Backstreets of South Melbourne

I've been pretty busy with work lately, what with the leadup to Christmas and New Year and all, so it's been a few weeks since I've had much real downtime. Most of the shifts I get are nights though, so sometimes I step out a bit during the day (although usually I prefer to have quiet lazy days at home to save energy for the work nights).

Today was a nice sunny early summer's day, so I decided to take a little photo walk around South Melbourne. Just to take in some street art and cityscapes really.

Note: Most of these have been manipulated with various Pixlr effects. Some quite obvious, and others more subtle.

Beechworth Road Trip

I just got back from a pretty awesome road trip up to the North East. The initial idea for this trip was simply to get away for one night and go to a particular tapas restaurant in Beechworth for dinner, but then it turned into a 3 day 2 night trip that included a stay at Gundowring, as well as some wider exploration of the area.

I wasn't particularly well on this trip. I'd been having my usual spring hayfever issues, and then I caught a cold on top of that last week too, so there was talk of cancelling it before it even happened. But then we went anyway, and it turned out to be a pretty cool little getaway - albeit with a bit less hiking than usual and mostly just exploration by car instead.

These three days managed to take in all the extremes of Victorian spring weather. The first day was quite warm - up to 26 degrees during the day. Then a pretty significant weather event moved in and the second day was very rainy and cool. Snow fell to below 1,400 metres and we went up the mountains to check it out.

All in all, an awesome little adventure!

Lake Hume

Pelican at Lake Hume

Lake Hume near Tallangatta

Fern Detail

Historic Old Railway Bridge

Distant Mountains

Sun Rays

Cows and Farm Dam

AirBnb Accommodation at Gundownring

It's a converted off the grid farm shed!

Cloud Capped Mountains

Snow!

Cloudy Sunset near Yackandandah

Flower Detail

Spring in Williamstown

The weather has been pretty bad this past winter and early spring. Even as a bit of a "winter person", I have to say that it hasn't been much fun. Not too many nice crisp cool days, nor particularly interesting or spectacular winter storms, but rather just lots of pointless cloud and drab and drizzle.

Spring has been its usual changeable self, and mostly not too fantastic either, but then today turned out to be lovely! Low 20s and super clear.

I've been home with a cold for a couple of days, but because of a home sale inspection I had to clear out for the afternoon, so I decided to go on a little photo outing to Williamstown.

As with a few of my recent photo outings - I did everything today in JPEG. Played around with a little bit of macro and filters too, but mostly it was just a "taking glorified holiday snaps in my own city" kind of photo outing. It was more about getting out for the afternoon than anything else.

Here's a small selection of shots:

Drik Drik Road Trip

I just got back from a little four-day getaway to Drik Drik.

Drik Drik is a tiny little place which is now little more than a bunch of farms that roughly gravitate around the location, but in the 19th and early 20th century it was a proper small town - with two churches, a school, post office and general store, etc. The old schoolhouse has been converted into B&B accommodation, which is where we stayed. This was very very cute, unique, and memorable!

The trip was initially going to be based around just exploring the immediate Drik Drik area and nearby Lower Glenelg National Park, but then we decided to go to Portland a day earlier and spend a day just across the border in South Australia instead. This was a very good decision, because that corner of South Australia turned out to be much cooler than we expected!

The day trip into South Australia was a whirlwind tour indeed! We fitted in Piccaninnie Ponds, Mount Schank, and various sites in Mount Gambier into only a few hours.

The second day was much more relaxed - with just some easy exploration of Lower Glenelg National Park and a visit to Princess Margaret Rose Cave.

Then on the way home on the fourth day, we swung past Byaduk Caves.

Here are a bunch of pics from the trip, in chronological order:

Sunrise in Portland I

Sunrise in Portland II

Nelson

Piccaninnie Ponds

Caroline Sinkhole I

Caroline Sinkhole II

Pine Plantation

Mount Schank

Allendale East Cave

Blue Lake, Mt Gambier I

Blue Lake, Mt Gambier II

Mt Gambier Surrounds

Drik Drik

Drik Drik Schoolhouse I

Sunset in Drik Drik

Koala I

Drik Drik Schoolhouse II

Alpacas, Drik Drik

Glenelg River

Koala II

Princess Margaret Rose Cave I

Princess Margaret Rose Cave II

Rainy Sunset in Drik Drik

Sunrise on the last day, Drik Drik

Byaduk Caves