#southern New South Wales

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Mount Aspiring, West Matukituki - Southern Alps, New Zealand

Photo credit: Yan Zhang, New South Wales

#yan zhang #photographer #new south wales #australian geographic #mount aspiring #landscape #west malukituki #southern alps #new zealand #nature #night sky #milky way

[sunflowervolum-6]

I know so much about Australia now

#i know its capital is Canberra #i know it has 7 regions: Western Australia Northern territory southern Australia Queensland New South Wales Victoria and Tasmania #ask me anything now #dont ask me why #or do it #its kinda interesting

[rubydolly]

I still can’t quite believe this happened!!! Here is me feeding a Southern Cassowary. Princess the 20 year old Male Southern Cassowary was a little shy at first however he soon blessed me with the privilege of coming up close and allowing me to hand feed him red grapes!!!! Thankyou so much to the wonderful keepers Chantelle and Catherine for providing this wonderful experience to me it has made my whole year

#australia #sydney #new south wales #wildlife sydney zoo #southern cassowary #2022

[ultralowoxygen]

Cemetery by Brett Sheehan Via Flickr: In Moss Vale. Nikon F4. Nikkor 50mm F1.2 lens. Lomography Colour 400 35mm C41 film.

#Nikon F4 #Nikkor 50mm F1.2 lens #Lomography Colour 400 #35mm #C41 #film #analog #colour #cemetery #graves #tombstones #Moss Vale #trees #Southern Highlands #New South Wales

[onenicebugperday]

Southern spiny forest katydid, Phricta aberrans, Tettigoniidae

Found in southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales in Australia

Photos 1-4 by tjeales and 5-6 by sjmurray55

#animals #curators on tumblr #insects #bugs #katydid #southern spiny forest katydid #mimicry #camouflage #one nice bug

[herpsandbirds]

Highlands Copperhead (Austrelaps ramsayi), family Elapidae, Southern Highalnds region New South Wales, Australia

Venomous.

photograph by Adam Brice

#australian copperhead #copperhead #austrelaps #elapidae #venomous #snake #reptile #herpetology #animals #nature #australia

[maaarine]

“Here's where things get intellectually very interesting. They are swept up by Catherine's idea of a new Russia. 

So Catherine has this idea, which is very elegant. It's also a classically colonial idea: that these lands that have just been conquered, these are virgin territories.

So the place is renamed. What's now Southern Ukraine, where the Cossacks had had power, and the Crimean Peninsula, where the Crimean Khanate had had power, these places are renamed “New Russia”.

Now that word “new” is magical, right? Like with New England, or New South Wales, or New Caledonia. 

More than 200 years later, 300 years later, people are gonna be still drawn by this notion of New Russia. 

But when you say something is new, you're not saying it's yours, you're saying that we want it to be ours, right? That's the whole point. 

So Novorossiya does not mean something which is Russian, it means something that we're gonna make Russia, we're gonna pretend that nothing else is there. 

And how do you do that? 

Well, you send multiple expeditions of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences to Crimea to name everything, find all the species, map everything. 

Because science is one of the tools by which you gather imperial knowledge.

And then the naming — I mean, one has to admit this is quite brilliant on Catherine's part. They rename everything. 

So all the Turkic names, the Muslim names, the Crimean Tatar names, are replaced. 

And what are they replaced with? Greek names or names that sound Greek. 

Like Kherson, that city that's being fought over right now. Mariupol, sounds Greek sorta, right? That's the whole idea.

They took the old names and then they replaced them with Greek names. And when they founded new places, they gave them Greek, or Greek-ish, Greek sounding, Greco whatever names.

And the point of this is to say that Russia is connected with the classical world. And in that we're European. We're in the enlightenment. 

Connecting Russia with the classical world, going back all the way 2000 years, means that you obliviate everything that happens in between.

So the Crimeans don't matter, the Ukrainians don't matter, it's Russia here alone with its historical destiny, which goes all the way back to Greece. 

And so it's New Russia, but it's justified by this connection to the classical world.”

Source: Timothy Snyder: Making of Modern Ukraine. Class 11.Ottoman Retreat, Russian Power,Ukrainian Populism

#timothy snyder #russia ukraine

[scifrey]

ART THREAD

I have had the very great pleasure of commissioning some beautiful art to celebrate the release of my new novel Nine-Tenths. I'm going to share them all in this thread (and hopefully add to it if I'm lucky enough to be graced with more) so you can appreciate the talent of these incredible artists.

by Christopher Winkelaar

Nine-Tenths is set in a world where all the nobility in Europe are homo draconis - shape-shifting dragons who have the ability to take human form. Every culture in the world have dragons living among the humans, but the European and Asian nations are the only ones where dragons were historically elevated to the roles of monarchs, nobles, and emperors.

In a world where the American Colonies rejected British rule, this meant they were also rejecting draconic protection--and so while they won their Independence in 1793, they were soundly trounced in the War of 1812, losing all of New England, including New York State, to the British. They were absorbed into the Canadas, except for New York City, which was reclaimed by the Dutch and re-renamed New Amsterdam.

The Canadian colonies expanded west, as they historically did in our world, through a series of broken treaties with the Indigenous peoples of the continent, and the reprehensible colonialist practices which put the settlers in power today. It also means they were able to expand further south, without the Americans to bump up against.

This also meant that the Americans were unable to expand as far south and west as in our world, coming up against Indigenous dragon-protected lands, such as the Oniagara, or Aztec and Incan empires, which grew further north after Spanish contact, and flourished.

Unlike in the current version of Canada, the land was legislatively divided into much smaller provinces than currently exist, each overseen by a hereditary draconic Lieutenant Governor, who report to the draconic Governor of the Canadas, who in turn reports to the House of Lords in England (also dragons). Each province is divided into Duchies, Earldoms, and Marquessates, presided over by a noble dragon family.

As dragons are long-lived, the current Queen of England is Elizabeth (the first one). As she has not yet passed, the Kingdom of Scotland as yet remains separate from England. Ireland too is independent, the Irish dragons having beaten back the English ones. However, Wales remains a satellite colony of England, as the betrayal which brought about it's subjugation and the trickery around the hereditary title "Prince of Wales" still occurred. (This an important plot point).

by @seancefemme

This is the first piece of art I commissioned for the novel, and you'll note it's now become the cover art!

Meet the heroes of our tale: barista and disaster bi Colin Levesque, stuck in the middle of his quarter-life crisis and crushing on his cafe regular, Welsh dragon Dav, the Marquis of Niagara (though of course, Colin doesn't know he's the Marquis, and thinks Dav is just some minor noble with nothing better to do all day than hang out and read).

by @ibrithir-was-here

Colin works at Beanevolence, an indie cafe in downtown St. Catharine's, in the province of Upper Canada (Southern Ontario in our world). It's owned by his bestie Hadi, and he was only supposed to be a barista until he'd graduated. But now he has his Sustainable Tourism degree, and no clue what to do next. He feels completely stuck. Luckily he has Dav to distract him.

Except that one day Dav distracts him too well, which results in a kitchen fire. As an apology for the inferno, and to help the cafe get back on it's feet while the repairs are under way, Dav volunteers as the new bean roaster, creating incredible and (and ultimately social-media viral) coffee roasts with his fire-breath.

by @ibrithir-was-here

Colin and Dav start a flirtation at work.

Which leads to...

by @teejaystumbles

Luxurious dates and late-night smoochies.

by @pinkpiggy93

Which also goes a little bit viral. See, it turns out that the Marquis of Niagara usually keeps a low profile, and his sudden romance with a human has the gossip rags and tabloids all in a tizzy.

But more than that, it puts Dav under the scrutiny of Francis Simcoe. He's the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, a dragon with a hate-on for Dav, and the perfect ammunition to ruin his happiness.

Because, you see, it's against dragonic rules for dragons to be seen to be laboring in service of humans... and Dav's new gig at Beanevolence is about to--forgive the pun--land him in hot water.

➡️ Read Nine-Tenths Here ⬅️

#nine-tenths #art thread #my talented mutuals #worldbuilding #fantasy world #alternate history #alternate universe #coffee shop romance #j.m. frey #fantasy #romantasy #modern fantasy #contemporary fantasy #contemporary romantasy #dragon #dragon romance #dragon shifter #mm romance #mxm #wattpad #friends to lovers #writing #booktok #wattpad romance #queer romance #other people's art #lgbtqa+ books #queer books #queer romance books #romcom

[thinkingimages]

Glass plate negative of Eta Argus by James Short and H C Russell

In 1887 the Government Astronomer, H.C. Russell, worked an international project to map the stars in the southern section of the heavens using photography. Planning for this began in 1887 and started in 1892 after which it continued to play a major role in the activities at Sydney Observatory up until the 1960s. 

The success of this project depended upon a special kind of photographic telescope, officially known as an 'astrograph', but which Russell often referred to as the 'Star Camera'. The casing and mounts for the 'Star Camera' were made in New South Wales and were completed by 1890. As the lens, ordered from Sir Howard Grubb, had not arrived Russell experimented with a six-inch (15.2 cm) portrait lens made by J.H. Dallmeyer. Using this camera Russell took a number of scientific photographs of the stars which he felt were "…the first of their kind of the Southern Skies." 

Negatives taken by Russell,and his camera operator James Short, were printed and bound into a book title 'Photographs of the Milky Way and Nubeculae taken at Sydney Observatory 1890'. This Plate was exposed for approximately 2 hours 40 minutes. For more information see attached Powerhouse Museum Theme 'Sydney Observatory Star Camera First Photographs 1890'.

Geoff Barker, Curatorial, September, 2008

References Bhathal, R., Australian Astronomer; John Tebbutt, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, NSW, 1993 Haynes, Raymond, Haynes, Roslynn, Malin, David, McGee, Richard, Explorers of the Southern Sky, Cambridge University Press, 1996 Nangle, J., 'The Sydney Observatory; its history and work, Sydney Technical College, 1930 Russell, H.C., Photographs of The Milky-Way & Nubeculae taken at Sydney Observatory, 1890, publisher unknown, 1891-1907s

#Eta Argus #James Short #H C Russell #astronomy #astrophotography #stars #heavens

[autismtana]

so you wanna write a heartbreak high fic, but you're american...

As an Australian who writes fanfic for Glee (which is American), it's interesting seeing kind of the opposite thing happen with Heartbreak High, which is very much an Australian show (even though there's a couple things here and there that I'll get into in this post), and I thought I'd offer my perspective as someone who grew up and went to school in Sydney (and is also very autistic and detail-oriented). I think this might be the first time an Australian teen drama has gone mainstream, but there's a lot of specific cultural things in Australia that tend to get lost in fanfiction.

So, without further ado, here is your guide to how to write about high school in Australia (or if you just want to learn about Australia, here tis).

(Disclaimer: this is mostly based on my experience living in NSW where Heartbreak High is filmed and set, but there might be some subtle differences in other states)

{This is a photo from Maroubra Bay High School, which doesn't exist anymore and is now the location where Heartbreak High is filmed}

Basic things: The school year starts at the end of January and ends in mid-December, and is broken up into 4 10-week terms, with two weeks holiday between each term and 5-6 weeks at Christmas. We're in the Southern Hemisphere, and February is an absolute nightmare weather-wise. In New South Wales (NSW), you're in primary school from years K-6 and high school from years 7-12. People generally refer to the grade they're in as "year #" or sometimes "grade #". If you go to a public school, it's usually with kids from your local area. Primary schools are usually called [Suburb Name] Public School (sometimes there's a "north" or "west" or even a street name instead; high schools are generally [Suburb Name] High School. School starts around 8:30 and ends at around 3. There's recess in the morning (usually around 11am) and lunch in the afternoon (usually around 1-1:30pm). Kids will either bring their own lunch or buy from the canteen, which these days is generally meant to be "healthy". The legal drinking age here is 18; that being said, it is not illegal for parents to let their children drink alcohol at home under their supervision (so if a 16-year-old's dad lets them have a beer at home, they're not going to get charged with supplying alcohol to a minor). Drinking culture in Australia is pretty feral and pretty much every social gathering involves alcohol. The youngest you can be to start school is turning 5 on or before the 31st July and the latest you can start is the year you turn 6; most parents, particularly those that are more well-off and can afford that extra year of preschool/childcare, start their kids the year they turn 6 (even if they turn 6 in January), so most teenagers will turn 18 during year 12 (which generally involves, parties, drinking and pubs). I did not. I turned 18 the day after O-week at uni ended, which is my villain origin story, but in some instances, a kid who is a month away from turning 19 will be in the same year 12 class as a kid who turned 17 four months ago without having repeated any grades.

Language & Slang: Australian slang is so niche that I'm just going to link you to this document, but just be aware that some of this shit is outdated and not used by anyone not named Alf Stewart, so use your better judgement. Thongs are a pair of shoes. Prawns are seafood (not shrimp; no one says "throw shrimp on the barby"). Australians swear a lot. Some of my favourite swears are "get fucked", "fuckwit", "fucknuckle", "shitcunt" and many others. We use "cunt" as a term of endearment and often use "mate" to be as passive aggressive as possible (call your mates "cunt" and cunts "mate"). Nobody fucking says "g'day mate" (and, while we're at it, nobody fucking drinks Fosters).

Uniform: Hartley High is a non-uniform school. This is actually extremely rare in Australia and I think there's only like 1 or 2 mainstream schools in NSW with no uniform. The vast majority of Australian schools have uniforms ranging from the typical stuffy blazer-and-straw-hat combo at the likes of Shore and Scots to a simple polo shirt and footy shorts/trackies in your average rural or regional public school. In the original series from the 90s, it's established that the school did at one point have a uniform that was a plot point in an episode where Nick Poulos (the main character at the time) is elected class captain to the chagrin of conservative teacher and football coach Bill Southgate. Other schools in the area would probably have a uniform; the school where it was filmed is now closed, but I did find a picture that shows what the uniform once looked like (see above).

Geography: Hartley High is located in the South Sydney/Eastern Suburbs area, so feel free to incorporate a little Rabbitohs/Roosters rivalry into your fic for that extra bit of authenticity. We play rugby here, which Australians also call "footy". Australian Rules Football (AFL) is also colloquially called "footy", which can get very confusing. Private schools (like the one where Darren's fuck buddy Jacob goes) tend to favour rugby union. Pretty much everyone (and I mean everyone) has a rugby league team they support. For example, I'm a Rabbitohs supporter, my mum is a Cowboys supporter and my dad is a Broncos supporter. There's also State of Origin, which is NSW vs Queensland (basically you support the state you were born in but some people jump on the Queensland bandwagon whenever they're winning ... fuckwits).

Classes and Timetables: Timetables here operate fortnightly, so it's not overly common to have the same class at the same time every day. Generally there's a rollcall class in the morning for 20 minutes where teachers do things like read notices, hand out notes and check uniforms and phones (I'm pretty sure the NSW education department actually just banned the use of phones in schools), then you'll typically have two classes, then recess, then another two classes, then lunch, then maybe one or two classes followed by home time. Here is a summary of everything kids in New South Wales have to learn in high school: Stage 4 (Years 7-8): English, Maths, Science, HSIE (History/Geography), TAS (e.g. cooking, sewing, metal work, woodwork, digital technology), CAPA (generally just music and art but can also include dance and drama), PDHPE (theory and prac), LOTE (my school offered French and Italian, but there's a massive variety of languages on offer and a lot of schools actually teach the local Aboriginal language). Stage 5 (Years 9-10): English, Maths, Science, HSIE, PDHPE and electives. The number of electives that can be chosen vary from school to school, but some popular examples are PASS, Art, Drama, Music, Food Tech, Metal, Woodwork. Some schools offer things like STEM as an elective and others offer, say, two electives and have all students undertaking some kind of STEM class. What my school did was offer four electives - two for year 9 and 10 and then two for just year 9 because Australian History and Australian Geography would take up those extra two timeslots. I chose Music, Italian, Drama and, for some reason, extension maths. Stage 6 (Year 11-12): this is the lead up to the HSC, and it's where things start to get complicated so ... everyone has to study English (Advanced, Standard, Studies, Extension and EALD) and I think Maths (Advanced, Standard, Extension and a course called Numeracy which is more everyday numeracy in society), then a whole bunch of subject choices that can be found here, and the HSC has no requirements as to the types of subjects you can study (e.g. there's no language requirement, science requirement etc. like in the US; you got that shit out of the way in stages 4 and 5). There are also VET subjects that give you a TAFE qualification when you finish them which is nice (most popular one is Hospitality). Then you get your HSC at the end of year 12.

This was so long that there is going to be a part 2 (apparently there's a lot to know about living in NSW and going to school there and it's longer than 4000 characters), so stay tuned for things like student leadership, sport, extracurricular stuff, uni (this is probably the area that's the most different from the US) and whatever other extraneous things I can think of.

#heartbreak high #fanfic advice #life in australia #basically a guide to how to write about school in australia if you're american

[mindblowingscience]

Details released by the company show the project would traverse highly productive farmland, as well as valuable native vegetation.

The pipeline would run underground. Even still, the proposed path is a real risk to threatened species and ecological communities, due to the need to clear a 30m-wide corridor to install the pipeline.

In January, the NSW government granted Santos authority to survey land along the route, with or without permission from landholders. This brings this massive infrastructure project closer to construction.

Many landscapes along the pipeline's path are already denuded of native vegetation. The threatened ecosystems that remain, including native grasslands, must be protected.

Continue Reading

#science #stem #enviornment #biology #ecology #conservation #gas pipeline #Australia

[drrockclub]

Many shapes of fossils (Part 2)

Marine sedimentary rocks are the most common along southern New South Wales coast of Australia. These contain many marine shell fossils in sandstones and siltstones that represent a shallow to deep sea environments from around 250 million years ago.

These creatures would have fed on the organic-rich debris found within the sediment that now surrounds them, and which after many millions of years have turned into a hard rock.

#geology #fossils #paleontology #science #seashells #ancient life #natural history #studyblr #natures beauty #original content #biology #sedimentology #sea #student #drrock

[mistydeyes]

izzie’s late night thoughts pt.9

okay so i’m starting a new series about the 141 dating an american and i was curious where you’re all from! i’m from the mid-atlantic/new york city area :) feel free to elaborate in the tags or replies💌

(also i tried to make as many separate categories but tumblr only lets you have 12 options :/)

#izzie asks #poll #random #izzie thoughts

[proton-wobbler]

Round 2, Poll 21

White-tailed Ptarmigan vs Regent Honeyeater

sources under cut

White-tailed Ptarmigan

eBird Sightings - 5,592

IUCN Status - Least Concern

Location: North America - Alaska to Washington, with disjunct populations in the Rockies

“I like their plumage changes throughout seasons and their feathered feet”

Regent Honeyeater

eBird Sightings - 1,375

IUCN Status - Critically Endangered

Location: Australia - extremely patchy in Southeast Australia, in New South Wales and the very southern tip of Queensland

“they are critically endangered, they look like they’re edged with gold, and their eye/beak area looks like a bee to help them camouflage, I mean come ON”

Images: Honeyeater (Liam Murphy); Ptarmigan (Andrew Spencer)

Stats pulled from Birds of the World

#hipster bird main bracket #round 2 #bracket: true b #white tailed ptarmigan #regent honeyeater #phasianidae #meliphagidae

[canberramaidan]

Inspiration images for The Artist's Secret (Brindabella Secrets #2 - HarperCollins) by Sonya Heaney

Sources: Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

Image 7

Despite their growing attraction, both Peter and Elizabeth have secrets that will come between them.

New South Wales, 1887

Peter Rowe's life is in the city, but his soul is in Australia's southern tablelands - a place he's never seen. Taking the new land manager's position on the thriving estate of Endmoor is the chance he needs to discover what happened to the family he has never met. What he doesn't expect to find in the bush is his employer's talented, beautiful sister.

Elizabeth Farrer's world is changing rapidly. An artist whose work has begun to gain acclaim, her brother's marriage has made her redundant in her own home and she intends to leave the country and make a life of her own. Her plans would take her far from her beloved New South Wales, but with the arrival of Endmoor's newest employee - a man unlike any other she has met - she discovers there might just be a reason to stay right where she is.

Just as they conquer their most difficult obstacles, old prejudices rise up and threaten to keep them apart ...

#victorian romance #historical fiction #historical romance #sonya heaney #books #australia #australian author #booklr #writers on tumblr #1880s #romance books

[herpsandbirds]

Common Tiger Snake (Notechis scutatus), family Elapidae, Southern Highlands, New South Wales, Australia

Venomous.

photograph by Adam Brice

#snake #elapidae #venomous #reptile #notechis #herpetology #animals #nature #australia