Friday was my last day at my previous job. I was hating it and just couldn’t stand another day there. Friday I also signed a contract to start at an IT consulting company (will start on January 6). In the mean time, I have a lot of time on my hands and am trying to figure out what to do with that time (that doesn’t involve spending copious amounts of money on photography things).

The first one, obviously, was to photograph my equipment yesterday. I have to tell you that, despite the look of the last few lenses, the overall result was great – please check out My Equipment.

But that was one morning’s worth of effort, so my question is: what’s next?

Christmas is just around the corner and next week I will help Dean’s family put the family dinner together, but that’s about 1 – 2 days of effort.

So I look to new things to explore around Melbourne. I love looking at Time Out (online) magazine to get ideas, they always have something to look at. In my recent visits to the site, I found 2 things I want to explore: Lavender farms and caves.

The Lavender farms are pretty close and easy to find. I will likely go to the Daylesford area, as the other good farm Dean and I have already visited (in Mornington Peninsula).

Now, exploring the caves in Victoria becomes more tricky. The interesting caves are actually located quite far from Melbourne. I’m thinking the closest (interesting) one is almost 4 hours driving from here. There are other caves closer, surely, but none of the closer ones (there was actually only one) have stalactites and/or stalagmites. That also means I would need to take my off camera flash to help out with the photos.

Below is the path to the national park of the Princess Margaret Rose cave. The cave itself is a lot closer to the border with South Australia.

Considering the lengthy drive to the park/cave, I would say this would be a similar road trip to the Pink Lakes Trip. Drive straight there, look at the cave, sleep at the closest town and drive back through the Great Ocean Road (more photo opportunities) – maybe sleep somewhere along the drive back. I will check if Dean or any of my friend want and are available to go before I start work.

Note: I hold no rights over the map used, it is a screenshot taken of Google Maps.