While Xuan and I were at Emerald Lake we stumbled across these little red mushrooms. We were both fascinated by them and ended up spending quite some time taking photographs. They kind of reminded me of the mushroom houses in the 1980s cartoon The Smurfs.

The proper name for this species of mushroom or fungus to be correct is Amanita muscaria but they are apparently commonly known as fly agaric or fly Amanita. The mushrooms are poisonous and are said to have hallucinogenic effects if consumed. The photos below taken today show the mushrooms in various stages of growth.

Last night we headed into the city in Melbourne to take some photos. Xuan had her brother’s old SLR and she wanted to experiment with some night photography. It also gave me a chance to play around with my new Canon IXUS 960 IS compact digital camera that I recently picked up.

Although the quality of the night shots taken with my compact camera don’t really compare to those of the SLR, it still managed to take some reasonable photos after some playing around with the shutter speed settings. The photo below was one of the better shots taken with the compact. It is of the Yarra River taken from the bridge on St Kilda Road. On the left is Southbank and the right is Flinders Street Station.

I picked up a new Canon IXUS 960 IS digital camera today which I’m absolutely wrapped about. I’ve been without a digital camera for about a month now since damaging my Canon IXY 1000 (aka Canon IXUS 900 Ti) holidaying in Thailand. Luckily the travel insurance covered it allowing me to get my hands on the newer replacement model.

The photo below was taken with the new camera on Queens Street in the city while I was waiting for Xuan to finish work. While waiting I got myself a nice hot cappuccino from Hudsons. Hudsons is one of the three big coffee chains in Melbourne. The other two are Gloria Jeans and Starbucks. Out of the three, Hudsons is definitely my favourite.

I had dinner with the missus in Footscray last night and while in the carpark we noticed all these seagulls just hanging around apparently not doing not much at all. I thought it looked a little weird. I know, you’re probably thinking, ‘Seagulls hanging around is just what they do. That’s not weird.’ But it just all looked a little not quite right for some reason. It was like they were waiting around for something.

After we finished dinner and made our way back to the carpark the seagulls were still there. It was pretty bizarre because even when cars got really close to them they didn’t seem to really want to move. They just like walked out of the way.

Anyways, I though the seagulls would make for a interesting photograph so yeah, here you have it.

I was waiting at the lights the other day and thought the look out of the car window would make for a good photo. The cars you see lined up are waiting to do a hook turn.

For those who don’t know, a hook turn is a right turn made from the left side of the road. The cars queue up in the left lane when the traffic lights are green and then proceed to turn right once the light turns red or amber. These turns are common in the Melbourne CBD to improve the flow of through-traffic where otherwise cars would be waiting in the right lane to turn right blocking through-traffic and trams.

Oh and in Australia cars drive on the left side of the road in case you were thinking all this doesn’t sound quite right.