Focus.

The focused Fly Fisherman.

Click to enlage.

All photos by Enrico Bucceri, aka the Italian Leprechaun.

Fly fisher man.

Power stroke. Enlarge this photo.

Focused fly fisher.

The result. Four inches of small mouth bass. There were one or two others plus several long distance releases. 

Two critters I photographed.

A bird and a spider, the bird is one of the canary family, (I think) and the spider is a golden orb. Something different from sunsets.

  
I haven't been able to identify this bird, but I'm almost sure it's one of our many canaries, might be a juvenile.

The body of this Golden Orb was about the size of my thumb.

More photos from yesterday.

None of these photos were edited in any way.
Click to enlarge.

Infinity.

Last glimpse

Looks a bit like a Japanese print.

Sunset panorama.

Took four sunset photos at sunset from west to northwest to north. Below is the result.

Click to enlarge.

The show just goes on and on.

Sunset and moon rise.

Went out with the dogs for our evening constitutional as usual and took photos of the sunset. The Italian leprechaun who walks with us said to me, "turn round and look behind you". There was the full moon rising in all it's glory.

Click to enlarge.

Looking west.

Looking north, a marbled sky.

The full moon, just scraping over the top of the trees.

I will lift up mine eyes...

One of the photos I took on Sunday.

Click to enlarge.

Fort Nottingham & Nottingham Road 3.

After my little trip into the country I returned to Nottingham Roads and Took a few more pictures.

The countryside around Nottingham Road is very easy on the eye, and epitomizes the area known as the Natal Midlands, green, lush and pastoral. 

Sunday morning joggers and their dogs heading for a run in the country.

This gnarled old oak tree caught my eye, although autumn is here it's leaves were still green. Note the moss and lichens on this the south side of the tree.

When I drove past earlier I noticed people arriving for the Sunday morning service at the "All Saints Anglican Church". It's what us country folk usually do on a Sunday "go to church", that is.

Lynch gate entrance to the church. 

A lot of effort and expense has obviously gone into the building of this gate. The wood looks like it's Natal yellow wood, and I wouldn't be exaggerating too much if I said it would cost almost it's weight in gold. A good investment though as I can imagine city couples wanting to get married in a country church and posing for photos beneath this gate, which traditionally would be decorated with flowers and ribbons for the wedding.

Not the prettiest of country churches, but the lynch gate makes up for it. Beyond the church there is a lovely garden, also convenient for wedding photos.

Fort Nottingham & Nottingham Road 2.

Continuing with my Sunday photography trip. From Fort Nottingham I returned to Nottingham Road, and took the road west out of the village towards the mountains and the Kamberg Valley area.

Nottingham Road is a sprawling village, no suburban type yards here, properties are measured  in acres, or rather hectares, and not "x" square meters, a favourite retirement village for the more well to do. It is part of what's known as the Midlands Meander tourism route that straddles the R103 from Howick in the South to almost Mooi River in the north. Along this Meander you will find B & B's Lodges, upmarket hotels, quest farms, craft shops, artists, weavers, potters, leather workers, coffee shops, restaurants, and micro brewers, almost anything you care to mentioned, you name it's there, places with names like the Hobbits Hut, the Far Away Tree, and other strange and wonderful names. 

I read a while ago in one of the local news papers, that the turn-over per anum of the Meander runs into billions, yet even in peak tourist season you don't feel crowded as it is spread over several hundred square kilometers. Every one dreams of getting away from it all and starting some sort of tourist business on the Meander. What they don't realise it's 24/7/365 kind of occupation.

Sign at the gate of one of the properties in the village.

The road west out of the village.

Epitome of a haughty stare, must be the dowager duchess of Kamberg.

Snow covered Drakensberg, from where I was standing the mountains were about 20 km's away.

Snow covered peaks, the average height of the Drakensberg is about 3,300 meters. 

Kamberg, or comb mountain if you translate it. Kam is Afrikaans for comb and berg is mountain.

Another view of the peaks in the fourth photo from a different position.

At the highest point of the road I was on I came across this sign at a farm gate. I kept expecting to see Heathcliff come riding on a horse.

The road back to Nottingham Road, Sunday cyclist and motor cyclist love this road for it's long curves and lack of any real traffic.

PS, don't know what happened to the scrip, suddenly went large and bold.

Fort Nottingham & Nottingham Road.

I was going to go fishing today but the torrential rains we've had put paid to that, the river would have been in spate so I decided to do a photography trip. The area I covered was Fort Nottingham and Nottingham Road.

Click to enlarge.

Apart from this weathered sign there is nothing here. Fort Nottingham is more an idea than a place. A kilometre or two further on there is the Fort Nottingham museum, and a few cottages, I decided not to go there as the dirt road from this point looked rather wet and muddy. The area consists of small holdings and lush farms.

  
This is also prime racehorse breeding country and this one looks in excellent condition.

The side of this hill is covered in indigenous forest.

Then I saw this sign, and new why there is still a small piece of forest left. While I was taking this photo I heard the deep, sonorous, alarm bark of a male baboon echo through the forest. He had seen me but I could not seen him. 

All over Natal these little gems of nature are preserved, wetlands, grasslands, and scraps of indigenous forest such as this, they pop up in the most unexpected places. This little forest will definitely get a visit from me in the near future, I can only imagine the bird and other animal life here.

Autumn colours.

From here I retraced my route and went to Nottingham Road. How did these places get their names? More about that in a later post.

More photos of yesterday's sunset.

Some more photos I took yesterday, went out again this evening but the light was totally different.

Click to enlarge.

Silage cutter cutting maize for silage. Watching the two machines was like watching ballet. The tractor had to keep adjusting it's position so that the chopped maize was spread evenly in the trailer. These two machines were moving at speed just to make it more interesting.

The cutting of the maize has opened in new vistas.

Jock of the Bushveld, I mean Bruno of the maize fields admiring the sunset.

"Blue, blue, my world is blue".

Sleeping giant. Giants Castle mountain peaks, about 60 km away as the crow flies, and about 3000 meters high, (10,000 feet).

Crepuscular rays, looking direct east. These rays are the result of the sun setting behind clouds, and peaks in the mountains in the west. The blue is a shadow of a peak, or cloud, the rays are parallel but seem to converge on the horizon.

Sunset walk.

Another stunning sunset over northern Berg.

This photo must be enlarged.

The light this evening just got better and better, I took 224 photo graphs.

Photos from yesterdays sunset walk.

Sunset walk.

Click to enlarge.

Cosmos, one can see the changing season in the colour of the grass.

The Photo above is an HDR photo, looking north east on the eastern boundary of the farm.

Also an HDR photo, here in the southern hemisphere lichens and moss, etc., grow on the south side of trees, fence posts, and other objects, (can clearly be seen on the near/south side of this fence post) as opposed to the northern hemisphere where they grow on the north side of such objects.

Another HDR photo.

The man in action.

These photos were taken by Enrico Bucceri, (aka the Italian leprechaun) while I was fly fishing for small mouth bass,  Monday evening on the biggest of the three farm ponds. I'd given him my camera to hold, (no way I was wading with it around my neck, I've fallen in more times than I care to count) and was completely unaware of him taking photos of me.

Looking for the prey.

Shooting line.

Long slow retrieve, I tried every retrieve in the book but the fish weren't interested.

Action shot, casting.