SAY CHEESE and DIE: East Coast, Australia. 2009

About two months ago, my girlfriend and I booked a ticket around the world. If I said it that it was a completely planned idea then I’d be lying. the truth is that only one week after talking with our travel agent, we had completely booked and paid for our trip. Now you can only imagine the waves of emotions that we have been going through these last couple of months. Moments of over powering joy and excitement but also gut twisting nervousness and at times, anxiety.

Together we’ll be seeing as much as the earth as we can. starting at San Francisco, Washiton and New York City to have a taste of some local art and music. Then we’ll be heading over to UK to spend some time with my Family and travel through out Western Europe, where we’ll eat and drink our selves silly while staying with local families and working on their farms – as backpackers tend to do. After living and working in London, we plan to head to northern India for a month or so to really feel life at its purest and hopefully gain some sort of an insight to this world we know so little about.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time day dreaming about all the places and people that we’ll meet, the foods we’ll taste, the different genres of music and fashions that we’ll be introduced to, when it suddenly occurred to me that I’m going to miss my home so much! The little things that make a place really stand out like a twenty foot peace sign in the middle of the bush. Going to the local chip shop and grabbing a chocolate milk after a surf. I’ll miss the summer rain and the steam from the pavement in mid February. I’ll miss the pubs, beaches, the country side, the heat, the festivals but most of all, I’ll miss the my friends and family and people who I have grown up with because really, that’s what makes a community what it is.

With all of this in mind, over the summer and through out these last two months, I have set out to document everything about my home so that hopefully you can see what our area has to offer. If you live on the Far North Coast of Australia then I’m guessing that all these images might seem “normal” to you but just try to picture these through a tourist’s eyes. If I’ve captured a glimpse of our beautiful community then I hope I can do exactly this all around the world.

Remember, click to enlarge.

See ya later,
Marty.