SEEING THE WORLD WITH NIGHT LENSES
This is my experience so far travelling the world with night lenses. I can say for absolute certain that without night lenses, everything that I did wouldn’t have been as amazing. From having no glasses to steam up when hiking in 40c weather, to not needing any swimming goggles when snorkelling with manta rays. I wrote this article in order to share my thanks to night lenses for everything!
San Francisco
My first stop. Spent the first few days just walking around and admiring the city, aswell as getting used to the jetlag… It felt almost surreal being on an entire continent away from everyone I know, but in a way made me feel extremely excited as there was soo many opportunities and people to meet here!
I spent plenty of time exploring south of San Francisco. Here I found a bigfoot museum in a small area in the middle of nowhere called Felton! The energy inside this building is difficult to describe, there was tons of bigfoot memorabilia and the person running it was an amazing chat!
Hawaii
Hawaii will be prominent in my memories for a VERY long time. If it wasn’t so expensive to survive here it would be perfect in every way! Every single hike I did gave views that are just full of colour. With the greenest of greens and the water being extremely turquoise in colour!
After an amazing surf at pipeline, north shore Oahu. I decided to hike koko head mountain. I thought (looking at google maps) that it would be a very relaxing one as it would only take an hour… Lets just say I was proved wrong! Over 1000 steps of pain… But the ending was so far the BEST thing I’ve seen on this trip so far hands down! I made it up in time to meet a sunset to beat all sunsets!!
Gold Coast
When I arrived in Australia, I thought I knew what a large beach looked like… Then I arrived at Gold Coast where my opinion was humbled greatly! Beach as far as the eye can see. I spent so much time here working, mixed with surfing in the morning and evening wherever the waves were best! It was a dream come true. 🙂
Christmas day 2023, the first ever Christmas where I woke up and surfed! Very different to a Christmas in Ireland where I would be scavenging for extra layers. The waves were amazing down at the split, with each and every wave barrelling onto the shore!
Byron Bay
Byron bay was the perfect mix of partying and exploring! It was the best spot to rent a car with a group and explore the surrounding beaches and hikes. This spot in particular was amazing to swim around, listening to the forest and the raging of the waterfall.
This sunset by the Byron lighthouse is probably in contention for the best sunset of the entire trip (yup, it somehow rivals Hawaii!). I couldn’t take my eyes of the view and it was worth the 50 mins post dinner walk. Couldn’t end Byron Bay in any better way!
Sydney
Kayaking around Sydney’s Georges river was a proper freeing experience. spent the day just picking a random direction and paddling that way… On the way back (and somehow I remembered how to get back) I enjoyed some premium VB lager, one of many amazing beers that Australia has to offer. If I had to pick a favourite though, it would have to be Tooheys New!
Sydney on New Years didn’t feel real. The pure amount of people swarming the streets created an atmosphere of chaos that was just too much fun! Met tons of random people that evening. Didn’t manage to get a good spot to see the fireworks, but I didn’t care at all as I was just enjoying the atmosphere, night and people!!
Yulara
Now this was an EXPERIENCE. If you told me at the start of the trip that I would be riding a camel in Central Australia, I would’ve looked at you In disbelief! The camel I rode was called “Rocket” and he was my best friend for that evening. I was amazed by how each camel had it’s own personality. Rocket was extremely outgoing and was the most photogenic animal I’ve ever seen, he dominated every photo no matter what!
Every single hike I did in Central Australia had views like this at every turn. Here at Kata Tjuta, I had just finished a hike in heat that got up to 45c. I turned around and saw THIS gorgeous sight. With the entirety of Central Australia being so unbelievably flat, it makes hikes like these stand out even more!
Coral Bay
Coral Bay, an area so remote that I did an entire 30km beach walk and only saw two people!!! The snorkelling here was the best I’ve ever done so far and it wasn’t even close. We saw three manta rays total all together at a cleaning station, where smaller fish cleaned them in as we watched from above! Truly makes you know the true magnitude of some creatures in the ocean, giving myself even more respect for it.
I thought I’d never be near a shark in my life, let alone swimming with a TIGER SHARK! This experience was insane beyond belief. Such a majestic creature and I felt privileged sharing space in the water with it! After this, we swam with turtles, small stingrays and massive shoals of fish. Not only that, but countless reef sharks joined us aswell, they looked absolutely adorable!
