I have never been anywhere in the world quite like Namibia – or the Namib Desert. The Namib Desert between Sossusvlei and the coast is 200kms wide (125 miles), and actually stretches north / south about 2,000kms (1,250 miles) covering parts of South Africa, Namibia and Angola. Much of the desert is this super vibrant red sand due to the minerals and elements in the sand, which makes for quite interesting color contrasts. We stayed at the Kulala Lodge where they offer various activities – including a guided hike up a few of the sand dunes.

One of the very best experiences we had was to climb the Big Daddy Dune. The dune itself is approximately 325 meters tall (even though we were told during our climb that it was 400 meters tall), and it took us about 2 hours to climb up, and we went straight down the face of the dune into Deadvlei, taking approximately 10 minutes.  We left the lodge around 7 AM and started climbing the dune by around 8 AM.  We were at the top by 10 AM, and couldn’t be happier – I estimate it was already over 35C / 100F by 10 AM.

Sony A7R II | FE 70-200mm F4 | 104 mm | f/20 | 1/1000th | ISO4000

A little something that I would have never known – it’s easier to walk over sand where someone else has already walked before.  Our guide was smart enough to let us take our time getting to the dune so that a few other groups went before us.  If you walk on someone else’s footprints, the sand is actually a bit more solid and it takes less effort to walk.  Pro tip.

A few years back, my father-in-law came down to visit us in Australia.  Now, he doesn’t travel a ton, so the trip down from the middle of America to Australia was a long trek for him to do.  My missus (not knowing at the time how long we were actually going to be in Australia) predicted that this was the only time that he would ever set foot here, so she wanted to make it worth his trip.  He took a solo trip up to Queensland and took a day trip out to snorkel over the Great Barrier Reef while we worked.  Then we all took a flight down to Adelaide, took the ferry boat over to Kangaroo Island where we stayed for a few days.  Then we popped up to the Barossa Valley for a couple of days right around Christmas, then took the long route to drive from the Barossa to Melbourne, where we spent New Years Eve.  Now, if you do the math, in his relatively short trip down to Australia, he visited 4 of the 9 States and Territories in one shot!!!

In any event, on our week long drive between basically Adelaide and Melbs, we hit the south coast for the Great Ocean Road, and stopped for an hour or so at the Twelve Apostles.  Australia is full of sandstone, but these particular formations are spectacular in that they are slowly being eroded by the waves of the Great Southern Ocean, and at some point in the future will actually cease to exist.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 35mm | f/8.0 | 1/750th | ISO100

We drove from Exmouth to Broome before we picked up the tour through the Kimberley.  On the way, we stopped for a couple of nights in Karijini National Park.  The drive from Exmouth was nearly 8 hours, and there is just nothingness out in that part of Western Australia.  I mean, miles and miles and miles of nothing but red dirt and blue sky.

Sony A7R II | Sony FE 24-70 F/4 | 41mm | f/8.0 | 1/1250th | ISO200

I mentioned this on our Namibia trip page, but it’s worth revisiting.  One of the absolute highlights of our time in the Namib desert was the hot-air balloon ride. Now keep in mind, we were at the bar of the Lodge with our guides until about midnight. Then they came around and gave us a wake up call at around 5:45 AM.  It was possible (no probable) that I was still drunk.  We were driven out to a clearing. It was the desert, so everything was a clearing. We arrived just before 7 AM.  I believe we were actually the last of the guests to get there. There wasn’t much waiting around. We went straight onto the balloon. Within about 5 minutes, we’re up in the air.  Just to give a little idea of how this was setup – it was a large-ish basket. It could accommodate around 14-16 people. Plus, there was a pilot.  We were in the air for ~1 hour, and we hovered around 1000-1200 meters for most of the time.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  This was one of the most remarkable mornings I’ve had. It concluded with a champagne breakfast once we hit the ground again.

Sony A7R II | Sony FE 24-70mm F4 | 25mm | f/4.0 | 1/60th | ISO160 

This year, for Australia Day, we finally made our way out to Western Australia.  I always focus on wine during my trips. So, we set out for Margaret River. It is the home to some of the finest Cab Sauv in Australia.  We didn’t do nearly as much wine tasting as I would have liked. However, we did find another gem out there.

There is a walking path called the Cape to Cape Walk. It runs all the way from Cape Naturaliste in the north. The path goes down to Cape Leeuwin in the south.  Overall, it’s 135 kms north to south. We only walked a very small portion of it. The trail follows the coast and overlooks the Indian Ocean.  This has now gone on the shortlist of holiday treks.  I would love to do the whole walk.

Sony A7R II | FE 24-70mm F4 | 24 mm | f/9.0 | 1/500th | ISO200

The first time we went to Byron Bay, it was actually for the world famous Byron Bay Blues Fest. We really spent more time taking in music. We spent less time taking in the town and the beach.  Byron is one of those towns. It has a very hippy / rustic nature to it. The beach is among the best on the east coast.

We went back this year for a quiet weekend with me and my partner.  We stayed at a resort just north of town, and saw even less of the town this time around.  The weather was not quite as good this time of year. However, we did go out to the beach on both evenings. We were prepared with a bottle of red wine and our camera. As the sun was going down, snapped a couple of photos of random people, sharing our beach.

Sony A7R II| Sony FE 24-70mm F4  | 70mm | f/4.5 | 1/200th | ISO200

It’s that time again. Sydney puts on its best nighttime face. It brings out the light festival for the winter solstice.  I went a few years ago. I even blogged about it. We went back this year for a Sunday evening stroll.  This was one of the biggest shows. It extended into the Domain, Martin Place, Darling Harbour, and the north side of the city.  The Opera House has to be the limelight of the show each year.  This year, they had a rotating set of lights and images projected onto the famous sails.  The whole set lasted somewhere around 10 minutes or so, and I setup the tripod and just snapped away.  Most of the shots turned out pretty damn well.

Next year, I’m determined to get to Tasmania. Hobart puts on its own version of the light show called Dark Mofo.

Sony A7R II | Sony FE 24-70 f/4.0| 70mm | f/5.6 | 0.6 sec | ISO1000