First 4 Days
I am officially on holidays, we have just returned from Apollo Bay for 4 days, we had both been looking forward to this for some time as it's "feels" like it's been 'one of those terms'—for me anyways. Our stay was at Beacon Point, in the Mariners Cottage. Beacon Point is set on a hill overlooking the Southern Ocean with views of Apollo Bay, nestled in native bush-land.
I wondered if there would be any web access, thus proving that I am once and for all truly addicted to flickr - oh dear!
There was none.
Day One 20.09.06
Spent the morning cleaning the house and packing ready to go, I tried to squeeze in some last minute flickr action, all I managed to do was upload a handful of images, recent images. The drive up was pleasant, we did however need to stop and buy a set of leads with a 3 1/2 inch jack on one end, so we could run the iPod through the DVD player whilst at the house, glad we did, but mad I managed to forget.
Upon arrival the accommodation is as exactly I had expected, and I was very pleased by that. When we were researching our options on the internet it is easy to get sucked in by the eye candy used to sell these resorts. Even with both our experienced photographer's eyes in looking at images in any medium there is always a niggling doubt in my mind as to what we are seeing. All unfounded as it turned out that the unit on the inside is as spectacular as it looks on the web, and the views are to die for.
With the unit inspected and the tunes drifting out of the stereo attached to the DVD player we relaxed and flipped though our magazines, I also found what I think will be a suitable location for a series of images to be taken over the 4 days and set up a tripod ready to shoot. Over the next two days every two hours or so I jump up and make an image. Day turned to night and we watched Bleak House on DVD, a recent gift for Nik, before an early night.
Day Two 21.09.06
Breakfast is included in our deal, haven't had croissants since our 2004 trip to Paris. So breakfast was a no-brainer. Some tough decisions though were needed to be made today. Do we stay put and relax read and eat, or do we head out and wander along a local beach or have a coffee in Apollo Bay proper?
Staying put won out, the weather isn't quite warm enough to sit outside, but it is by no means terrible either and with the awesome views out the huge double sliding glass doors it feels like we are outside anyways.
An uneventful day really, reading napping, a bbq lunch, and a short stroll around the resort, all mount up to more relaxing. One or two mobile phones calls were the highlights of the morning, [hi Mitch] after which both phones were both promptly turned off.
I brought a pile of books and magazines to read, so far the magazines were the only ones to see the light of day. We had a splurge at Magnation before we left, I spent $65.00 on magazines! This got me four in total, although one did have an extra magazine inside it.
A literary reviewer I am not, but I will say I am enjoying my copy Frankie, issue #13, the best article I felt was the one that dealt with Australian Television. Is the mainstream realising that today's 20 somethings [and many others] are bored with the one-way diatribe that is TV? Websites like Youtube and Google video are far more engaging and once you work out how to find the content great fun. It also has a small photo essay, “ Saturdays Around The World” that is not bad but, I reckon they could do better especially if they used flickr as a resource for finding images. The idea itself worked, it's just that the images seemed a little insipid.
The next magazine to be devoured was iCreate, a very expensive magazine from the UK. It describes itself as the creative magazine for Mac users. It has news tutorials and a bonus CD attached. As with all these kinds of magazines, the tutorials can be a little hit and miss, but the mag is well laid out and and the tips were enough to get me thinking about some ideas I'd been tinkering with in Indesign, they actually had a tutorial on pages, the drag and drop template driven equivalent page layout tool by Apple, which I might add is quite powerful. The magazine also openly promotes it's forums, something I will investigate myself no doubt—soon.
'T' The Journal of T-Shirt Culture Issue #1 is magazine number 3 I perused, so far looking like thinly veiled advertising but the eye candy is great and I'm always on the lookout for good T-Shirts. The last Magazine remains unopened by today. But when I get around to it I'm sure Pol-Oxygen won't be a let down, this had a bonus little magazine, O2+, describes itself as 208 Pages of Inspiring Designs, which I read as blatant advertising—in hindsight.
The day ended with a quaint Disney movie, on Austar, an hour or two of solitaire and finally a session of more Bleak House
Day Three 22.09.06
Nothing beats a home cooked hot breakfast, eggs on toast, hash-browns, sausages, bacon tomato and baby spinach, fruit-juice, tea or coffee.
Again time for that tough decision, oh wait is that rain…?
Most days we had some nice visitors too. A family of Magpies, some Parrots or Lorikeets, and some large difficult to identify black birds, ornithologist I ain't either.
After the rain stopped, we decided to head into town itself, for lunch, fish and chips of course. Not much loitering there though as neither of us are into chintzy tacky souvenirs, and while the beach itself is nice I find the rockier parts of the coast more interesting to wander along. On the return home being the sticky beaks we are we made a neat discovery of a partially demolished house site. This meant that I actually pulled out the Hasselblad, and shot 2 and a half rolls of film on the one spot.
The constantly changing light otherwise only served to slow me down, till eventually the clouds came over. The remainder of the day was spent in front of the box watching the rest of Bleak House and some other bits 'n bobs on Austar.
The unfolding spectacular weather pattern ocurring outside, was almost better than TV itself.
Day Four 23.09.06
Checkout day.
Slept-in had a lazy breakfast and packed up and headed home. I also re-jigged the playlist for the drive home.
