Australia, Kakadu National Park rock art - Part 3 , Nanguluwur

In terms of art I think that Nanguluwur was my favourite, also because you have to hike to the location (a couple of kilometers if I remember right, either way, not very far)  the place is not as popular.

Click on the photo below if you want to see all the hand representations. I am very much into hands and this is one of the reason Why I prefer Naguluwur. Also I love all the mythical creatures represented.

In many places, but particularly on the roof of the rock overhang you have those great hand impressions.

Here is a close up. They are believed to represent the oldest rock at in the area and the theory is that some of them are as old as 20,000 years old. I love them. The actual presence of the person involved in the process is right here in front of our eyes.

Here is one of the mythical creatures with a word of explanation. (click on the picture if you want to see it large enough to be able to read)

Some "contact" art (because it demonstrates contact with white folks)

More mythical creature. This one uses the large bags to carry parts of humans... Nanguluwur is a very dangerous place where nobody is supposed to be staying there after dark.

I loved Kakadu and I particularly loved Nanguluwur. The place is magical.

Australia, Kakadu National Park rock art - Part 2 , Nourlangie

I preferred the Nourlangie location in term of art, though in terms of place to camp and explore Ubirr to me was best.

The rock art there photographed better too.

This one below is dated to be from 1964...so not that old.

The simple filled in shapes like the kangaroo below are much older.

Australia, Kakadu National Park rock art - Part1 , Ubirr

I keep on posting about China because I took so many photos and I had such a great time but since I have been to Australia. I am now in Canada and I am just back from just under two weeks of hiking in Jasper National Park.

But first Kakadu National Park in North Western Australia, a fabulous place rich in Aboriginal art...and I will only really show the rock art.

Ubirr is probably the most famous of all the locations in Kakadu. I spent quite a bit of time at the Ubirr campsite hiking around and enjoying the place. I loved Kakadu.

I should say that the rock art is hard to photograph well and the photos do not do them justice. In place the various paintings below are not that hard to see but there is a lot of painting on top of paintings and in the photos it makes it hard.

This is a closer shot of the area shown in the first photo and it shows better what you can actually see.

All of Ubirr is a large area under a rock overhang and all that you see in rusty red in this photos is an art gallery.

Mostly in Ubirr you see animals...but not only

This is a Tasmanian tiger (now long extinct but seen alive in Tasmania within "white people" memory) this strongly suggests that they use to exist on the mainland of Australia too. In fact it is believed that the were pushed to extinction on the mainland by the dingos (brought by the Aborigines) who took their niche.

A lot of fish painting at Ubirr, they are mostly barramundi a local fish still very much fished in the Alligator River in Kakadu. Notice the hand on the left.

China - the fish of Bei Hai Park, Beijing

Just for fun here are the photos of a mass of Chinese gold fish who somehow know that food can be had on the other side of the moat....Don't ask me how they knew.

I am just posting the photos in the order I took them.

This is what I first noticed: a column of fish swimming around the corner of the moat around a temple.

And this is where they were going.

It seems that it would never end and they kept on swimming around that corner.

There was more fish.

And even more.

 Finally it came to an end and the entire rest of the moat was totally empty of fish.

China - Pingle an old town not so "touristed" up - Part 2

I also wandered away from the two main streets all done up for the tourists and had a great day.

I stumbled into a courtyard thinking I was following a small street. A gentleman pointed out to me the way back to the tourist part but I just ask if it was OK for me to go into the yard and in a typical very friendly Chinese way he said I could just go ahead.

I love the detail of the architecture: how a typical "fancy" Chinese rook line is done with normal plain roof tiles!

Then eventually since I had some spare time I started walking away from town along the small dirt roads traveling among farms.

This field below is tea, just a very small field so it must be for local consumption. I also saw an old woman in town drying tea leaves for her own household but I didn't take a picture. Sometimes taking a picture ruins the moment.

China - Pingle an old town all "touristed" up - Part 1

Tourism in China (for Chinese) is very big and some places are all done up for visitors. Pingle, which I went to visit for a day by bus from Chengdu, is one of those but was still quite interesting.

Pingle is built along a river.

You can rent small barge like floating platforms where people typically go as a group and drink tea and play mahjong.

 Lovely little things. I was there before the tourist seasons so things were quite but apparently in the heigth of summer the all place is booming and and those are floating about.

 Listed in the BBC travel section (I only noticed afterward) as one of the greatest place to have tea is "any place along the river in Pingle".

Through all this life of the locals goes on.

 Street food as usual was great.

It really was a nice small town.