Photographing Food in the Ferguson Valley, Western Australia

I have had a great weekend being immersed in Photography.

On Friday I attended a "Lightroom" photo processing workshop. It was part of a 3 day weekend of events organised by the Photography Group of Bunbury and the WA Photographic Federation at Evedon Park Bush Resort in the beautiful Ferguson Valley only about 30 minutes from Bunbury in the south west corner of Western Australia.  Evedon Park has cottages which would be lovely for a weekend getaway.You can see some pis from around Evedon here -

We have had quite a bit of rain the last few weeks so the rolling hills of the Ferguson Valley have put on their best green dresses. It's beautiful driving up around here this time of year. There are wineries and galleries and walks.  In the bottom pic you can see some cows and calves being moved along the road from one paddock to another on my way home this afternoon.

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Weekends of art and dance

I have had two lovely weekends of art and dance and another one on the way next weekend.

A couple of weekends ago I was involved with Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company & School of Dance (of who I am a member) when they performed flamenco dancing and held portrait poses for a life drawing afternoon at Jacksons Drawing Supplies in Busselton on Sunday as part of the Margaret River Regional Open Studios arts program. 
We were made very welcome - it was a wonderful event - and everyone, dancers, artists and photographers thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.
Many of the artists took photos during the performance so they can draw or paint pictures later.

I am updating Sol-y-Sombra's facebook page, so I took lots of photos, and then joined in for the last two dances.  Here is their Facebook link if you would like to take a look - Sol-y-Sombra on Facebook

This is our beautiful principal dancer and teacher Nicole performing an amazing dance with castanets.  

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Mother's Day love

On the second Sunday in May we celebrate Mother's Day in Australia, and I spent a lovely afternoon with my family at a late lunch/afternoon tea at a brewery restaurant, the Moody Cow, in the Ferguson Valley. But it felt strange not to be planning and cooking a meal for my mother today. I missed her.


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Part 9 - South Australia trip - Quorn and Hawker in the lower Flinders Ranges

Today I am back with the next part of our trip through South Australia late last year.  If you missed the last post, Flinders Ranges, you can click here - Part 8 - Exploring Wilpena Pound, Flinders Ranges

Quorn and Hawker are two towns in the southern Flinders Ranges that are well worth a visit either by travelling north from Port Augusta - or south from Wilpena Pound. 

The town of Quorn, 50kms north of Port Augusta, was proclaimed on 16 May 1878. With the building of the Great Northern Railway it became an important railway centre, and the main railway junction for the east-west rail to Perth and north-south to Alice Springs. The last Ghan train passed through Quorn in 1956.  This major railway link has now closed but you can travel up to Quorn on the Pichi Richi steam train from Port Augusta.  The railway line passes through Pichi Richi Pass which was a major route used by the Aboriginals for thousands of yeas, it's name derived from the Pitjuri bush which was used by the Aboriginals as a medicine.

Whether you visit Quorn via rail or road it is a lovely scenic route up through the lower Flinders Ranges. We travelled to Quorn from Port Augusta in the afternoon and it indeed a beautiful scenic drive. I wish we had gone up in the morning, or taken the Pichi Richi train and allowed more time to explore - but alas we only had the afternoon spare.

If you have an interest in history, your will love Quorn's historic streetscapes which have been the setting for a number of movies incuding Bitter Springs (1940), Walk About (1952) Robbery Under Arms (1957), The Sundowners (1960), Sunday Too Far Away (1974), Gallipoli (1980), The Last Frontier (1985) and the Shirlee (1987). 

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