View through the windscreen

I always take special care on the cleanliness of my car windscreen and opt for the front passenger seat whenever I could find someone to drive. 

Maroondah Highway, VIC, Australia

A rural area of South Island, New Zealand

Princess Freeway, Geelong, VIC, Australia

M420, Phillip Island, VIC, Australia

Citylink Sound Tunnel, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

A winter day in Chicago, USA

Rainbow Lorikeet Family

Whenever I passed a particular tree along the Princess park footpath I used to hear the calls of Rainbow Lorikeet chicks. And now, they are grown up and ready to explore the world. Today I saw them moved to a branch and probably they are having their preliminary flight lessons from their parents. What an adorable family?!

Happy family

"Are you photographing us?"

Since I didn't want to disturb their lessons, I kept moving with two quick snaps.

Long exposure shots

Since recently I have got a taste of long exposure shots, and have tried few shots of docklands in different parts of the world. Though I do not carry a conventional tripod, my gorrillapod becomes handy in many of those instances.

Hobart, Australia

Auckland, New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand

Miami, USA

Miami, USA

The Royal Parade in Autumn

Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne

A lawn of Fitzroy Gardens

Path through the park

Cooks' Cottage

Laughing Kookaburras

Attracted by the name Laughing Kookaburra was on the top of my list of the birds that I wanted to capture a photo in Australia. Since many birders' web pages indicated that Kookaburras are seen in and around Melbourne, I was looking for atleast a glance of the bird every time ventured out with my camera (indeed camera is always with me wherever I go).

During a short visit to Philip Island I was walking around looking upwards - as usual (well, very often I face troubles due to this habit). And, came the luckiest moment: instead of a glance of a single bird hiding behind leaves/bushes/etc, I saw this pair perched on the branch of a dead tree without any obstructions, and I couldn't believe my eyes.

Even though the position of the sun was not in my favour, I did not want to waste or loose opportunity by moving around. Swiftly set the camera on continuous fire mode and clicked this shot and some more.

Then, I slowly moved to another position to get a better view, alas, by the time these fellows found something interesting at a distance and flew away.

For more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_Kookaburra

The four seasons in Melbourne

The four seasons are quite distinguishable in Melbourne, and I wanted to give a try to capture them through my lenses. Here are the shots I took at the same place - the student square of the University of Melbourne, during Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

The Spring

The Summer

The Autumn

The Winter

The Myki Puzzle

The so called smart card technology based Myki public transport ticketing system of Victoria was introduced in later part of 2009 as the most advanced ticketing system to make the commuters' life easy. Even though I had some reservations and opted out from using it at the beginning, after a year of operation of Myki, I expected maturity of the product and thought to give a try.

After few weeks of use, I wanted to verify the usage by checking the Myki transaction history online. To my amazement, I found that Myki system has been designed to give an extra feature - Myki puzzles, to the commuters.

This is how the puzzle works: Myki provides few figures here and there and leaves the rest to be filled by user to figure-out the usage and remaining balance by considering touch on and touch off times, dates, weekends, holidays, the special time-slot schemes for Myki charging, etc, etc. The reason for mentioning "the special charging scheme for Myki" is that if you follow the rules of Metcard you can not successfully complete the Myki puzzle (Eg: See how Myki's 2-hour system works in the screen shot given below). It is a great brain teaser indeed!

"The Myki Puzzle"

Now I have decided that instead of looking for Mx for Sudoku puzzles, I would take printouts of the Myki transaction history whenever I want to kill some time.

St. Kilda Beach, Melbourne

St. Kilda is a famous inner city suburb of Melbourne known for its beautiful water front / beach, theatres, restaurants, festivals, theme park (Luna park), etc and is on the top of the list of destinations for short breaks among Melbournians. The common recreational activities at the beach includes strolling, jogging, cycling, sunbathing, fishing, rollerblading and sailing.

The easiest way to reach the beach by public transport is getting on a tram of route number 3a, 16 or 96 towards St. Kilda beach (zone 1). And, route 96 is the only one where Bumblebee trams are in service.

A Bumblebee tram in St. Kilda

Brooks jetty and St. Kilda lighthouse

Skating area

Beach Badminton

St. Kilda beach and the pier

People come here to relax...

... with their gears

St. Kilda Pavilion - a 100 years old kiosk

View of St. Kilda suburb from the pier

Sailing boats @ St. Kilda pier

Sailing boats in action

St. Kilda breakwater

Part of the St. Kilda break water is a home for a colony of Little Blue Penguins (a.k.a. Fairy Penguins) and the area has been fenced off from public access. Another protected species, Rakali - native water rat, also share this place as its home.

Melbourne's skyline seen from St. Kilda beach

Luna Park - St. Kilda's iconic amusement park

Palais Theatre - a live music and concert venue

The Eureka Skydeck, Melbourne

The bird's eye views from Eureka Skydeck 88 is one of the not be missed attractions of Melbourne. The Eureka tower is located in an ideal spot with ease of access by public transport (both trains and trams) and a centre location to have the views of Melbourne's key landmarks, scenes of Yarra river, parks, beach, Albert park lake, etc, etc.

A useful tip for visitors is that before visiting the Skydeck, look for discount coupons attached with brochures and handouts given in city circle trams and hotels, and don't forget to take student Id (if you have) with you for further discounts.

The Eureka tower - the tallest building of Melbourne

The East view from Eureka skydeck

The South view from Eureka skydeck

Another South view (near by)