Changes in latitude, changes in attitude

100 days on the road, and a change in plans.

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Mike

Yesterday marked the 100th day since I hit the road, and I realised just how much more there was to see in this huge country. I bought a map of Australia, and I highlighted all the roads I’ve travelled on this trip so far. Southern and western parts of New South Wales, and eastern Victoria, are well covered in red highlighter, with roads big and small criss-crossing the region all marked ….but it’s taken me 100 days to do that and there is an awful lot left !
According to my spreadsheet I have travelled just over 15000 kms, which is nearly as much as some people do in a rushed trip around Australia yet I’ve only seen the bottom right quarter ! Mind you, I’ve met grey nomads who have been on the road for years and still have not seen it all. I am not a fast traveller, if I find a nice spot I like to stop there a while, then move on a couple of days later, and that might only be a couple of hundred kilometres down the road. I’m not on a short annual holiday, so I don’t have to rush along doing 1000kms in a day.
Fuel is still my biggest cost, at around 36%, with food (21%) and repairs/replacements (19%) the next biggest cost. The repairs bill being mainly due to 2 tyres that I had to replace, but I knew that would happen as they were rather worn at the start. Hopefully there will not be any more major repair bills ! The cost/day has increased, up to $70/day, mainly because of those tyres.
I was not originally planning on this, but I will be making a trip to Thailand in a couple of weeks. As a member of Thai Airway’s frequent flyer club I get several emails with special fares and holidays which I usually just delete because I could never take time off work to use them. Nowadays I don’t have that problem 🙂 This year the school holidays here do not coincide with Easter, so there must have been quite a few seats unsold for the period inbetween as there were cheap fares to Thailand available. Songkran, or the traditional Thai New Year, falls in this period, and I’ve always wanted to see it. Over the years it has turned from the traditional gentle washing of people’s hands into the world’s biggest water fight, just search Youtube for examples ! So I’ve bought a ticket to Thailand for 9 April, coming back 3 weeks later.
After that it will be time to start heading west, over to W.A. Something else I’ve also always wanted to do was snorkel with the whale sharks in north west WA, at Exmouth, so that will be the next “must do” on my bucket list. And the next after that will be to drive the Gibb River Road across the Kimberley. So that should be 3 big ticks on my bucket list !

Anyway, Happy Easter, and don’t eat too much chocolate ! 🙂

Posted in Australia, Random musings, Thailand | Tagged budget, road trip, songkran, Thailand | 1 Comment

I love my fish-eye

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Mike

Sydney from the Harbour Bridge pylon lookout

When I was suffering from Gear Acquisition Syndrome one of the earliest items I bought was a fish-eye lens. I’ve always liked the eyecatching effect but could never justify the cost of the Nikon item for a “toy” lens, until I found this :
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/822797-REG/Rokinon_FE8MAFN_8mm_Ultra_Wide_Angle.html.

Rokinon 8mm Ultra Wide Angle f/3.5 Fisheye Lens for Nikon w/Focus Confirm Chip

Mine is branded “Rokinon” but apparently it is also sold under other names, all made in the same factory and selling for around the same price, give or take a few dollars.

Sydney at dusk

By cropping the top and bottom you can get a quick panoramic view, just take care to have the horizon central in the viewfinder, or else it will come out looking like this :

It is manual focus only, but really that is not a problem because of the incredible depth of field you can get with this lens. Set the focus to around 1 metre, aperture to f8, and everything from about 70cms to infinity will be in focus. Or set it to the minimum focus of 30cms for closeups and still be OK out to around 4m. This next photo was taken with the camera sitting on the road surface, propped up slightly by the lens hood :

What a fish might see if it was sitting on the road on the Hay Plains !

(I certainly did not have to worry much about the traffic out there!)
It’s got a nearly 180 degree field of view , not just horizontally but vertically as well, so you have to check your toes are not peeking into the bottom of the frame !

These cars were really in a straight line !

If you don’t like the curved “straight” lines on the edges you can use software to fix it up, to make it look more normal, but I am still learning to get that right.

Posted in Gear, Landscape, Photography | Tagged bridge, fisheye, harbour, landscape, photo gear, photographic gear, Sydney | Leave a comment

To the gates of Hell, and beyond.

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Mike

In summer this probably would feel like Hell, but it was just a mild 38C when I took this photo at Hell’s Gate station, on the Hay Plains.

“Hell’s Gate” station, Hay Plains

(photo taken with 8mm fisheye lens)

Posted in Australia, Landscape, Photography, Travel | Tagged Hell, landscape, outback, signs | 1 Comment

Sydney or the bush ?

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Mike

Droving on the Long Paddock

For non Australians reading this, “Sydney or the bush is a phrase describing two vastly different choices or paths.
For me, it’s a no-brainer, a few days in Sydney is more than enough ! So I am heading bush, heading for the land of Banjo Paterson’s “Clancy”.
And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plain extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars,
( Clancy of the Overflow)

“the sunlit plain extended”

Of course, I am cruising down a highway in airconditioned comfort where the early settlers came on horse and cart, and where the shearers that followed much later rode from shed to shed on bicycles with tyres stuffed with grass.

The old shearing shed, Yanga homestead

In Yanga National Park, near Balranald, you can see the old homestead, just as it was before the National Parks bought it, it’s a step back in time. The old shearing shed still smells of sheep !

You can see some good sunsets out here on the wide open plains.

Posted in Australia, Landscape, Travel | Tagged banjo paterson, camping, clancy, drover, landscape, outback, outdoors, sunset, transportation | Leave a comment

More from the Mardi Gras parade

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Mike

A few more photos of the parade:

If you are interested, there are many more photos at my pbase gallery :http://www.pbase.com/mike_n/gay_and_lesbian_mardi_gras_2013
Some of the spectators dressed up for the event too, and most were happy to pose for the camera, so here are some photos from before the parade :

Is it easy being green ?

Some of the spectators like the camera’s attention too

This guy was in an apartment above the parade route, and entertained the crowd below with several costume changes.

Hamming it up for the crowd below

One of the spectators who dressed up for the event

Posted in Australia, Travel | Tagged feathers, gay, leather, lesbian, Mardi Gras, oxford Street, parade, sequins, Sydney | 1 Comment

Walking on the wild side.

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Mike

The “Dykes on bikes” always open the parade

I was in Sydney on the weekend, so I went along to watch the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, along with a hundred thousand or so other people ! Despite the inclement weather the streets were packed to watch this extravaganza of feathers, sequins, leather …..and not much else !

Photographically speaking, it was a “target rich environment”, and I shot off just over 400 photos, although I’ve culled that down to a mere 90 so far. I’ll post some of them here, but most of the more “risque” ones will go into my pbase gallery over the next day or two. http://www.pbase.com/mike_n/gay_and_lesbian_mardi_gras_2013