Island Paradise

Sunset over an island in Fiji

Another old photograph from my gap year travels, this time from Fiji. One of the most relaxed days we spent on our travels was on this Fijian island; we were taken out there one morning by boat and then got to spend the whole day on a little island, lounging on the beach, snorkelling with amazingly brightly-coloured fish (and I saw two cuttlefish! Probably sepia latimanus, the broadclub cuttlefish, which is very common on coral reefs) and even doing a spot of sea kayaking which proved rather more strenuous than we had anticipated.

Fiji is totally beautiful and you should go there. Although, take insane amounts of insect repellant because I was eaten alive by mosquitos and managed to snag a spider bite that made my foot swell up like a pufferfish into the bargain.

Queenstown, NZ

By Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, New Zealand

And we're back to our regular every-other-day photography service! I've been kicking myself lately because there's been a few times when I've been out and about and seen opportunities for some really interesting photos...and I haven't had my camera with me. Fail! But along with a new resolution to try to carry a camera with me more often, that's also inspired me to dig out some old pictures from before I started this blog. This one, as with several upcoming photographs, was taken on my old camera which was nowhere like as good as my current one. For a fairly reasonably-priced non-DSLR camera, my current one is great, but my previous one was not as good - but it would be a shame to let all the nice pictures I've taken on it languish on my hard drive, so I'm posting them anyway.

This photograph was taken on my gap year, when I was staying at a youth hostel by the shore of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, on New Zealand's South Island. I was there in May/June 2007, right as the winter season was beginning. Queenstown's a big spot for adventure tourism; me and the friend I was travelling with wanted to go hang-gliding, but the weather wasn't good enough. But we did manage a trip to an ice bar, a cruise around the incredibly beautiful Milford Sound and a speed boat trip.

Oh, and a canyon swing, which was terrifying. I refused to go bungee jumping, because I can't think of anything worse that doesn't involve actual bodily dismemberment. But we wanted to do something adventurous, and as hang-gliding was off, we settled on the canyon swing as a good alternative. I thought I could probably cope better with falling off a cliff if I was at least the right way up.

What the hell is a canyon swing? I hear you cry. Well, in this case it's a platform 360ft (109m, if you're feeling metric) above the Shotover River. You stand on said platform, after being tied into a harness, and then you jump off it, freefalling for 60m and then the "swing" aspect kicks in and you're transformed into a giant pendulum swinging wildly back and forth above the river. If you're a complete mentalist - like my friend - you can mix it up by, say, tipping yourself backwards off the platform while tied to a plastic chair. If like me you're terrified of heights, you can just jump off, though I should warn you that a split second after doing so you will be genuinely convinced that you've just accidentally committed suicide.