Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The Photographic Chapter Continues...

The last 4 months I have spent traveling in "Big Red" and taking pictures down the east coast of Australia from Brisbane, then across Victoria twice (where I saw a PINK LAKE!! and that's not sand... it's salt!), then I caught the 11 hour ferry ride with my truck and trailer from Melbourne over to Tasmania where I spent 2 months driving around from town to town in Tasmania, that's right, that is a sign telling drivers to be ware of Tasmanian Devils! I am then finishing in Hobart. I was going to leave my job at Christmas time as I have started to get quite bored with it at times, not much room for artistic expression, and the clients lately have all been a bit of the snobby sort. However, I do still get some good clients and do find enjoyment in my job, but it is time to move on. The company really wanted me to stay on for a bit longer after Christmas and do another 3 weeks in Tasmania, while I train my replacement.
My replacement is my current make-up artist, Elise. She is 19 and a wonderful work/travel companion, I will be sad to leave her. But she will become the photographer and is training a friend of hers from home to be her make-up artist. Anyway, I agreed to go back after Australia Day (Jan 26) if they paid for my Christmas tickets to Perth and back, then flew me back to Brisbane when I am all done. They agreed and it has worked out perfect! They pay for my flights around the country while providing me time to backpack on the west coast and return to backpacking from Brisbane and this time go UP the east coast. Then I plan to go over to Darwin (middle of the North Coast), travel to see Ayer's Rock in the middle, back to Darwin and out the door to South East Asia. Not sure where exactly yet. But my visa expires here in the beginning of April, so after I finish working, it should give me about 6 weeks to see the rest of Aus, then onward.

Enough about work, how about Tasmania instead!! Tasmania has been awesome! I have seen so much wildlife up close! I also think I am having such a wonderful time here due in part to my great new friend, travel companion and work buddy, Elise (Lisey). She is wonderful and brings excitement into my life. On our days off we go on what we call our "Adventure Daze". These usually consist of finding a national park to hike around in for the day, stopping to eat fruit and take pictures. What should be a 3 hour walk, usually takes us 5, haha :) we just sit and take pictures and eat fruit and talk about god knows what. It is really nice to spend our days off immersed in nature, as otherwise we would never see the sunlight during the week as we work 12 hour days. We have done lots of things around Tasmania, but my favorite has been Mt. Field National Park, where I saw the biggest waterfall I have ever seen, and I have seen a few. This one was named Russell Falls. We hiked up next to it, even though you were not supposed to. We were so happy we did, the views we got from being on the side were incredible and I caught some double rainbows on my new camera... the images look wicked, you all should totally go check all of them out!

I also very much like the city of Hobart. It's geography makes it amazingly beautiful. Everywhere you look there is water! It is a city built in the middle of inlets with islands all around. The view from the top of the mountain at the back of the city is incredible, even if we visited on a cloudy day. We have also visited caves, mountains, tree top canopy walks, and historical sites (from when Tasmania was where all the convicts were sent). There are more pics of all our wonderful adventure daze at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/TasmaniaAdventureDaze# (Chris and Terri, there are pics here of a real Echidna for Julia :). A guy with red hair you will notice in a lot of the pics. This is Blake. He is a bar tender in Hobart we met out and about one night and quickly befriended. He joins us now for adventure daze as his "weekend" is also in the middle of the week like ours. There are also pics from my travels around the main land of Aus while in this photographic chapter of my life which can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/NewImageTravels02# .
I can not believe my time here has been a full year! I thought at first I would just come for a month to see Ayer's Rock. Weird how plans change. Currently, I was very much needing a brake from work, even if it is only to return for 3 more weeks before I finish for good. But I am in Perth now and loving the vacation!