20.6.2009 Saturday, Summer Solstice weekend, Lost World, Kerry, QLD

Spent the midsummer weekend celebrating the birthdays of some jolly good people on top of a mountain. The weather was your typical juhannuskeli: 18 degrees Celcius, rain on and off, but lamb stew, red wine and genuine Swiss fondue kept us warm. Luckily none of us lost our piece of bread in the fondue (well, not thrice, at least).

7.6.2009 Sunday, St Lucia

Yet another BBC jackpot shows the phantasmagoricality of the Animal, Plant and Mineral Kingdom (not to forget about the Fungus Kingdom, of course.) Recommended by our staff.

6.6.2009 Saturday, Queen's Birthday weekend, Bundaberg, QLD

Cochrane Artificial Reef is an underwater cemetery of dozens of boats, several airplanes and one or two sunken lighthouses. As it happens, water visibility this weekend was clear as a New England clam chowder, which was, among other things, quite entertaining - imagine a completely featureless sandy ocean floor, and imagine you've been swimming along it to north-northwest for quite a while now and you're not quite sure whether you've missed the shipwreck you're looking for. Then - lo and behold, there it is, about two meters in front of you, as well as up to fifty meters flanking you and ten meters above you. (Alternatively, you can imagine an emerging school of some hundred small barracudas. Photo courtesy of UQ UniDive.)