Wow, some great stories and photos.

CMC, incredible and the Dolomites are one on my list! They look insanely stunning.

Ringy, god how good re Mundaka! And to score it to yourself.

Also YS, stoked I got to tick that one off a few years ago :D

Cheers Craig! Something different. I saw a bee making a, well, beeline for this flower so I held my iPhone about 2 inches away hoping I wouldn’t scare it off or get stung and scored this cool pic.

Winds were 15-20kt S'ly when the photos was taken (well, according to the nearest weather station - quite some distance away - though under the circumstances it should have been a good proxy).

Swell was still building when the image was taken, it was surfed the next day (not by me!) as winds went light E'ly. Swell direction was (by memory) close to SW. But, having not been surfed before, it was a moot point. We had no idea whether there was even a rideable wave there, let alone what direction it preferred.

I’m thinking about the totally wrong coast then.

Wife and I drove from UK to Aus in 2010. Got thousands of shots. I'll chuck a few up now and then.

Kidding MUS, you've got to make a book about it. That last photo says everything, haha nuts.

Worried the 'barge' might tip??

That was the kapal besar, you should've seen the kapal kecil they tried to convince us to get on before!

Mug, would love to hear a little backstory for those.

What a trip! How'd the 80 hold up?

Absolutely. Must be a goldmine of stories there.

'80 still going.
Long story short.
Got our permanent resident visa's, both of us had wrapped up business' in UK and had no fixed jobs to get to here so decided on an adventure (we'd downsized our property which gave us a bit of cash (not heaps by any means) and had rented out the smaller house, so a income stream of sorts).

Drove through Europe to Iran where we got kicked back. Tried entering the 'stans but 'swine flu' had just kicked off (ironically) and they kicked us back too so we ended up heading South through Syria (just in time) and Jordan to Saudi where we shipped to Mumbai. Drove into Pakistan and up through Kasmir back into India and across the top to Leh.

China was proving to be a logistical nightmare (Itinerary provided along with a guide for 18 days. You do what they say and do not deviate; all for a very princely sum. You can reduce the cost by meeting up with other overlanders and convoying (still only one guide required)), so we drove south through central India all the way down to Kerala then across to Chennai (old Madras) where we shipped to Medan, Sumatra.

Up to Aceh then down the West coast and island hopped all the way to Timor Leste where we got a barge to Darwin with all the returning ADF vehicles. Then took the anti-clockwise route to the Sunshine Coast.

2 years in total and believe or not we did more Km's in Australia than we did getting here. It's that big.

Epic.

Favourite spots ?

Least favourite spots ?

late 70's sunrise over the Melbourne docks - from an old colour slide

image uploader

Double barrel shotgun

Jeez, different world back then Guy.

Different world but in a different place.

Dirt roads, tin sheds and chooks and Falcons in the street.

Place now has one of the highest median house prices in Australia.

Such cool shots. Really capture an era both visually and feels.

Nice work Sunshine. I spent a bit of time in India, some fun uncrowded waves. The mountains were exceptional, Kashmir was brilliant.

https://ibb.co/9TxkzxM

If Turkey had waves we would have considered stopping (Pre Erdogan too). Friendliest people and such a diverse geography steeped in an incredible amount of history.

I won't deny it, central/southern India was very hard work.

Indo, from Aceh to Timor was a joy.

Jam, so hard to capture the scale with a camera eh..?

Yeah the nostalgia I get looking at that is really strong.

Reminds me of all the fibro shacks and slanty shanties I've lived in, of walking home after a surf and dodging puddles, rocks and tree roots in the road, not to mention the odd massive carpet snake.

Very few fences and people always available for a chat.

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How about this classic? (Not mine).

Look at the board and count the legs.

Unreal photos and stories. I've got a few but they are over there on the other computer as I am working from home on the work computer. But I found this one from my phone of the local area around sunrise.

Lookin south east

Lookin north east

Yep Sunshine, they are massive. Leh was pretty cool too.
When I was stuck in the mountains (a different set) for a good while, the next best thing to surfing was snowboarding.

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anonymous image hosting

Agree.

What’s all that white stuff coming from the chimneys in the port shot ?

It looks as though they’re actually making stuff.....bizarre !

Everest base camp trek.
I love being in the mountains

I’d love to get lost in Patagonia sometime

First Indo trip. Bingin.

Nice one Shorey....like me you're a mountain man and love mountain women?

C’mon Westof, this site is open to all ages, and you’re asking me if I love mountin’ women?
I’m certainly not sharing those photos!

yeah Andy, a different world, there would be a casino and multi million dollar apartments and some of Melbourne's flashiest hotels in that shot now.

no Blowin, I love horses, given 100s of apples away over the years so I would never have done what you had suggested. haha

Everest base camp, wow, and that Lukla airport!

Hahaha, I said mountain, you've just left out an 'a'....but probs should keep to yaself...just in case...for the kiddies protection 'n all.....don't want to scare 'em off...

yeah, the mountains are great...once you reach 8000 feet it all starts to get magical.

One from my trip to Spain two years ago, just me, my car and the mountains!

Lukla is wild, and one of the reasons I wanted to travel there Guy. On the way home I got trapped by weather, and with all the fellow travellers banking up it became a nightmare to get out. Basically you grouped up with others, as I was on my own, and found “your guy” who would broker a private chopper ride down to Kathmandu. For 3 days we didn’t know if we were the next to go or not, always being told it would be soon. Each morning a couple of fixed wing flights would get out, but if you had missed yours you were at the back of the queue and it was a 2 week wait. So we just waited each day down the end of the strip in one of those paddocks on the right, while choppers came and went. One morning a plane was throttling down the strip when a chopper at the wrong moment popped up at the end of the runway drop off. This plane that was now about two thirds down the runway hit the brakes hard, burning rubber and fishtailing to about 10-15 metres from the end. It was crazy. The chopper landed in the paddock, not sure what was said in the tower, but the looks on all the passengers faces was priceless as they taxied back up the strip, only to turn around and launch again, this time successfully. Finally it was our turn and our chopper was on its way, but it was a pretty bad day. We had to hike 90 minutes down hill to another paddock, where we met our ride out. It wasn’t long into the flight, snaking through Himalayan high country valleys, when the cloud moved in and we were on instruments. That’s not good news in mountains, but he was a gun pilot and knew where he was, knew the lowest safe altitude, we climbed up and headed out.

https://ibb.co/0Vczrqq
Stelvio Pass NW dolomites 2500m altitude

i upload to imgbb then copy and paste to swellnet but only get the link not the photo?

i upload to imgbb then copy and paste to swellnet but only get the link not the photo?

Wow.
Wonder how many times this has featured in movies.

Go "BB code full linked" in the embed codes dropdown menu.

That’s wild Shoredump. My best mate has attempted Everest base camp twice. First time with another mate who got serious food poison 1/2 way up, they were with a group/guide etc. one day back down with sick mate shitting himself on the back of a donkey and then both air vaced by helicopter to Kathmandu. Second time just him and a guide, mate carried all his gear. Successfully completed the trek and flew out Kathmandu about 10 days before it was smashed with that earthquake. How did you go with the altitude?

I was lucky. I did spend one night throwing up, but woke up fine the next morning. I love my food, but it was pretty noticeable the loss of appetite. I only ate the equivalent of one sandwich per day, which isn’t much walking uphill all day every day

@Island Bay

What year was that roughly?

Was already much more built up than that when i first went there, but still pretty basic and a far cry from what it is now.

Id love to make a website or even start a facebook group or page to collect all these old Indo photos so they are collected in one place.

Nor sure about you guys but the mountains provide some form of solitude and serenity, akin to sitting out the back waiting for a set.
This lake is at about 4,600m asl :

The path less trodden is often rewarding.

Second time around my mate went just with a guide which he organised here working on the basis he would dictate the walking pace. He was fine but what he noticed was plenty of people suffering altitude sickness morning /night being forced to walk at a pace to fast for them. He therefore thinks walking silo with a guide is safer.

cmc...what bike did you ride through the dolomites? love to do it on a desmo 900.
although, all those turns must get a bit tiring after a while. there used to be a bike rental place in sydney that had ducattis, i'd take one down to the royal nation park for the day.