My backpacking route

Just thought I’d drop a quick note to say that as of tomorrow (Monday 14 November) I will be backpacking along the east and parts of the south coast of Australia for the next 4 ½ weeks. My travels will start in north Queensland in Cairns where I will stay four a few days having planned a trip to the Cape Tribulation area famed for its ancient rainforest, sandy beaches and rugged mountains. It’s one of the few places in the world where the tropical rainforest meets the sea. On my return to Cairns I will take a boat to the outer Great Barrier Reef going snorkelling and diving. I will then take the bus south stopping at Mission Beach and Magnetic Island. This island is covered in giant granite boulders, hoop pines and eucalyptus. Captain Cook named Magnetic Island in 1770 when his ship’s compass went peculiar as he sailed by. My next destination is Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands the latter of which I will explore by way of a two-day two-night sailing tour. Apparently the Whitsunday Coast has an exotic Great Barrier Marine Park which is ‘hidden’ beneath irresistible waters. This, what I hope will be an exciting trip will be followed by a three-day 4WD safari on Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the world’s biggest sand island. Its ecology is one of the many wonders of the place. Rainforests and some 200 freshwater lakes dot a landscape that contains more sand than the Sahara – reputedly. On my return from Fraser Island I will continue to Noosa where I will join a three-day two night canoeing trip through the Everglades. After this ‘adventure’ I will take the bus to Sydney where after a two-day stop I will resume my travels by air to Melbourne, Victoria. Once in Melbourne I intend to hire a car to drive along the Great Ocean Road which if one believes the Lonely Planet is one of the world’s most spectacular coastal drives. My final destination of this short road trip is the Twelve Apostles. This pretty much will be my Oz experience, at least for now. On 15 December I will fly out of Sydney to San Francisco where I will have a three-day stopover which I will spend with an old friend of mine. My scheduled arrival in Berlin is 19 December.
As I am writing these lines my backpack is already packed and ready to be taken ‘on the road’ and my camera equipment is waiting to be used. As I am still shooting film and travelling light (w/o my laptop) I will not be able to post any pictures from the trip on my website until I return to Germany. Also, I have decided to provide you with an overall report of my trip once I am back home which means that in the coming five weeks I will stay in contact with you either via email, text messages or the phone.

Sebastian

The information regarding the locations is taken from the Lonely Planet – Australia, my beloved travel companion.

Fair Go

Sunday, 6 November. Today’s day definitely ranks amongst the top five days of my travels through Australia. Those of you who have known me long enough will probably remember the times of my wearing baggy jeans and XXL T-shirts (an outfit which I proudly wore during school, much to the embarrassment of my mum who was a teacher at my school – sorry mum) and my spending every single minute after school skateboarding…Skateboarding was a very big part of my life for more than six years. These days I only get to spend little time on my skateboard. Lucky for me that skateboarding is like riding a bicycle, once you got the hang of it, that is it.
So, where is the connection to Australia? This morning I left quite early to go to the Fair Go, the biggest skateboarding event for the Far North Coast at Missingham Skate Park Ballina (see picture) which is 25 km south of Byron Bay. The skate park is rated in the top five skate parks in Australia and the annual skateboarding event has been hosted since its humble beginnings in a Ballina car park in 1999. It goes without saying that I did not leave the house without my camera equipment which included sufficient film rolls. By the way, last night I had difficulties falling asleep, that is how excited I was about event. The contest was split into six divisions each of which was run as a jam session which means that 3-4 skaters were performing at the same time. Most of my pictures were taking during the warm up sessions and during the actual competition of the open men’s and open sponsored division. Since this report is addressed to all of you, I will spare you the details of the tricks and the jargon. In brief, some of the level of skateboarding I saw today could easily be used in a skateboard video there is no doubt about it. With some of the tricks I found myself cheering and whistling; good, really good times. From a photography point of view this, again, was a new experience for me. Everything happens a lot faster than e.g. in landscape or portrait photography; with action sports photography there is simply less or none time to properly composition the picture. Also, I have really worked the auto focus of my lens and camera. In total, I took about 130 frames. Due to trial and error, double images and due to the fact that in skateboarding it is virtually impossible to make every single trick, I ended up with about 30 striking and distinctive pictures. As always I have posted my favourite shots of the event underneath. Even if you are not passionate about skateboarding, can I humbly recommend you to still have a look…

Sebastian

Missingham Skate Park Ballina

 

Air time

Skater: unknown. Comments: speechless. 

FS 180

This shot, like most of the others, was taken during practice. The name of the skater is Russell Grundy. His main sponsor is Billabong. He was definitely Mr. Style. Not only did he go for big airs and technically difficult tricks, he also did them in style - very smooth. He made it look so easy. 

Fly over

This shot was taken during the warming up for the open sponsored division. Unfortunately, the name of this young skater is unknown. However, his airs were seriously big and his style so smooth. See for yourself. I was well impressed.