Category: Blog

Having finally got the hang of my 10 stop filter (I’d been struggling to get a decent shot with it for months… due to operator error!), I decided that this morning, I would walk across to the north side of the island in the pre-dawn darkness and get some sunrise shots. I’d checked the maps…

Today, we checked out of our hotel in KK, jumped in the minivans and headed south. Our destination was a small village on the ocean called Kuala Penyu. From here, we boarded a boat for the short island-hop across to Pulau Tiga (Pulau means Island). The locals more colloquially refer to this now as Survivor…

We had a free morning, which Cath and Max spent at the hotel pool, while I went off in search (sans-camera) of a new memory card, having just discovered that one of mine had died. The afternoon began with a 90 minute bus ride south from KK to a spot on a river (to be…

Day seven saw us heading off to the North Borneo Railway for a trip on a gorgeous old steam train into the rural areas south of KK. The train meandered through the low lying coastal areas, stopping at a couple of towns along the way to allow time for some sight-seeing on foot.

Today was a sad day on an otherwise awesome holiday. Today we learned about the Sandakan Death Marches. I don’t know if I wasn’t paying attention, or if we were just never taught about this horrific saga in Australia’s military history, but I don’t ever recall hearing about the death marches during my school days.…

The images of the long house that I posted yesterday were actually shot on this morning. I slept past sunrise but still managed to get out with the camera within the first half hour of daylight. I wandered around the long house, admiring the water lilies in the garden, and the impressive stature of Mount…

The first day of our tour began with us checking out of the not-quite-the-real-Shangri-la hotel, jumping into two minivans, and taking the 2 hour drive up to Mount Kinabalu. The mountain is the highest in all of south-east Asia, peaking just shy of 4100 metres.

A bit of a wasted day to be honest. We were to check out of the Horizon Hotel and relocate to the Shangri-La Hotel (not affiliated with the 5 star hotel chain!) where we were to meet our tour guide and fellow tour group members.

Breakfast in the hotel cafe reminded us that we are in a predominantly Muslim country. No bacon! Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhh! Why didn’t somebody warn me about this? Ok, this two week trip is going to be more challenging than I originally thought. 🙂

Having had a nice, albeit short night of sleep in the transit hotel at Changi Airport, we wandered off in search of breakfast. Fed and watered, we boarded our 08:45 flight for Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah. We touched down there around 11:00, bought a pre-paid SIM card with a couple of GB of…

Cath, Max and I have just spent a fantastic two week holiday in Sabah, the Malaysian province which takes up roughly 10% of the northern portion of the island of Borneo.

Just north of Broken Hill is a New South Wales State Park called The Living Desert. And within The Living Desert is a series of 12 sculptures known as The Sculpture Symposium. This was another of those things on this trip that really needed bye shot at either sun up or sun down, not in the…

The apartment we stayed at was absolutely gorgeous. It was called The Majestic Oasis, and being Port Augusta, we were a little dubious as to just how much of an oasis it might turn out to be, but we were most pleasantly surprised when we got there. Two bedrooms, air-conditioned, fully equipped kitchen, back door…

We left Ceduna and started our trek across the Eyre Peninsula to Port Augusta. Looking at the map and how far we were travelling for the day, I felt we had time to make a detour through the Gawler Ranges National Park. So we stopped at a little place called Minnipa to grab a coffee. While we…

Yesterday was another big day on the road and believe it or not, I didn’t take even one photo. During my research for this trip, I had read about a dirt road which runs pretty much in a straight line from Esperance to Balladonia. Apparently, along this track, there are at least a couple of…

Well, Esperance did indeed turn out to be absolutely gorgeous. What they didn’t tell me though, was how it blows a freakin’ gale for 20 hours EVERY day. No, I’m NOT kidding!

Christmas Day was spent in Bruce Rock, hanging out with my Dad and all of that side of my family. First Christmas together since 2005. Awesome.

Today is a short day on the road (about 3 hours), so before we left, Keith and Christine took us for a quick tour of Kalgoorlie. This included a stop at the viewing area for the Super Pit. The Super Pit, as the name suggests, is a very large hole in the ground.

Even though you might have a location on your “photographic bucket list”, it doesn’t mean you necessarily know which way it faces and therefore what is the best time of day to shoot it. Such was the case with the Old Telegraph Station at Eucla.

The Nullarbor Plain. Australian readers, I beseech you… do this drive at least once in your life. Yes, it’s long. Yes, it can be monotonous. Yes, fuel WILL cost you an arm and a leg (we saw Premium 98 at $2.08/litre. For the Americans, that’s about $9.50/gallon by today’s exchange rate).