Australia 2013
Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Southern Australia. © 2022ClaraConnell
Disclosure: I have not been compensated or sponsored in any way for any of the mentions in this post. I just f*ing love them.
“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror-
The wide brown land for me!”
For my very first international trip, I thought “28 hours on a plane? Why the h*ll not.”
This would not be a flight for everyone, but as I was a lone lady, responsible for only myself…it worked out. I booked the trip through whatever online ticket vendor was popular at the time and flew Quantas airlines to Melbourne.
Why Melbourne? Because I was blessed to have a good friend just finishing her extended medical training there and we were ready for adventures!
If you are about to embark on your first big trip (or any trip really), having a local guide to show you the ropes improves your experience exponentially! I landed with a shuttle already booked, knew where to get my public transit card, and got myself to the Air B&B that my friend was staying in. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
The Photography: To commemorate these shinnanagans, I brought both of the cameras that I had at the time: my point and shoot Nikon Coolpix S70 and my Nikon D3200 DSLR with the standard AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-55mm lens. Both were red, because I was in my 20’s and boujee.
My camera bag was a Patagonia shoulder pack similar to this Patagonia bag. To protect my camera, I MacGyvered a soft pouch so it didn’t take too much damage.
I had also invested in an alternate camera neck strap because the one that the camera came with was super uncomfortable. The new one was definitely a neck saver. See similar here scarf camera strap.
Melbourne was a great place to start adventuring. For a trio of young ladies, we felt safe and had no trouble navigating downtown. The public transit took the stress out of attempting to drive in an unfamiliar city away and we just got to enjoy our time.
There was art everywhere, gorgeous Royal Botanical Gardens, the Aquarium where you can stand inside the mouth of a great white shark (no worries - it’s not alive), and, of course THE OCEAN!
We traveled the Great Ocean Road and enjoyed every beach-loving minute of it (minus my broken toe). Among the many wonders of the Ocean Road, I cannot recommend the Twelve Apostles (Port Campbell) enough.
Tremendous opportunity for photos and the peace that only the ocean can provide.
Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Southern Australia.
©2022ClaraConnell
Most of these photos were with the Nikon D3200 DSLR and I think you can tell that it was my first time using it. Lots of buttons and do-dads to figure out.
I was intimidated by the manual mode, so most of them were the auto/preset options.
See my gallery for the whole she-bang.
Some pictures were amazing and some were duds. But that’s the joy of figuring new things out eh?
Progress, not perfection friends.
Let me know how your first travel photography journey turned out!
Cheers.
Clara