Take Me to the Beach.

It’s raining here, miserable and grey. So to make myself feel better I’m going on a trip to the beach…

Sunset.

The humble sunset. Probably one of the most beautiful, most photographed phenomenon’s the world over. Is it possible to get sick of those ever changing mystical colours as they slowly paint the sky?

I am forever taking photos of sunsets. They are all similar yet they are all so vastly different. These were taken on the inlet by my parents house. Only in the month’s of May and September does the sun set in the perfect position for us to capture it, although it does its best the rest of the year too. Do yourself a favour today. Step outside and capture your sunset.

Warm Winter’s Day.

We are getting these Winter days at the moment where the temperature drops to 5 degrees Celsius at night, but hovers between 16-20 degrees during the day with not a cloud in sight. While this is spelling doom for my poor garden (hand watering in June, unheard of!) it is making for some gorgeous sunny Winter days. I took a little stroll yesterday around what is unremarkably called ‘Big Swamp’ in the heart of our city. To me it is more than a ‘swamp’, it is a gorgeous playground for all sorts of wildlife.  There are plenty of beautiful birds hopping around the mangroves and swamp grasses.  Amongst the greens and browns bright colours pop.The birds are in constant competition for these privileged spots on what I imagine was once some sort of jetty. Now the perfect spot for sunning birds. The scent of wattle fills the air.  Getting ready to dive for fish.  Hiding out amongst the grasses.  Leafless branches are the only real sign of the winter season.

Daily Prompt: Celebration!

I just had to put an explanation mark at the end of celebration! It didn’t look right without it. It feels like a million years since I last celebrated something, or had reason to celebrate. A year of saving/study doesn’t really go hand in hand with wild, out-there celebrations, even my birthday was skipped over. A flurry of meaningless Facebook birthday wishes from people I haven’t seen or spoken to in years was the only thing that separated it from any other day.

So I hit the archives to remind myself what celebrating felt like, and I found these shots. Every year at Christmas there is a street in my city that goes all out with Christmas lights. And I mean, ALL OUT. The street is over a kilometre long and basically every house gets decked out in fluro magic. People flock from all over the city in the week before Christmas to tour the lights, cars clog the area which is patrolled and controlled by police men, that is how big the event has become.

It is a very cool display of community spirit in an age where community spirit is almost non-existent, a blatant and unapologetic outrageous celebration.

I deliberately left the flash off to capture some of the feeling of the night, everything was in total darkness, lit only by the majestic displays of Christmas lights on the houses. See some more Celebration! at The Daily Post.

Daily Prompt: Vacation

Vacation.

This word is beginning to sound as foreign to me as Latin. I haven’t had a vacation, a proper one, for well over a year. For someone who used to travel overseas or across country at the drop of a hat, it is becoming slightly depressing.

But this is a time to work hard, I know, and so I vacation vicariously through my old photographs. And now The Daily Post has given me the perfect prompt to share some of them, so here are some of my past Vacations.

Sydney – Australia Sydney – Australia Lake Rotoroa – New ZealandWanaka – New Zealand   Phnom Bakheng – Cambodia Wat Bayon – Cambodia Kep – Cambodia Rabbit Island – Cambodia  Hua Hin – Thailand Hayman Island – Queensland Melaka – Malaysia  Batu Ferringhi – Malaysia Langkowi – Malaysia Langkowi – Malaysia Melaka – Malaysia Tamboti Tented Camp – South Africa

Durbin – South Africa

A Word A Week Challenge: Angles.

This week’s challenge from Sue over at A Word In Your Ear is fantastic. It had me searching through endless folders for photographs that best met the theme of ‘angles’. The beauty of this challenge is that angles can be found in nearly every photograph, if you look hard enough. Obviously, I got carried away.

Here is what I found…

Marble Fountain – Hayman Island, Whitsundays Underwater Observatory – Cruise Whitsundays Pontoon, Queensland  Our Christmas Ham – Bunbury, Western Australia Under the Sydney Harbour Bridge – Sydney The most famous toilet in New Zealand – Kawakawa Inside the Maori meeting house – Waitangi, New Zealand Inside the Maori meeting house – Waitangi, New Zealand

Dancing With Fishes.

While searching through my photos for something completely unrelated, I stumbled across these. These are some of my all-time favourite photographs.

These beautiful fish are Red Emperor’s, some of the best eating fish in the world. These guys were lucky enough to live under the pontoon on Hayman Island though, which is a Marine National Park. No fishing for them. Each day when we got back to the island from working on the boats we would feed them scraps left over from the day, and they would dance like crazy for their supper.

Their vivid colours flashing through the tropical water was truly magical, one of the best parts of living on an island.

A Different Shade of Green

The challenge over at The Daily Post is green themed, which I thought I would have another attempt at, simply because I found too many green photos. This is more of a nature themed post, for what is nature if not a smorgasbord of green.

Fruit bat hanging from a tree – Hayman Island, Whitsundays

Intricate patterns of green – Larnach Castle, Dunedin

A wall of foliage – Hamilton Botanical Gardens

Tropical plant – Sydney Botanical Gardens

A delicate butterfly – Sydney Botanical Gardens

A Word A Week Challenge: Faces

Another week, another awesome photo challenge from Sue over at A Word In Your Ear. Today, the dictionary has fallen open at ‘Face’. I for one can’t wait to see the variety of faces that everyone comes up with…

Baby face – mother and daughter in Siem Riep, Cambodia Ancient face – Wat Bayon, Cambodia Sisterly face – Siem Riep, Cambodia Silhouette face – Hayman Island, Queensland The Duchess face – Larnach Castle, New Zealand Adorable face – Larnach Castle, New Zealand Mad dog face – the farm, Western Australia Sleepy face – the farm, Western Australia

Daily Prompt: Unconventional Love

Well. Today’s prompt over at The Daily Post is certainly a challenging one. I have been flicking through photo’s all morning, despairing of ever finding anything that even remotely suggests unconventional love. My interpretation may be tenuous but the story is true.

These photographs are of our old shearer’s quarters, which have been empty, neglected and slowly disintegrating ever since I can remember. The house is in its final stages of decay, having long given up hope. I always find it sad to see old buildings fall apart, slowly losing their memory of the people who once lived and loved in them.

A few years ago we noticed an unfamiliar car turn in to our paddock and drive down to the shearer’s quarters. Naturally, dad went over to investigate. He found two women, mother and daughter, aged 76 and 24 respectively. The elder woman explained that she had bought her daughter to see the place where her mother and father had once lived, when they were no older than her daughter was now. They had met whilst both working for the same shearing team, him as a shearer, her as a roustabout.

She also pointed to the two weeping willow’s that stand in our paddock, ancient and regal, like stately old woman. ‘I planted those tree’s from seedlings, when we lived here.’ she explained. ‘I’m so happy to see them still alive.’

This is a true story, romantic in its simplicity. In this lovely old house had lived this lovely young couple, itinerant workers who had lived and worked here when our farm was part of a much larger one. Unconventional love? Perhaps not. But love in an unconventional place? Absolutely.