{ Giveaway } No more bad photos - Sony Cyber-Shot HX20

It's been six months since we returned from our 10 week , 12000km road trip, to Western Australia .

We were blown away by the spectacular beauty of Western Australia. Moments we just couldn't possibly capture on film as stunningly as we hoped to.

Though , I took thousands of photos , lucky for you - I posted only a few hundred here on my blog, as time and as many as, a good husband wifi connection would allow.

I know for as many good shots I captured , unfortunately many more were disappointing - the dreaded bad travel photo . Yes, we enjoyed soaking in the magical moments but creating lasting memories is why I take photos.

One of my favourite destinations , undoubtedly, was the Shark Bay, World Heritage Area. I shared the best and some worse images with you in 2011 October .

It's not hard to see why it is a popular escape for tourists worldwide, located midway up West Australian Coastline , miles from anywhere.

At the heart of Shark Bay , World Heritage Area, is magical Monkey Mia , with crystal clear waters, pristine white shell beaches and daily visitations by mystical Dolphins .

It was the furthermost point north we traveled due to time constraints and the highlight of our 10wk trip.

A trip of a lifetime to witness the magical  Bottle-nose dolphins up close, under flawless blue skies, and stunning beauty everywhere you looked.

No-one is allowed to touch the dolphins, it is forbidden, even for the rangers (Department of Environment and Conservation) and volunteer workers. Nor is anyone permitted to swim with or interact with them, outside of the feeding times.

Each morning , the shoreline was fringed by dozens or maybe a hundred ,hopeful people .
Each hoping to be one of the few, chosen at whim,  for a unique dolphin interaction.

Year round , free of charge , the chosen ones are picked to hand feed one of maybe three -four wild dolphins who come into the shore for tasty snack.

Each dolphin's allowance being 4 small fish.

Slim pickings, on all counts.

It was discovered that feeding the dolphins anymore caused them to stay too long in shallows and the dolphin calves were all dying.

Dolphins are mammals who need to be in deep water to allow calves to feed properly and regularly.

Their calves got weak , sick and died waiting for the mothers to return.
So they changed the feeding regime based on the animal behaviour research conducted at Monkey Mia.

We patiently waited for the dolphins to cruise on in.
They took their time some days and frolicked with their calves, siblings or other dolphins in their pod.

My twin boys played in the shallows . I had my zoom lens on , watching, as small waves lapped the shore. I snapped away at the dolphin playing in the distant and closer waters with my zoom lens.

The volunteers entered the water and seconds later the dolphins swam in, as if on cue.
What happened next ?

Of course hands went up everywhere, a sea of waving and bouncing people  !

Even after the Ranger, with the mike, told the 4 working volunteers , holding fish buckets in knee deep waters to
ignore  -
the waving hands and eager ones.

Then the unexpected ....

My boys, Sam and Joel, on the far end - though at the front of the crowd, oblivious to all the hype ,
were chosen first up ...

Hurriedly, they stepped forward, excited without a care ... whether or not I was ready !

A rare opportunity escaped me , to capture my boys encountering the dolphins because I couldn't change the DSLR zoom lens quick enough.

My Dreaded Bad Travel Photo  OCT 2nd , 2011 - hurried and headless !

Regrettably , I chopped the tops of my boys heads off ! The colours are not as vibrant as I'd like and there is a slight blur.

As I was fumbling around trying to swap lens - I almost missed it all , save for a few bad photos.
Save , is the wrong word - I couldn't fix this, at all.

Ok , so why am I writing about the dreaded bad travel photo?

Sony launched the No more bad photos campaign - giving people a second chance to capture those missed moments, re-live the adventure and missed opportunities.

One day I would like to recapture our dolphin encounter with my boys heads intact. It was hard to chose which was my worse bad travel photo but this one I'll never forget.

With so many outstanding features - what I like most is the Superior Auto Intelligent feature - auto settings at the press of a button . It recognizes 36 different shooting scenes and automatically optimizes the shooting mode for any unique photo - it could have given me better shots many times over !

 

I'd also make the most of my second chance with the 20x Optical Zoom - which meant I would be ready to take the shot instead of fumbling for a different lens. The Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization would have eliminated any blur too.

The sweep panoroma would be perfect to capture the unsurpassed spectacular view of entire bay too.

I been road testing the new Sony Cyber-shot HX20 and I'm so impressed with the superior image quality. I freely admit I am no expert at all, but so far my quick point and shoot snap-shots are clearer and steadier - especially with moving targets like 5 year old twin boys.

This, pocket rocket , camera is really easy to use, ready to capture any special moment at the press of  a button. It even has a GPS feature to record locations , never forget where and when you took any shot again.

My Little Drummer Boys is so excited to be giving away ONE Sony Cyber-Shot HX20 Digital Camera To One VERY Lucky Reader to celebrate the launch of Sony Cyber-shot HX20

To enter the No more bad travel photo giveaway ...

Tell me in 50 words or less why you want to re - capture one of your bad travel photos again  - unfortunately I can't wave a magic wand to make the opportunity happen - only supply the brilliant  Sony Cyber-shot HX20 camera !

Be quick
Giveaway Closes 11:59  (AEST) on 17^th June, 2012  
Australia residents only 
Please leave details in the Entry form below. 

Edited to add - I wanted to clarify that you can enter more than one comment below , both as a general comment on this post or as your entry comment in 50 words or less .
Only one competition entry per day , no limit to a general comments !! 






PS - If you have ever wished you could re-live a holiday, adventure or event all over  again because you didn't get a great photo of it the first time? ...still 3-4 days (as at 13th June) to enter the Sony Cyber Shot HX 20 Facebook competition by uploading your own photo (I'm just letting you know - this competition is not related to my blog giveaway at all)

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Wordless Wednesday ~ The Big Move

What has been keeping me busy the last 2 weeks !

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It's a long , long road

Update - Unbelievably - Today we came across The Storm Trooper - his name is Jacob and he has raised $30,000 so far. He plans to walk to Sydney via Adelaide and Melbourne. His website is www.troopertrek.com

I never knew much about the Nullabor before our Western Australia adventure. I still don't.

The Nullabor plain or desert breaks a number of world records across it's 1200kms of rich history and stunning (or not so) scenery. The name means treeless plain but there are are a few trees.

1. The distance to from our current location (16km east of Norseman) to our destination (home) according to google maps is 3260km exactly by car - route 1 (54turns) or 3230km route 2 (62 turns). The estimated time is 1 day 11hrs ...I presume this is non stop driving. It is only 1180 to Ceduna in SA.
2. To walk the Nullabor you either have to be crazy or you undertake it to highlight a cause or significant fundraising - we passed two different walkers in September.
   
   One dressed as Stars Wars - storm trooper
   
3. An Englishman Edward John Eyre was the 'first' recorded man to cross the Nullabor East to West in 1841 - a journey taking 4.5 months -  from Adelaide to Albany (south West Coast)
4. It is the longest straight road in the world , the first car crossed in 1912; 99 yrs ago I can only imagine the challenge it was back then.

Ps I hope this post works as blogpress has crashed and I'm using my iPad directly through blogger which doesn't support compose mode.

We have travelled 731 km today. We are just about to cross the border into south Australia.

It might be the only chance I get to post today ;-).
Hubby has been teasing me about being shaky all day ...who me I am not addicted !
♥ Never miss a post

Wordless Wednesday ~ A long way from Gnome

We told the Drummer Boys to go find Gnomeo and they DID ! No Juliet :(

There is no place like ~Gnomesville~

ABC



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Mind blowing

It's been a crazy mind wind blowing day today.

Some guy quipped - "Hang onto your kids they'll be blown away ! " as we left the playground in the caravan park this morning.

We had a very late start leaving Broken Hill - getting the my Wifi modem recharged was quite a challenge. It should have been easy- right !

It's an understatement to say my hub was very unimpressed by the time taken -like 2hrs later. NO wonder he doesn't like the internetz !

For some reason once my Wifi modem was recharged at the T shop it ceased to detect my iPad or laptop.

Nothing would fix it .

The guy was very helpful and determined but was beaten ... as well, I told him my husband was in the car spitting chips with our two 5 yr olds. That moved him to say - "I'm prepared to give you a new one and sort it out with T so you can get on your way " [Mine is only 2 months old anyway]

We waited another 30 mins in town just to make sure it worked. Hooray !

It was already blowing a dusty gale. We copped strong crosswinds all the way from Broken Hill to Petersborough. The dust , I couldn't even get a picture or I would have been blown away. Literally  ! My eyes were so gritty, it was awful and I had to hold my breath (and the door) as I got into the car.

The sky and horizon as far as you could see was a dusty brown. Tumble weeds were flying everywhere.

Still , it was a relief to cross the border from NSW. We thought we'd never make it. Unfortunately, we had to travel much slower with the caravan today.

nabbed from Crash Test Mummy ..ps go read this very important post about what she learned from RU Ok day.

From Petersborough to Wilmington we copped strong headwinds but the dust had settled somewhat ; the sky was blue again and the landscape greener.

Tonight , we are camped at Stony Creek Bush Camp Caravan Park - 44km SE of Port Augusta.

It's very relaxed in a lovely bush setting.The boys loved riding their bikes around a huge dirt track and a play in the playground after a long day in the car. It's not a traditional caravan park by any means and just what we like .We chose a powered option tonight.

We've have a few great experiences already but my camera is in the car and it's started to rain ...so tomorrow !
(I hope this makes sense because our teen called us at 5.45am this morning ...and we didn't get back to sleep) he had better know the time difference by the time we get to WA.)

How do you cope when changing time zones ?

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There is no place like home ...

Part 1.
We are back from our little combined business / holiday road trip to Queensland ...over 2500kms. I have so much to blog about it but suffice to say, travelling with the dynamic duo was fun and exhausting. I am glad to be home and shush ... but I missed my blog most of all.

I had limited Internet access -mostly dial-up at my SIL's who we stayed with for 3 nights the first time and then another night later on. Commenting on blogs was impossible as each page took so long to load and then reload. So I have lots to catch up on. If I missed replying to you ... forgive me.

Well onto our trip... Everywhere we went we had to rearrange the furniture/chairs/ ornaments / magazines /remote controls/close doors and follow them everywhere.

S & J had a ball and were full throttle every day except for when they slept. Thankfully they travel reasonably well and we had no car /motion sickness. They slept for long periods too when we had long haul days.

We had a delivery to make in Brisbane right near the Gateway bridge and it had to be there by 2.45pm Friday week ago - we had a minute to spare - lucky we had daylight savings 1hr wind back too -as Queensland doesn't have daylight savings.

We left home Thursday morning at 10.15 am and 8mins/8kms down the road we had a breakdown - the item in question was brand new. Then we were caught in traffic after a motorcycle accident blocked the road for 50mins. (sadly we heard today the poor fellow passed away ~ his motorbike ran up the rear of a truck).

It was then slow travelling with a little rain and wind - my DH was also very tired. So for safety sake we stopped so he could have a rest. I took S & J for a walk and we ended up in the local library in Muswellbrook. We met a lady there who has two sets of twins B/G about 5 yrs and 2 yr old girls. Whew I thought I was busy.

The boys played with the toys , read a book, climbed on the chairs, had a breastfeed and ransacked the shelves but it was a break for everyone. It was a great library.Then we went back to the car and continued on. We made it to Tamworth (Country Music capital of Australia) -on the New England Hwy at 8pm. Not as far as we hoped .We planned an early start the next morning so we didn't get to look around.

We left at 7.30am (DST) and crossed the border to Queensland about midday ...the boys sleeping most of the morning .Then it was 11am again. After a quick stop for lunch, a play at McDonald's and a breastfeed we hurried onwards. Luckily the guy where we were to deliver to gave us better directions , than where is ... but the traffic was very congested on the road to airport (near where we were headed) .Finally we made it gladly !All delivered and job done.

Another play & feed ...then next stop was Gympie to visit family for the weekend.

The traffic was horrendous. I was driving now and the babies screamed LOUD but we had little option as the Bruce Highway didn't have many rest stops and it was getting late. All the exits had a queue 2-3 kms long - seriously - the freeway exits were blocking the lanes further down. We thought there must be an accident but NO ! So we had no choice but to turn up the music and try soothing them with food. Eventually they settled and we arrived safely.

It was good to spend the weekend with them. We don't get to see them much and when they fly down they don't get to stay long due to work.