Lockdown Life: COVID-19 With A Camera-phone

iPhone photos from deep inside Melbourne’s heavily-restricted life.

What a kick in the nuts COVID-19 has been! Looking on the bright side, Australia fared comparatively very well this year, but on the down side, Melbourne was forced to endure one of the harshest and strictest lockdowns on the planet. And I’m not gonna lie – it was tough. The mental stress of not knowing if things would improve, a police-enforced curfew from 8pm until 5am, being only allowed outside for 1 hour of exercise and being restricted to a 5km radius from home was extremely burdensome … and just draining overall.

But what it did give me was a greater appreciation for the everyday beauty in the ‘burbs less than 5km from my home. I’m fortunate that from Flemington there is a lot of great places nearby, and being restricted in my movements meant that I had to explore, by foot or by bike, a lot of places I would have normally bypassed. And of course I had my iPhone on me. Here is a selection of some of my favourite images from March until November (when we could finally start to get back to normal).

Some beauty in the ‘burbs … and a very empty CBD on the rare occasion I visited:

When we were permitted to travel further than 5km it was nice to by the water:

The Yarra River gets all the glory, but out west, the Maribyrnong has some real beauty:

And it’s funny, when you walk the streets, you notice so much more than when you zoom by in a car!

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Lockdown Life: Victorian Goldfields During COVID-19

Photos from Victoria’s goldfields during COVID-19 lockdown.

Well, it’s been a long time between blog posts … and the world has definitely changed! Melbourne began a COVID-19 lockdown in late March, before a gradual easing at the start of winter. And after a calamitous second wave of infections, right now we’re (hopefully) at the tail-end of a second, even stricter lockdown.

My wife and I were fortunate to be able to spend many weekends (when we could travel outside of Melbourne) at Tarnagulla in central Victoria. I spent some time exploring the bush fires trails on my mountain bike. Here’s a few iPhone images.

It’s a beautiful, peaceful part of the world … and we can’t wait to get back there.

Loddon River at Newbridge, Victoria
Loddon River at Newbridge, Victoria
Loddon River at Newbridge, Victoria
Loddon River at Newbridge, Victoria
Tarnagulla Rainbow
Tarnagulla Rainbow above the Wesleyan Methodist church and Poverty Mine poppet head.
Broadway, Dunolly.
The view from Mt Moliagul.
Tarnagulla Track.
The track up to Mt Moliagul. Worth the trek for the view…
Murderers Hill, on the road between Tarnagulla and Dunolly, where a double murder took place in 1857.
One of the sand-scrape greens of Tarnagulla & District Golf Course in the dusk light.
Tarnagulla bush track.
On the banks of the Loddon River, near Poseidon Reef. Two guys were in the news a couple of weeks ago because they dug up a $350,000 gold nugget right behind those far trees on the left. Read about it here.
Bendigo’s grand court house … doing it’s best Parisian impression.