Forster - New South Wales, Australia

Main Beach - Forster, Australia

The 26th of January is Australia Day, one of a handful of public holidays over here in Australia. Since it fell on a Thursday this year, we took Friday off and headed up to Forster for the long weekend.  We stayed at one of our friends apartments which is just a block away form Main Beach.

More photographs inside.

Forster - Tuncurry Bridge across Wallis Lake - Forster, Australia

Forster and its twin town Tuncurry, lie on a thin strip of land between Wallis lake and the Pacific Ocean. Forster and Tuncurry are home to a population of around 18,500 people, more than half of who are aged over 55 years. Forster is located in the great lakes area which is roughly 300 km north of Sydney, an easy 3 hour drive.

The Marina - Forster, Australia

The Forster marina is the first part of town that you see on the right hand side of the bridge when you drive in from Tuncurry. The breakwater is open to the public and a paved walkway provides easy access from the public car park. Dolphins can be seen around the breakwater on a regular basis.

The Pelicans - Forster, Australia

The Marina is also known for the flock of relatively large Pelicans that are often seen there. Facilities are provided for fishermen to clean their catch at the Marina and the birds gather around the cleaning tables hoping to feed on the scraps. They are quite used to people and gather by the table whenever someone is cleaning their fish.

Ocean Baths - Forster, Australia

As with most coastal towns in Australia, Forster also has Ocean Baths. The baths are located at the southern end of main Beach and are open to the public. The baths can be tricky to photograph as the rising sun will be directly in the background in most compositions. The best times to photograph the pools would be late evening or early morning before the sun rises. A Tripod is essential.

Ocean Baths - Forster, Australia

I made several early morning starts and managed to shoot the pool in varying light conditions. These two photographs are the ones I liked best of the lot. I tried using a graduated ND filter to compress the dynamic range of the photographs but it was tricky due to the compositions that I chose.

Tuncurry across Wallis Lake - Forster, Australia

All the images on this post were taken with the Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. A graduated ND filter was used for some of the photographs and a tripod came in handy on many occasions.

Puliyankulam Tank - Anuradhapura

Puliyankulam is a relatively small tank and is situated on the A9 highway north of Anuradhapura. It is about a ten minute drive from the centre of town and is definitely worth a visit. For those of you who are not aware of what a "tank" is, it is a man made lake that is used for irrigation. The north central province of Sri Lanka is covered with a number of tanks that have been built over a thousand years ago, with the aim of collecting rain water in order to cultivate paddy in the drier months. More info and images after the jump.

We visited the tank one evening in January with the hope of doing some bird watching. It was around five in the evening when we got there and the light was fantastic for photography. Apart from a herd of water buffalo, we had the place to ourselves. As can be seen in the first and third images of this post, there was an abundance of lush green grass growing in the fertile soil around the tanks and in the shallows. Beyond the grasses the tank was covered with lotus and the area was teeming with bird life. Our sightings that evening included Common Kingfishers, Egrets, Grebes and Darters. 

We didn't wonder around too much to be honest.  We found a large rock on which we sat while watching the sun dip below the horizon. I'm an outdoors person and this to me, was one of the best ways to spend an evening, surrounded by wildlife and far away from the hustle and bustle of a city. 

All the images on this post were captured using the 7D with the 100-400mm lens mounted on it. These images must be viewed large.