This blogging business is not easy to remember.

Not sure about you guys, but sadly I never did keep a diary as a child - could never remember to fill it in, bit like writing a blog. I was not surprised to see it was 10 months since my last entry!

In the last 10 months I have done so much travelling around this fair land, I am definitely going to carry on with this blog, for my own benefit if nothing else. The past 10 months have seen two trips to Tasmania, Barrow Island, (a remote Island off the coast of Western Australia), Sydney, Melbourne  as well as travelling the lengths and breadths of South Australia.  I almost forgot about a trip to the UK that suddenly got thrown into the mix during that time period.

There is so much to see in this world that we often forget to look  what we have at the bottom of our own street.

The photo to the left is of Jetty Road in Glenelg, until around the time of my last post it was five minutes from my house. 

I have now moved up to the hills area of Adelaide, strange how I am only now realising what I walked past constantly.

 This photo was taken with my iPhone - I will get back in the near future and take some more professional shots.

I think the moral of this post is to take  stock of what we have around us everyday as it is often better than we think. I do not regret my move to the hills as I love it up here, but only now with fresh eyes I see what beauty I was living with. 

Two Years On

I have just had a fright by realising I have not posted anything on my blog for 2 years.

A lot has happened in the last two years - the biggest thing was the move from Perth To Adelaide, a very unexpected move but happy to say we have all settled here extremely well.

Adelaide CBD

As a family we have given up stressing about moving as in the past four years we have moved house 5 times, only one of them (this recent move) has been purely our choice it is all mainly due to job relocation.

The opportunity for travel is amazing as each time we have moved we take the opportunity to investigate the area we are living in. My job also takes me to some of the most remote and picturesque places in Australia.

I have been on a few trips in the past two years and am hoping to get some photography updated - my biggest problem is the crashing of my external hard drive. I thought I had been very good and backed up all my data on an external Hard Drive, but as the very condescending chap in the computer shop informed me backing up means having the data stored in TWO places. Major fail on that score and also means I will not be visiting that store again!

My intention over the next few weeks is to get some of my trips on here, just posting the photos onto facebook does not give you some of the amazing facts about the places visited. Maybe a sad thing but being in a different country makes me want to learn as much as I can, not in a nerd fashion but just enough so you remember the places and dont just drive through and go" umm thats nice" and completely forget about it

Perth to Monkey Mia Road Trip

Living here in Perth I had many people tell me about the must do visit to Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort roughly 850km north of Perth. Monkey Mia is a World Heritage Landmark and if the website was to be believed "Monkey Mia is one of the world’s premier natural dolphin sighting areas; a destination of magical encounters. " Having a friend over from the UK we thought that this would be a Must Do trip. Looking at maps of the journey we decided to make this a photo oppurtunity and stop off at places along the journey.

The route was planned - Perth to Geraldton the first day to stop at the Pinnacles Dessert and see the Cathedral and striped lighthouse in Geraldton.
Day two - Geraldton to Denham, calling off at the Stromatalites and Shell Beach.
Day three - Monkey Mia dolphin resort
Day Four - Monkey Mia to Kalbarri calling off at Kalbarri National Park and the Sea Horse Sanctuary.
Day Five - Kalbarri to Perth stopping at the Pink Lake

Originating from the UK we looked at the route and thought Not a Problem, am used to hours in a car, sadly going nowhere in traffic jams, but how different could it be? How wrong that statement was!!!!!

After navigating the roads North out of Perth within two hours it soon became apparent that this was not a journey I had ever taken before. I have even spent six months on the Orkney Islands (remote Islands off Scotland closer to Norway) but nothing could compare to the hours of nothing! It is hard to sum up, but for hours all you see is bush and scrubland. You may see some tracks that lead to farms or stations and the odd sign for a settlement, but the further North you get the more remote it is. To ease our boredom we began to play Road Kill bingo, trying to guess what the mumified remains on the side of the road were (using a picture book) It is apparent that the wildlife along these routes are plentifull, sadly everything we saw had long since expired. I have been told that night time is when the animals are to be seen (judging by roadkill usually in headlights!), they spend the heat of the day hiding out of the sun.

The first stop to see the light house was a success, sadly a funeral was being held at the cathedral so I didnt intrude with my camera. The stromatalites and shell beach were well worth a visit although nothing else to see once there, more information on these rare sights can be found on http://www.discoverwest.com.au/.

Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort was definately worth the days of travelling. The idylic white sands and clear blue sea greeted us as we drove into the resort. The main objective of the trip was to see the wild dolphins that swim into the resort. This begins at around 7am and a selective few get to hand feed the dolphins, gladly we were able to feed a dolphin each. It was quite surreal to feed a wild dolphin! It made our trip and something we will not forgot for a long time. After the dolphin feeding we went on a boat trip to see some more of the sea life in Shark Bay. Some of the sights included turtles, sea snakes, dugongs and more dolphins, all so more exciting to see when they are not in a tank in an aquarium. The day was rounded off with great food and a visit to the local Paerl Farm (very interesting it was as well!)

The trip home included an over night stay at Kalbarri so we could visit Kalbarri National Park. The views were absolutely stunning but the summer heat in the gorges was around 45 - 50 degrees, the walks were definately not for the faint hearted in this heat and we only managed about 4km. Sadly the waterfalls and lakes had dried in the heat of the summer but I would definately visit again in the winter to see the river beds full - the photographs would be more dramatic than the ones I managed to get this time round.

The Pink Lake was worth a visit as we were in that area, but due the heat of the summer the lake was very dry. It is said to be a better sight in the winter when the lake is freshly filled.

In total we drove around 2800 km and saw some of the most fascinating sights, the hours of mind numbing boredom of the rural highway was well worth the drive. I am glad I made the trip and have some fantastic photography for my portfolio, but, the saving grace was the ipod - even two females in a car run out of conversation after twelves hours!

One last note to mention, during our travels we spent a lot of time at fuel stations and road houses, what a refreshing change to the faceless motorway service stations I have become accustomed to in Europe. There are still many road houses where a guy comes out and fills your car for you, the last time I saw that was in Bulgaria.

To sum up the trip - fantastic and well worth the effort