Bundanoon 2003

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19 August 2003
It was an eight-hour drive to Bundanoon and the weather was fine. I had worked in this pre-school last year and actually asked to make this return visit. Twenty children, all the right age to get good images. The staff ticked off names and let me move the children when I wanted to photograph them doing something different. All this cooperation added up to an enjoyable mornings work. Two hours after setting up, I had exposed six spools of film that needed to be trimmed when I got back to my unit.
In the afternoon I drove sixteen kilometres to Moss Vale where I spent an hour looking at the shops before returning to Bundanoon.
I had seen the local National Park the year before so there was little point in venturing out to see it again. Instead I messed around on the computer I had bought along with me. As usual not much production came of the effort but it did keep me from turning the TV on.
I had the motel restaurant to myself that evening and worked my way through four plates of Chinese food. The owners of the motel are very friendly and keep calling me "Young Colin" Didn't bother telling them I had just turned fifty-one.

21 August 2003
What a few days working in the country makes to my attitude towards continuing photographing children. The days at Bundanoon were a pleasure. The weather was fine, which allowed me to get outside shots and all the children were great. In the afternoons it always rained but that didn't concern me because I went back on the computer.
Last nights meal was in the motel restaurant again and I struck up an interesting conversation with some pensioners who were visiting the area.
After today's session was finished, I left Bundanoon for my next job, which was at Lockhart. I was on the road for quite a few hours and by time the motel came into sight I had added another four hundred kilometres to this journey away from Melbourne.
I didn't work in Lockhart last year and on this visit I had planned to photograph the stars by time exposure. The motel is situated on the edge of town and to the north lay open paddocks with light scrub. I took a number of fifteen-minute exposures.
A roast meal bought to my unit, which saved me a short trip into town, where I usually buy my evening meals at the local RSL.

22 August 2003
The Lockhart pre-school has an enrolment of some forty children. Only thirty turned up for photos today and the first hour was hectic with parents bringing in their children especially for photos then taking them home again. I then started photographing the Friday's children. It was about lunchtime when I packed up my gear, loaded the car and was pulling out of town and heading for my next destination.
Temora is north of Lockhart and I decided to take some back roads. My course took me back to the Sturt Highway, which I crossed near the town of Collingallie. Soon after I crossed the Murrumbidgee River where the road took me north through the town of Coolamon. I eventually arrived at the Olympic Highway where I turned left and drove the last twelve kilometres into Temora.
The Budget Motel is well maintained and is owned by the gentleman who runs the local Aviation Museum, which I visited on my first trip to this town nearly two years earlier.
Went to the towns RSL for my evening meal. An hour later I was back at the motel watching TV before turning the light off around 10 pm.

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