Snorkelling with seals in Narooma

Back in August, we were supposed to visit Lady Elliot Island, but Queensland closed their borders a week before we were supposed to depart. In true groundhog day splendour, it happened again in December. Two weeks before we were due to travel, there was a Covid outbreak in Sydney and the borders slammed shut. For […]

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South Australia Road Trip – Wine, Leafy Seadragons, and Dolphins

In November of 2020, we travelled to South Australia with three objectives: Relax and drink some good wine See a leafy seadragon Swim with wild dolphins This was our first flight, and our first time leaving New South Wales, in nine months #covid. The lounge was empty and the two hour flight to Adelaide passed […]

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Sea Lions in Jurien Bay & a day trip to Rottnest Island

Is there a better way to break up two back-to-back weeks of work in Perth than with a weekend of sunshine, saltwater, and some very friendly sea lions ? No.   Getting to Jurien Bay Jurien Bay is located on the Indian Ocean, an easy 2.5 hour drive north of Perth. It’s a small fishing […]

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The Sea Lions of Baird Bay

When people asked where we were spending the holidays, there was no simple answer. We were headed to Baird Bay, which few people have heard of, and we were driving there from Port Lincoln, which is another place that most people haven’t heard of. My most common response was, “go to Adelaide, then fly an […]

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The Sea Lions of Los Islotes

Sea lions are one of my favourite subjects to photograph. They have adorable faces and genuinely seem to like interacting with humans. La Paz, in the Sea of Cortez, is known for its colony of 200 California sea lions and is an easy side trip from the United States. Getting There We flew from Sydney […]

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Mala Mala – in October

I can count the number of places we’ve been more than four times on one hand. Mala Mala is one of them. Our first visit was in 2009 (combined with the Okavango Delta), followed by 2011 (combined with Mashatu), and then 2017 (combined with Makgadikgadi Pans), and then 2018 (combined with Sossusvlei). This time we […]

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Swimming with whales in Tonga – Take three

After skipping 2018 due to scheduling challenges, we returned to Tonga for the third time in August of 2019. Getting There     Based on trips in 2016 and 2017, we know that Tonga isn’t easy to reach. In 2016 we flew Melbourne to Auckland to Tonga, then overnighted in this horrible hotel, and then […]

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Tokyo Nightscapes

In June of 2019, I had a four-day trip to Tokyo for work. I’d been to Japan before, but I always try to see something other than the hotel and office on work trips. That said, I wasn’t completely comfortable exploring on my own, so I looked on Trip Advisor and ended up booking a […]

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Swimming with Sharks in the Bahamas

Every few years, a rare condition occurs in Australia where the Easter holidays and Anzac Day line up. This means that you can take 10 days of leave (vacation) and get a whopping 19 day holiday. The last time this happened was 2014, when we visited New Zealand (though we were amateurs back then and thought […]

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