| Ever dreamed of travelling to isolated wilderness | | | | Torrens shows up on the satellite images confirming |
| areas to photograph the landscape but been defeated | | | | what I suspected from the elevation contours on the |
| by the practicalities of getting there? Wished you had | | | | topographic map.Wilderness Landscape Photography |
| a helicopter? Wondered how you could hike with a | | | | Trip |
| heavy pack and camp out for days at a time?Well, | | | | It's 82 km from the bitumen to Bosworth Homestead, |
| this Australian amateur wilderness landscape | | | | travelling right across Arcoona Station on the way. |
| photographer did it. Here's the story of the daunting | | | | Parking the car beside a shearers hut, and after some |
| task that lay ahead and how I overcame the | | | | good geographic and topographic advice from the |
| obstacles.Background | | | | pastoralist, I jumped on the bike and headed out along |
| My son works at Olympic Dam Mine situated about | | | | the track that follows the western side of Station |
| 90km north of Woomera in outback South Australia, | | | | Creek to Andamooka Island and made camp as the |
| and lives with his wife and little family at Roxby | | | | sun was setting.Now, I've always wanted to camp on |
| Downs, the town constructed to service the mine. He's | | | | an island since I read "The Adventures of Robinson |
| an electrician, and besides taking a few pictures of | | | | Crusoe", as a boy. Andamooka Island, about 40 km |
| electrical installations, the massive machinery he often | | | | long and up to 10 km wide is in Lake Torrens and |
| works on, and my granddaughter, has little interest in | | | | separated from the mainland by a channel varying in |
| photography.I drove for 21 hours from the Far South | | | | width from a couple of hundred meters to a couple of |
| Coast of New South Wales, to visit my son and to | | | | kilometres.The shallower parts of the channel were |
| see this arid desert region, which has become his | | | | dry, so crossing was no trouble. Extensive salt water |
| home for the foreseeable future.Opportunity for | | | | holes in the channel, super saturated and with the salt |
| Wilderness Landscape Photography | | | | crystallizing out, provided micro and full view landscape |
| Well, the desert is fairly flat and quite bland at first | | | | images over coming days. With the sky subtly |
| glance but that's not the full story.With dry salt lakes, | | | | reflected in the base of salt crystals covered with |
| myall trees, stone strewn clay pans, and red sand | | | | shallow water, the stark vista was a wilderness |
| dunes, wilderness landscape photography images | | | | landscape photography opportunity to be seized. |
| clamour for my attention from Roxby Downs to | | | | Sights to blow your mind!Camping Out |
| Andamooka and beyond to Lake Torrens.Getting | | | | Camping, as you would imagine, was pretty basic. |
| Around the Desert | | | | You can't carry much on an ATV. No esky means no |
| But how can I get around? Distance is so vast and | | | | fresh meat, but tinned tuna on top of tinned beans and |
| the country so inhospitable. It will kill you just for being | | | | spaghetti goes down well when you're hungry.Priorities |
| there if you don't look out. The family station wagon | | | | in Wilderness Landscape Photography |
| won't go far off the bitumen. The tracks are so rough, | | | | Photography took precedence over eating. Each day: |
| and when it rains in this six-inch rainfall country, even a | | | | out of bed, on the bike and off photographing before |
| 4x4 will bog down or slip in the clay soil. There's no | | | | sunrise. Back to camp for brunch about noon. Off |
| way I could afford a 4x4 good enough for the trip | | | | photographing again till late and then try to get back to |
| from the coast to the centre and reliable enough to go | | | | camp before the diminishing glow of the setting sun left |
| out alone into that country. Furthermore, you wouldn't | | | | me in the dark. Although I have good lights on the bike, |
| take a good-looking vehicle on those rocky, desert | | | | the country is just too rough to cover in the |
| tracks.So I decided on an ATV. That's an "All Terrain | | | | dark.Hidden Dangers in the Desert |
| Vehicle," "Quad Bike," "four wheel motorbike." I can | | | | Although rare, this country is known to host the |
| transport it in a trailer behind the car and go to the end | | | | world's most venomous snake, the inland taipan, as |
| of the road, then jump on the bike.Setting Up The ATV | | | | well as the king brown and several other dangerous |
| The bike, set up with boxes on the back and front | | | | species. There are also said to be scorpions about. I'm |
| racks, pulls a small trailer. With this configuration I not | | | | told that the dingoes have been eradicated from this |
| only get myself way out beyond where a 4x4 will go | | | | area, south of the dog fence, but the nights were still |
| without too much walking, but also my camera gear, | | | | pretty scary. Every time the breeze rustled the tent I'd |
| tools, emergency supplies, water, fuel and my camp as | | | | wake, laying tense and listening for the sound of pads |
| well. In a nutshell, that's about it.Navigating the | | | | on the rocks. Needles to say, I gave my sleeping bag a |
| Wilderness Landscape | | | | good shake out before getting in each night.Coming |
| Navigation is with a topographic map, compass and | | | | Wilderness Landscape Photography Trip |
| GPS. Using the coordinates from the GPS, I know | | | | Well, I came home with a heap of digital images, some |
| where I am on the map which is so much simpler than | | | | colour film to send for processing and some B&W to |
| trying to identify distant features on a flat | | | | process myself. I'm going again, you know. Want to |
| landscape.For months, in my spare time, I studied the | | | | come with me? Then go to my website, send an |
| maps, getting the feel of the geography and | | | | e-mail and we'll talk about it.Laurie McArthur is a |
| topography and comparing this to the satellite images | | | | wilderness landscape photographer based on the New |
| on Google Earth. This way I identified areas of likely | | | | South Wales Far South Coast, Australia. |
| interest. It's amazing how the salt build up in Lake | | | | |