West is Best?
How many countries in the world can you fly for 6 hours and still be in the same country? What about swim straight off the beach into a reef with turtles, fish and sharks? or go hiking into canyons that formed hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago? Australia is extremely unique, and extremely f*cking big.
The view out the window on the way into Parabadoo airport was of red Australian outback and a tiny strip of tarmac with nothing else around. The goal of the shoot was to capture photos and video for use in Intrepid Travel global brand campaign. But you may be wondering what makes Karijini and Ningaloo Reef so special?
Parabadoo Airport - nearest major city is Perth (~1500km)
Karijini National Park
The landscape here was formed around 2.5 billion years ago. It’s a number that is impossible to get your head around. At the time there wasnt even oxygen in the atmosphere. Noadays its a classic australian outback landscape with red desert as far as the eye can see, but what makes it special is what lies below. Dropping hundreds of metres below the surface there are a plethora of canyons and chasms all unique in their own regard.
You wouldn’t guess if you are looking at the landscape from above that there would be so much life and greenery below. June is dry season in this part of australia, but unfortunately it rained quite a lot of the days we were here. This in many ways is a special experience to have and it brought the landscape to life, but for photography its less than ideal. Still we had about 24 hours across 2 days of spectacular blue sky weather (which is what its normally like).
Karijini National
ish and sharks? or go hiking into canyons that formed hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago? Australia is extremely unique, and extremely f*cking big.
Ningaloo Reef
Something about reef systems I think for some people reefs arent that special. I guess if you have been traveling parts of South East Asia or Latin America or the Great Barrier reef in Australia then its same old but I love snorkling and swimming in the ocean. Maybe it’s becasue I havent done it that much, this trip was only my second time snorkling ever and it did not disappoint.
Ningaloo reef is a “Fringing Reef”, which means you don’t need a boat to get out to it. You just walk of the beach and you are swimming in a reef. I knew this going into the trip, but I wasnt expecting the diversity of life just 10m from the shore. I thoguht “oh yeah there will be a couple of fish” but there were turtles and sharks (not the scary kinds) and massive schools of fish and colourful corals, all right there just off the shore.
Parabadoo Aiport - nearest major city is Perth (~1500km)
There are two things that make this trip really special. The first is the contrast between the red desert outback , and the torquise blue ocean of the Ningaloo reef. The second is getting to go snorkling and hiking in the same trip.
Really what makes the trip special is the contrast between the hiking in red canyon outback Australia
One of our guides recommended this amazing 3 part natural history doco about Ningaloo reef. The narrator and host is Tim Winton (famous aussie author. Highly recommend (it’s free):
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/ningaloo-nyinggulu
Work
I think the photo gallery from this trip came out really good. I took around 6000 photos and that was cut down and edited to the required 150 ish.
You can view the gallery below:
