Reflecting on Paradise 2019

10 Apr Reflecting on Paradise 2019

For several years Maggie and I, plus a large group of friends, have camped at Easter time in a place we call Paradise. However, this year a smaller group of us decided to go to Paradise earlier, to get away from the Easter crowds.

On the first evening of our stay, the setting sun changed the colour of everything and imposed an even more parched look on the drought stricken ground …..

….. and beautifully backlit the western hills.

Overnight and into the early hours of the next day the clouds offered their contribution.

Later in the day all indications of that contribution had vanished, returning the ground to dust.

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I injured my knee prior to this trip and required a walking stick to get around. So I was mostly restricted to capturing these photos from a chair outside our caravan. With camera in hand I sat, observing the ever-so-slight and the dramatic changes in the weather and the light.

Behold the lighting provided by the second afternoon (above and below).

But, perhaps the dominant factor in the weather this year was the stillness, as demonstrated by the reflections on the river.

We love this place; it’s peacefulness, timelessness, vastness, smallness and isolation.

Contact with the world-left-behind can be resumed a couple of kilometres up the road. It was here on the 18th March I learnt of the birth of my first grandson, Archie, only three days after the passing of Maggie’s mother, Kathleen. Oh the joy and the sadness!

The river stores its own reminders of life’s cycle; the skeletons of old trees, the flourish of new growth, the presence of healthy structures that hold its banks in place.

On one afternoon Patrick and I sat chatting, as I pointed my 70-200mm lens in all directions. When, at close range, he peered down the barrel of this lens, we were both surprised his image appeared in reasonable focus.

For some of us blokes in the group, fishing is an enjoyable fallback. For Norm and Peter it’s their number one distraction in Paradise.

And while their efforts yielded good results, I couldn’t get close to the action. So periodically I looked on from a distance with my long lens. Above, Norm is casting for the “soon to be caught” large Golden Perch.

In the centre of the photo above, Peter can just be seen standing at his favourite spot. That afternoon he caught four rainbow trout and successfully returned all of them to the river.

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On our fourth evening, at around 7.30pm, the sky dutifully displayed a full moon and minutes later covered it in clouds.

The next day Maggie and I departed for home, where our postponed responsibilities patiently awaited.

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Feel free to leave a comment below, particularly if Free Camping is one of your interests, or if you have thoughts on the continuing drought in Australia or to share information on your favourite camping spots.