Pictures of the Moment - Spiky Bridge, Tasmania

Looking north, towards Swansea

One of the quirky architectural highlights on the east coast of Tasmania, Spiky Bridge was built in 1843 by convicts from the nearby Rocky Hills Probation Station. Readily-available convict labor built much of the early 19th century infrastructure of Tasmania.

The going theory is that vertical flagstones were placed in this fashion at the top of the bridge to keep cows from tipping over the side into a drainage gully. The retaining wall is low, and this might have been a resource-saving method if the supply of flagstones was short. Every English speaking country has its rustics, and Tasmania has a reputation much similar to Newfoundland in Canada. Perhaps local cattle have the tendency to throw themselves over walls?

Another guess is it was a form of protest by the convict laborers. I prefer to think the convicts were just employing a little creativity to brighten their otherwise monotonous existence of hard work.

Looking southeast.

The odd "spiky bridge" is located 7.5 km south of Swansea, just off the western side of the Tasman Highway (A3). On the shoreward side of the road are secluded beaches overlooking Great Oyster Bay and the peninsula of magnificent Freycinet National Park. We visited here in February of 2009.

Mirror Lakes, Fiordland, New Zealand - a haiku

Picture of the Moment - Lord of the Runs, New Zealand

The aptly-named Remarkables Range near Queenstown, in Otago on the South Island of New Zealand, was the backdrop for several scene's of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movie adaptation. Unfortunately, I've since learned this perspective from the popular private game farm at Deer Park Heights was permanently closed by its ageing owners in 2009. That's too bad, because there were few local attractions as good a value as the park ($20/car). But I can understand people wanting to retire peacefully!

Luckily, we were able to barely sneak in a visit in October of 2008 and learned just how much screen time can be squeezed out of a few acres of varied landscape. In just about any cardinal direction of the compass we could turn towards a completely different view. And the rolling landscape facilitates photographic trickery (it's not immediately apparent that the low rise behind the two boys drops off steeply into a broad valley extending from the suburbs of Queenstown and terminating in massive Lake Wakatipu). Many unrelated scenes from the LOTR movies were filmed here from different viewpoints as well as scenes from other Hollywood productions.

Lords of the Run

This image of my two oldest boys racing near the top of Peninsula Hill on Deer Park summed up our own New Zealand adventure, though we were destined to find treasure in the Land of the Long White Cloud, not discard it. And, I was lucky to capture the moment without an intruding llama or deer.

I wouldn't trade this picture for a hundred by Ansel Adams. Maybe you have a similar treasure of your own?

Sweeping through Broome

Baobab at Town Beach, Broome.

On those bitterly cold, winter school holidays Down Under, when temperatures in Aussie cities can plummet to a frigid 10˚c, the Lucky Country's population migrates en masse to warmer climes. In Western Australia, Bali is a popular destination, but the domestic option is Broome, on the Kimberley coast.

A three bedroom deluxe family bungalow at Cocos Beach Bungalows was our home base in Broome for one week in June, 2010. At that time we paid about AUD$390/night for a six night stay at what's considered a moderately priced resort. Our pleasant accommodation featured 3 bedrooms (1 queen bed with an en suite and three single beds) and second bathroom with separate toilet. I can't vouch for the television, which remained untested throughout the week. The location is superb, about a 300 meter (5 minute) walk from Cable Beach.

A Superior Sunrise

For once a red sky in the morning didn't portend troubled weather. Instead the last weekend in October, 2014 holds promise of warm weather and clear skies, capping a mild autumn in the Minnesota North Country. My wife Stacey Hewitt Orobona snapped this image while dropping our eldest son off at school. Seconds later the deep pinks transitioned to orange. Late sunrises during the months surrounding winter make it more likely to witness such spectacular sunrises in high-latitude parts of the world.

Lake Superior stretches in the distance, in the lower right corner of the image.

Raptor Enrapture

Duluth, Minnesota is a destination for a lot more than human tourists. The city was recently featured in the September, 2014 issue of Outside Magazine, following a nationwide contest to name the "best towns ever," receiving the highest total from more than 1.5 million votes cast between 64 cities. Perhaps the crown jewel of Duluth's urban wilderness experience is the Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve. During September and through October, Hawk Ridge is the pre-eminent location in North America for spotting birds of prey.

Picture of the Moment - Grand Portage National Monument, Minnesota

Lake Superior from a view point at the  Grand Portage National Monument, Minnesota. This is the scenic culmination of the Northshore Highway 61, just shy of the border with Ontario. Grand Portage is the US gateway to Isle Royale. The Grand Portage itself is an historic 8.5-mile (13.7 km) trail, still well maintained, along which the near-legendary French-Canadian voyageurs portaged their fur-laden canoes to circumvent waterfalls and rapids of the steep, final 20 miles (32 km) of the Pigeon River before it flows into Lake Superior

I experimented here with the panoramic capabilities of the iPhone on the way to Thunder Bay, Ontario, October 9th, 2014. You get a sense of the landscape, but the technique minimizes the vastness of Lake Superior, the world's largest body of fresh water by surface area.