Saturday, November 24, 2012

On our way to Australia

We arrived in Bundaberg last week, but making landfall, rally events, celebrating Thanksgiving and such, over-rode posting a blog. Now that things have settled down, here are the highlights...


Chesterfield Reef, New Caledonia
Nothing more than a way point on the way to Australia, but more than amazing. 

Chesterfield reef  is home to thousands of sea birds, and zero humans.
Mothers and babies were easily found and disregarded our presence.

Nests everywhere; in trees, grassy patches, and on the beach.

Nice tail feathers huh?


They flew right over us...

... and looked into our eyes with no fear.

Not much shade to be found for the young ones.

I'm not usually into bird watching... but this was a special experience.
I could have watched them soaring all day
and just living their lives.

Am I with stupid?


I took so many amazing photos the day we spent at Chesterfield, that the next day when something even more amazing happened, I only got one shot before the camera battery died.
A total solar eclipse!

If you've never seen one in real life you'll have to take my word for it; it's breath taking! To watch the sky go dark and the stars come out in the middle of the day... To see the moon and the corona of the sun all around it... and the rosey color of sunset on all horizons... it left us with a feeling of unimagined, difficult to describe, awe.

The passage from Chesterfield to Bundaberg was sweetly uneventful. The customs and immigration officials were nice and easy going. The Port to Port rally organizers did a great job.  So now we're in Australia, headed south to Brisbane... what's next?

Yes, there are just as many wild kangaroos hopping about in Australia
 as there are deer trampling through  your gardens back home.

1 comment:

  1. Very enjoyable pics, glad you had good passage. I may have to cancel my subscription to National Geographic. Gene

    ReplyDelete