Gone but not forgotten

What happens when your camera dies? Your photoblog goes into a coma. However thanks to the marvels of capitalism, we need never suffer any discomfort if only we work hard and have lots of money!

In a nutshell, about 6 weeks ago I purchased a new digital camera (for the record a Canon EOS 5D mk II). For the last month I've been jaunting around various locales in Europe (Italy, Paris, Finland, Amsterdam) with my whole immediate family. 

So now I'm back and despite ramping up for my first real Halloween, the blog returns, at about the same size and quality as previously. It will take a while to sort the 2,500 odd pictures I took, plus I have the added hassle of having to go to New York and the Grand Canyon amongst other places over the next three weeks. Life is pretty tough, but I'll feed in updates as I get through them.

1. Rapallo and the Cinque Terre

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=Rapallo,+Italy&hl=en&ll=44.313286,9.307137&spn=0.130935,0.338173&sll=33.804167,-118.158056&sspn=0.304109,0.676346&vpsrc=6&hnear=Rapallo+Genoa,+Liguria,+Italy&t=m&z=12

 

Looking over Rapallo

 Fort in the harbour at Rapallo

Harbour at Rapallo

 Riomaggiore (one of the Cinque Terre)

 Riomaggiore 

 Via Dell'Amore

 Manorola

Manorola

Manorola

 Manorola

 Manorola

 Manorola

 

Corniglia

 Corniglia

 Vernazza

 Monterosso al Mare

 A boat

Trabuco Canyon

In the continuing series of hikes in some of the local parks around the greater LA area, we visited Trabuco Canyon.
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=Trabuco+Canyon&hl=en&ll=33.663782,-117.589417&spn=0.262317,0.676346&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=36.001906,86.572266&z=11

Another beautiful walk up a creek bed to a small waterfall. I think the pictures pretty much cover all the details.

On the way back we made friends with a little skink - note the bright blue on his throat.

Salton Sea part III - Southern end and Salton City

After lunch we headed around the southern tip of the Salton Sea. Down at the bottom is the Sonny Bono wildlife reserve with a surprisingly large amount of bird life, considering the nasty state of the water. Sadly my telephoto lens wasn't up to zooming several hundred yards away....but William spotted a cool owl on the side of the road as we sped by - it was kind enough to hang around for a photo opportunity.

Heading north along the western side of the sea we visited Salton City - another fairly desolate town. It had clearly been laid out with the expectation of a huge booming resort town - throughout the place there were roads with power poles but no houses, or just one or two really old ones. There was a marina and a bunch of places that looked like they were set up for holiday frolickers but now they were all in decay and a pretty bad stench hung in the air.

I found the place profoundly sad, I think not because it wasn't all nice and shiny, but because a large contributor to the failure of the area is in fact runoff from agricultural land helping the water become toxic in parts (alagal blooms) and raising the salinity so much.

Salton City

On the way home we also found some dinosaurs - Rwarrr!