Saturday, April 11, 2009

There And Back Again. Chapter Twelve. Victoria Fossil Cave Part Prime

Yes, that means there'll be a part secunde, tierce, and quarte. Ahem.

Meaning this is part one of four. One is YT (that'd be me) pics of the fossil cave sans fossils. Zwei will be WP (Most Wonderful Woman In The Entire World) pics sans fossils. Tres will be YT pics WITH fossils. Lastly will be WP fossilised.

There's a strong possibility I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight...

You'll get a flickr slideshow of the 47 pics today. And, of course, a link to the thumbnail page if you'd like to view them individually.

But first, an Australian Bird Picture. Went out walkies this morn with WP. We headed over to Warraparinga to see what the lake is like and what the waterbird situation is. Got some really good shots of an Australian White Ibis (used to be known as the Sacred Ibis). But you'll just have to wait till I'm done with the Naracoorte trip cus this dude deserves his own post with a boatload of pictures.

However, I got one of the best bird pics I've taken for y'all to look at. It is a Noisy Miner. It's a type of aussie honey-eater, and you can probably guess how it got the noisy name. Never got close enough to get a really good picture before now.

Here you are; One Noisy Miner (also called a Black-Faced Miner):
australian miner bird



And now (as promised) my pics of the Victoria Fossil Cave without the fossils.

*Caution, there are lots of drippy spires hanging from the ceilings in the cave pictures. If this gives you motion sickness then I'd suggest either dramamine or a couple of shots of tequila before viewing the pictures.*

And don't forget, you can view them all as clickable, expandable thumbnails, right here.

Oh wait, here's some maps of the cave:

fossil cave YT001

fossil cave YT001a

fossil cave YT005

fossil cave YT005a



And here's the slideshow! Remember, just click on the little box in the lower right hand corner of the slideshow box to view it fullscreen.

6 comments:

la isla d'lisa said...

Okay , I have to ask ... what camera/film did you use for the Noisy Miner pic? While I love all your bird pics, this one is a beaut ... look at that detail!

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

It's a Fuji S6500fd. It's not a full dslr as you can't change lenses, but it's pretty darned good. It doesn't eat batteries, manual zoom ring, every setting you can think of. 6 megapixels too. There're only 100 or 200 dollars now.

This was on full auto, I got to about four feet away. The trick was to get the sun hidden behind the tree the bird was in so there wouldn't be any washout or glare.

I can send you the exif data if you'd like, no worries.

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

Awesome, awesome bird pic!
This is one LOOOOONNNNGGG vacation you & WP took.

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

SV Meerkat: You can cram a lot into 3 days :) How's that "short" cruise going? LOL

LoveANewIdea said...

Dave-
Awesome photo journalism! Can't get over how many cave-ing options there are on the map...makes for lots of exploring possibilities.

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

Liz: About half of the caves you can get through on the "adventure" tours. That's when you are squeezing through the tight passages. The rest are by permit only for researchers. There's still LOADS to see though!