Katin Images Travel Photography

Travel Photos, Travel Photography Tips and Software

Tag: Tree

  • The Prison Boab Tree

    The Prison Boab Tree

    The Prison Boab Tree

    The Prison Boab Tree near Derby in the Kimberley in North West Australia is culturally significant site for the local Nyikina people .
    Click on the image for a larger view

  • African shoestrings – South Africa Day Fourty three – Kalahari

    We got into Upington around 5 am and had planned to sit around the bus station until dawn and then find our way to Yeho’s.
    Trouble was that the bus station was just a kerbside stop and the office was closed that time in the morning. Fortunately the gods smiled on us and a local tour operator, who was actually looking for a German tourist he was there to pick up (she didn’t show), gave us a lift to Yeho’s.
    Livingstone weren’t due until midday so the owner let us catch up with some sleep in the deserted dorm.

    Upington is one of those nothing towns. Situated in the far Northern Cape on the main road to Nambia it’s a purely functional place. So there’s not a lot to see or do in the town itself apart from grabbing supplies from the two well stocked supermarkets there.

    A big majority of the food we had eaten since we left home had come from supermarkets. If you’re going to travel cheaply then one of the first expenses you can cut down on is food.
    Now you can do that either very drastically by eating very little or nothing at all or just by shopping smartly at the local supermarket. The former has a common problem associated with it called starvation and disease, so we elected to be smart.
    In these first three weeks of travel I had been in more supermarkets than I had for the last ten years.
    Actually South African supermarkets are on the whole quite good, well stocked with a good selection of food, refrigerated cold drinks cans and an excellent bakery. Some places like Upington were poor on fresh produce but that’s understandable.

    Yeho’s was a fifteen minute walk away from the town centre and once we recharged ourselves with some food from one of the supermarkets we wondered around the town, checked our email, made a futile attempt at trying to arrange accommodation for our next destination at Fish River Canyon in Namibia and wondered back.

    We got word that Livingstone were running behind due to a reassuring mechanical problem with the minibus and they ended up arriving 5 hours or so late.

    Did we know they had arrived! One minute we were quietly sitting in the garden reading, the next we seemed surrounded by what seemed like a crowd of 20 but was only actually 5! Having picked this tour from a backpackers I guess it was highly unlikely that other members of the tour would be around our age.
    But these guys were babies!
    There was Alexandre (Alex) a German girl from Dresden (around twenty), Hannah, a well-spoken English girl and her boyfriend Simon (Si) who were eighteen and Michelle, an American Peace Corp girl who at twenty five, was a pensioner in comparison.

    And then there was Roland, the tour leader. Roland makes an instant visual impact. A big guy, he had a pot belly, a full beard and tightly cropped hair, with a big round earring and gives the impression of someone normally found on a big Harley Davidson terrorising the local town folk. He had that guttural South African accent and spiels as good a yarn as Wilbur Smith. We could see straight away by Roland feigning to chuck Alex into the pool that all these guys had already clicked together on the journey down from J’burg.

    If you like this then hit “follow” on the side bar

    An Umbrella Thorn Acacia at sunset on the savannah of South Africa. It's a native to Africa.
    An Umbrella Thorn Acacia at sunset on the savannah of South Africa. It’s a native to Africa.

  • African shoestrings – South Africa Day four

    At Rustlers Valley Guest Lodge, we met the occupants, neighbours and anyone else who seemed to materialise from time to time (we were the only guests) at dinner that night.
    There was Dale the local naturalist and loved snakes.
    Birthday boy Carl couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of some permaculture guru from Australia. I didn’t like to admit that I didn’t even know what permaculture was, let alone have any idea of its personalities!
    Then there was Bill who either had a hard life or he was old enough to have been dancing to Glenn Miller let alone Janis Joplin.
    There were other refugees of the sixties as well but none as dominant as Frick.
    Hippies have always maintained that everyone’s equal and there are no leaders in their ‘gangs’.
    Well in this case Frick was without doubt the leader. He just had that look; I would call it the Charles Manson look but that sounds rather sinister. He had the long ponytail and beard and had a sort of holier than thou sort of presence.
    When he looked at me I wasn’t sure whether he was going to bless me or offer me a joint! In fact he was actually the owner of Rustlers, so I guess he had some sort of commercial seniority.
    Apparently he was a farmer going broke when he decided to build the lodge and change direction. How he became an aging hippie was not explained.
    Rustlers are famous, amongst those that care, for their music festivals. We know this because, after the initial polite conversation, the sole topic was the upcoming Easter festival, apparently a sort of South African mini Woodstock.
    By the time our beds beckoned we knew all about running festivals and have since mercifully forgotten it all.

    An Umbrella Thorn Acacia at sunset on the savannah of South Africa. It's a native to Africa.
    An Umbrella Thorn Acacia at sunset on the savannah of South Africa. It’s a native to Africa.

  • Tree alley in Healesville, Yarra Valley

    About one and half hour’s drive from the cosmopolitan metropolis that is Melbourne is the beautiful Yarra Valley.
    A region of wine and food it’s also very beautiful and as does most of southern Victoria it has four distinct seasons.
    I mention that because most of Australia has really just two. Usually cool and hot or wet and dry or a combination of both.
    Here in Healesville the centre of the Yarra valley I spotted a colourful alley of deciduous trees just in the process of loosing their leaves during autumn (or ‘fall’)

    A garden alleyway in Healesville in Victoria's Yarra Valley
    A garden alleyway in Healesville in Victoria’s Yarra Valley

    Click on the image to ‘fill your screen’ or to purchase or download.

  • Ward Lake Ketchikan Alaska photo

    When we picked up a rental car in Ketchikan, the rental company owner wanted to take us out to this remote Lake about 18 kilometres out of town, insisting that it was one of Ketchikan’s hidden gems and great for a short walk. He was a bit of character and regaled  us with his stories of his first time in Europe and other personal stories but once he finally left we discovered he was probably right. You can see from the ISO I used that the light was quite dim. 1/80 @ f16 73mm ISO 800

    Ward lake near Ketchikan on the Alaska marine highway and inside passage.
    Ward lake near Ketchikan on the Alaska marine highway and inside passage.

    Want to put this on your wall then go to Ward Lake Ketchikan photo. To licence or share this photo email or contact us