Brisbane, Queensland. 2008
I Love Australia!
Every part of it.
Everything about it.
Castlemaine, Victoria , 2009.Tired of long haul flights to Europe and North Asia, I have, these past four or five years, devoted at least one trip a year to some part of Australia. I've visited many times prior to that of course, but I see it differently now - not just as a quick jaunt across the Tasman to something familiar but as a vast country that most New Zealanders (and many Australians) never see anything but a minute portion of. So I have been making it my business to move beyond the obvious east coast cities and venture out into the wider country. Suffice to say, that in the last five years, I have already amassed thousands of photographs taken in various parts of Australia - there are even more thousands on slide film that I have yet to digitise.
Cunnamulla, Outback, Southwest Queensland, 2008.
Melbourne, Victoria. 2009.
So, rather than leaving them tucked away in my computer files, I've decided to give some of them an airing in a new blog series
"Sightseeing in Australia."
It's going to be a mixed bag.
People, places, the weird and the wonderful.
Consider it a mini sightseeing trip.
And it begins here.
And if anything interests you, click on the location in the index line below the blog, because I guarantee you'll find more.
When gold was discovered towards Bendigo and ballarat in the 1850s, Woodend became the main throughfare through the Black Forest. It sits half way between Melbourne and Bendigo and today has a population of around 3,200. Like many Victorian towns, it has some lovely historic buildings - this is one of my favourites - the gigantic Catholic Church that overlooks the rest of the town from a small rise. Woodend is a popular commuting town and every morning the train from Bendigo to Melbourne is filled with hundreds of Woodend residents, who work in the city.
I took a shine to Castlemaine the very first time I visited. I was on a drive to Bendigo - on a day that hit 40 degrees and left me and exhausted melting, wreck - but I hit Castlemaine early, just as the shops were opening at 9am, before the heat reached its peak. Established in 1851 around 40km south of Bendigo, it quickly became a gold boom town. Today it has a population of around 7,000 and is home to the oldest continuously operating theatre in mainland Australia - the Theatre Royal (1856). I found an amazing household secondhand store here - more of a barn really - with the biggest collection of tools and light fittings I've ever seen.
Whenever I'm in Australia, I grab a car and head for the countryside. As much as I adore Australia's big cities, I also love discovering little towns and settlements that spread out from the larger centres. I can spend whole days just driving and stopping at will to take photographs. This was one stop I made at a tiny settlement called Greendale - little more than a pub, a general store, a speckling of farm houses and these old grain houses (?), which were for sale. I quite like the idea of a snazzy conversion but at 81km north west of Melbourne (in the shire of Moorabool) and a population of just 400 or so, I thought it might be stretching romanticism a little too far.
And speaking of Melbourne, this is the bright green entry to Ezard design store. I've walked the streets of Melbourne photographing for hours on end, more times than I can count and I never tire of it. Everything from the architecture, the people, street scenes, cafes and restaurants, signage, shop fronts, street art - you name and I'll probably have a photo of it. I fantasise about spending several months in Melbourne doing nothing more than this - and finally, later in 2011, I'll be one step closer to just that.
