Sydney has many facets and moods. Even without ever having set foot in the city, everyone has an image of Sydney Opera House in their heads; so much so that we have a perceived sense of scale in our minds too. I made a flying visit to Sydney a couple of months ago – on my nephew’s birthday, as it happens – (while in Australia to photograph a wedding in Jacob’;s Creek) so was given a whistle-stop tour of the area – at night, when the streets come alive and the multicoloured glow of lights coats it with a surreal magic that most big cities seem to conjure up out of the blackness, changing its shape and forms.

I was supposed to cover around 300 kilometres a day in order to get to the Barossa Valley in South Australia in good time to meet up with the bride and groom the evening before their wedding, but by the 4th day of travel since leaving Melbourne, I was only 300km in total from my starting point, with another 700km still to go!  Still it was impossible to miss out on so many beautiful sights on the Great Ocean Road, and the peaceful Aire Valley Guest house above a rain-forest – the Otway National Park – offered an oasis of calm in which to deal with the backlog of wedding enquiry emails.  It was also impossible not to go mad with my camera round Anabelle and Martin’s house/guest house, a sprawling wooden single story house with an all round veranda, surrounded by trees of all kinds, grapefruit, lemon, and the ubiquitous Eucalyptus.

 I don’t know what this tree is called but maybe someone reading this can tell me…  It struck me as soon as I approached the Guest House after dusk during my travels.  Anabele and Martin nearly passed me on to another Guest house, as it was their night off and they were to be away early the next morning for a trip out with their 3 beautiful  children, but I was lucky!  They trusted me to let myself out the next day, and even personally autographed a children’s book for Levana (my granddaughter) that Annabel had written. They are a wonderful couple who moved here from the UK 4 years ago.  They even provide handmade soap in the ensuite bathroom – just perfect for a honeymoon couple – paradise on earth!

The Guest entrance.

I’m sitting at a beautiful location (Lorne) with individual wooden cabin houses on the hillside under Eucalyptus  trees, listening to the screeching/squawking of pure white cockatoos  (sulphur crested cockatoos apparently) – in their dozens.  Amazingly enough its a YHA, so if you don’t mind the guy in the bunk above you sounding like an earthquake every time he turns over, then it is paradise indeed!  If you are fussy though, there are private rooms available too, of course…

Yesterday I saw my first Kangaroos – albeit on a well catalogued popular haunt – at Anglesea Golf Course…

The Great Ocean Road has many visual temptations, so its time to carry on my journey to fit a few of them in…
  

Its a week now since I first set foot on Ozzie soil, but have been out taking pics every single day so am working flat out just to get them all online!  The crows are talking loadly over head, as I sit in a quiet suburb of Melbourne  – Aspendale – where where my niece and her parents have kindly welcomed me into their home for a few weeks.

The sky is a perfect blue, the sun pleasantly warm overhead, but the evenings are chilly like England. The hardy grass lawn beneath my feet and super-tidy neighbourhood is peacefully suburban – except for the neighbour mowing his patch of grass with an industrial noise-machine!

Socrates, is cooking Octopus outside on a lttle camping stove.  Just had a taste too – mmmm!

Just eaten the results of Greek chef’s cooking!

and finished off with fresh ripe figs from the tree in the garden

Out of approx 1000 images shot so far here in Australia, its hard to know which ones to show you first.  They’re all online in the “travel pictures worldwide destinations” section of our galleries, or via this link below…  

 http://www.reellifephotos.silkstream.org/online/index.php?category=Travel+pictures+world+wide+destinations

Two things strike me in this area:  the rows of individually designed mail boxes and the diversity of trees, from Eucalyptus, to Tea Tree, She Oaks, Banksias and many my limited botanical knowledge fails to identify.  If anyone who know more specific names reads this please forgive my ignorance in advance!

Aussie trees in and around Edithvale Wetlands in Aspendale: Eucalyptus – so many varieties I cannot be more specific!  I just take photos…