Closing the Loop
The Gladys-Lap was purposely planned in an anticlockwise direction to finish on the coast and get some sun, surf and relaxation before heading home. Sadly this didn’t quite work out, but given our journey, the things we’d seen and places visited, a few rainy days didn’t really spoil anything.
Now as luck would have it, our final day, day 17, the drive from Bermagui to Sydney was a glorious, cloudless, sun kissed, mid 20’s, early summers day - damn it !
To many, two and a half weeks spent in close quarters travelling an average of 250km per day is not an ideal holiday. Living in a camper van where every square inch of space needs to be utilised to NASA precision, where getting an article of clothing from your bag is more delicate than brain surgery, and the morning and evening rituals are like a Viennese Waltz, may not be for everyone.
But for us it was heaven.
Fatpap and the Moon Bazooka
Out on the road
The greatest aspect of embarking on this type of holiday is the ability to go wherever you want, whenever you want, and with everything you need. Stopping for coffee or lunch is a breeze. Seeing something of interest to photograph even breezier. Even going to the dunny is only a matter of a few feet away. And a tour like ours, we think, could only be done in a camper van. We choose to do a lot of things this time around and it meant travelling great distances in varying weather conditions. Checking into and out of hotels every night, or pitching and striking tents everyday didn’t quite appeal to us. Morrison was a gem of a companion and a fun, exciting way to see our great state.
Before we left we had a loose idea of building one of these vehicles for ourselves some day, by day 3 we’d started sketching plans and looking for forgotten bank balances to make it a reality !
Morrison the Van, always there for us
From a photographic standpoint, the length and breadth of this trip was similarly purposeful. We wanted to see as much as possible encompassing the widest diversity of climates and landscapes. Many places closer to the coast were sacrificed early in the planning stage - we can do them over a weekend anytime really - for once we were far out west, we thought we should spend as much time as possible amongst it. Menindee Lakes and Mungo National Park were a must see for us both and something we will never forget - it’s a long way to go, but well and truly worth it in our humble opinion. The sunsets weren’t always in our favour but we leant heavily on our photography skills trying to capture the richness of the NSW outback.
Even after destruction this country is magnificent
Just a typical afternoon…and not always behind the lens
The core of our state is unbelievably beautiful and diverse as imaginable. Every 50km offers something different and the La Nina pattern we are currently experiencing threw us some real weather challenges. Again, this was something we ideally wanted and embraced the challenge willingly. Clouds, mist and rain can add depth to any composition and we worked hard in capturing some moody, almost surreal landscape images at times.
The portfolio is a little thicker now, and that was the idea.
We hope you've enjoyed our journey as much as we had doing it, photographing it, and even writing about it. We’ve learnt a lot about NSW, photography and ourselves over the course of this wandering and already have plans for other adventures in the new year along similar lines.
Many of our images are available for sale, so if you’re inclined, please spend some time exploring the gallery. If there is anything of interest, drop us a message and we’d be pleased to help in any way possible.
Thank you to everyone who made it this far.
Peter & Lyndall
