The Road Less Travelled Pt 1

Last week, with a little help from Erin over at Design For Mankind, I came across the beautiful travel photography of Brad Swonetz. His photography has the amazing ability to transport you in an instant - one moment you're on a desert highway, the next you're in a luscious spa.

His photographs are often in beautifully composed pairs, showing complementary scenes or intricate details. No matter what setting he photographs, you just want to be there, rain, hail or shine.

I spent the next hour daydreaming, thinking of bygone road trips and planning my future adventures. I haven't travelled overseas in years, but I've been fortunate enough to see a fairly decent chunk of Australia, often by car.

I started pondering a short road trip for the weekend, but unbeknownst to me my significant other was hatching his own secret plans. Midweek at 3am, I was woken up, had 20 minutes to pack 5 days worth of clothes (impossible!), loaded into the car and we set off on our way. We took our time on the road, stopping off regularly to soak in the scenery and the morning sunshine, and by midday we had finally arrived at our final secret destination.

In my rush to pack, my trusty camera was left behind, so my poor little camera phone was left in charge. I've thrown a few photos together, taking inspiration from Brad Swonetz (but without his obvious flair).

The sunrise was nothing short of breathtaking. Although my camera phone did a surprisingly good job of capturing the colours, these photos don't even come close to the beauty of the real deal.

Many pit stops later, the sun was high and the temperatures were soaring. We were driving for hours through occasional tiny towns and expanses of farmlands, but occasionally the crops would give way to a wide open field like this one, with bright green grass and one lone tree.

I seem to like trees more when they don't have any leaves. At this time of year however, that generally means they're dead. I'm still holding on to hope for my little frangipani tree though. He is currently named 'Stumpy'. Yes, I name my plants.

But back to the road trip. Despite the hundreds of photos of beautiful scenery, I still quite like these two of miscellaneous roadside machinery. There's something incredibly depressing about the lovely countryside being ripped apart for a bigger, "better" highway, but something strangely appealing about the massive machines they employ. These two beasts were actually bright red, but lil' camera phone doesn't like shooting into the sun.

The secret destination, I hear you say? By no means as exotic or exciting as it sounds, our destination was in fact my home town. I'm not one to get homesick, having lived away from home for years, but it was incredibly comforting and refreshing to be back home around family, old friends and beloved family pets.

I think the fact that I still call it 'home' after so many years away speaks volumes.

More travel diary to follow...