Journey to the Centre of NSW

with Sharon Archer

Wide open spaces!

I thought I'd take you on a pictorial tour of our trip to see friends in Outback NSW.  They run the Four Corners Farmstay and have this seriously cool logo:  

Have pillow, ready for sleepover!

It had been raining and I had a lovely time taking pictures of reflections in puddles...

While I was playing around the puddles, I found this really clear kangaroo paw print - interesting dimples in the heel...

Actually, I just noticed this weird visual effect - if I put the picture the other way around the heel looks like an "outdent" rather than an indent!  Does it do the same for you?

I think my photographic fascinations can be summed up as reflections, sunsets and "up close and personal"!  Here are a few small things that couldn't/didn't run away!

Lace of spider silk & water droplets

We tripped out to find the geographical centre of NSW.

Yep, we found it & have the picture to prove it!

All too soon, it was time to head home again... this is our lunch spot on the trip back...

A quiet spot for lunch

Our socks didn't dry in time to pack so I hung them in the back of the car!

Laundry to go!

Stopped over night at the Lake Cargelligo Caravan Park and went for an evening walk to the lake.  

yep, more reflections!

Spotted these galahs having a drink...

Sunrise on the lake the next morning was pretty spectacular...

And the galahs looked so gorgeous with the early morning light on their rose-pink breasts...

We're back home now!  It's lovely to go away, but always wonderful to get back home... even if it is cold and wet here at the moment! 

Thanks for taking this little tour with me!  When I first travelled through the outback, many years ago now, I found the flatness and the hugeness of it daunting but now I really love it!  So do you like wide open spaces or do you prefer the cosiness of rolling hills? 

Art on the Go!

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by Sharon Archer

We’re home! Which is absolutely gorgeous! Having everything under the one roof - bathroom, laundry, toilet kitchen - is a terrific treat. (Though I confess that we did have a fabulous few days with Rachel Bailey and then with Anna Campbell - thanks, girls! - and they have exciting things like bathrooms under the same roof too!)

Anyway, we're under our home roof and there’s not a thread of canvas anywhere! Though the house still looks a bit like we need a “hoarder intervention”!

As I’ve been slowly getting organised, I’ve been “re-finding” some of the treasures of our time away. I thought I’d share a couple of them...

The first are these gum leaves.

Miniature "Masterpieces"!

Anita at Four Corners Farm Stay gave us an art lesson with acrylic paints and our “canvases” were dried gum leaves. Enormous fun! And a messed up canvas just means a quick trip outside to the nearest patch of shrubbery!

And the mini-scenes felt “approachable” somehow - in fact, one of the hard things was knowing when to stop adding details!  You know, the temptation to add another rock... or a fence post... or another tree...

Art Apprentice!

Rather more scary was the pastel lesson because it was real art paper and a much bigger “canvas and it ! Though having said that our pictures are only about 6 inches square. The lessons are run by Jenny Greentree at the Back o’ Bourke Gallery. We sat at a table (out of business hours) in the centre of the gallery surrounded by her glorious pictures and prints.

We learned about blending the pastels, about tonal perspective, detail perspective. And, with Jenny’s expert tutoring, we came out the other end of our lessons absolutely rapt with our finished pictures.

So how about you - have you tried out anything new lately? Is there anything you’d really like to have a go at?

In The Footsteps of....

by Sharon Archer

In the footsteps of ... lots and lots and LOTS of real-life heroes and heroines!

We're on the road in Outback Australia at the moment and soaking up the hugeness of the country, the red soil, the vast skies, the enormous distances. I'm loving reading about the people who came here and did amazing things... but today I want to share something else....  I'm following in the footsteps of the heroines of the Lucy Walker novels that I so adored when I was a teenager living in New Zealand.  Australia and the Outback seemed an exotic, faraway place!

I can't name any of the novels now but I'll never forget the enjoyment they brought me, the thrill of escaping homework and teenage-angst to immerse myself in the Outback, the taciturn heroes - so tall and handsome and capable, the huge stations, and the courageous young heroines, so far out of their comfort zones, who carved a place for their future.

For some reason, it's the names of the rivers that have really stayed with me - the Murrumbidgee, the Darling.  Tonight we're camped at Bourke in Outback New South Wales on the banks of the Darling River!

So, from the photos we've taken so far, I'm going to take you on a little tour of some of the things that a Lucy-Walker heroine might have seen...

The wide open spaces...

Huge dams for watering stock... and perhaps a nice dip on a hot summer day...

A misty morning, ghostly gums and a rich red road....

A wash out on a creek line exposing roots sunk deep in the soil...

A full moon in a billabong...

Maybe the hero would have brewed her a billy tea... though I'm sure he'd have settled his billy on the fire much better than I did!  Looks ready to tip over, don't you think!

I took lots of these pictures at a magic little place we discovered near Nymagee, NSW - Four Corners Farm Stay.  We arrived for one night and, loved it so much, we ended up staying for two weeks!

So how about you... have you explored places you'd read about in a book?  Are there places you've read about that you'd particularly like to explore?