS without the sub-titles, kind of hard to tell what was really going on, so we left half way through. In the morning the story was still in the dying stages, everyone was nearly dead and only a flicker of life was left as the bodies lay in the ashes of a fiery saga.

Mal's Reflections.

Firstly a note to Bruce.

The extra solar panels are working well - here we are morning 3 without running the car, parked in partial shade and with some days being quite clouded over and we are sitting at 12.6v first up in the morning before sun up.

The panels are charging at up to 13.6v when we get full sun and I could be wrong but is it possible that the isolation switch which stops the car battery from discharging below a certain point could run in reverse. That is if the deep cycle battery has more charge than the car batteries cut off point, could the solar panels be charging the car battery?

The reason I ask is because I looked at the isolation switch on the second day and the red light was on, which normally shows the car battery is donating charge to the deep cycle battery. So a bit confused on that score.

Image Making

Here we are at King's Plains NP. What do I find discarded near one of the fire places, a playing card. Which card? Yes you guessed, the King of Hearts - yes I love this spot too. So I have included the playing card in one of my images - a collage.

In regard to the water colour of Undercliffe Falls. The sketch turned out promising, however when I translated the image onto water colour paper at a larger scale, I have failed to have the control of the medium to render what I was after. So it will be a case of chalk it up as part of the experience process or maybe try the image again in acrylics. I like the image because the headland of rocks are stacks precariously and are at the point of loosing balance and falling into the empty space on the right.

Maybe I need to sit with that feeling/idea and refine both the composition and have another bang at the technique - water colour not easy to coax into the desired end result.