Foto's

One of my favourite areas of Australia is the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of central Queensland. Hamilton Island is the where the only high rise hotel is located (which unfortunately is something of a blot on this beautiful landscape), but the views from the hotel are magnificent. If you check into this hotel, the first thing you will do is go out onto your balcony to admire the view, and the next thing that will happen is that you will find yourself in the company of half a dozen or more sulphur-crested cockatoos which will swoop down onto your balcony to see if you have any food.

The hotel room has a notice asking you not to feed the cockatoos, but I would expect that some guests would see the cockatoos before they read the notice. The cockatoos are wild but very used to human beings. One day I came back to my room and found four cockatoos wandering around the room looking for food. I had left the glass doors to the balcony open because the temperature was a pleasant 24 degrees, and closed the flyscreen doors, but the birds had pecked a large hole (actually the shape of a small door!) in the flyscreen and let themselves in. When they saw me, they calmly turned around and walked back out to the balcony through the hole they had cut in the flyscreen. They took their time and didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned about my presence.

One of the houses on the hill on the left hand side of the picture used to belong to the late George Harrison of Beatles fame. The others are owned by an assortment of millionaires. So this can rightly be called a million dollar view!

Usual PP with small adjustments to levels and contrast, saturation +7 then USM.