Last week I returned from a trip to Perth, Western Australia, where I explored the city and the outer suburbs, as well as drove up and down the coast a bit. This was the last major Australian city I hadn’t really spent more than an afternoon in until now (I’d previously twice spent a night in Perth, once due to a flight diversion), and I also managed to spend a day on Rottnest Island and saw some of the quokkas there.
The weather was reasonably good, and I managed to take quite a few photos, which I’ve just finished the initial run of processing, although it turns out my EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II lens has started having minor (but quite noticeable when looking at the images on a large monitor) issues with focusing, which is a bit annoying. It means a fair number of the photos aren’t as sharp/focused as they should be, so I might need to have the lens looked at if it continually has this issue in the future.
A week ago I returned from a week’s trip to central New South Wales in Australia, driving from Sydney down to (almost!) Batemans Bay, then up again to Newcastle and then back to Sydney.
The aim was to spend a bit more time exploring places I’d skipped / missed when I motored through quickly on my trips passing through NSW in 2018 and 2019 - which I did end up doing, however it turned out I’d forgotten I had actually visited some places before! Jervis Bay Territory in particular - although this time around it wasn’t overcast, so I was able to see it (and the white sand beaches) with the sun out.
The weather was excellent, and once again I got some photos I’m pleased with.
Two weeks ago I returned from a trip back to the UK for a few weeks, stopping off in San Francisco for a few days on the way out, and I have almost finished processing the DSLR photos I took, so this is just a quick post containing a single photo each from some of the locations I visited whilst away.
Last week I spent a few days down in the South Island around Queenstown and Wanaka, mainly to try and photograph the Autumn Colours. Apparently the term for this is a “Leaf Peeper”!
I’ve been several times before, but always in Spring or Summer, so this was the first time I’d seen any of the South Island in Autumn.
Whilst there is a bit of colour in Autumn in the North Island in places (in parks north of Wellington for example), there’s not much that I’ve seen in general (at least in comparison to the Northern Hemisphere), so it was a nostalgic memory of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, seeing the very widespread colours that occur there and I grew up with.
I think I’m correct in saying that almost all of the trees in New Zealand that have leaves which change colour in the Autumn are “exotic”, non-native species that have been imported from Europe, North America and Japan, with there being very few native deciduous trees (most are evergreen), and of those very few of them actually change colour.
Maples, English Beech (the native New Zealand Beech species are evergreen from what I can tell), Gum, Cherry and Horse chestnut trees seem almost certain to have been imported by early settlers, and the fact they seem to mostly be found along rivers and near settlements rather than being found out further away in more remote parts of the landscape seems to re-enforce that theory, but it’s difficult to know for certain.
Regardless, they do provide a very noticeable splash of colour on top of New Zealand’s already beautiful scenery in the area, and I did get some nice photos I’m happy with.
I’ve just got back from a fantastic week and a bit in the South Island, and was very lucky to have perfect weather for most of the trip, as well as getting a lucky view of the Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) one night.
I was in Queenstown at the time, and a phone app I have which gives notifications when Aurora might be visible at your location alerted me that it was likely visible, so I grabbed my camera and tripod to try and photograph it, starting during the later stages of dusk. There were two different “types” that were fairly faint but just visible to the naked eye: a green glow that really looked like light pollution - although there were no large towns in exactly that direction, and it morphed over time changing shape - and blue streaks, gently pulsing over time.
With a long exposure, they are much more clearly visible.
A very magical experience.
I also managed to get some excellent views of Aoraki / Mt Cook.
I spent the second half of last week on a short break in the South Island based mostly in Christchurch, although I ventured out a bit to the wider area of Canterbury. The weather was excellent for landscape / travel photography, and I managed to get some pretty good shots of snowy mountains, and for my third trip to Banks Peninsula finally got to see it in nice weather (although once again got the timing of the tides wrong as I often do!).
The general lack of international visitors / tourists was pretty pronounced, even in normally popular tourist spots.
I got back from a nice trip to Tasmania last week, meaning I’ve now visited all of Australia’s states, and most of its territories (not Jervis Bay!).
The weather was not great, although it was mostly dry and there was sun occasionally, and I even found a bit of snow falling (and gathered) in the Central Highlands where it got down to 3 degC, as well as some on top of Mount Wellington in Hobart.
A surprise was driving through a region called Dorset: funny how names are re-used in other parts of the world by settlers.
Coming back to New Zealand via Sydney, it was very apparent (flying in and out) the number of bushfires in the area from the smoke in the air and the amount of haze and limited visibility.
Last week I returned from a trip to Australia, driving from Sydney up to Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and have just done a first pass of
photo processing. The weather was generally excellent (although it was very windy in Byron Bay and Gold Coast, so walking on the beach was not amazingly pleasant with the sand blowing), and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and took some photos I’m very pleased with, including several sunrise ones (getting up somewhat early was worth it!).
I’ve just got back from a trip back to the UK for a few weeks, stopping off in Hong Kong on the way out and Singapore on the way back,
which was very enjoyable if also very tiring.
Despite the battery life issue I have with it, the new camera held up well, and I found the Live View functionality very useful for shooting on a tripod and focusing by touching on the screen.
I used this method to tick the box on some (somewhat cliché) location photos in both Hong Kong and Singapore (see below) that I did want to take, and I hope to return to both
places in the future to explore more (although the evidence of political rumblings in Hong Kong was fairly apparent).
