This past year National Geographic asked me to document tall trees in Tasmania, Australia. It was a fantastic experience spending time in the giant eucalyptus forest with tall tree scientist Dr.Steve Sillett and other tree and forest experts. We climbed several 80 to 90 meter tall eucalyptus trees. I also had a chance to spend time in a protest tree with environmentalist Miranda Gibson. She spent a record 457 days in a tree platform 65 meters up in an Alpine ash.
The best moment during my 5 weeks in the forest was one morning watching the scientist in a 500 year old Eucalyptus regnans located in the Florentine Valley. The photo here is from that morning.
A massive fire, called the Wambelong fire, is currently burning out of control in and around the Warrumbungles National Park. I spent an amazing couple of weeks in the Park, as well as in the nearby community of Coonabarabran, shooting a story about the Park for this month's Australian Geographic magazine. My thoughts go out to all of those who have lost so much in this fire. Fortunately at this time there has been no human loss with the fire, but the loss in property, buildings, wildlife and livestock in and around the Park has been tremendous.
Doing some low tide exploration and crab chasing in Waratah Bay, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
Besides the Sydney Harbour and beaches Sydney's green belt of National Parks is it's best natural asset. The two Sydney area National Parks I've visited the most since I've been here is Lane Cove and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Parks.
Melanie crossing the rocks in Lords Creek
On the hottest day yet this summer, a sweltering 35c, Melanie and I decide to do a longish hike of around 25 kilometers in one of the nearby city parks.We considered the coast walk in Royal National Park, but
City biking has a few highlights. Rode through this recent burn on the North Shore near
Sydney. This place seemed like a perfect spot to stop and shoot a photo. I had my
little Sony RX100 camera and got the shot. Melanie wasn't able to ride
through without getting covered in soot.
When someone mentioned to me that the Barrington Tops National Park in New South Wales had lots of sub-alpine mountain peaks I went there to see what there was. I am from Colorado so sub-alpine terrain there is something totally different than what I have found in Australia. In the Tops, where the highest peak is Brumlow Top 1,586 metres (5,203 ft) above sea level, the landscape is densely covered in eucalyptus.
The sub-alpine forest in the tops includes extensive stands of snow gum forest. What's really cool is what happens when you drop from the peaks into the creek bottoms. You discover yourself in unique rain forest environments, filled with gnarly ancient beech trees and ferns. I didn't expect two such completely different environments within meters of one another.
It seems like it's been raining for days in Sydney, but a couple nights ago a wind storm pushed over the city. I set up my camera on my balcony and watched the winds blow through a nearby tree. The low clouds scrurrying over the tree tops reflected this weird light cast from the streets and highrises. Sometimes there's no need to travel that far to see something extraordinary.
This weekend Melanie and I had two free days and the weather called for rain. We decided the best avenue for exploration was to see some new country from our sea kayaks. Melanie and I headed south from Sydney 2 hours to paddle the Shoalhaven River Gorge in Morton National Park.
Paddling a kayak on the quiet reservoir waters of Lake Yarrunga past stands of dead trees is not normally my idea of high adventure, but we have wanted to check this place out since last year when we paddled the Kangaroo river, the major tributary to the Shoalhaven. This was an overnight trip, but it took only a
On my second day exploring WA I saw this view of a Karri forest with the iconic red dirt road. Most of the old growth Karri forest of WA has been cut down, but a few big stands still remain in a few National Parks and some isolated trees in state forest. In the later part of the 1800's when the trees were being felled the wood was shipped back to the European markets and used as paving blocks for roads in London and other cities. I heard that they still dig this wood up in the streets of London.
This impressive stand is just above the Warren River along a one way road through the park.
For a city of it's size Sydney has a remarkable amount of bush and green space. I've taken every opportunity to explore many of these places on foot and on bike since I have been here. The last three days have seen the city hit by a heavy rain so being a photographer and curious about what the bush looks during a heavy rain I walked
