I escaped from the industrial blight of Port Hedland back into the country and drove inland to Marble Bar.
As usual, I headed along unsealed back roads, which made the journey much more interesting. The country around this area is absolutely amazing.
Ancient flat topped mesas dot the landscape and most of the rocks out here are a deep red colour. But occasionally you are confronted by unusual dark hills, where the rocks are a dark chocolate brown.
Of course, Marble Bar sprang to life when gold was discovered in the 1890s, but that ran out pretty quickly.
Today there are mines and cattle stations around and the town has a roadhouse and a general store (where they bake their own bread fresh every day, which is just awesome!) and not much else. Well, there is a pub, of course.
This little town is reputed to be the hottest place in Australia, holding an unbroken record for the number of hot days in a row.
The slab of rock that gives the town its name can be explored in the river, near a permanent waterhole. The clear (but rather green!) water is a cool respite, very welcome in this dry and hot land.
The early explorers thought this rock was marble and they obviously didn’t have any geologists around to tell them otherwise. The rock is actually jasper, but I guess ‘Marble Bar’ has a more romantic ring to it and the name has stuck!
But the jasper is an attractive rock in its own right and where exposed, it does have amazing internal colours, with beautiful red, blue and grey layers almost glowing in the strong sunlight.
Goodbye Nikon…
A while back, my Nikon Coolpix P900 camera and I were the victims of a soggy encounter. While walking along a beach, a large wave crashing to shore unexpectedly left us both rather damp…
Given that salt water and electronics don’t mix well, I was not surprised that the camera went a bit funny. But then it seemed to come good and I hoped disaster had been averted.
But sadly, this was not to be. As time has gone on, the camera had begun behaving erratically. This is extremely frustrating as I have missed wanted photo opportunities.
So, enough is enough and whilst I can’t blame the camera, I was getting rather annoyed with the unpredictability. So I bit the bullet and bought a new one.
I decided to purchase another Nikon P900 camera. Not very adventurous of me I know, but I felt I knew this camera well. I was already comfortable with what I liked about it (and some aspects I dislike, too) and I didn’t have to learn another camera from scratch.
One advantage of this camera is the massive zoom lens, which has a range of 24mm –2000mm. This means I can cover all the types of photos I enjoy taking, from massive landscapes through to my attempts at wildlife and bird photography, without changing lenses.
