Time for episode 2 of this series where I look back at pictures from past trips, much like I would have in bygone days, flipping through photo albums. I find it helps bring into focus things I did well, or mistakes I’ve made. It also highlights how I have grown over that time in terms of my technique and composition.
I chose our trip to Australia from seven years ago for my look-back. Ever since I was a young kid I remember thinking how great it would be to travel around Australia to see the exotic animals and birds, amazing coastlines and reefs, not to mention those cool accents, right? To make it worthwhile for a plane ride that takes more than 24 hours, we hoped to make this trip for a longer duration. As luck (or something similar) would have it, I finally had more than a week off work for the first time since leaving high school (that can’t be healthy) and we booked a little camping van for a 6 week tour of the east coast of Australia.
We had already completed a couple of trips in VW Westy camping vans, and we knew we enjoyed this style of travel. Since this was going to be a photography trip as well, the camper van was a great way to take our gear and always have it at hand.
The six-week tour started in Brisbane with a visit to Salwa’s brother and family, and then we started the trek north along the coast towards Cairns, Port Douglas and the Daintree National Park.
There….northward bound
After departing Brisbane the first area we explored was the Sunshine Coast with some beautiful beaches, especially around Noosa. If we had a 4x4 camper I think we would have spent more time in this region along Great Sandy National Park and onto Fraser Island but that will have to wait for another trip.
We had heard great things about the Whitsunday Islands National Park and wandered up the coast with the goal of taking a boat out to the islands. The beautiful white beaches on the island were breathtaking. There were a few sailboats anchored in the bay and I think that would be the perfect way to be able to really see these islands. It was beautiful at midday, I’m guessing it would be spectacular at dusk and dawn.
We continued to wind our way up the one main highway stopping at various beaches, towns and small wildlife sanctuaries with a main goal of getting up toward Cairns and Port Douglas. Along the coast and in the wildlife sanctuaries I was able to get my fill of bird photography, most of which I have never seen before. The slideshow below has a sample of these.
We picked a great time to head into the north end of Australia, going into their winter season it was still hot like a Carolina spring but not to the point that we couldn’t handle the heat. For those of you who love the heat, the north of Australia has enough to explore to spend months wandering. This area becomes very under-populated so you do need to plan well ahead if you are camping. From a nature photographer’s perspective, the rainforests are so unique to those of us from North America that I found it difficult to focus and found myself wandering aimlessly pressing my shutter button for everything that caught my eye.
Although I did get plenty of interesting shots, slowing down and thinking about what I wanted to capture would have allowed me to get much more interesting bird and animal shots. I think the excitement of seeing things for the first time can make you just want to get a bit of it all, even if you know better, and would normally stop and wait for the action to come to you.
Both the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef were things that I will remember for a long time. I think in some ways this trip became like a wine tasting tour. We got just enough to know that we want to go back and get more of some areas - and in some cases we might want to buy the vineyard and never leave.
…and back again….southward bound
On the way back south we ventured inland and were rewarded with completely different landscapes and creatures. The people were very different as well, most of the people we met in the campsites were transient workers for the mines. They would stay for weeks at a time in the camps and head back to their families on the coast for some weekends and holidays. Looked like hard work, and they traveled where the work took them.
There were many National and State Parks that we passed on the way south. Many of these parks really required 4x4 campers to enjoy properly. Often roads that might be passable at the time could be flooded after any rainfall. Sadly, even though many of these were high on our list of places to play we had to skip this time and put on our “next time” list. One of the bigger National Parks did have some areas that our camper could drive into. Carnarvon National Park was a hikers dream. This was also a fantastic spot for landscape photography. We got some interesting shots, and again found locations and compositions for that next time - oh, and we did see the very illusive and odd platypus hunting in a creek.
Past Brisbane we headed back to the coast. Beaches along the Gold Coast gave us some relaxing camping with Salwa’s family again and a taste for why this area is one of the best places to live in the world. Beautiful weather, interesting people, and if you love surfing….this is really paradise.
The coastline gets much more rugged and a lot less sandy as you head further south. For coastal photography this was spectacular. With many cliffs, tidal pools and waves crashing against the shoreline it felt a little like parts of the west coast of North America - but also different in so many ways. You won’t often see beach kangaroos in North America.
We managed to get down as far South as Murramarang National Park before needing to get back for our flight in Brisbane. The beach and sea scape at this park was a place that will bring back many great memories and quite a few good pictures.
…and back one more time…northward one last time.
We spent 6 weeks in Australia and barely scratched the surface of what there is to see and locations we would like to shoot. I guess we can look at this trip as a very long reconnaissance trip, and hopefully we can use what we learned to plan more trips. We did also spend time doing the usual tourist stuff, visiting historical sites, vineyards, and beaches along with many coffee shops and bakeries. Next time I think we would purchase our own camper van and look into taking a year or more to do “the big loop”, circumnavigating the entire country and taking pictures and videos. It might even be a good excuse to get people to meet up at locations for some photo treks and work with some local landscape and nature photographers who have done most of the scouting leg-work to come up with some expeditions.
Take a look through the gallery below for a glimpse of the different sights and sounds as we wandered the country.
What did I learn from this Wayback Wednesday?
Slow down and enjoy the scenery. Sometimes we try to get everything in on a trip and don’t get to fully take in an area. Even with 6 weeks we often felt like we had to move on before we were ready. This is something we need to continuously think about as we often want to see what is around the next corner without fully exploring what is around us now.
Come back in good light. We say this often but rarely do. We would see an amazing scene but the light would not be great. We nearly always had some place to go next and often wouldn’t come back for that great evening or morning light.
Beaches can be hell on cameras and lenses. Both the sand and the salt water in the air add up. I came back with 2 lenses that sounded like they were grinding pepper. Clean your gear well after beach days.
We could have taken a full year traveling around Australia and still not explored all we wanted to. There is so much to see, and it is so easy to caravan around the country. If we were to go again for a short visit then I think we might want to limit ourselves to a couple of locations and explore them thoroughly. Otherwise we need more time - much more time.
Make sure to take time to relax, enjoy the scene around you. This goes back to the first lesson but sometimes we need to just put away the cameras grab a beer or glass of wine and enjoy what is happening around us.
Get better at documenting our trips, mostly so that we can plan the next ones.
Buy a boat and a camper van. We want to explore and we have no reason to put down roots. This lesson we will need to work on in stages. It is good to have goals.
Make some photo books of our travels. Much better for showing people than on a computer and nice to look through for the memories.
I think, looking back, that this trip will be remembered as one of the best times we have spent as a couple traveling. Wandering around the country in a little camper van was the best way to see what we wanted to see. With only a flight to catch at the end of 6 weeks we traveled where we wanted and stopped at anything that was interesting. I think we just want to be able to spend more of our time in this way.