Home Farm

The view from the dam near my old house.

When I compare the terrain in Whistler and in my hometown of Scone, Australia there is quite a stark difference.  Scone Mountain peaks at 653 metres above sea level and Whistler Mountain reaches 2181 metres above sea level and it isn’t the tallest in the area.  Although I have come to love the outdoor mountain lifestyle and enjoy all the activities Whistler has to offer, Scone still has a certain nostalgia about it, its always great to come home and the views aren’t too bad either.

One amazing thing about my folk’s property is the birds.  There are some incredible birds in the area, such as kookaburras, cockatoos, galahs and rosellas.  I tried to shoot (with a camera) a couple of kookaburras however they wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to aim so I had to settle for this colourful little bird as it rested for a moment.

The clouds can often create some amazing colours in the sky during sunset and sunrise.  I haven’t felt the need to wake up early this week so these photos are definitely of a sunset.

Monkeying around – Part 1

I am currently still away from Whistler visiting my home town.  The wind has been outrageous and wreaking havoc on my tripod so I haven’t taken many photos of my rural origins.  I thought I would take this opportunity to have a little flashback to a previous trip that I took in February when I was fortunate enough to make it to Japan for about 10 days.

While most of the trip was spent skiing the white fluffy stuff, some friends and I went to observe some snow monkeys doing their thing just outside Nagano.

The monkeys spend a lot of their time bathing in the hot springs and barely noticed several tourists wandering around snapping a ridiculous amount of photos.  I may have got a little carried away and will have to break this post up into two parts.

Part two will most likely be a photo post with even less writing than usual…Stay tuned!

 

 

 

The Big Move

Hi everyone,

I have decided that I am going to move my blog from the hosted wordpress.com to a self-hosted site using wordpress.org.  Thank you to everyone who is following me and hopefully you should still get notifications about my posts.  I am seconds away from posting at the new site so if you don’t get a notification about it you can sign up at http://www.onelifeonewhistler.com.

Hopefully you will continue to enjoy what I have to offer and as always any feedback or comments are welcome.

 

Red Bull Joyride

It is arguably the best time of year to be in Whistler.  Beautiful weather, amazing athletes and huge crowds for the mountain bike festival Crankworx.  For about 10 days it is hardcore mountain bike action of all aspects.  Sadly I am not there to see it this year but there are some incredible photos at the Official Crankworx Flickr page.

Some fantastic downhill races, intense grueling  enduro events and best trick and slalom style events.

The big one that everyone waits for all week, it draws the biggest crowd by far, is the Red Bull Joyride.  It is an incredibly gnarly course that sees athletes throwing massive air and landing huge tricks.

I am devastated to be missing it, however fortunately we can watch it live.  The video below has a replay of the whole event.

http://www.redbull.com/en/bike/stories/1331605833816/watch-live-red-bull-joyride-at-crankworx-whistler-2013

 

Red Bull Joyride

It is arguably the best time of year to be in Whistler.  Beautiful weather, amazing athletes and huge crowds for the mountain bike festival Crankworx.  For about 10 days it is hardcore mountain bike action of all aspects.  Sadly I am not there to see it this year but there are some incredible photos at the Official Crankworx Flickr page.

Some fantastic downhill races, intense grueling  enduro events and best trick and slalom style events.

The big one that everyone waits for all week, it draws the biggest crowd by far, is the Red Bull Joyride.  It is an incredibly gnarly course that sees athletes throwing massive air and landing huge tricks.

I am devastated to be missing it, however fortunately we can watch it live.  The video below has a replay of the whole event.

http://www.redbull.com/en/bike/stories/1331605833816/watch-live-red-bull-joyride-at-crankworx-whistler-2013

 

I have also decided to move my blog from wordpress.com over to wordpress.org so that I can have a little bit more control over the site.  The url will remain http://www.onelifeonewhistler.com.  I hope that everyone will continue to follow my posts and as always I welcome any feedback or comments.

Sydney, Australia.

I have never been the biggest fan of cities.  I much prefer to be up in the mountains or in a forest or anywhere there is lots of nature.  However I must admit that I do love coming to Sydney.  It is an incredible city with some fantastic beaches, restaurants, pubs and bars and of course its  very stunning harbour.

We touched down at Sydney airport on Saturday, went straight to an engagement party, had a few drinks, went to bed and woke up early Sunday to run the world’s biggest fun run.  The City 2 Surf is a huge event with around 70 000 people taking part to cover the 14km’s from downtown Sydney to Bondi Beach.  Some people take it very seriously, some people do not.  My goal was to beat my 60 year old father, which I did.  Although not by much.

I want to get down to the harbour to experiment with some cityscape style photos.  In the meantime last night I was able to sneak down to a little park close to where I am staying with a great view of Anzac Bridge.  I am still trying to get those sunset shot dialed so if anyone has any advice, please feel free to let me know.

A little bit of excitement as a blaze ignited. Fortunately the fire brigade was there promptly.

I can see the appeal of being out on the water at this time of evening

A beautiful spot to row

Matukituki Valley

On my final day in Wanaka we decided to keep with the theme of hiking and headed into the Matukituki Valley.  We didn’t quite have a full day so we barely scratched the surface of what this valley has to offer.  I did manage to practice some more moving water shots which kept me very happy.

Wanaka’s Night Sky

Milky way and Southern Cross.

Throughout my week in Wanaka, NZ I had a few more attempts at taking some star trail shots, hoping to improve on my previous attempt.  I still haven’t quite worked out out to get the trails as clear as I would like, however I am still fairly happy with the results.

1st night in Wanaka. I was too lazy to venture away from lights which limited me a little bit.

A few issues this night, including bumping the tripod which halved my trails.

I am finding night time photography quite difficult as I am still figuring out which settings I should be using especially when trying to get a good exposure of the foreground without taking away from the sky.  For most of these shots I used and 11mm wide angle lens, 30 second exposures, f2.8 and an ISO between 800 and 1600.

The clouds almost ruined the trail attempt.

I was able to shoot a few shots before the clouds completely rolled in.

If anyone has any feedback, suggestions or advice please feel free to comment as I am always looking to learn more.

The lights of Wanaka

 

Mount Roy

View of Lake Wanaka and the town from Mt Roy

As I mentioned in my previous post, my trip to New Zealand is usually dominated by skiing.  This year skiing has been put on the back burner and I actually did a six hour hike on Tuesday which was gorgeous.

The Mt Roy trail-head starts about five minutes from Wanaka on the way to the Mt Aspiring Park.  It is a pretty steady gradient the whole way to the peak.  The views start instantly and only get better the more you rise.

I can honestly say that when I am taking in views like these I am not too disappointed I am not skiing.

Wanaka, NZ

The outlet where the lake enters the river

For the next few weeks I will be away from Whistler as I make my way ‘home’.  Australia is the ultimate destination, however before I get there I have stopped in New Zealand.  I am fortunate enough to be in Wanaka on the south Island.

Beautiful Sunrise

Wanaka is an amazing little town situated on New Zealand’s fourth largest lake.  It is 30-40 minute drive from Treble Cone and Cardrona, two fantastic ski hills.  This trip is supposedly a ‘ski holiday’ however I am now four days into my trip and the skis have been neglected.

Lake Wanaka is an absolutely stunning lake.  I spent one afternoon wandering around an outlet at the south end of the lake.  When I first arrived there, the wind was still and the river had an amazing reflection.  I was very glad I had brought my camera.