Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Have you ever, ever felt like this?
For most people the best moment of the Great Ocean Road Tour is seeing the remaining eight of the Twelve Apostles, the main reason people go on the tour. But, for me it was seeing an icon from a tv show from my youth. Some of you may remember the kids aussie programme "Round the Twist", a ridiculously bizarre show that was a bit crap but I always watched it whenever it was on. The tour took us past the lighthouse where the programme was set and me being me just had to get a pic in front of it. Unfortunately I was a bit late getting the camera out as we drove past it so had to settle for a long distance shot from a beach further up the coast. Luckily I asked a fellow SLR user who was able to manipulate the camera but as you can see even good photographers are not miracle workers!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Melbourne
(Written on 29th June)
Today I fly back to Sydney to catch an early morning flight to Kuala Lumpur. I'm ready to leave the western world behind me for a couple of months and experience something new and different but that's not to say that I haven't enjoyed my time in Australia.
Sydney is a great cosmopolitan city with lots to do and great beaches but I felt more of an affinty to Melbourne. It's a very relaxed city and much more compact than Sydney. In fact I've been thinking about getting a 1 year work-travel visa and coming back to Melbourne in the UK autumn, just in time for Aussie summer, and making sure I'm here for the Australian F1 Grand Prix in April :)
One of the highlights was the Tim Burton exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. An amazing exhibition espcially of you like Tim Burton's stuff and really helps you understand how he thinks and where he comes up with his weird and wonderful movies.
I loved walking around the city which is small enough to be able to navigate after just one day and the free tourist shuttles help too! One walk took me down little cobbled streets and alley ways filled with quirky shops, bars and cafe's that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I'm also getting back into experimenting with photography after a break of a few months. The Sydney Opera House was the first in what I hope will be an exciting few months of digital memories. Melbourne doesn't have the famous landmarks Sydney does but you can still get pretty great views from the southbank and I've had fun trying to take some self portraits - one downside of travelling alone is that there's never anyone around to take a picture of you in front of the big attractions so instead you look like a bit of a schmuck setting the timer and running in front of the camera in time for an out of focus, half-in snap shot. Makes for some of the funnier memories though :)
Today I fly back to Sydney to catch an early morning flight to Kuala Lumpur. I'm ready to leave the western world behind me for a couple of months and experience something new and different but that's not to say that I haven't enjoyed my time in Australia.
Sydney is a great cosmopolitan city with lots to do and great beaches but I felt more of an affinty to Melbourne. It's a very relaxed city and much more compact than Sydney. In fact I've been thinking about getting a 1 year work-travel visa and coming back to Melbourne in the UK autumn, just in time for Aussie summer, and making sure I'm here for the Australian F1 Grand Prix in April :)
One of the highlights was the Tim Burton exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. An amazing exhibition espcially of you like Tim Burton's stuff and really helps you understand how he thinks and where he comes up with his weird and wonderful movies.
I loved walking around the city which is small enough to be able to navigate after just one day and the free tourist shuttles help too! One walk took me down little cobbled streets and alley ways filled with quirky shops, bars and cafe's that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
I'm also getting back into experimenting with photography after a break of a few months. The Sydney Opera House was the first in what I hope will be an exciting few months of digital memories. Melbourne doesn't have the famous landmarks Sydney does but you can still get pretty great views from the southbank and I've had fun trying to take some self portraits - one downside of travelling alone is that there's never anyone around to take a picture of you in front of the big attractions so instead you look like a bit of a schmuck setting the timer and running in front of the camera in time for an out of focus, half-in snap shot. Makes for some of the funnier memories though :)
Sydney
(This was written on 18th June, just didn't get around to uploading it!)
Today I'm taking a train to the Blue Mountains just outside of Sydney for what I'm told are some pretty great photo ops. But I've already been up to quite a bit since I arrived a week ago.
It makes me laugh when I see Aussie's walking around in hats, gloves and scarfs and it's nearly 20 degrees outside but I guess when you're used to 30+ temperatures most of the year it's not such a strange thing. One thing about the nice winter weather is that the beach is always beautiful and great for a day out. I've been to Manly beach and walked the 6km cliff trail from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach. All the guide books tell you to do it the other way around but a friend of mine with local insider knowledge advised me to do it starting at Coogee with the reward being the immense crescent of Bondi, and boy was she right! - Thanks Joanne :). Both days were warm enough to sit on the beach and watch the surfers and many people were out in their bikinis sun bathing. It definitely makes me want to come back during the summer months where I'm sure there will be a completely different vibe.
I checked out the fish market the other day and was a little disappointed as I expected it to be hugh and packed with young guys throwing fish over peoples heads and and people bartering with one another for the best price but it was small and very tame, more a tourist attraction than anything else. The most disappointing part of all was the actual fish and chips, chips were frozen and the fish was over cooked. Maybe I've been spoiled growing up near Whitby who have some of the best f&c's in, what I now know to be, the world!
Now that I'm nearly half way through my trip I'm realising the all western cities are pretty much the same - a Maccy D's on every corner, nice skyline view and a tower where you can see the city from a birds point of view. I'm starting to feel like I'm just joining the rat race and I'm itching to get to Asia to experience something different! Just 12 more days in Oz then off to Malaysia :)
Today I'm taking a train to the Blue Mountains just outside of Sydney for what I'm told are some pretty great photo ops. But I've already been up to quite a bit since I arrived a week ago.
It makes me laugh when I see Aussie's walking around in hats, gloves and scarfs and it's nearly 20 degrees outside but I guess when you're used to 30+ temperatures most of the year it's not such a strange thing. One thing about the nice winter weather is that the beach is always beautiful and great for a day out. I've been to Manly beach and walked the 6km cliff trail from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach. All the guide books tell you to do it the other way around but a friend of mine with local insider knowledge advised me to do it starting at Coogee with the reward being the immense crescent of Bondi, and boy was she right! - Thanks Joanne :). Both days were warm enough to sit on the beach and watch the surfers and many people were out in their bikinis sun bathing. It definitely makes me want to come back during the summer months where I'm sure there will be a completely different vibe.
I checked out the fish market the other day and was a little disappointed as I expected it to be hugh and packed with young guys throwing fish over peoples heads and and people bartering with one another for the best price but it was small and very tame, more a tourist attraction than anything else. The most disappointing part of all was the actual fish and chips, chips were frozen and the fish was over cooked. Maybe I've been spoiled growing up near Whitby who have some of the best f&c's in, what I now know to be, the world!
Now that I'm nearly half way through my trip I'm realising the all western cities are pretty much the same - a Maccy D's on every corner, nice skyline view and a tower where you can see the city from a birds point of view. I'm starting to feel like I'm just joining the rat race and I'm itching to get to Asia to experience something different! Just 12 more days in Oz then off to Malaysia :)
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