A bunch of mates and I decided to go fishing in the Kimberley. This was right during the period of Part 2, so I needed to get a shot of a decisive moment while fishing. Difficult stuff. Anyway, our plan was to cross the continent through the middle and then head up to the Kimberley.
The reason we went across rather than straight there was fuel: we need to refuel every 2.5 hours and there is absolutely nothing up in the Lake Mackay area. At many places we got fuel trucked in to road houses and just landed next to their dunnies or whatever.
We crossed the Simpson desert in a formation of four helicopters for safety reasons. It's a hostile place but the landscape was stunning. These small photos do not do it justice, but here goes anyway:
Check out the road crossing the Simpson! Bumpy!
Most of the time we stayed at outback hotels. Here we are coming in to Mt Dare Hotel on the edge of the Simpson desert.
We passed Uluru and the Olgas, and took the obligatory shots.
We caused quite a sensation in some of the smaller Aboriginal missions we landed at. These kids came out of nowhere.
Knowing what I do now about the real nature of the theme I would have probably submitted this photo: it really was a nice moment. However, it included a helicopter (not mine!) so may have given the game away!
More sand dunes up the coast of the Indian Ocean. I really like these types of patterns in nature.
Then we tracked inland through the Kimberley. It is an incredible place and I urge everyone to go and do yourself a favour and take at least one joy-flight while you are there. You won't regret it.
We buzzed around the horizontal waterfall, where the king tides (and the occasional group of four helicopters!) scream in and out a tiny aperture in the rock.
There are tourist boats there which do the craziest of things. They scream right through the falls at times. Apologies for the poor photoshopping - the instrument panel obscured about a third of this shot.
Now we are heading deep into the heart of nowhere. The landscape is both stunning and deadly.
After seven days of flying, we arrived at Faraway Bay http://farawaybay.com.au for our fishing.
It turns out that the proprietor feeds a kite and a sea-eagle with fish-heads every morning. "Aha!" says I, "Here comes a decisive moment" I popped off a shot but I was too slow and the kite missed!
Then the sea-eagle came swooping down and I was better prepared. One of my mates was behind me and got a shot of me getting a shot of the bird.
Click, pop and I got the shot I wanted. I used the kit lens, shot in manual mode at 1/320, F4.5
I hope you enjoyed the story. The competition certainly had me keeping my eye out for decisive moments throughout the trip. If you want to see higher-resolution pics, I have uploaded some zoomable versions to http://rotorheads.com.au
very jealous though.
