Category Archives: Australia

Australia, Sydney

2006-07 Sydney with the Mowats

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French tourists
Kickflip
A Painting of Hugh Jackman!
Darren of ISO fame
Shopping for Boards
Looking back on the City – Sydney
The bay
Looking to the East
Homeless in Sydney
Bats in the Trees
Wildlife
Water water Everywhere
Homeless in Sydney
Seb at 18
The Manly sea
Manly Waves
Couple at Manly
Manly Beach
Big Issue Sydney
Coming from Manly
Sydney Light blur
Sydney after dark
Sydney after dark
Harbour Bridge Blur
Syndey Opera House
Pit stop back from the Blue Mountains
Hiking companions
Making fun of the bride
Tom and Leslie
Bride on the steps
Under the Bridge
Dave!
A night of Folk music from around the world
Seb and Tom 2006
Empty Plane
Goodbye Australia
Goodbye Sydney
In Flight
Sydney from above
Wales in the Bay
Over the southern ocean

 

Sydney was my last stop in Australia. After having come such a long way on the bus it was nice to spend some time with familiar faces.  Again I was lucky to be holed up with family friend’s, this time with my dad’s best man who he had studied with at medical school. Observing the locals running too and fro I decided too to undertake a run around the loop at Iron Cove Bridge near to where I was staying, paying dearly for it with muscles in seizure for the days ahead. I spent the remainder of the week wondering around the city including Manly Beach, the Opera house and the Great Harbour bridge. Sydney is intersected with water at every point so seemingly short distances can take longer than expected to reach. Beyond the city I also and ventured out to the Blue Mountains for a day of hiking. 

NB: I didn’t know who he was at the time but I snapped a giant painting of Hugh Jackman being moved into a Theatre / Art Gallery. Bizarre!

Towards the end of the week I managed to get my sensor cleaned finally at a local shop in the centre and had long chats with a young man called Darren who taught me about ISO – which would have been useful in retrospect of my photos in Japan. As I prepared myself mentally for the month ahead in New Zealand the loneliness that I experienced travelling down the eastern Coast was slowly abated and my belly was filled again by my hosts (no more bran flakes).  I found Sydney a curiously quiet city from my travels in Tokyo in my upbringing London. But the people were warm and the welcome I received from the Mowat’s was second to none. As was my tradition at the time, extending from the Tokyo, Kyoto, and Perth hosts, I cooked dinner one night for the family and some friends including a yoghurt cake which I dropped on the floor retrieving from the oven. As I recall we ate it anyway. Eventually I departed Australia on an almost empty flight South-Bound to Auckland.

With photos of Tom now coming close to 10 years ago I wonder what kind of young man he has grown into? As my work outside of medicine progresses I’ll hopefully get the chance to visit them again soon.

Seb, London 19/09/2015

 

 

Australia, Byron Bay

2006-06 Brisbane and Byron Bay

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Brisbane saw me staying in a hostel with a dorm of around 50 people. I recall these days as some of the most sleepless in my entire journey.  I was placed near the door and I saw people coming going at all hours of the day and night. There were workmen leaving at five and six and 7 o’clock and revellers coming and going returning at 11, 12, 1, 2, 3 to 4 o’clock in  the morning. Brisbane itself was a beautiful city and I spend my time wondering to galleries and the Central Plaza.  Unfortunately, an an old friend of mine who lived in a city was out of town at the time and so I was unable to get the local’s tour.

A few days later I journey down to Byron Bay, In fact to staying in Lenox Bay which is a few miles down the coast. During the day I went for walks and pondered my increasingly light wallet and how far that might get me. As chance would have two school friends, Spike and Ali who are on their own way to Australia travelling north met me at Byron. Having been away from all of these sixth form recollections for so long I found the boyish banter curious and kept myself close. They raced on the beach, we shared fish and chips and a beer perhaps before and I hitched back to Lennox bay. The next day I waited back in Byron, writing and pondering voyage onwards before my next Greyhound bus to the south – hunger high on my mental preoccupation list.

Seb, London 7 September 2015

Australia, Cairns

2006-06 Cairns: Diving… a complete (Tympanic) Blowout

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Shop at Ayres Rock
Pool
Condom Kingdom Cairns
Cleaning the barbie-rig
World Cup
Brits on tour
Wash your equipment!
Dive Pool
K with instructor
Launch
K Pensive
Korean Double
The Dive Gang
After the Blowout
Hostel Mate: Scotsman
Hostel Mate: Englishman
Korean-man
Seb 18
Cairns
Shadow Play
Shadow Play II
Sand footsteps
Cairns Quay
Scotsman TV
Australia, Perth

2006-06 Australia: Perth and Freeo

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My week in Perth and Freemantle back saw me being taken in by old family friends of my dad’s. Whilst waiting to meet them on the first day I dropped my camera and thus spent the week without any capturing capacity as it went into repair immediately (and was luckily repaired before my departure). A week with a borrowed camera took me through the sights and sounds of Freemantle, a day on Rottnest island with the mysterious Quokkas and wandering around in the national parks and musing on a sense of home-from-home. The evenings passed with pleasant glasses of wine and the mornings with attempts at body boarding in the WA surf.

Perth is a beautiful place but unfathomably remote from the rest of the world. I marvelled at the sun dipping into the ocean and lighting up the sky every night but just as I did my eyes tracked out the vast emptiness of open ocean extending all the way to South Africa. My next destination, Cairns was over over 3400 km away to the north – a long flight or an even longer drive (5500 km). Who knows if I’ll be able to return someday?

Seb

London 2/09/2015