Coming soon....

Up next on our Australian adventure....




Stay tuned :)

Spring has officially arrived!!

It is official, spring is finally here! Say goodbye to the cold and windy days of winter and trade your warm coats for shorts and flip flops.......its time to bask in the sun. Wild flowers are blooming everywhere do yourself a favor and get out to see them, it'll put a big smile on your face. I guarantee it :)

NSW: Sydney Fish Market, Royal Botanic Gardens & McQuaries Point

As you can see it has been a while since my last post, the inevitable business of the California life has set in and i have had very little time. Still i want to continue with this journey and hope that you will join me along the way. So it may take a while but i will eventually get through our Australia trip, i do have some other posts that i will do that will break up the continuity of the blog as i am working on a little personal project......but more on that later. Also a big thank you to my wife as she was a huge help to me in figuring out what the heck we did on day two. She kept a journal of our trip and it was absolutely invaluable as my memories are complete mush now and i can't remember what happened from day to day. Ok! So day 2.........We got up early, despite our exhaustion from the previous night we were up and ready to face the day. Early mornings were becoming the trend of the trip and they had to be if we were going to be able to do anything and keep to our schedule. If any of you know me well you probably know that i am not what you would call a morning person, and unless you have a big cup of coffee in hand to bring as an offering it is generally advised that you do not disturb my slumber. Strangely enough though i found it fairly easy to get up in the morning while in Australia. Getting up was a bit disorienting the first week and a half or so, i would wake up thinking that i would see my bed and my dogs and when i didn't i had that feeling of "where the heck am i?" Slowly i got used to the fact that we were living in a camper van and that no i wasn't kidnapped by terrorists. So after catching my bearings we made some coffee and ate a quick breakfast of yogurt and fruit and off we were! Begin our hike to the train station, arrive at train station.........still deserted and creepy, be on the lookout for zombies, train arrives and all is well. After our last venture into the city and our trusty iPhones plus a map we were somewhat familiar with the layout and knew what we wanted to do. Todays mission should we choose to accept it (and we did) was to check out the Sydney Fish market and scope out a site from where to watch New Years Eve Fireworks. We got off at our stop and picked our route to see some of the city on our way to the fish market.........but wait.....whats that?! is that an asian tea place i spy with my little eye?! Indeed it is! So we went there 1st, it was a place called Chatime, they had all sorts of Asian drinks like bolba tea (which jen likes for some unknown reason) and for the more normal various green teas mixed with fruit flavors......ummmm yes please! Got our drinks........OMG! DELICIOUS!!! Yeah we would be visiting that place several times again. Off we went to the market and a long the way we check out the harbor area wich had all sorts of fountains and play areas for kids. It was really cool, there were families everywhere, hanging out on the grass, playing at the playground with their kids and little kids swimming in the huge fountains. The cities all seemed to have big central places where people could all get together to hang out, it was really neat to see and really makes me wish that San Diego county had areas like that. i don't know why but we seem to be so antisocial here in the states it really makes for a lonely existence and its depressing to realize this every time we leave california. So we hung out here for a little while and were back on our way, we walked and walked and walked for what seemed like an eternity. I was sore and my backpack weighs a ton with all my gear, it was not really pleasant and on top of that we were hungry but we pushed trough it. Our destination was close, we had read some things here and there about the fish market but didn't really know what to expect. The only thing that we had in our minds was that it was like Pike's Market in Washington but for fish, we were somewhat correct. We were finally there and we saw a lot of seafood restaurants the closer we got to the entrance, there were trucks everywhere taking fish to who knows where and of course tons of birds waiting to get their beaks on some scraps. The crowd became much more dense as we walked towards the entrance, unlike Pike's which has big open areas and parts are outdoors this was all an indoor market. Which makes sense as if you had it outdoors you would be getting attacked from above from all the birds. Finally inside and i could not believe at how many people were there!! They were everywhere that i could barely move a few feet without running into someone. It was complete and utter craziness in there, and everywhere there was people trying to order food yelling at each other because it was so loud in there. It was a complete frenzy of activity everywhere you looked, food orders being called out over microphones, people yelling to get their orders in, employees throwing ice on fish..........i was on overload. The place was big for a fish market but not that big, slowly we moved forward and made our way to see that different places to get food. Despite my introverted nature that made me want to go cower in a dark corner because of the people overload i managed to push through it and get some photos. Once the camera was out i was all business and had a lot of fun shooting, this was the 1st time that i was glad that i had the D700 with me for many technical reasons that i won't get into here but suffice it to say that it allowed me to shoot and get photos that would otherwise not have been as good with my D300. The immense amount of fish and the diversity of it was absolutely amazing. It is unbelievable the incredible amount of diversity that exists in our oceans and that so much of its wildlife provides food for us. Eventually we were able to get some food, we ate some fresh sashimi ahi which was very delicious but not very filling, so we went and ordered a relatively small seafood platter which turned out to be huge and it came with with fish and chips, oysters, shrimp, scallops, octopus and several other things that were all delicious. Full we headed back into the city via train and headed to the botanic gardens, we walked through more of the city exploring different parks and admiring some old buildings. We arrived at the gardens and explored for a little bit stopping to photograph various flowers and plants here and there.......but the real treat was to be what dwelled in the skies. As we moved deeper into the gardens i heard this absolutely terrible sound coming from everywhere, it was an unbelievably annoying squawking sound and i could not figure out what it was or where it was coming from. Then i looked up in the trees and saw that there were cockatoos everywhere! i think i was the only one there that was in the least excited about this because everyone kept looking at me like i was some crazy person being so excited to photograph these birds. Now I've seen cockatoos before in zoos or as pets but to see any kind of animal in the wild is a real treat! As beautiful as these birds are though they have by far the most annoying vocalization on the face of the planet, it is absolutely terrible and they sound like someone is pulling them apart piece by piece. i loved them though and had a great time seeing them interact, my favorite thing though is their feathers on top of their heads. They are so expressive with them and anytime something caught their attention these yellow feathers would stand up......made me smile every time. Alas the one bummer was that i really needed something longer than a 200mm lens......oh well. After all this excitement we continued on and headed to McQuaries point to finish off the the day and catch sunset. McQuaries point was a beautiful area with great views of the harbor and we decided that we would watch the fireworks from here, little did we know what a fiasco that day would be.......but more on that later. For now we just enjoyed the setting sun and the endless beauty of this place and looked forward to another day of adventures. The sunset was beautiful and as the skies darkened the lights of the city came to life and everything took on a completely different energy........cold and hungry we made our way back to the opera house and enjoyed a relaxing dinner. After that we gathered whatever energy we had left and headed back home, again we reached our van and just collapsed happy and satisfied looking forward to another day :)

NSW: North Ryde and Sydney Harbour

Well after all this time we finally get to the Sydney post, ill be breaking this part of our trip into sections as Sydney was to huge to do it all in one post. We will be here for a while so you'll be seeing sydney for a little bit :) After a quiet night in Albury, we woke up and had a nice quick breakfast and were back on the road for another full day of driving. Sydney was our destination and we were excited to under way, Sydney is just one of those iconic places that you automatically think of when you hear Australia. Its much like NYC in that way, you see it in movies, tv shows, magazines....you name it. Theres a sort of magic that surrounds it and serves to capture the imagination. There is so much to do there, we were there for about a week and barely scratched the surface but in all honesty if you only go to Sydney you're missing out on what Australia has to offer. So on the road we were, the drive was long but pleasant, there was lots of open country and oddly enough as we approached ever closer to the city the landscape changed to big areas of forests and rivers. Definitely not what i had expected as we approached a major city. As we got closer one thing that is prevalent to cities did show up......traffic! Now I'm not a huge fan of traffic but can manage, but traffic through a city is a big source of stress. Cities are all packed into tiny areas and theres tons of people everywhere and not just normal people but stupid people. It seems that the more people you pack into small spaces the propensity for stupidity increases exponentially. Alas it could not be avoided and we had to charge forward stupid people or not. So forward we went, and let me just say that in times like this i am incredibly grateful to have Jen because she plays navigator and does it incredibly well. If it wasn't for her i would probably still be in Australia driving around in circles or driving into a river and eaten by crocs. To my great surprise the drive through the city to our campground was not as bad as i thought it was going to be. It was stressful but i was envisioning thousands of cars everywhere, bumper to bumper traffic, pissed off and screaming people.....you know the works. After 5 hrs of driving though i was exhausted and wanted to stretch and relax. Eventually we arrived to our campsite, it was oddly beautiful to for an RV campsite i mean. Big trees and lots of them and a pattern began to emerge that would continue at pretty much every campground we stayed at. We would see more wildlife at these campgrounds than in most other places we visited, anything from birds, lizards, bugs, possums. It was at this campground that i would meet what is by far my favorite bird of all time, but more on that on a later post. Sadly another pattern also emerged: No campground we stayed at from here on out would come close to the "magic" and simplicity of that open field in Victoria. We made the best of it but always longed to go back.......someday. So we arrived, parked, got situated and had a good stretch and the exhaustion that we were experiencing was completely gone. We were energized by being in a new place to explore and were eager to get our adventures underway. Our campground was in North Ryde which is about 30 minutes outside of Downtown Sydney by train. One of the things that we have fun doing is figuring out different public transportation systems, every city is different and while it can be confusing and frustrating at first it gives you a great sense of accomplishment when you get it down. The train station was about a 10 minute walk from our campground, which doesn't seem like its that bad. But when you're carrying a camera bag that weighs 30-40 lbs it can be brutal especially when you're coming back at midnight and you've been walking all day. To the train station we went, and we arrived it was really creepy. There was no one there! I mean not a single person in sight! Were used to subway stations in NYC were you can't turned 10 inches without someones face being right in your, and all you want to do is to get above ground for a breath of fresh air. Not here, it was deserted, there was an employee in a little booth and he helped us get our passes for the week but other than that it was empty. It was like a scene out of one of those zombie apocalypse movies where everything is deserted and you just see a random newspaper blow across the screen. We sat there creeped out and waited for our train, eventually another person showed up but that was it. The train arrived and we were on our way into the city, the ride was really nice and gave us a chance to sit and relax. Here and there we would look out the window and as we got closer to our destination we could see little glimpses of the harbor. Our excitement grew but it was a frustrating tease to see small areas of the harbor and all you want to see is that iconic view of the Sydney Opera House, that one landmark that has served to identify Australia for many years. We wouldn't have to wait long, as the view eventually opened up to where you could see the harbor and off in the distance was not just the opera house but the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Two huge landmarks right there and yet again we experienced that feeling that drove the fact home WE WERE IN AUSTRALIA!!! I won't lie, i got goosebumps. Seeing the vastness of this place really energized us and we were excited to go explore, we arrived at our stop and made our way down to the waterfront. We realized that we were in the wrong place if we wanted to see the Opera House and bridge especially if we wanted to see it at sunset. Lucky for us Sydney has an incredible public transport system in place at the harbor and you can just catch a ferry to where you need to go. The cost of the ferry was covered by our train pass.....win! We got on the ferry and I'm glad we did because it gave yet another view of the harbor and the bridge which was a lot of fun. I spent most of my time out on the deck shooting tons of photos, the view of the city was just incredible. We made our way around and got to the opera house, it was cool to finally be there seeing this place. To be there and knowing that you can cross something off the list, we had seen it in books in movies and planning for over a year and now here we were at the steps of the opera house. It was very surreal. We stayed here pretty much the entire time as sunset was really close and i wanted to shoot some photos, it was a great way to start our time in Sydney. Sunset came and went and the harbor became even more interesting and beautiful as the light faded and the city lights began to come on. We walked around for a bit still in awe and shock that we were here finally, when before all we could do is wait and it seemed so far away. We took it all in and walked into the opera house, i wish that we could have caught a show there but we were there right in the middle of the holidays and nothing was going on until after we would be gone. Still, it was incredibly beautiful and i discovered that the opera house is meant to look like its sailing across the harbor and when you see it in person from a distance it really does look like its some kind of vessel sailing across the water. It was late now and the rush of energy was quickly fading, we made our way back and got on the train "home". Exhausted beyond belief we dragged ourselves off of our seats and got off at our stop......still deserted and still creepy. The walk back to our van was grueling, being so tired and carrying all that weight was just painful. But we made our way past the cemetery/crematorium, yes you read that right, down the long dark road and got to our van. Tired and happy we passed out as soon as we hit the bed.....soon we would be ready fro a new day and a new adventure.