29.5 cm x 20.5 cm, black biro and watercolour pencils on paper.
Date produced: 8th September 2005

This was drawn during a trip my wife and I made to Mount Gambier in September 2005. We went for a long walk from Mount Gambier up to the Blue Lake, then across towards the other crater lakes. We spotted the Centenary Tower, standing high on a ridge above the lakes, and knew from what we had read, that it offered great views of the whole area. We decided to try to walk up to it and see the views. It was quite a walk, with some quite steep sections, but fabulous bird life to be enjoyed all along the way.

After reaching the Centenary Tower, we marvelled at the views and the space all around. The air was cool and fresh, and carried up to us all the sounds from the neighbouring landscapes. We saw two very large dark birds gliding gracefully just out from the tower, being pursued by two smaller black birds. With a pair of binoculars, I could see that the two larger birds were Wedge-tailed Eagles, and they were being pursued by two black Crows. The crows looked very small compared to the eagles. We couldn’t believe the activity shown by the crows, but they forced the eagles (after quite some time and a lot of circling) to move well away from the area. The birds by this time had risen to quite a height, and the triumphant crows dived down quickly to the row of tall pine trees shown in the drawing, with chests puffed out and crowing excitedly.

I did this drawing standing next to the Centenary Tower. I tried to work as quickly as possible, and tried to show the sense of space we felt. I finished three drawings (similar to this one, but looking in different directions) in about 25 minutes. I coloured the drawings afterwards, using my exaggerated aerial perspective to showing depth and form (pale blue around objects to show the air around them, close objects being more orange, distant objects being more blue).