A three-day driving tour of Australia’s southwest corner.
After two days in Perth and Rottnest Island, we hired a car and headed south for a quick, three-day triangular route along the western coast, through the forests of the southern coast, and back across the inland plains and their vast pastures and fields of grain. In this blog post, I’ll write an even quicker summary of our tour of this beautiful corner of Australia. Read on!
A quick two-day visit to Perth, in Western Australia, including a day-long exploration of Rottnest Island offshore.
Pam and I had a chance to spend two days in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. I’d been meaning to visit here for more than 25 years, to visit one of my longtime collaborators at the university here. So, after a full day of travel from London, we set out to explore.
Three short outings in three days.
After spending a week in a photography workshop centered on the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and a weekend in Cherokee North Carolina – gateway to the Smoky Mountains – I had the opportunity to spend another weekend near the Blue Ridge Mountains in South Carolina. Although our activities were focused on a family wedding – a Hallowedding hosted on Halloween on the shores of Lake Keowee, SC – I took the opportunity to visit some nearby summits and waterfalls.
Three days in Smoky Mountains National Park, and Cherokee NC.
After wrapping up a week-long photography workshop in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, I headed southwest for a solo weekend in the foothills of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Based in the town of Cherokee – in the heart of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation – I had more time to explore waterfalls, fall foliage, ridgetop overlooks, and beautiful hiking trails.
I have hundreds of photos to sift through; for now I’ll share just a few. Read on!
Continue reading “Smoky Mountains”A week in the Blue Ridge, photographing waterfalls at the peak of fall foliage.
I had the pleasure of spending a week in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, with five other aspiring photographers attending a Muench Photography Workshop led by the incomparable Talor Stone. We had gorgeous fall foliage, incredible waterfalls, and fantastic weather. It was pure joy to share a week with a group of other people thoroughly focused on photography, all happy to spend hours standing in the shallows below a waterfall exploring every angle, every exposure, refining our technique and learning new skills. Folks who are happy to rise every day before sunrise, driving up dark, windy roads and hiking to mountaintop outlooks to capture the special light at ‘blue hour’ before sunrise and ‘golden hour’ just after. My kind of people!
An extended walk in Chantry Woods with about twenty other Dartmouth alums.
I had my third opportunity to hike, today, in an outing jointly organized by the Dartmouth Club of the United Kingdom and the Tuck alumni club of the United Kingdom, to the Chantry Wood area around Guildford in Surrey. About 20 Dartmouth alums and three dogs came along. The day started cloudy, shifted to hazy, and ended with blue skies, leaving all in a wonderful mood as we settled in for a late Sunday lunch at the Seahorse Pub. As the photo gallery shows, the trees were beginning to show their autumn colors, and the route exposed us to a wide variety of meadows, forests, fallow farm fields, and country lanes.
A beautiful day! [Slideshow]
A quick daytrip to Brighton, to visit its Royal Pavilion and the famous Brighton Pier.
When I ask locals for tips about where we might explore, first, outside of London. Brighton beach is often on the list. Its historic pier is iconic, and the town itself includes several museums and historic sites. So we hopped on a train for a comfortable ride from downtown London directly to central Brighton, on a cloudy Saturday. Read on…
My second hike in two weekends, just as beautiful as the first.
With one outside-London hike under my belt, at Box Hill last weekend, I was eager to try another. This weekend happens to be the annual Peak Bag, organized by Dartmouth alumni to raise funds in support of student mental health. I registered, thinking I might be an unusual participant (outside the U.S.). By the time I hopped on the train out of London, however, several participants had posted about their completed hikes in New Zealand, Australia, and Hong Kong. It is indeed a global effort! Read on, to see where we hiked.
A circuitous ramble over and around Box Hill in the Surrey downs.
Four weeks after arriving in London for a year-long sabbatical, I was itching to get outdoors – out in the hills, forests, and meadows, after weeks of city life. Don’t get me wrong – I am truly enjoying the chance to explore London, and to adapt to city living. But I am a country mouse, at heart, and needed to be out where I could climb hills, take in broad vistas, and listen to the wind in the trees. After some online snooping, I settled on this eight-mile circular walk around Box Hill, just an hour’s train journey south of London. Read on!
The beginning of my year-long sabbatical in London.
One of the joys of academic life is the opportunity to take the occasional sabbatical – a semester or a year away from the home university, focused on research without the day-to-day obligations of teaching or committee service. I have been extraordinarily fortunate to spend my past sabbaticals abroad: as a Fulbright Fellow to the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) in 2008-09, and as a Visiting Professor at ETH (Zürich, Switzerland) in 2019-20, leading to some fabulous scientific collaborations and personal/family adventures, which I’ve documented in this blog. Well, here we go again! this time, in London.
David Kotz 