A weekend at Merimbula

Last weekend we had a trip down to Merimbula, which is about 3.5 hours drive away.  Merimbula is on the south coast of NSW just above Eden, near the border with Victoria.

We were going to drive down on the Friday, and then spend 2 nights there, but there was so much rain we decided to go on the Saturday instead.

So on Saturday, we drove down early and visited Mogo Zoo.  Unfortunately it was unbearably hot, about 36 degrees and 90% humidity. While we were walking around the sweat was running down our backs and also down our legs.  The weather seemed to suck all the energy from us.

We'll have to go to this zoo again, but perhaps in winter when it will be a lot more pleasant and the animals more active.  On this day most of them were hiding under trees and bushes,  trying to avoid the heat of the day.

That night we stayed at a great guest-house in Merimbula. Rated 5 stars.  Here was our view.

On the way in I saw a small pond or lake that offered some photo opportunities. So after unpacking our bags in our nicely air-conditioned room, I walked down to the lake. When I got there, there was a great scene of a few ducks getting ready to take flight, but when I took off the lens cap, the lens fogged up completely.  I realised that this was because I'd had my lenses out in the cold bedroom, and the lens canp insulated the lens from the heat outdoors, so when I took it off, it was like taking an icy cold can of beer outside on a hot day - the condensation started immediately.  So that photo never eventuated.  I had to wait about 10 minutes before the condensation evaporated again.

We were a bit disappointed at the races on Sunday where one horse came 3rd and the other 5th.

A poor day at the races

Another day, another loss.

Today we went to the races in Bega to see how our latest racehorse, Hot Eyed Glare, would perform.  Our other horse, Diamond Jay, is having a break at the moment.

Unfortunately the horse didn't run well as the jockey worked the horse too hard at the start of the race rather that letting him settle has he was directed by the trainer.  So he came well back in the field.  I didn't get a picture of him crossing the line because I can only take a finite number of frames at high speed and I ran out of them before he crossed.

So I spent the rest of the day trying to capture a good picture of the horses as they came down the straight.  It was a lot harder than I expected, especially when the cloud came in and reduced the light.  I had to set the speed to about 1/1250 sec or 1/1600 sec to avoid any motion blur.

It's still a bit hit-and-miss because you don't get time to frame the shot as they cross at high speed and it seems that most of the time you just capture a mass of heads, legs and bits of jockey.  I also noticed that I had a tendency to overly-concentrate to the horses' heads and jockeys so clipped off their feet.

Another Win

On Melbourne Cup Day we drove down to Bega. Our horse was running there, and it's always a good excuse for an outing.

The only downside is the 3 hour drive to get there.

The upside is:



and