Adventure
Latest travel
Explorative travel plays a key role in my life. This page is included because my work is born of context and on many levels borrows inspiration from the places I've been to. It's titled "Adventure" as a way to describe one type of travel. If you ponder on that too long, you may travel differently to me. Adventure is the tales away; the long road trips, spending years away studying, living, and working. It is the medley of food, places, people, climates and ecologies, the struggles, music and life experiences both joyous and tearful - wonderful or dangerous.
Here is a tiny lens to declare a fleeting moment on some of the things I've found most inspiring and exhilarating along the way. Though that moment comes, how one gets to it can often be challenging to describe - what one feels in the moment within the photo, even more so. But you've made it this far in life (and on this site), so you might already know that. Come take a look.
Cycling the Death Road, Bolivia 2013
The Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand 2010
Lithuania
August 2016.
It was a stint up in the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. We drove from Vilnius up to Riga and then onwards along the Baltic Sea towards Parnu in Estonia. I'm just going to tell you about one thing.
Though I spent a short time in the past living in Lithuania, this time we drove up to Siauliai and I got to visit the Hill of Crosses (Kryzių Kalnas). There is something profound about the chaos and beauty at the Hill of Crosses. Though it was not a pilgrimage, one can feel the hopes, prayers and awe in the air. It becomes the chaos that silences you.
The Hill of Crosses, Lithuania
I tried to capture the prolificity - to show the crosses strewn everywhere; all shapes, sizes, materials, high up, hanging and even coming out of the grass. Crosses added every hour, it all becomes quite immeasurable.
Adventure
Now I make sure to keep me eyes wide open, I want to remember it all vividly. I have been fortunate. I count my lucky stars. I have innate adventure and I am grateful for that and I would not trade my experiences for anything. I have visited some unusual places even in familiar lands. And within me, there is a soul craving for the Americas. I sometimes wonder if I have had a past life in the American south... but that's another chunk of mind matter for another time.
Eventually, I believe the world writes itself on our faces and it tapestries our hearts, and I am thankful that it is still stitching mine.
Puma Punku
Sacsayhuaman
Death Road
Blue Mountains
Gettysburg
Venice
Niagara Falls
Disneyworld
Epping Forest
Riga
Giant's Causeway
Tikal
Silent Valley
Luang Probang
Xochimilco
Brasilia
Burj Khalifa
Smoky Mountains
Chichen Itza
Managua
Temple of Olympian
Halifax
Ben Nevis
Paris
Lake Taupo
Parnu
Kota Kinabalu
Bay of Islands
. . .
New York City
Hill of Crosses
Queenstown
Costa del Sol
Uxmal
Mexico City
Hagia Sofia
Borobudur
Bali
Melbourne
Legoland
Curcavado
Coromandel
Buddha Park
Lake Titicaca
Amsterdam
Prambanan
Machu Piccu
Batu Caves
Washington DC
Blarney Castle
Louvre
Gili Air
Sicily
Teotihuacan
Rome
Atlantic crossing
. . .
I crave it. Adventure. Scenery. Experience. Adrenalin. Mystery. The truth is, every time I traveled far afield, a piece of me died and a new piece; born. The death and birth are not necessarily painful, but nor are they completely painless. It is not something I notice while it is happening, but rather something I realise in retrospect. Sometimes it feels emotional, sometimes it is physical (even grueling), other times it is a mental barrier, language, culture, confusion. And then quite often, it is magical. You handshake something new and then a shift takes place but you didn't see it happen. You become more full, you become more humbled, you shrink and expand at the same time.
Prambanan, Indonesia
Uxmal, Mexico