4th August 2004, Sale, Gippsland. I bought this canon a300 camera to carry on the motorbike. No zoom, no manual creativity, just a basic point and shoot. I liked it’s simplicity. I remember this evening, wandering around in Sale and playing with blurry shots. The lack of manual control eventually led me to selling it. Although I still have fond memories of it and it’s simplicity, and wonder if I shouldn’t have such a camera just lying around for those one handed candid snaps of people.

Just in case you can’t tell: the top picture is a green mini, the bottom one is a log (evil) truck.

(c) Andrew Calder

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June 2004. This is across the road from the Loy Yang power station. It was early in the morning and cold. Most mornings I used to have a view like this on my way to work. Actually, I rarely got on the road this early, it was too cold. I can’t imagine why I was up so early.

(c) Andrew Calder

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12th August 2004. This is along one of the tracks into the Holey Plains State Park in Gippsland. It is about ten kilometres from the Woodside Primary School, a school I used to work at once each fortnight. After finishing at the school, I would explore tracks through the state park, and then some pine plantation and little farm roads to come out on a road about 15km from where  I lived in Traralgon. The exploring and adventurous rides to get to and from work along isolated tracks really was one of the highlights of my time in Gippsland.

(c) Andrew Calder

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29th June 2004: Near the Tara Bulga National Park again. It is along the same route as the Brain Matter post. It is an amazing area with many different facets. It was the contrast of the shadow and light that attracted me to these trees. The other thing I loved about this area were the lyre birds; they were everywhere, digging around like chooks and screeching in alarm when we walked up on them. They were also quite happy tormenting Ella, usually leaping and flapping from tree to tree (they don’t really fly unless helped by gravity) beside us, and screeching. We used to pass a particular bush, and we would hear three or four different types of bird in it - it was a lyre bird putting on a show of mimicry for us.

(c) Andrew Calder

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15th August 2004. Lake Narracan, about four kilometres from Yallourn North in Gippsland. I considered naming this Marble. It was an amazing evening - the reflections were mesmerising, and the water was so still.

(c) Andrew Calder

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 12th June 2004. While I lived in Gippsland, I would try to get up and out to see the sunrise once or twice a year. I remember this morning being really cold - my hands froze. Of course, I’ve had much colder mornings since, and probably would not consider a morning like that so cold any more. It was also foggy, although it isn’t so obvious in these pictures.

(c) Andrew Calder

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13th July 2004. I found these in a logged pine plantation not too far out of Traralgon in the Strezlecki ranges (Gippsland, Vic).

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7th August 2004. A routine combintion of me, Ella, and Gippsland. I have so many photos of dead trees. There are various land care groups throughout Gippsland, and dead trees are left standing in many places - at the least to provide nesting sites for birds, cockatoos in particular.

(c) Andrew Calder

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3rd August 2004. I probably have a more recent photo of this. It is a track that Ella and I used to walk several times a year. This particular spot borders the bottom end of the Tara Bulga National park, in the Strezlecki ranges.
I used to work in Yarram. Through the cooler months I would take Ella with me to work; she would either wait for me in the open car, or come into the schools with me (where I worked). On the way home, we would explore the Strezleckis. Tara Bulga is a tiny national park, and about the only land that was not sold for a token amount to Grand Ridge Plantations (they have gone through various name changes and are part of a bigger concern, but these are the people I used to see in this area) by Jeff Kennett when he was in power. It is an environmental disaster. Various conservationist groups have been lobbying for the state government to buy it back ever since.
The Bracks Government tried, but Grand Ridge Plantations (Victoria’s equivalent of Gunns in Tasmania) were only interested in doing so at a huge profit, and only after it finished logging the area.
Two of the many other shitty, wrong things, is that the local council did all the work on access tracks and bridges in preparation for logging operations, taxpayers money - when the logging starts, the tracks are closed (the Nationals were in power at the time).
It is very steep country, erosion is a huge problem. Grand Ridge Plantations strip the steepest country bare (I have the pictures if they want to argue that). It still has vestiges of it’s original beauty - little strips of man fern forests that follow the near vertical sides of some creek beds - uneconomical for plantation, but not for removing the old growth mountain ash.
This is in celebration of Gunn’s present misfortune - may it continue, and spread to their share holders.
(c) Andrew Calder

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