More adventures









It has been way too long since my last road trip. Life has caught up with me and I find myself caught in the city always. So when the call comes in rounding up the troops for a long-distance adventure, I find myself jumping at the opportunity.

Rocking up at 8:00 am at Metawaffle's on just three hours sleep and a rapidly deteriorating mystery illness, I knew the day ahead of me was big. Right now I was feeling okay, though. Four grown men in a little hatchback soon changed that.

Answering the "highway or the scenic route?" question added three hours to our four hour journey but we got to explore local Nowhereville towns along the way. With the end objective being to reach our destination with daylight to spare, however, we didn't explore them in much depth. That additional part of the journey consisted mainly of the following [exciting] things: 800mm high rectangular drains; dead rabbits; a 1 km detour for a waterfall in a national park; and lots of male bonding talking.

The landscape on the way made up for it all, though. I didn't take any photos of that, though. Next time.

We arrived with just one and a half hours until last light. And it was perfect timing now that the harsh sun had slowed its beating.

(Before you say anything, none of these shots are wanker HDR images. I'm experimenting with some other ideas.)

I could go back to this place so many more times and just keep getting more photos. It was enormous. It would actually be easy to keep each shoot fresh and new, not just rehashing the same old stuff. So many rooms, sections, levels... It's such a shame it's so far away.

This was the nicest room in the whole place (doesn't say much, I know) so this must have been where the bigwigs chilled out. The fridge was disgusting too.

Soon enough the sun set and our daylight began to dwindle. I was really happy with how the afternoon had panned out and the shots I had taken. Sleep deprivation, blisters etc. aside, it turned out the rapidly deteriorating mystery illness was really knocking me about; my eye sockets were aching and my throat was in agony. A common cold, maybe, but one of the other guys saw this as an opportunity to toy with me and pointed out that I had just two nights prior waded through the nastiest drain in the history of the world ever (story and photos to come, when I am dumb enough to go back) and maybe I had caught something really quite nasty. Possible, yes. But doubtful.

I got back in the car with the others and we began our journey home. This time, we went back via the highway and the trip was significantly shortened, bar a few minor stops to check out irresistible locations. I only got out once and, on observing at point-blank range the high security of the place, regretted it.

I was slowly dying a terrible man-death. Drugged up and trying to sleep in the back of the car, I watched us spacewarp all the way home. Picture follows.