Three weeks of winter have passed so far and it hasn't been that cold yet. Either that or I need to dust my computer monitor. This morning was the first really chilly morning, with fog hanging above the surface of the grass as we walked Nash to the bakery for her weekly treat.

The cold morning was brought by completely clear skies, and even though it was the shortest day of the year there was no shortage of sunshine. I took another walk with my camera to check on the birds and find out what they thought about the solstice.

These silver gulls on the sand were loving the water, and not at all concerned about the data centres it might be able to cool.

Then I saw this cormorant diving for dinner, showing no signs it had bothered calculating how many days of stockpiled oil reserves are remaining.

On the island I saw this galah soaking up the late afternoon sun. If it knew about screwworm flies it would consider them a snack, and not a potential future in which beef shortages lead to Australia exporting galahs as meat to the USA.

This dusky moorhen in a shady pond has not considered the loss of French culture as amateur musicians in France lean more and more towards English lyrics during the annual Fête de la Musique.

This rainbow lorikeet was extremely stressed out about the state of everything.

I've lived within driving distance of Monarto Safari Park for most of my life, but I never visited until today.

Vanessa and I walked progressively up the hill past a whole bunch of amazing animals, and then caught the bus back the other way for a more casual viewing of other animals.

Just posted this one to make you scroll down a giraffe.

After four mornings of not getting out of bed in time to appreciate the sunrise, I forced myself to get out of bed to see the sunrise. The kids had escorted me to multiple viewpoints in the scrub behind the house that looked over the hills and I'd seen them at sunset but not dawn.

It was also a chance to get some steps in, and listen to some music, both foundational experiences having been rare so far on the trip.

I prepared all my cold stuff before bed so I could be out the door quickly and to reduce the steps required on the noisy floor. Puffy jacket, gloves, beanie, thermal.

Out the front door there were a lot of deer just up the road. It was light but no direct sun. I put on some tunes with my headphones over my beanie. I can't remember exactly what.

The deer ran ahead of me as I stepped carefully down the slope of the empty property and into the wild beyond. I followed the trail to the hunting blind, and then up onto the sloping grass that overlooks timbertop, an old farmer's outbuilding, and the fog trimmed forest.

The sun was behind me and behind the mountain ranges. I set up my tripod and tried to find a good angle. It wasn't particularly scenic, but the deer and kangaroos dotted the hill in the foreground which was nice.

At one point I adjusted my headphones, breaking the noise cancelling seal, and my ears were instantly filled with the sound of bird calls and the rustle of grass in the wind. I chided myself for listening to music when I could have been immersing myself in nature.

Then I heard the boom of a big rifle, and every bird, deer and roo immediately legged it.

Unperturbed, I started walking up the hill, hoping for a different angle, and there were two more loud booms from over the rise. I don't think there was much chance anyone was going to aim a firearm at me, but there's been news from Victoria in recent months that made me think maybe I would take a photo back from the roads.

Ironically, this was probably a nicer angle.

Several hours of driving and a massive sticky-date muffin later I was back on a plane flying towards Adelaide. The sunrise was well behind me now and home's rainy weather was coming into and over the front of the aircraft. It was a little choppy. Right before we descended the pilot announced South Australia's strict quarantine laws and I recalled I had two apples in my bag that I'd delayed eating after aforementioned muffin. So I commenced eating two apples rapidly, as the plane descended through rocky turbulence towards ground. Chewing the fruit made my ears hurt. This, I thought, was the revenge of Newton's apple.

In the mornings leading up to this weekend's autumn equinox I have noticed that around 7:30am has been good for seeing birds. In its favour, the sunrise happens around breakfast time so you can eat before going for a walk. And the light is nice, not too blue like winter. And it's not so cold that you can't feel your fingers when you use a camera. There's even plenty of greenery and flowers for the sapsuckers to consume making the birds more plentiful and not huddled away conserving their energy.

I used my Sunday morning to do a birding tour around my neighbourhood, which is actually arranged quite well. If I do a loop I pass through sections of suburbia, river, beach dunes, and lake. So there's a nice variety of different birds at each stage to keep things interesting.

Here's some birds from the 2026 Equinox:

First, a New Holland Honeyeater who does not care at all about the current price of petrol.

Then I saw this rarity, a Royal Spoonbill! It was eating straight from the water, not a thought given for all those microplastics it was ingesting.

It took a while for this Musk Lorikeet to show its face in the canopy. The pollen in that flower was too tempting. It was not concerned at all about ballistic missiles that might appear in the sky like twinkling stars and then all of a sudden get really bright.

Cousins, the Rainbow Lorikeets, were the most common of birds this morning. They squawked everywhere as they flocked from tree to tree, oblivious to the threat of AI that would soon replace them.

This Singing Honeyeater was moving south to north with me along the edge of the dunes by the beach. It did not have to worry about how the supermarkets have all stopped selling the good types of yogurt recently, or how they don't look like they're coming back.

The Pelican-ball at the lake was deeply troubled about a lot of things...

Did I see the aurora tonight? No. But my camera did!

A morning walk in Eggum to reach a nice old hydro plan where I ate another apple and nuts.

Before I finished packing for Norway (i.e the night we left) I had a list of journal entry titles which I thought I would hit along the way. A lot of them were puns. One title was this one.

In January, days after purchasing flights for an outdoor adventuring trip on the other side of the globe, my left ankle pain flared up so badly I could barely walk. I had been having occasional bouts of ankle pain for some reason, but despite making it painful to walk and squat they'd never persisted more than a day. Now, as the days passed and the pain didn't, I was faced with another chronic inflammation issue to go with the back pain, the wrist pain, the shoulder issues, the hamstring origin tendinopathy, and the ITB impingement all of which have marred my adult life.

The flights were not refundable, so back then I knew I was going to write this entry with one of two subjects. 1) How my stupid body ruined a great holiday. Or, 2) How I told my body to go fuck itself to overcome the pain and walk around the fjords and mountains and cities and archipelagos of one of the most scenic countries that glaciers have ever given us.

So, as with every other injury, I started rehab, and physiotherapy, and lifestyle changes. And every day, often multiple times a day, I did the stretching and the strengthening and the mobility exercises. And I pushed my joint and backed off and pushed and backed off again. I paid for MRIs and strain-counterstrain physiotherapy and I took drugs and I lay down when the pain was too much and I got back up again after I was ready.

By the time I landed in Oslo, my mobility in the joint was good, the pain was manageable, I knew which shoes to wear. We walked 30,000 steps on the first day. It didn't feel perfect, but my ankle didn't stop me. We drove to Aurland and we walked around Flåm and then in Kinsarvik we hiked up a rocky, slippery path that followed a waterfall. Every stroll or hike I was waiting for the pain to return, for the flare up. There were occasional twinges, but the swelling and instability of that day back in January never came back to me. I traversed over rocky terrain, up Sherpa steps and along trails carpeted with criss-crossing tree roots and soft with mud. I climbed mountains, and descended them.

Back in Adelaide, the weekend before we flew out, I was still having issues. We did Lofty and I remember spending the first stretch of that walk dictating in my head the discomfort I was experiencing and how I would soon describe it to my physio. And I remember thinking that I might spend the whole time in Norway doing the same thing, so I decided not to any more and just breathe. It still hurt, but it helped.

In our final week in Norway we spent five nights in Lofoten which included walks on sandy beaches, rocky hills and sodden tracks. It was a majestic place with amazing sights and walks. My ankle was behaving very well.

The weather forecast for our last night was for clear skies and sunshine from the afternoon into the next morning. There was a final walk - Reinebringen - that I knew I couldn't leave without attempting. A mountain which loomed over the town of Reine and the little islands and peninsulas which made up this extraordinary village of Norwegian architecture and stunning nature. The midnight sun. Over 2000 rough, uneven steps that rose up 450 metres in less than 1.2km of walking. I wanted to do this walk and prove that I was capable of overcoming yet another injury. Or I was going to die trying.

I drove to Reine under nice sunshine and arrived around 10pm. The village was picturesque and the light was perfect.

Vareid

Stop at Skreda

Vikten beach

Reine

More Reine.

I found the start of the walk and immediately started climbing. Almost immediately my ankle started to send signals of displeasure. Nothing different to other walks, but a bit more persistent. I carried on. When you're trying to get up 2,000 steps as quickly as possible it doesn't leave much energy to think with. I activated my glutes. I pushed through my foot. I tried to keep my hips working evenly. Ironically, it was actually my right ankle that was giving me the most pain. Something about the combination of my hiking boots and the pedals in a BZ4X seem to have given me an RSI that I'm hoping goes away once I'm back in a right hand drive car and country.

The moment on the ascent that I started getting concerned about the fog.

A few layers of clothing later, I reached the end of the stairs and the start of a muddy track that continued up to the summit. I wasn't actually sure I had reached the top because at the same time a thick fog had enveloped the mountain. I had reached my fucking goal and the reward of the view was hidden from me. It was 11:30pm.

A small crowd was with me at the top of the mountain, and no one seemed keen to immediately return down the stairs if there was a chance the fog would lift. So I waited in the crook of a rock to see what would happen. Occasionally the fog would lighten, then darken again. You could see the tendrils of it skimming the surface of the peak. I started a round of Balatro on my phone, which was good because not only is that game good for pissing away time with a fire-hose, but it can be played with heated gloves on.

After a while I heard excited gasps from nearby strangers. Looking down, far below, the line of the road could be made out through the fog. It was shit, but it brought hope. We all persisted. And then, the fog began to lift. Not like a curtain, but like a dance. A swirl here, a window there. The horizon of jagged peaks visible, but not the town. Slices of ocean and buildings, then the veil would lift up again. It teased us all over and over giving glimpses of everything but never the entirety. What we could see was beautiful. The still water, the tiny buildings, the mountains. The colours, so amazing. I took a lot of photos. My fingers were so cold I thought my camera had broken because I couldn't press the shutter down fast enough.

I did not actually get a clear photo from the top, but the experience was ethereal.

Eventually I had to descend. My ankle had survived the up, but there was still 2000 steps down to go and that was after an hour of cooling down to the extreme definition of literally. In fact my whole body was shaking and it took a lot of steps until I warmed up again.

I made it to the bottom. I'd made it through. It was about half past midnight. The sun was up, somewhere behind the mountains over Reine. The colours were vivid. The air was cool and crisp. My heartrate was pretty high. I'd had an anticlimax and I'd powered through. If I had to describe how I felt in one word, I couldn't. I felt like "Take that, you stupid fucking body. Whatever you give me I will fight. I won't win everytime. I still can't sit on most couches. But I will not give up. Not when there is experiences in the world like light spectrums from nearby stars to glow on intricate geography and calm waters. Fuck you, me. Fuck you and your stupid fucking body. I am a brain. I am bradism. One day you will finally get me, but you will not get me easily."

Reine on the way back to the car.

I drove back to Eggum from Reine between 1 and 2:45 AM. At sea level, there was no fog. The colours on the mountains and in the sky were unreal. I never want to forget that drive home. Windows down, tunes, every twist and turn bringing new sights. The hues in the valley. The silhouettes across the waters. The texture of a mountain that loomed up and up over the road. The mist lifting off the lakes and mulch piles as the temperature dropped to 5°. Occasionally, being blinded by the sun. I did not feel tired. I felt victorious. I had told my body to go fuck itself.

Kåkernbrua

View of Ramberg just after Flakstadbruene.

On the Eggumsveien towards Eggum.

Eggum Beach, 3:15 AM.

Edit: The next day my ankle was pretty sore.

Lofoten is an incredibly photogenic place that has exposed how average I am at photography.

While I like some of the photos I've taken so far, I feel like I have failed to capture some of the dramatic scenery. Especially when driving around, where every mountain looms and the water shimmers when the sun is out. The photos look flat. And sometimes the photos are taken just by stopping on the road and sticking the camera out the window. So they're the same angle. (This typically happens on the back roads, which are one way to find the secret places, but like the first of many layers of secret tracks). For example, one of my favourite photos here was only taken because I saw some locals taking photos a few metres off the road right before a tunnel. When we returned that way and got out of the car and went through a gate it revealed this amazing view.

A lot of the hiking is also challenging, even without the rain that rolls in, and the problems finding a place to park.

The one trick I have learned to far is to get in the car and drive when it's raining, in order to get to walk in the sunshine. The rain does come in waves, so unless the walk is right next to your shelter, getting to the start point with the wipers on has had good results.

The colours here are fantastic. And the sun is always somewhere, behind you, in front of you, to the side. You can never run out of light.