Back in November 2022, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to AUSTRALIA for the first time – crossing off a major item on my bucket list! Growing up, I always have had a huge passion for travel, new cultures, animals, geography + more. Naturally, the Discovery channel was often my channel of choice as a young girl and I quickly found myself obsessed with The Crocodile Hunter (RIP Steve Irwin). My admiration for the show & wildlife work they were doing stretched so far that as a 7 year old I remember carefully crafting an email to Steve and diligently sending it off to their zoo’s head office. Surprisingly enough, I received a response back and it made my year – I wish I still had that email! As you can imagine, I was devastated by Irwin’s death years later and have always held a strong desire to come to Australia. Throughout my teen years, my father would end up frequently making annual business trips to Australia and together we would plan scheme plot and hope for him to one day share this country with me. While we haven’t made it to this continent together yet, I hope to one day in the future.
While this was always a goal of mine, I probably never would have followed through on making it a reality until much later in life if fate had not intervened. You see, cut to 2012 and a young naive me walked into a pet store in Kelowna on a whim to hand in a resume for a job. The manager, Michelle, was incredibly enthusiastic, warm, and receptive. We immediately hit it off and I soon found myself rushing home to change and come right back to start at my new job. Michelle & I quickly found out that we were kindred spirits – two peas in a pod we might as well be related. More often than not (okay more like 99.9% of the time), we were on EXACTLY the same page – food cravings, what we were doing, feeling, thinking, etc. You can imagine how devastated we both were 4 years later when we both found our personal lives crumbling, causing us both to have to start over on our own, move cities (& in Michelle’s case – move countries back to her home country of Australia). I feared I may never see her again in person yet we both knew we could not and would not let that happen. And then the pandemic hit.
As COVID-19 closed borders and cancelled plans, we Facetimed and waited. Waited for restrictions to lift, for a flight deal, for vacation time at my office job, & for fate to intervene once more for us. By 2022, Australia had just opened up it’s borders and I coincidentally had everything fall perfectly into place on my end. Before I knew it, a roundtrip ticket had been bought and this trip of a lifetime was officially happening.
While I couldn’t stay as long as I would have liked, this first trip was my first taste of Australia and of course I have entirely fallen in love with New South Wales. There’s so much more to see of this beautiful country, and more visits & hugs to be had with Michelle. It’s safe to say I will hopefully be back again very soon. Until then, here’s a look at just some of my favourite shots wandering around New South Wales…
All Photos here by Meg Kristina Photography
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OH WOW!!!!! These are such a beautiful collection of photos. Thank you for capturing the essence and allure of Australia for those of us who have never been and for inspiring others to seek out an Australian adventure