Semaphore Jetty.

During the early evening of Thursday July 4th 2007 Adelaide experienced a king tide which with the heavy winds, caused extensive damage to the Semaphore jetty, one of Adelaide's several coastal jetties.











The jetty is now closed to the general public until the repairs have been completed. The relentless pounding of the waves on the underside of the jetty planks was too strong and eventually lifted most of the outer section from their bearers.

Head of Bight.

The Head of Bight is a part of South Australia and is located 78 kilometres west of Yalata and 20 kilometres to the east of Nullarbor Roadhouse. Some of the cliffs are as high as 65 metres above the sea.

The Bunda Cliffs are a magnificent sight in themselves and stretch in an unbroken line for 200 kilometres to the Western Australian border.







The top photo was taken looking west towards Perth and away from the sun. The photo to the left was taken at the same time and looking towards the east early one morning which unfortunately has been effected by the morning sun.

There are many lookouts along the Head of Bight for tourist to view this fascinating part of the coastline.

Coober Pery Underground.

Coober Pedy is located 846 km north of Adelaide South Australia and is considered to be the "Opal Capital of the World" with opals first discovered in the area around 1915.

With the outside temperatures often reaching a hot 45 degrees Celsius in the shade, it is no wonder most of the dwellings are found underground.











These two photos show an underground Art Gallery and Jewelers shop which has been set up to escape the outside heat.

The Olgas.

Kata Tjuta, better known as the Olgas, are only 30 kilometres on from Yulara and Ayers Rock in the southern part of the Northern Territory.

The Olgas are made up of some 36 rounded domes with the tallest one being called Mt. Olga which is a taller than Ayers Rock.

Because there are so many domes that make up the Olgas and unlike Ayers Rock, visitors can walk through the centre of the Olgas on several walking trails. No trip to Ayers Rock is complete unless you visit the Olgas as well.

Ayres Rock.

Ayers Rock is located in the lower part of the Northern Territory some 280 miles or 450 kilometres southwest of Alice Springs and is the world's largest monolith.

These two photos were both taken from the same viewing station at different times of the day. This particular one was taken during the middle of the afternoon while the photo below was during the very late afternoon.

The viewing area that they were taken from is called the "Sunset viewing Area". When we were there on this day, we were totally amazed how the tourist behaved to try to capture what they thought was going to be a good photo of the rock.




As the setting sun goes down, the rock becomes a photographers paradise with the changing colours. For a while, the rock starts to glow red as the sun sets in the western sky.

This particular photo was taken while there was still some light shining on the top half of the rock creating the red effect. After seeing this spectacle during a good sunset, the next thing to see would be the water running off of it during a thunderstorm.

Sails in the Desert.

Imagine that you have been wondering the outback of Australia for a week, your body was drained of all fluids that there was nothing left in your body to create sweat. Suddenly you looked up and found what you see in the photo.

You would have to think that you had died and gone to heaven.

Never in their wildest dreams could those early explorers have imagined such comfort, such luxury, right in the heart of the outback.






This outstanding place is called "Sails in the Desert Hotel" which makes up part of the Yulara Resort which can be found in the Northern Territory of Australia.

The area is approximately located in the middle of Australia and slightly to the left. It is easily accessed by road or air and is well known for being the overnight accommodation area when visiting the world famous Ayers Rock.

Dog Fence.

Yesterday's blog mention something called "Dog Fence" so today I have posted some information on the world's longest fence.

The area of the fence that we photographed was just north of Coober Pedy in South Australia where the fence runs along side of the Breakaways.
















The following quote has been pasted from the State of Queensland's web site which can be found at their Wild Dog Barrier Page.

The Wild Dog Barrier Fence (previously called the Dingo Barrier Fence) was first proposed in the late 1940s to protect sheep from being attacked by wild dogs. Erection, however, was not completed until the late 1950s.

Originally the graziers were responsible for maintaining the fence, but with drought and changes in the wool market it didn’t take long for the fence to fall into disrepair.

In 1982, a $3.6 million state government program commenced to rebuild almost half of the original barrier fence (2500 km of the original 5600 km). The program also realigned a large section of the fence to exclude previously protected areas in central-western and north-western Queensland. This meant the barrier fence would only provide protection from wild dogs in central-southern Queensland. The current Wild Dog Barrier Fence is the result of that program.

In addition to the main barrier fence, a number of check fences were reconstructed and renewed in the southern Darling Downs area.

Today, the Wild Dog Barrier Fence is administered by the Department of Natural Resources and Water. It is about 2500 km long and protects 26.5 million hectares of sheep and cattle grazing country.