every few years, math and i find a cute little bookshop that is literally bursting with books. our latest discovery was grub street bookshop in fitzroy, melbourne:
right across the street, there’s a freaky baby mounted on the wall of a house. [more...]
wilsons promontory national park (australian: “the prom”) is located at the southernmost tip of continental australia. we arrived there in cool, rainy-windy weather which, we were told, was “pretty ordinary”.
since we didn’t have much extra time to spend there, we just braved the weather and hiked up mount oberon anyway – and in the process, got to know the beautiful cool temperate rainforest in what can only be described as “the rain”.
the view from mt. oberon summit is said to be stunning… [more...]
a beautiful bay, some of the whitest beach in the world, refreshing calm seas, and weet-bix (cereal) in a bowl with milk – what more do you need for a great start into the day?
maybe a friendly local on his way to a swim who chats you up and gives you some travel advice. check!
living picture taken at callalla beach, jervis bay, australia.
this short-beaked echidna (tachyglossus aculeatus) crossed our way near 90-mile beach. it kept going back and forth across the road at the blindest bend in kilometres. while generally afraid of me, it apparently felt very interested in my camera(s) and kept chasing my lens – a tremendous help when trying to lure it off street.
echidnas, or spiny ant-eaters, are peculiar little mammals that lay a single egg directly into their pouch. [more...]
beach, sea and surf. explore one of sydney’s most popular beaches, bondi, through these lightfield pictures.
here’s a quick (and very incomplete) set of impressions from last month’s botanical excursion to georgia (the country). instead of trying to organize and post-process all the pictures first, i decided to give you a teaser consisting only of panorama photos.
the trip took us to two main destinations: bakuriani in the lesser caucasus and kazbegi/stepantsminda in the greater caucasus.
botanical highlights included the tall herbaceous vegetation (in this case, tall really means gigantic! a 1 meter caltha sp. should speak for itself.), the tragacanth vegetation of the sheep pastures, the subnival zone of mount kazbek, and many species and genuses endemic to the caucasus regions. of course, seeing almost completely natural river systems with huge banks of the german tamarisk (myricaria germanica, very rare in central europe) is always a good encore.
apart from the biological beauty, georgia also has a rich cultural and historical background, with many churches and monasteries dating back to the very early days of christianity.
pictures after the break (en), or in the gallery (de/en). [more...]
ever since writing my trip report about the togean islands in central sulawesi, and two reviews on tripadvisor, i’ve received quite a few questions for more details concerning this remote group of islands in the midst of the gulf of tomini.
i’ve assembled my responses into an FAQ-type blog post, in an attempt to make this information generally available. (will add new parts as they come up.)
