Once you fall in love, it is very difficult to let that go and get on with the rest of your holiday.  That is the trouble I had with rest of the Seychelles!  I really liked the rest, but at least in my La Digue-shrouded mind, there is no substitute for La Digue.

Victoria’s markets.

Another unexpected highlight of the trip was our trek up into the Morne Seychellois National Park.

Pitcher plants on the mountainside.

Erin.

It definately is a very beautiful part of the world.  I want to share my thoughts and images of the Seychelles with you so you can see how beautiful it is.  But at the same time I don’t want to tell you it is so great because I fell in love and it is very hard to share that love, don’t you think?  Ok, I will relent and let you share it if you ever get the chance.  But be good to my La Digue!

La Digue is my favourite Island in the Seychelles.  It is the third largest Island.  But don’t let that fool you into thinking it is big!  It is just the right size that you get to experience all it has to offer.  And don’t let the monsoons scare you away either – it rains and then the most exquisite warm sun shines through again.

Here is why I fell in love again…

Not only is the scenery beautiful, but ….

 there are hardly any cars and everyone rides everywhere …

peak hour parking can get busy …

especially at the beach …

so take a picnic and enjoy the views …

or ride to the famous Source d’Argent and run along the beach’s white soft sand …

…yes, I’m back now.  Just had to pinch myself to wake me from my reverie.  The pace of life on La Digue is romantic.  You could even call it seductive.  It takes you by the hand and embraces you so that you are forced to slow down.  You don’t want to leave.  We had to drag ourselves off the Island.

Don’t worry La Digue, I still love you, and I will be back for you… one day… soon… I hope…

Erin.

I get to have two Christmases this year.  Living in Ethiopia with a different calendar (based on the coptic calendar), Ethiopian Christmas is celebrated on January 7 (of the Gregorian calendar).  Confused?  I wouldn’t worry too much about it, just think of it this way – not only are you 7 years younger (it is 2004), but you also get to celebrate all those great holidays twice each year!!  So, confused or not, bring on the celebrations.

This year, our mamita (in our case cook and cleaner) invited us to her house to celebrate Christmas with her family.  It was a great day, and a wonderful opportunity to see how other cultures celebrate this event.

The delicious dishes for a great Christmas feast (just roll me out the door when I am finished).  You might notice a lack of cutlery – you eat with your right hand, trying very carefully not to use your left (please tell me I don’t have to elaborate on why?!).

Injera (staple of almost every meal – sour pancake), Beans with carrot, Bure Alicha Wat (mild beef-mince stew with hard boiled eggs), Aib (yoghurt cheese), Bure Kai Wat (beef spicy stew).

Breaking bread – this is a 3kg large round bread made for special occasions – eaten after the main meal.  Cutting it up appears to be the man’s job.

The coffee ceremony then produces lots of smoke from the roasting coffee beans and frankincense – but wonderful smells.  Popcorn is also a staple of the coffee ceremony.

Pouring the coffee is an art.  From at least half a metre up, the freshly brewed coffee is poured into small cups.  Sugar is always added and rarely milk.

Family portrait time – the wonderful family I had the honour to spend my Ethiopian Christmas with – Thank you.

Melkam genna / Merry Christmas,

Erin.

A year that started by appreciating the familiar – Noosa, Australia.

A year with much rain and great friends – Dove Lake, Tasmania.

A year I explored more of the familiar – Brisbane City at Dusk.

A year I experienced new cultures and waters, but ooh, the food - Santorini, Greece.

A year I was humbled by the generosity of others – Hope Organisation, Addis Ababa.

A year I made new friends and appreciated old friends.

A year I learnt to appreciate simple beauty – Toohey Forest, Brisbane.

A year I made a childhood dream come true – visiting Uluru, Northern Territory.

A year I ended, as I started, on a beautiful beach – La Digue, Seychelles.

A year I learned more about myself through exploring the world, on my own and with those I love.

Thanks for sharing 2011 with me,

Erin.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― Mark Twain

That Mark Twain actually wrote or spoke this is debatable.  But I am interested in what it says to me.  Like any good self-help book will, this saying reminds me that all of those little projects that I sweep aside because of the barriers I perceive for each, I would be better off having a go at.  After all, failure is a better teacher, right?  Who said that?  Does it even matter?  I realise though as I get older (and apparently wiser) that I have learnt very little by not failing.   And who wants to be old with no great adventure stories to share with the nurse that occasionally pops her head around the door to see if the bed pan is full yet?

So with that, what am I going to do next?  Who knows, is the short answer.  I know that some of you would argue that my life is full of adventure, but I would hasten to add that I am holding back.  Why?  I don’t know, but I am sure there is a self-help book out there somewhere that has an answer.  In the meantime I am going to unlock the gate, grab the bull by its horns and see where it bucks me.

To my next adventure…

Erin.

PS.   Just because I have become accustomed to adding photos to all my blog posts, here is one where I am setting sail in Kenya!  Appropriate? You bet!!

Setting sail...

When I decided that I wanted to use my photography (skills and passion) for good, I didn’t envisage how much it would move me to want to keep it going.

The second project (the first is here) that I photographed for Ethiopiaid Australia six months ago was a breakfast for street children in Addis Ababa.  Although the breakfast is just a small part of what the donor organisation (HOPE) do for these children, it is a large step in helping them.

Here are just some of the children that are happy to have breakfast this morning…

Breakfast

A cup of warm milk on a cold morning

Enjoying the meal with friends

A time to catch up over breakfast

Portrait of a young man

Each time I have photographed for a cause I have felt humbled and deeply appreciative of the daily struggle that so many people in Addis Ababa and the world deal with in life.

I look forward to my next project and the people I will be fortunate to meet, and who will undoubtedly inspire me.

Erin.

PS. In case you are interested to know how I am using this to directly help the people I photograph, I am printing and delivering any portraits to them.

I have spent the past winter and spring in Australia finishing my Masters of Environment and working at Toohey Forest Environmental Education Centre, both at Griffith University in Brisbane.  Why the study and what did I do for work I hear you ask? (Or else you have that glazed-over look in your eyes, and I’ll just pretend I didn’t notice!).

I loved my job at Toohey Forest.  Want to know why?  (I know you do!).  Because not only did I get to make new friends with a really awesome team of people (you know who you are, but if you have forgotten, there is a photo here somewhere with some of you in it!), but also because I was given the rare opportunity to combine both my passions – for the environment and for photography.  My job had me wandering outside in the forest and taking photos all day – of the forest…

The mysterious and welcoming forest

A Family Forest

of bugs …

of flowers …

The dainty Forest Boronia

of the wildlife …

Wild

and otherwise (meet Boots)

and a wombat

a wild bunch

So you see it is not too difficult to understand why I loved this job.  I got to work with other teachers and kids who want a better environment and future, and that alone was worth the trip home!

But I am back to my alternate reality, yes Ethiopia, where new adventures await.

Erin.

It is said (don’t ask me who said it, but I’ve read it somewhere) that travelling through the outback of Australia is a bit of a rite of passage for many Australians (and probably visitors too).  This is probably the time to admit that I made a pact years ago (when I was much littler and things like new grey hairs or having to watch what I eat were concerns) with a friend that we would make it to the red centre.  And while I didn’t make it with that friend (who went years ago apparently), I went with my mum.  The special part about this is that I’ve actually stayed in the middle of Australia before, with my mum, exactly 35 years ago – when I was just a seed, a parasite, a bun (er…you know in the oven!).   So here are the wide open spaces we encountered together…

Wide open red spaces

Wide open grey spaces - Dead grass waiting for the rain

Wide open white spaces - Lake Hart (Salt Flats)

With the kilometres peeling off behind us as we headed south, the sand, salt and dead grass provided beautiful contrasts with the wide blue sky.  Then of course there was the black and sometimes red road that led us on our journey.

Following the white dotted lines

And I could not resist including a photo of myself in the wide open space…

The road, the beast, the wide open space .... and me!

…Erin

With two good friends, after convincing them that a 5.30am start would be a great idea to try and find this mythical mountain, we only succeeded in getting up early!!  A wander in the mist was very pleasant, however it did not debunk the myth.

"Hey Joee, hey Tara, can you see it?"

My version above of my two friends searching very hard for the mythical Cradle Mountain.  As a scientist, I do not believe Cradle Mountain exists until I see it, so here is to another Tassie adventure…

Erin.

So, it is raining cats and dogs (or the biggest droplets of rain – more like water balloon rain drops really), it is cold, dark and miserable.  What do you want to do?  Should we bake some cookies and have a glass of milk?  Ok then…

Why not bake two different ones at the same time?  That way if your lack of measuring or reading the recipe correctly happens again, we’ll have at least one batch that should be edible.    Or, if the power goes out (which it invariably will) and you go off and find something else to do (which also invariably happens) and you forget and leave the cookies in the oven for too long, creating charcoal pellets then we may still have one lot of cookies worth eating.

Let’s bake some Lemon Butter Biscuits…

Ok, so we should have put more sugar in them, and we should have checked the second batch after the power went out, to make sure they weren’t burnt yet…

Oh well, like I said, we have the others, the Cherry Jam Cookies.  With whole cherries in it too, I am in heaven.  Mmmmmmm…

In case you hadn’t worked it out yet, apart from sharing these really yummy cookies and milk with you, I also taught you how to procrastinate some more.  If they gave out awards for procrastinating, I think I would be a grand master by now.  You got it, I am supposed to be doing a whole lot of other ‘very important things’!  But you know what?  I think that baking cookies and eating them is very important too.  I might even have become little bit obsessed with baking recently, but I feel better after, so it must be good for me…

Enjoy the cookies and milk,

Erin