Photos: Sculpture by the Sea 2011

This morning I walked along the coast from Coogee to Bondi to check out Sculpture by the Sea. My idea was to do the walk early enough in the day to avoid the big crowds – as it turned out lots of other people had exactly the same idea!

However, as the photos attest, today was one of those moments when I love living in Sydney. The weather was perfect – not too hot, not too cold, and people were out and about smiling and enjoying the day.

These photos only represent a very small section of the artwork on display. In total there are over 100 exhibits and despite taking 250+ photos I still missed a lot of things.

An added bonus to my walk was seeing a Blue Tongue Lizard for the first time in the wild. I would have expected it to be hiding from all the noise but it seemed content enough to stick around and pose for me.

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Photos: Hiking Berowra Valley Regional Park

I spent today hiking from Mt Ku-ring-gai to Berowra with friends from my university. The highlight of the walk was seeing a number of lace monitors (goanna lizards) and a water dragon. At one point I almost stepped onto the top of one of the goannas as I came over a small ridge.

Overall, the day was brilliant and I am absolutely spent now as the heat really sucked energy out of me.

Unfortunately, despite the beautiful weather this will probably be the last hike I do this year as it is getting too hot in Sydney which brings out the snakes and raises the fire danger.

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Photos: Hiking Berowra to Mt Ku-ring-gai

I have just got back from a half-day hike from Berowra to Mt Ku-ring-gai. The 9.5km track took three of us 3 hours 30 minutes to complete. During that time one of my mates got managed to fall into a stream we were crossing, and then attacked by a leach, while the other grazed his knee crossing another stream. However, I managed to survive with no damage.

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Photos: Hiking Berowra Waters

I have just got back from spending the day hiking from Berowra to Cowan via Berowra Waters.

The 13km walk took five of us about seven hours to complete but that included a long lunch stop at the cafe at Berowra Waters. Overall, despite three steep climbs, the day was brilliant and the walk proved to be a good challenge without too much pain.

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Photos: Hiking Cowan to Brooklyn via Jerusalem Bay

I spent today hiking with friends on the Jerusalem Bay Track in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park (about 70km north of Sydney).

Despite the dire weather forecasts the day turned out to be absolutely perfect, not too cold, not too hot, and absolutely no rain. The track is only 13km long, however, it has some quite steep climbs and took us about six and a half hours to complete.

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48 Hours in Melbourne

I have just got back from a very fast weekend holiday in Melbourne.

At 7.45am on Friday I caught the daylight XPT Train from Sydney to Melbourne. I really like trains so spending over 11 hours on a train is better and cheaper than flying. Upon arriving in Melbourne I headed to the airport to meet a friend flying in from NZ to join me for the weekend. Once we had checked into our accommodation we went for a midnight stroll around the CBD.

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Photos: Vivid Sydney 2011

Tonight a group of friends from uni and I went to Vivid Sydney and had a fantastic time. Vivid Sydney is on every night for the next week and a bit at Circular Quay and The Rocks and it is well worthwhile checking out. But don’t take my words for it, instead let my photos below convince you.

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Photos: Manly to Spit Bridge Walk

Yesterday a group of us from uni walked the Manly Scenic Walk (Manly Wharf to Spit Bridge). The walk is only 9km but advertised as being between 3.5 – 4.5 hours, and somehow it managed to take a group of us 20-something year olds five hours to complete. This was mainly because we went down every side track possible and stopped at every corner to take photos. The best of my photos are below:

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