Alex in Australia: A trip to Cairns

Last week I returned from a great trip in the very north east of Australia. The small town of Cairns was our base for the next few days as we travelled around the countryside and oceans of Queensland. 

Cairns is a tourist hotspot for backpackers and Australians alike who look to see the Great Barrier Reef and rainforest's that surround it. Like a lot of Australia Cairns has not evolved naturally as a town. The roads are gridded and the buildings are mainly one storey 70s/80s shops and clubs. More like a lads holiday destination than an avenue to paradise. We therefore hired a car and over 4 days drove around 660km through the most beautiful scenery in the world. 
 

Day One/ 

We largely spent the day around Cairns, buying bits and bobs - in my case camera parts - for the next few days of travelling. We booked a day trip to the reef and spent some time at the amazing harbour of Cairns. This is a generalising statement but Australia's most beautiful areas are largely untouched by humans. Cairns' surrounding hills and water are fantastic...the town itself, not so.

Day Two 

We took to the water on the 'Reef Magic' boat to a pontoon in the middle of the ocean residing next to.. I believe Moore Reef, a small section of the Great Barrier Reef. It was a surreal experience to be eating a buffet lunch miles from solid ground! Anyway snorkelling and semi-submersible boats were at our disposal and I managed to get a few photos along the way. The water is literally teeming with fish, coral and life. Of course this was only a small section...but the destruction you hear of couldn't be seen here. I wish I had bought a waterproof case for my camera to make the most of the amazing coral and fish but sadly I didn't have a spare $1000.

Day Three

Our first day in the hire car took us up to the oldest rain forests in the world (according to the hire company). We drove along the Captain Cook highway through miles of farmland and past miles of beach (stopping off at a few) before finally reaching our destination Cape Tribulation. 

"Lieutenant James Cook on 10 June 1770 (log date) after his ship hit a reef as it passed over it, north east of the cape, at 6pm. This made Cook pull away from the coast, looking for deeper water. At 10.30pm, the Endeavour hit a reef almost sinking Cook's ship, on what is now named Endeavour Reef. Cook recorded "...the north point was named Cape Tribulation because here began all our troubles"

Anyway we wandered around there watching out for the apparent dangers of crocodiles and then made our way back to Cairns. We stopped off at the magnificent Daintree Ice Cream Company for some very 'local' flavours. Wattle seed, yellow sapote, blueberry and pineapple. All grown on the premises. Our last stop before Cairns was Port Douglas for some food whilst admiring the harbour sunset.

Day Four

Today we drove from Cairns south to visit Paronella Park. The park was the creation of a rich sugar cane plantation owner who decided to build a castle and theme park in his back garden. The castle is built from concrete, local stone and steel from railway tracks. A long drive that wasn't to me exactly worth it. I think to an English person the 80 year old castle is more of a personal project than a tourist attraction, and in general was a bit of a wreck. Anyway on we drove high up into the hills to visit Millaa Millaa falls and on to the town of Yungaburra to see the sun set over Lake Tinaroo. At one point (according to Google Earth) we reached an elevation of 900m above sea level. Our little hire car struggled up those hills! 

That concluded our final day of adventures and after a total of 9 hours driving over 4 days we headed back to Cairns for some food and rest. 

It was an amazing holiday that I won't forget for a while. The sheer scale of Australia is mind blowing, after all that driving we cockily checked the map to see how much ground we had covered...as you can see below it was minuscule! Like I said before oz is an amazing place, hills, beaches, rivers, waterfalls...wild turkeys, you can't beat it. But admittedly it is sometimes let down by the poor choice of architecture with housing and shops etc...my Dad likened it to an alien dropping a 4 bed detached house down from the heavens into a field. He's not wrong.

Anyway it has spurred me on to see more of the oz when time and money permits...I will keep y'all posted.

Alex in Australia: Sydney Biennale

A few weeks back myself and friends visited the 18th Biennale of Sydney at Cockatoo Island on Sydney's harbour. The event is a three month long exhibition of varied pieces of art scattered around the abandoned ex-prison/boatyard/workshops of the island. The venue in itself is a fascinating place to wander and the art was a welcomed addition.

The island houses many large warehouses with vast amounts of space to work with. Therefore most of the art is on a grand scale. Below are 3 of my favourite pieces.

The first is 'Gravitas Lite' by Peter Robinson. He uses Polystyrene in most of his work and in this case built  chains, cogs and machinery providing a strange contradiction in material to the real metal structures surrounding it. The detail and intricacies are pretty spectacular and the general size is amazing.

The second piece is by Cal Lane called Domesticated Turf. A slightly left field exhibition comprising of stencilled persian rugs made from outback sand. The rugs lead to a freight container that has been cut out in an almost rob ryan manner. The piece is situated in the largest room of the main warehouse area which, adding to the grandeur. In honesty it wasn't all my cup of tea, but the rugs were very interesting! Again an odd contrast in materials, from the delicate lace of the rugs to the metal of the container.

'I like to work as a visual devil’s advocate, using contradiction as a vehicle for finding my way to an empathetic image, an image of opposition that creates a balance, as well as a clash, by comparing and contrasting ideas and materials'

And finally my favourite installment is Ocean of Flowers by Li Hongbo. The work is situated in one of the buildings at the top level of Cockatoo Island. At first it comes across as a field of colour...amazing papercraft but not much else. As you walk to the back of the room the exhibition is explained. Each rolled out piece of paper is infact a gun or weapon when put back together. Giving you a completely different perspective as you leave.

'Over the past few years, Li Hongbo has been gluing piles of paper together. Ocean of Flowers begins with the honeycomb technique carved into forms resembling weapons that he twirls into new ‘flower shapes’. With the global proliferation of weapons – the utopian ideals of the 1950s in China, or the 1970s elsewhere, seem so long ago and forgotten'

Cockatoo Island is a fantastic place and well worth a visit. It was a good day and interesting to see the different works in such a fascinating place. In October there should be another exhibition called Outpost, which has more of a street art vibe to it. I visited last year and probably preferred it slightly. Keep posted for that review!

Introducing Alex

 Hi everyone! I'd like to intoduce my friend Alex to you. He's a super talented graphic designer with a great eye for interesting and artistic things. I have invited him to do a blog post every couple of weeks about his life in Sydney.

My name is Alex Creamer, a speccy designer with an unfortunate last name. I've been fortunate enough to be friends with Chantal for over ten years and have been invited to post on her ever more popular blog every 2 weeks or so.

I am a graphic designer who works and lives in Sydney but has previously spent a short time in London too. I work in packaging and branding and have a major interested in anything creative. 

I moved over to oz 8 months ago to work as a junior at branding agency Interbrand and now work in North Sydney at packaging company Marque.

I love anything with an idea however little. I'm also interested in other aspects of design too and keep a close eye on as many blogs as I can! Over the past couple of years I have also found more of an interest in sculpture, art and furniture design with a particular weird attention to lamps. I will try and brighten up some of my posts with one or two of them! 

Sydney has an amazing variety of art, exhibitions and scenery so hopefully I can keep my bi-weekly posts interesting and insightful for y'all to enjoy.

Here is some of Alex's packaging and graphic design work. Have a browse through his website for even more graphic design genius :)