nicolaoutdoors

Solomon Islands Diving from nicolaoutdoors on Vimeo. UNDERWATER GALLERY ABOVE WATER GALLERY Right now, I’m suffering a bit of reverse culture shock after returning from the Solomon Islands. It’s pretty hard to integrate back into the city with the cars, people and the general pace of life and I’ve had many ‘what am I doing [...]

Over Easter, we spent four nights at the idyllic King Parrot Cottages at Pennyroyal, in the Otways. Apart from lounging in or hot tub, out on the deck of or gorgeous little cottage,  we … • Rode our bikes on the trails at Forrest • Rode the Old Beechy Rail Trail • Walked through the [...]

Sometime in mid-summer, sick of days too hot to climb and even too hot to go to the beach, we decided to take our bikes on the ferry across to French Island. We planned to cycle around the island and stay at Tortoise Head Lodge, which is only a few hundred metres from where the [...]

Welcome to Hanging Rock Hanging Rock, Victoria is most famous for the 1967 Joan Lindsay book, Picnic at Hanging Rock, which was adapted for film by Peter Weir in 1975. Since the autumn colours were in full display, I thought a trip to Mt. Macedon and a walk up Hanging Rock would make a pretty [...]

I still can’t climb (yes, I’m having physio) and must also rest from repetitive upper arm movements, so no paddling either. We were pretty much down to diving or walking this weekend! For some reason diving didn’t appeal; I feel like I’ve been on and off fighting a cold for the last couple of weeks [...]

photographs: Cradle Mountain Mount Anne Tasman Peninsula (underwater) Tasman Peninsula (land) Freycinet National Park Flowers & Plants movie: Blow Hole and Cave We left Melbourne on the Spirit of Tasmania and sailed overnight to Devonport, Tasmania. Arriving, tired but not (too) sick we picked up the groceries that customs disallows and headed to Cradle Mountain. [...]

photographs: Pink Lakes, Murray-Sunset National Park, VIC Lake Mungo, World Heritage Site, NSW Lindsay Island, Murray-Sunset National Park, VIC Lake Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, VIC We got the campfires back! That, and the lack of people, is the great thing about camping holidays in winter. The nights were so dark and clear that the Milky Way [...]

Photographs: Land Gallery Coral Garden and Reef Gallery President Coolidge & Million Dollar Point Gallery On Dec 12th we flew from Melbourne to Brisbane, Brisbane to Honiara (Solomon Islands) and Honiara to Santo (Vanuatu). The airport at Santo is one small building and nicer and clener than the airport in Honiara. Outside a giant sculture [...]

Things I heard my first day in Japan: ♥  German pubs are popular here. We will make party at ‘The German Potato’. They serve many Japanese dishes there… many fish, and we can drink Shoshu (Japanese liquor). ♥  He *points to professor* hates the potato. ♥ This (electronic translator) is the symbol of my teens…. [...]

(PART I) The first session of the conference was a special symposium from the Asian network for using algae as a CO2 sink. Each speaker opened with some facts about global warming: photos of local and international before and after scenes. Their talks were about growing algae to absorb excess C02, produce oxygen that can [...]