22 Dec 2011 - Christmas in Dublin

So many places, so many people, so much music, so many photos. A lot has happened in the past few months since getting back to Austin from my Australia/Fiji trip. But I'm now back in Dublin for the next while, ready to shoot some photos & film. And with a little time on my hands, I may just write a little about Fiji and Austin and Dingle and everything that's happened in the past 3 months.

 But for now, Happy Christmas and New Year, thank you to all the people I met, filmed, photographed, hung out with, shared food with, went surfing with, climbed mountains with, went swimming in rivers with, scuba dived to 100ft deep with, 2011 was a year I'll never ever forget.

The Blackwells - music videos in Austin

Two music videos, which I filmed and edited recently, in Austin, Texas

The Blackwells performing, Long Black Veil, acoustically in Austin, Texas, August 2011, for The Greenbelt Sessions. Directed by James Goulden of AAAphotos.org

The Blackwells performing Rosalie McFall, acoustic in Austin, Texas, August 2011, for The Greenbelt Sessions. Directed & edited by James Goulden

filmed a year ago in Ireland, The Leopard, by We Cut Corners

18 September, Underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge – 11:43am

Out of all the places I've blogged from on my travels this year, this place must be the most famous. I'm sitting underneath the end of one side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, looking back at the view of the famous opera house, and the Sydney skyline. Over the past 10 days I've traveled down the coast of Australia, through Hervey Bay and Byron Bay, back down to the most famous city of Sydney.

Hervey Bay is a bit of a one-horse town, with the amazing Fraser Island being it's one huge attraction. The worlds largest sand island. I took a day trip out there, getting up at 6am, getting the 45 minute ferry across to the Kingfisher Bay resort, and from there, onto a modified truck/bus, that took us through the sandy rainforest, to the massive beach and back again. It's a biological marvel, seeing a thriving ecosystem, growing entirely in the sand.

From Hervey Bay, it was another bus to another big city, Brisbane. I was only staying here for a couple of days, as Asutralian cities seemed to be filled with more English and Irish people than live back in Europe. So it's much nicer to see to see the small town Australia, rather than the bland big cities, packed with people from the same place as yourself. Brisbane is a river city, so I spent a couple of days wandering around the riverbanks, staying in the noisiest hostel of my trip, the rather horrendous, Brisbane City Backpackers, (note: don't stay in a hostel next to a fire station, main road, train station, with a bar built right in to it, if you value your sleep)

From Brisbane, it was a 3 1/2 hour bus ride to Byron Bay, a beautiful small surf town, located in the most stunning bay. Mountain surrounded the horseshoe shaped, stunning clear bay. So several days of lying on a beach, boogie boarding in the cold waves and sea kayaking out to watch the humpback whales making their annual trip south.

But from Byron Bay, to Sydney, there wasn't a lot more I wanted to stop at, so last night I took a 13 hour bus ride, overnight, back to Sydney. So with not a lot of sleep under my belt, and not beng able to check into my hostel, I spent my final day in Oz, taking a walk across the giant harbour bridge, watching the Sydney marathon runners, brave the winds and the heat of the city, and find myself, lazing in a park, watching the world go by with the most amazing view.

Tomorrow is the Fiji Islands, and a week or so of remote island living, no electricity, no internet, no phones, not even roads...

8 September, Bananas Hostel, Agnes Waters, Eastern Australia, 7:40pm

I've spent the past couple of days traveling on Australian Greyhound buses down the east coast. But before I started that I spent 3 days on board Kangaroo Explorer. It's a live-aboard dive boat that moors on the outer great barrier reef. So early on Friday morning I get aboard a boat that brings myself and a group of other divers from around the world (German, American, Swiss, Canadian and Scottish amongst others) There's about 35 people on board, including all the instructors & crew and it's pretty much straight into the wetsuits, weights, fins, and oxygen tank.

Snorkeler on the Outer Great Barrier Reef

My first dive is ina group with a guide. It's three years since I learnt to dive in Egypt but this is my first dive off the back of a boat in the open rough sea. I barely remember all the steps in what to do but eventually relax and get to see my first glimpse of the great barrier reef. I burn through my oxygen tank really quickly however. So for my next dive I buddy up with one of the guides and I relax and have a great dive. Then, just after sunset, I do my first ever night dive. It's pretty daunting going underwater when it's pitch black outside and you're two hours boat ride from the nearest land. But it's amazing to see all the different creatures that come out at night and I spot a giant sea turtle with my torch, 30 foot underwater, one of the most loved creatures of all divers out here. The following day it's up at 5:30am for our first dive at 6am. It's my first dive without an instructor or guide and it's me and two other guys, Tom & Sebastian, who both have about the same experience as me. We have a couple of great dives, seeing loads of coral, loads of fish, and despite some problems with our underwater navigation, this is why I came out diving, to see this most remarkable environment. My final dive of the day is in pretty rough conditions and right form the start it goes badly, getting tangled in a rope holding the backup tank that is left hanging underwater. I take a nap after lunch and when I wake up my nose is blocked up and the start of a sore throat is happening. Because of all the pressures involved in diving, at depths of up to 60 feet, it means I can't dive again due to the risk of damaging my ears. It means I have the third day at sea with nothing but lazing about on deck to do.

The beach at Agnes Waters

Back to Cairns on Sunday evening, I take it easy as I've a long bus ride to Townsville further down the coast the next day. Townsville is a big mining town and I'm not doing much here apart from sleeping. The following day it's off to Airlie Beach, a small town, most famous for the 74 small beach filled islands off its coast. I have a rare hostel treat of a dorm room all to myself & it has free wifi, another rare treat for and Australian hostel. The following morning I'm up early again to do a Ocean Rafting boat trip, out to the coral at 60km/hr on a inflatable boat with two 350hp boat engines. It's amazingly fast and feels like a rollercoaster for most of the trip. We visit two snorkeling areas, spotting lots of fish and getting to swim with some huge parrot fish about 3-4 foot long. We then head to the famous Whitehaven beach, a stunning, huge white sandy beach beside a tropical island. We take a bush walk to the top of the island, spotting a 3 meter carpet python slithering through the forest on the way up.

One of the instructors from CDC, entering the water

It's back to Airlie beach later in the evening, and then I have a few hours before getting the overnight bus further south. By 10am the next morning I find myself in the tiny town of Agnes Water/1770. I'm only using it as a stop over point but I spend the day lazing around reading and walking around on the huge, virtually deserted beach, that put this town on the map. The water is a bit too cold for swimming however and I decide not to try my luck at surfing again. I'm staying at the Cool Bananas hostel, a really cozy, spacious place, and that's where this blog entry ends. Me sitting in the common room, writing this blog, with X-factor Australia on the TV.... Off to Hervey Bay and Fraser Island in the morning.

1 September, Room 217, YHA Hostel, Cairns, Northern Australia, 2:09pm

It's been a while since my last travel blog but seeing as I've travelled about 10,000 miles in the past week, I thought I should have something to say. I flew out of Austin on a Tuesday lunchtime, via a quick stopover in blazing hot Phoenix airport (115F) Landed in LA and waited a couple of hours for my 10 hour flight to another stopover airport, Nadi, in Fiji. Landing there as the sun was coming up, I think I'm going to enjoy my trip to the tropical island. But before that, it's another 4 hour flight, to Sydney Australia.

Wednesday, the 24^th August 2011, is a day that I will never experience. Because when you fly across the international date line from west to east, the day just skips ahead, so it wasn't until thursday that I landed in Sydney. To combat the rather extreme jet lag, after checking into The Blue Parrot, in Potts Point, I took a wander in the winter sunshine, down around the harbour and the botanic gardens. After a pie from the famous pie cart, Harry's Cafe de Wheels, it was back to the hostel for an early night to combat the extreme tiredness.

Like in many big cities, Sydney has great free walking tour, led by a local guy, I spent several hours wandering around the centre of the city, learning a little bit of the cities history and learning my way around. The following day I was up early for a trip to the Blue mountains, west of the city. Led by our guide, Les from Oz Trails, a group of travelers took a drive up to some amazing scenery and took a walk through some rainforest, a few cable cars between some cliffs and then the world steepest railway back up from the valley floor. After the slowest lunch service in history at the Red Door Cafe, we took the ferry back across Sydney Harbour Bay at sunset, arriving back by the Opera House at dark. On sunday I had several hours in the morning before heading back to the airport, so I visited the Sydney Aquarium. It's a nice treat to see some of the creatures that hopefully I'll get to see when swimming in the Great Barrier Reef. Who can't love a snake necked turtle or a huge dugong. It's just under three hours to fly up the east coast of Australia from Sydney to tropical Cairns. Landing there at night, it's clear Cairns has the atmosphere of a much smaller city, the temperature and humidity are higher and palm trees are everywhere.

For my first full day in Cairns it's Monday morning, To start my time up here, I hire a bike and take a long cycle up to Crystal Cascades. It's a waterfall up in the hills behind Cairns, and has multiple swimming holes below it. I spend the evening around the Esplanade, down by the coastline. By tuesday morning I'm almost over my jetlag and I do my first real tourist adventure. At 8am I'm a minivan with Sid, my Australian tour guide and 4 other travelers on a trip to the tropical rainforest. We head up the mountains, until the landscape changes to true rainforest full of vines, huge ferns and the prospect of seeing lots of animals. At one of the places we visit we see the extremely rare, and rather dangerous, cassowary. We also get to do some swimming in various swimming holes including the waterfall made famous in multiple tv adverts and music videos, Millaa Millaa falls. A quick trip to a platypus spotting creek before we get back to our lodging. Back in the 'On the Wallaby' hostel, we enjoy a home cooked meal. After a cup of tea and a bit of relaxation we head back out into the dark for a night canoe through a local lake and with some torches, we spot some a rare tree kangaroo, lots of birds, flying foxes, lizards, a python, and also some possums and lots of paddy melons (kinda like mini, fat kangaroos). The following morning, myself, and my four traveling companions, (from Switzerland, Spain, England and France) take a bike ride in the drizzling rainforest. We see the rainforest living up to it's name, getting fairly soaked, meeting lots of tiny leaches who love attaching themselves to our ankles. After a dip in the cold lake, we head for some lunch (a reef & beef burger for me) we go back out in canoes, this time in the daylight, spotting wallabies. We get to a shallow area of the river and spend some time using traditional aboriginal stones to do some rather ridiculous looking face painting (pictures coming soon) A bus ride back down the mountain and it's goodbye to some more new traveling friends.

Back at the hostel is free pizza and beer and a presentation from a local dive company. Perfect timing for me as I was just about to book a diving trip. So get myself a great deal, for a 3 day diving trip, sleeping aboard a boat out on the reef. So this morning is back down memory lane as I try to remember my diving training from three years ago. A refresher dive in a pool in the middle of Cairns just to remind myself how to take on my mask under water and how to breathe from the tanks again. So tomorrow is an early start off to the great barrier reef, a few days of isolation, adventure and hopefully lots of fish and sea creatures.