Bye Bye Google Maps. Hello Flickr

I'm done playing with Google Maps for now.

Now my new game is on Flickr. I'm having SO much fun there. What I do (besides checking my photo stats repeatedly) is do a search for Australia pictures. Then I look at recent Aussie photos, and I add them to my favorites. I love doing that.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the photos I like. I'm going to link to them because people get a bit picky if you post THEIR photos on your blog.   Maybe they'd be less picky if you gave them proper credit (which I would), but I don't want to risk it.

Please do NOT rely on my descriptions of the photos.  Click the links.  Seriously. I'm horrible at describing things.  

1.  Here is a picture taken in the Blue Mountains area. It has a very eerie dreamlike quality.  Actually, most of the landscape pictures, that I chose as favorites, remind me of my dreams.The photographer for that picture calls himself Yuri.  Yuri is from Russia, but is currently living in Sydney. Cool.  

2.  Here's another one of Yuri's photos. It's of Turrimeta Beach in Sydney, which I've never heard of.   The scenery in this photo is spectacular. TOTALLY dreamlike.

I just looked on Google Maps.  Turrimeta Beach is up north. It would take about 30 minutes going north to drive there from Manly.   

3. Another Yuri photo.   If I was a crazy paranoid person, I'd think Yuri wasn't taking these photos in Australia.  I'd think he was crawling into my head at night to take photos of my dreams.  That would be cool....and sort of creepy. This photo is of Avalon Beach.  That's up in northern Sydney too.

4.  Here's a picture of the Hunter Valley Gardens.  It's not as dreamlike and dramatic as Yuri's photos, but I still think it's rather lovely.  The photographer for this one is vk2gwk.    He and his wife are from the Netherlands, but they moved to Australia. They have their own website! It says they live on One Mile Beach.  The one in Port Stephens?   We stayed there before!  
 
Okay. Yes. It is the One Mile Beach in Port Stephens.   Cool!  

5.  I have NEVER been a horse girl.   It's not that I dislike horses. It's just I've never had a passion or interest in them.  But this horse picture here is pretty impressive....very beautiful.   It almost makes me want to be a horse girl. The photographer for this one is mj-stevo from Brisbane.  

6. I'm also not a big fan of babies. Sorry!  But mj_stevo's photo of a baby's foot is REALLY cute.   

7. Here's a photo of mj-stevo's 4 year-old son. It's very sweet. I prefer 4-year-old children over babies. Is that weird?  

8. And here's an mj-stevo photo of two teenage girls laughing. Very nice. 

9.  Here's another great baby photo taken by mj-stevo.

I'd say Anne Geddes has some competition here.

10.  Here's another dreamlike landscape photo.  It was taken in Sydney by Lina-Sydney-Busy.  I guess she's busy?   More busy than the average person?   Maybe?  

11. Lina-Sydney-Busy calls this photo True Blue Australia.  Good name for the photo. The blue in it is pretty amazing.  

12.  Here's a really cool photo, and for now it's had only 2 views!  More people need to come to look at this.   It's a rock picture, but the rocks look like something alive.  Maybe a dinosaur type creature?   Or perhaps my overactive imagination is at work.   I don't know.  The photographer for picture is Graeme D2010.  I wonder if he saw what I saw in the rocks.  Or maybe he sees something completely different.

13.  This is a pretty wild photo of a koala.   I'm guessing it was done at Sydney Wildlife World, and somehow we can see a reflection from the water nearby.  Or it could be trick photography?   I'm not sure.   The photographer for this photo is rabinal from the UK.  I favorited a bunch of photos from a UK guy. I wonder if this is the same one.  I shall soon see.

Yeah.   It is the same guy.  I liked a lot of his photos. Or maybe my heart was all warm towards him because he's British, and we were just in London.

14.  Here's rabinal's photo of orange brulee.  Yum! A few weeks ago, Tim made Creme Brulee. It was SO good.   

15.  This here might be rabinal himself. Or maybe it's his dad. I'm not sure. But I love this guy...at least from what I see in the photo.

I should probably just do a whole post on rabinal's photos.

16. Rabinal calls this one Australia Lichen. It doesn't look exactly like Australia, but pretty close!  

17. Here's another great rabinal food photo. It's making me a bit hungry.

18.  Rabinal captured a great store name in this photo.  

19.  Here's that man I suddenly adore eating with someone. It turns out that the guy left a comment on the photos, and that linked to his photos!   So now I know who he is.  He's Michael Jefferies, a retired entomologist!  How cool is that?  It's VERY cool.   I love insects.  I can't say I know much about them though.   I just like looking at them; and I like letting them (some of them) crawl on my hand.

Michael Jefferies is also into genealogy.   He has a whole website about it.  I should probably turn away before I become totally obsessed with these people.  That would be scary.

Oh!   The website says that Jefferies lives in Queensland now.   I wonder if rabinal does too.   Or maybe rabinal was visiting?

20.  Here's another great photo of Jefferies. He's with sparkling apple juice, and waiting for his lunch.  

21.  Oh!  I should have known the guy was an entomologist. I had favorited a photo of him doing his entomology work.   I guess I forgot.  

Okay.   I'll stop stalking these people. Let me move ahead to some other people.

22.  Here's another dreamy landscape photo.  It was taken in Mona Vale in Sydney by a carpenter named Shannon Sakovits.  

23.  And here's another great Sakovits photo.  

24.  Mike Gaby is like us.   He takes photos at grocery stores.  

25. Here's a great photo of a Kookaburra.   It was taken by the Birdman of Brownsville.  

I have a lot of other favorite pictures, but I'm getting tired.  So that's it for now.