COUNTERPATCH

Friday, June 19, 2009

In The Air

I love flying across the world and seeing the different countries emerging. These first photos were taken when flying from Tokyo to London across Siberia and Russia. I'm glad I was in the warmth of the aeroplane!

Taken over France - see if you can find the other traffic in the air.

The next 2 were taken whilst flying over the Rhine River in Germany - looking down on where we were 2 years ago.

Somewhere between Germany and The Black Sea.

The Black Sea appearing.

The next few are interesting and were taken over Saudi Arabia or a similar country before we arrived at Dubai. I love the air strips and dams in the middle of nowhere.

Two days later we left Dubai for Australia and flew over the desert and mountains of Oman.

Well I had to take a photo of the clouds didn't I?

Japan

In April we began our adventure to the United Kingdom. Because of a cancellation of our original tour we had to alter our travel plans and flew to London via Japan which gave us a day to visit Tokyo. We stayed at a hotel at the airport in Narita, but having spent all night flying from Sydney we didn't spend a lot of time playing tourists! Actually I think we spent more time in the train and waiting at stations - I have never seen such clean railway stations.

On the way into Tokyo we passed lots of rice paddies.

And after some time roaming around the subways we eventually found our way towards these fountains which are near the Imperial Palace with the help of some nice Australian ladies.

We didn't see the actual palace and the gardens were closed because it was a Monday - well why didn't I think of that!!! But we did see these buildings and I loved the flora.

Back to Narita and an early night before our long flight to London - this was all we saw of the nightlife of Japan - looking from our room across towards the airport.

Strahan

I can't believe that I haven't posted to my blog since September last year! We have since been to some amazing places and when I started to prepare the photos from our recent UK trip I discovered that I already had a folder from a trip we did earlier in the year so here is the story and the photos.

On the weekend of 21 February Wayne and I escaped Launceston and travelled to the West Coast of Tasmania to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary. On the way we drove through Zeehan and visited their fascinating museum and wandered through the beautiful old theatre.

We then drove through to Strahan - a village in Macquarie Harbour.

And stayed in the upstairs apartment in the white building which had a lovely view over the Harbour.

On the Saturday we boarded The Jane Franklin for a Harbour and Gordon River Cruise.

We sailed across the Harbour and out through Hell's Gates - an extremely narrow opening - into the waters off the West Coast of Tasmania - we were fortunate in having a lovely calm day.

This rainbow was over Cape Sorrell

And the view looking back to Hell's Gates and Tasmania.

Back into the Harbour and we sailed past these fish farms - if you've had salmon from Tasmania this maybe where it came from.

And then into the famous Gordon River - by this time the weather had clouded over and we had a misty rain which made it all look even more beautiful. We were being spoiled on the top deck of the boat and were under cover when outside. Enjoy these images.