A Travel, Photography and Points Blog
After years in the making, Perth finally opened it’s doors to our new stadium, Optus Stadium. It was a very warm Sunday afternoon when my family and I decided to check out the new stadium on open day. Public transport worked pretty well and the crowds were pretty well behaved. The stadium does look impressive up close and from a distance.
Last Friday, I attended the official Fringe World Perth Festival opening ceremony. It was held at Icecream Factory in Northbridge, one of the Fringe World locations. For those who don’t know, Fringe World is a yearly arts festival which runs for a month in Perth. It showcases dance, cabaret, comedy, circus, musicals and theatres. From Australian famous comedians to local acts. There’s certainly something for everyone. As a volunteer photographer, I got the opportunity to go to the opening ceremony. I also got a sneak peak into the awesome and hilarious Club Swizzle. I really enjoyed La Soiree a couple of years ago, and I expect Club Swizzle to be just as entertaining since it’s also by the same creators.
Þingvellir National Park is a UNESCO world heritage site that is easily accessible from Reykjavik. It’s also known to be part of the “Golden Circle”. A very popular tourist area in Iceland. This national park was the first stop on our first full day in Iceland. We headed out early from our accommodation for our 9am Silfra snorkeling tour.
Silfra is one of the few, if not only, place in the world when you get to swim/snorkel between two tectonic plates. It’s the clearest water in the world, where you visibility is easily 100m deep. Floating/snorkelling between the American and Eurasian continentals plates definitely an experience. Be warned though, the water is absolutely freezing at 2 degrees Celsius. Even the thick dry suit provided by the tour company can’t stop you from feeling cold to the bone. By the time the snorkeling tour ends at the 30 to 40 minute mark, I couldn’t wait to get our of the cold. Getting out of your dry suit with frozen fingers was also quite the feat! The hot chocolate to warm us up at the end of our snorkel was a nice touch though.
We flew into Iceland from London Heathrow. By the time we got out of the Keflavak airport with our 4WD hire car it was mid afternoon and pouring rain. It took us around 1 hour to get to the capital. The first stop we made was to the iconic Icelandic church. Hallgrímskirkja is a Lutheran church located in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.Thankfully the rain had stopped when we got into the city.