Benz World Blog » Cliff

Blue Mountains

Jason Benz — Sat, 19 Jan 2019 22:06:15 +0000

These remarkable plants somehow hold on to these sheer cliffs in the Blue Mountains, Australia. The weather here over summer has been great. The altitude cancels out the worst of the heat and you are left with sunny days and the occasional thunderstorm to spice things up.

The last 7 weeks have been both relaxing and productive. Along with Stock Photography submissions I have done some well-needed maintenance on my van and laptop. I am in the final stages of packing before hitting the road again. From here I will drive to the coast at Jervis Bay in New South Wales. Said to have the worlds whitest sand beach.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Australia’s Twin

Jason Benz — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:34:29 +0000

These are some of the limestone cliffs in Victoria, Australia. Over 7200 km (4500 miles) out to sea is another set of cliffs which mirror this coastline. They belong to Australia’s twin. 80,000,000 years ago these cliff’s were connected to the land which now lies under the ice in Antarctica. Back then the earth was a lot hotter but it had started to enter an ice age as Australia moved towards the equator. The result was temperatures in Australia were stable for a very long time when the rest of the world’s wildlife was suffering from climate change.

Today Australia is in the opposite position. The continent is still moving north which is magnifying the effect of global warming.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Springbrook Waterfalls

Jason Benz — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 12:35:56 +0000

This weekend we visited the Springbrook National Park close to the state boundary. It is a fascinating place. It lies on the edge of an ancient volcanic ridge which causes all Queenslands creeks to turn into New South Wales waterfalls.

Ellenborough Falls

Jason Benz — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:57:48 +0000

This is the foot of Ellenborough Falls which is a horsetail waterfall on the headwaters of the Ellenborough River in the mid north Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. We camped in the Ellenborough Reserve last night then drove into Wauchope Library to do some job searches this morning. We were glad to discover we have been offered some work at the Woolshed Backpackers in Hervey Bay. Jason will take some Photography for their website and Karen will generally help out. We will need to put our foot down to cover the 854km (530 miles) by Friday. Until now we have taken a fairly slow route opting for tourist drives and some dirt roads. We will need to stick to the Pacific Highway to get there in time. Our address will be The Woolshed Backpackers, 181 Torquay Road, Hervey Bay, Queensland 4655 until July 3rd.

London Bridge

Jason Benz — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:36:33 +0000

We have left South Australia and followed the south coast into Victoria. This is London Bridge, or at least it was when a second arch connected it to the mainland. In 1990 it collapsed leaving a couple of tourists stranded on Australia‘s newest island. They were later rescued by helicopter.

We are now camped at the Avalon Rest Area which is a truck stop 50km from Melbourne and 20km from Geelong. It is the first free site we have stayed at with warm showers. Geelong faces Melbourne from the other side of the huge Port Phillip Bay. It is also where we have spent the last couple of days making use of the free internet in it’s libraries to look for work.

Melbourne is Australia‘s second largest city, although maybe not for much longer. It has grown by more than Sydney every year since the 2000 Olympics. It is also second only to London in the number of visitors to this blog so I feel duty bound to get some great shots of the city. If any Melburnians know of a good place we can park the Van while I photograph the city please leave a comment.

This image has been accepted by Shutterstock for Stock Photography and is available for download here.

Osprey Nest

Jason Benz — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:23:47 +0000

Due to many recommendations we decided to follow the coast around the Eyre Peninsula rather than taking the direct route to Adelaide. The coast continues to provide spectacular views such as this Osprey nest. When taking this picture I was torn between the desire to get the right angle for the shot and the instinct of self preservation which kicks in being so close to the edge of a cliff. Even Karen got very close to the edge in order to see the nest on the monolith. We are currently in the fishing town of Port Lincoln and expect to reach Adelaide in 3-4 days.

Great Bight

Jason Benz — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:18:37 +0000

We drove out of Western Australia on the 1st of March. This is the view at the Head of the Great Australian Bight in South Australia. Between June and October large schools of Southern Wright Whales can be seen hear on their annual breeding migration. The ranger told us numbers seem to be on the rise although he was concerned about the effects of BP using explosives to search for oil off the coast this year. Some fisherman had seen changes in behaviour of other marine life since BP started working in the area. We discovered our vans 30 litre tank seems to leak water when we are on the move. It has not been much of a problem yet as we have 46 litres of bottled water on board. Although every roadhouse and campsite has signs up informing you not to even ask for water as it is in such short supply we have managed to fill our tank once on the roadside from conveniently located rain catchers. These are tennis court sized roofs with guttering leading to a storage tank with a tap on. We have made good progress. Often covering 350km a day. We still hope to be in Adelaide before the end of the Fringe Festival on the 18th March.