Here are a few photos from the V8 Supercars round at Queensland Raceway. While the TV coverage is great, there is nothing like being at the races and this circuit gets the thumbs up from the Greene household - its family friendly (i.e. plenty of spots to sit and watch and not full of drunken louts), its got great viewing from all the way around the track and there's heaps of opportunity to get up close and personal with the teams and drivers. I love the V8's but I've got a soft spot for the pocket rockets - the Aussie Racers. At about 1/3 the size of a V8, they can and do race four wide which makes for spectacular cornering and even more spectacular crashing. Of course, cars travelling at 200km/hr do test my photography skills. Of the 120 photos taken on the day, over 50 were of the track, with no cars in sight. Of the 70 that are left, I've got quite a few of the tips of car noses and disappearing rear wings and nothing else. Looks like I'm going to have to spend more time at the motorsport to improve my woeful photography skills!!! June and July have been a bit lean on the reading front. It's not that I haven't been reading, I haven't been reading fiction. My day job requires forty "points" of professional development (CPD) across the year in different categories and at a quarter of a point for 15 minutes of reading, that's 10 hours of reading to make the minimum 10 points in that category. Entirely do-able if I read journals or articles for 15 minutes a week throughout the year.
But of course, I never do that. Why would I when there's so much great fiction to read. So I find as the CPD year finishes (September) I spend a lot of my time "stacking" activities. No work reading on our annual holiday means double the reading rate during the month before. When I go to RWA conference in August (and I'll be there with bells on this year), there's double reading to be done in July. And I really want to get September's reading done before I go as well, because there's bound to be plenty of great fiction making the flight back home with me when I return. We spend a fair amount of time visiting our property out west of our home town, and when that happens I disappear from the web. Before we starting coming out here regularly, I didn't realise how sketchy mobile phone and internet services in the bush can be. This is the start of the walk up from the river gully towards what we call the "internet cafe". Its on the top of the ridge and its where the locals all congregate to send/receive calls on their mobiles - a mowed patch of grass on the side of the road. Guaranteed five bars of signal because it has line of sight to the tower. This is about half way up, and our place is down in the gap in the trees. From here, you get three bars of signal if you hold your phone above your head, and two if you are using it to talk - enough for a phone call but not enough for reliable internet. The tower is behind me in the distance as I took this photo and it's about another 1.5km to the internet cafe from here. Sunday morning dawned clear and not too cold, so I took my younger dog for a walk up the hill to burn off some energy. By the time we'd powered up to here, it was jumper off and we were sweating. A quick check of the phone and some photos and it was back down the hill for morning tea. A nice way to spend our Sunday morning. I'm officially a Taphophile - a lover of cemeteries - which I must admit is not something I usually mention in dinner party conversation. I'm a respectful taphophile - I visit during the day, I treat everything with respect, take nothing but photos and I leave nothing but footprints, but it still freaks some people out. My fascination started young when we lived up the road from a historic cemetery - dating back to the 1880's. My mother made me promise, never to go to the top of the hill to visit said cemetery, and being a good kid - I never did. Until about ten years ago. Now I almost frequent the joint. It's fascinating. Because the families that birthed the suburbs of Cash's Crossing and Joyner and Warner are all buried there. What started out as a minor interest could quite easily become a major fascination. So now, whenever we travel, I have to visit the local cemetery and have a wander. I hate to think what the police would think were my phone ever to be taken as evidence and the photos examined! This photographic gem was taken at the Howard Historic Cemetery, just north of Hervey Bay. If ever I have seen a less restful grave, I don't remember it. This one screams tortured soul to me. |
Fiona Greene AuthorWhen you set out on a journey and night falls, that's when you will discover the stars." Archives
November 2022
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