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Oz On the Road – Day Eight

June 13, 2011

Last night on the GOR tonight. Very mixed emotions; tired having covered 2,400k in the last 6 days, want to get home, want to see V, family and cats, but sorry to end the trip.
Tonight I’m in Warrnambool, the end of the GOR and, the additional attraction for me, a former whaling port that is now a sanctuary for whales. The very large bay that Warnambool sits beside is the winter home of right whales and their new calves, and there are sighting stations set up along the bluffs where you can watch for whales to breech. I spent a windswept hour in the fading light looking, but no joy. Relaxing and peaceful, nonetheless.

Checked in to my hotel and emptied the car, a den of corruption after 7 days of meals on the run, empty coffee cups and assorted detritus. Tonight was repack night. Not to get too particular, but my main suitcase has been getting and less cramped each day; at night I have been taking my suitcase and a plastic shopping bag into my hotel room. (more…)
Oz On the Road – Day Seven

June 12, 2011

Down the Mornington Peninsula today. Day started out clear and sunny but clouds moved in around noon and intermittent sun, clouds and rain showers through out the day. Not a problem since the mixed lighting has a nice dramatic effect in landscape shots. Stopped at a beautiful property along the way; vineyard with very luxurious accommodations and dining room. Mark said that he’d taken his team there for a strategic retreat and suggested that I overnight last night, but the rooms stared at $500 so I thought I’d give it a miss! Did pick up a couple of bottles of pinot for Mark as a house present. He’d told me that he’s a huge fan so I got a couple of bottles to bring home to try as well.
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Oz On the Road – Day Six

June 11, 2011

Day started overcast and rainy and I thought that it was going to be a repeat of yesterday. However, after a couple of hours of driving the sun started to break through and the day stayed relatively sunny and clear thereafter. Much more pleasant to see the sun when driving. It does lift the spirits.
Today was a lucky day for animal sightings. (more…)
Oz On the Road – Day Five

June 9, 2011

Not a great day for weather. Sunrise was beautiful but by the time I left my motel at 8:45 the rain had started and with a couple of breaks, kept up all day. As a result, I did not have much opportunity or interest in stopping to wander or take pictures, the net result of which is that I covered a fair bit of ground and my day should be a bit easier tomorrow, particularly if the weather improves. (more…)
Oz On the Road – Day Four

June 9, 2011

A short note tonight; today was a 450K driving day, much of it lateral to my direction of travel. Think I got some good shots, but I’ve just arrived at my motel and it’s about 7 pm and I don’t have the strength to sort, photoshop and post todays harvest. If I can arrive at tomorrow’s motel at a reasonably early time I’ll have a crack at it.
Awoke at 5:00 as has now become usual and threw on yesterdays clothes and went to watch the sun rise over the ocean. Got a couple of good shots, but not in a great spot for composition and didn’t want to take the chance of driving around to find somewhere better because, when the sun decides to rise, it rises! and doesn’t wait for you to find a better spot.
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Oz On the Road – Day Three

June 8, 2011

Awoke to a spectacular sunrise; tried to catch it through the 39th floor hotel room window but haven’t had a chance to look at the very few shots in the camera from todays shooting.
First driving day and, as usual, lots of lessons. Had checked with CIBC before I left to confirm that they covered the rental car collision waiver (CDW) in Australia. Was assured that they did, however when I was signing up for the car and told them that I was declining coverage, we had a bit of a flap. (more…)
Sydney – Day Two

June 7, 2011

Long day today.Got 9 hours solid sleep and awoke at 5 am to the opening chords of a beautiful sunrise. Weather looks like it’s going to be spectacular. Haven’t made my day’s plans yet. Going up to breakfast and will dig through my Sydney guide. At the least I’d like to wander in some of the Sydney sites that I haven’t gotten to in previous trips.

Caught an early ferry to Manley which is about a 1/2 hour ride. Manley is on one of the two promontories, the gap between which forms the opening into Sydney Harbour. It’s hard to get the scale from a photo but Sydney Harbour is enormous; think Toronto to Buffalo. If you drew a line across the lake from Toronto to Buffalo all the lake enclosed to the west around Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara on the Lake and back around to Buffalo would be the scale of Sydney Harbour and the opening to this harbour which is only a couple of miles across is what you can see from the Manley ferry as you look out onto the Tasman Sea.
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Sydney – Day One

June 6, 2011

Arrived this morning at about 8:00 am. Beautiful sunny day with high, blue skies. Cool though, about 12C with a nippy breeze.
Tried to replace my SIM card in the iPhone so that I could have a working mobile with local phone rates but I realized that the Australian SIM that I had bought in Toronto was not a micro SIM that fitted an iPhone so $20 fssst. The attraction of the card that I bought at home was the supposedly reduced rates for calling back to Canada as well as calling locally in Australia. If you used the Telus roaming rate as the comparator they certainly looked good; 65 cents a minute to call home compared to $1.40 on Telus so I was a little upset that I would be incommunicado except for hotel wifi.
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Somewhere between Vancouver and Sydney

June 4, 2011

Just switched my Mac to Oz time zone so postings are in local Australian time.
Toronto-Vancouver uneventful; plane packed to the gunwales but no delays. Reasonably pleasant dinner; beef filet and a couple of glasses of decent French merlot.

Dreadful movies! Tried “Blue Valentine” and it was just as well that there were no sharp objects handy; gave up on that before I needed anti-depressants. Tried “I Love You Philip Morris” but that was even worse; Jim Carrie. Need I say more? Who ever gave him the permission to stand in front of a camera! He is cloyingly, revoltingly, unpleasantly bad and every movie of his that I have seen seems worse than the one before. Hollywood, stop encouraging him! Gave up on movies after that.
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Oz – Setting Out

June 4, 2011

Well, today is departure day. Got home from New York last night and thought that I was in good shape for packing for Oz. Never goes as smoothly as you expect, however. I’m trying to pack light as I only have one serious business day but because I don’t know where I’ll be staying as I’ll be driving all day and stopping when I get tired, I know that I won’t have a chance to do laundry. As a result I have packed way more than I had planned; going to be a daily workout just shifting luggage.
My worst packing moment came when I was assembling photo equipment. Realized that I had somehow managed to lose two 16 Gig CF cards on my last US trip last week. I have never taken a trip, not even as short a one as an overnight, without losing or leaving behind at least one useful or important thing. It just seems to happen and on the NY trip it was my camera’s two biggest data cards. Had to rush to Vistek and buy a backup since I don’t want to pay Oz prices for camera equipment. Don’t know whether to treat this as a good omen since I’ve done a pre-emptive loss, or as a bad omen of the multitude of equipment that I’ll be leaving in my wake. Have a pretty good idea however as I forgot my bag with my wallet and passport at a gift shop in the airport. Fortunately Virginia noticed just as I was going into security. I hate to think …

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