My Aunty Robin Lion is working with local aboriginal people on a book highlighting some of the amazing indigenous food, art and culture from the Tiwi Islands near Darwin. I was lucky enough to help out with some photos and learned a lot along the way, enough to remember that I know nothing! She is such a legend! Thanks Robin, keep up the good work, proud of you!

A beautiful Tui singing in the rain outside my window today in Nelson, guest performances like this are always welcome!

Note to self, spend more time on the Mornington Peninsula! I rented a beach house near Rye (about an hour from Melbourne) for three days and it was amazing! The coastline is beautiful down here and perfect for photography. A storm rolled in on the final afternoon and really brought the sky to life with intense lightning in one direction and a gorgeous sunset in the other. I found this cool little cave and did a little bit of exploring, slowly backing out of the cave as I remembered about all the dangerous animals here in Australia… Haha easy to forget when you’re from NZ, there’s nothing dangerous back home!

Is this the most beautiful road in the world? I wouldn’t argue if you thought so! We took our time driving from Queenstown to Glenorchy, pulling over multiple times as the colours changed and soft, puffy clouds floated over Lake Wakatipu.

We stopped at a number of cool spots on the way to Burning Man, including beautiful Antelope Canyon, the colours are mind-blowing! I left my tripod behind and experimented with various ISO levels and shutter speeds to see how good the Sony A7r II steadyshot feature is… turns out it’s pretty good! Not all my shots were crisp but I found enough to work with including this one right here.

This is my first photo taken with the new Sony a7r II and I quite like it! I don’t think it would have looked much different with the original a7r (or any other modern digital camera for that matter) but it at least helps me justify the ridiculous price I paid haha! Well kind of anyway… Obviously I need to play around with it a lot more but at first glance it seems pretty similar to the a7r, a little bigger, a slight bump in stats (more megapixels baby!) and with some of those weird software quirks thankfully fixed (bracketing/timer limitations etc). As for the photo, I went for a casual stroll along the beach in Santa Monica ending up underneath the pier at sunset. The light blasted through creating these awesome shadows, a really cool scene.

Lumphini Park caught my eye when I was looking for a place to stay in Bangkok, it’s always nice to find some greenery amidst the concrete jungle. I ended up at the Sofitel So which is a little pricey but look at the view! Plus the breakfast is amazing! Haha what more could a guy want!… Well one of my taxi drivers seemed to think I wanted a lot more… haha thanks but no thanks sketchy taxi driver.

The Japanese LOVE their cherry blossoms, and when it looks this good it’s hard not to get in the swing of things! The main street in Hitachi is lined with them so looks particularly impressive this time of year.

The Fukuroda Falls are in Daigo, a few hours north of Mito, where I live. Apparently they’re the 3rd most beautiful falls in Japan, although I’m not sure how the ranking system works. These falls sometimes freeze over in the winter, which must be pretty amazing!

I moved on to Meiji Jingu later in the day to maximize my New Year’s Day fun. The shrine was beautiful and packed to the rafters. What’s the difference between a temple and a shrine you ask? In a nut shell Buddhism is practiced at temples and Shinto at shrines.

Happy New Year! I went to Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo to enjoy some New Years celebrations. As you can see from the photos there were ladders involved, this can only be a good thing.

They open up the streets for shoppers to go crazy in Ginza on Sundays here in Tokyo, also creates a nice opportunity to take pics.

Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto, it’s golden and you love it, although I think they really cheaped out by not making the bottom level gold.

Todaiji is a beautiful temple and a great spot for contemplating life, along with the 3 billion other tourists there, haha just kidding it’s not too bad actually. On a more cautionary note watch out for the deer in Nara that like to headbutt you for no apparent reason.

I took a day trip to Himeji Castle, regarded as the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture (thanks Wikipedia).

Friendly Osaka where the locals speak little English and I speak even less Japanese, all part of the fun though. This photo shows off the beautiful Osaka Bay area with an impressive bridge and a ferris wheel I threw in for free!

I stayed a night on Mount Koya, an atmospheric spot that a number of Buddhist monks call home. They made me eat fear factor type food and wake up early in the morning, I disapprove of both things. Great spot though and the Konpon Daito Pagoda is a real treat.

I rocked up to Tsuchiura for their famous fireworks competition and it did not disappoint, we’re talking full on seizure mode here folks.

There’s a saying in Japan that a brave man climbs Mount Fuji once but only an idiot climbs it twice, or something like that. Anyway I totally get it, it’s one of those things that you can only experience for yourself, the sight of seemingly thousands of people meandering up the trail at the same time was almost comical at times. We left super early in the morning and made it in time to see a gorgeous sunrise. Nice work team! Unfortunately we then had to go down, which I found much worse than the ascent, just ask my shoes (or what’s left of them).

Ibaraki roadtrip! I went south to enjoy a fireworks festival and check out the Ushiku Daibutsu (Buddha). Turned out to be a great night, the Daibutsu is 120 metres tall and looked amazing in front of the fireworks!