my travels in pixels

Fraser Island, Australia Our first sunrise, you don't get sunsets on this side of the island K'Gari (aboriginal name), otherwise known as Fraser Island is an adventure – you aren’t quite sure what to expect and you feel a little bit anxious. It’s one of those places that you need to get some advice before you go and watching a few You Tube clips helps as well. You see, its a sand island that has formed from sand washed up from New South Wales. There are no "roads" - it's main highway is the beach and the inland tracks have a maximum speed of 30kph. Then there are the tides to contend with, muck your timing up and you could get washed out to sea, drive too fast and you could do some damage to your vehicle when a hidden deep washaway reveals itself. We needed to get some information about this place before we went there. We called into Gympie information centre to see if they have any brochures on Fraser Island and find one that is very helpful. It has a det...

We decided to wet our camping feet with a park close to where we were staying in case we forgot something. Joshua Tree NP is a pretty park. Lots of rocks for rock climbers and Joshua Trees which aren’t really trees, they are a type of Yucca. It is a high and low altitude desert, high in the north, low in the south. Which means it is colder in the high area. It was warm the day we entered the park, so we thought we would be okay in the high area. Mmmm. By mid afternoon on the second day a cold wind built up. It turned a really pleasant camping experience into a freezing one. Even though we were invited to share a fire with our neighbours in the next campsite, it was too cold to sit by it. That night it got down to 0C and the water in our kettle froze. I couldn’t find my gloves anywhere even though I thought I had packed them. You can’t book any campsites, so it’s the luck of the draw. We arrived late in the day and a sign on the visitors centre said the park was full. So we skippe...

For years we never thought of going to the USA, in fact Lindsay didn't want to come, so he told me after we had left home! Luckily he loved it so much he wants to go back. I found photography workshops that showed me photographs of the South West National Parks that whet my appetite. And after reconnecting with an old school friend, who encourage us, we started planning... We went to the consulate to organise a six month visa and they offered us a five year one. The idea for this trip was to travel for six months in a similar fashion as to how we travel in Australia, so we needed a way of getting around and somewhere to live. But of course the USA is not Australia and things are very different there. We spent a lot of time researching what to get and how to do it. There was a van for sale in the town we were staying in that could be converted, we pulled out the spare seats and made up a frame for our bed. We had already bought a number of things before we came over such as an Engel...