Update

This weekend, being the dreary and rainy affair it was, allowed me to completely overhaul my website and add new work to it. It is, as always, still a work in progress, but check it out and let me know what you think.

Chemin Privé Photo Exhibit

Chemin Privé Photo Exhibit, originally uploaded by thelonghaul.

Good day ladies & gentlemen,

Consider yourselves cordially invited to come down and check out my photo exhibition.
The show will be up at Papeterie Nota Bene* as of next Monday the 11th, through to the 29th of June. (Nota Bene* - 3416 ave. du Parc just above Sherbrooke).
There will be a vernissage on Thursday the 14th from 6-8pm.

I look forward to seeing you all there !

Alexi

ps: feel free to forward this invitation on to anyone you think might be interested
www.nota-bene.ca/
www.flickr.com/photos/thelonghaul/collections/

The Stones

Curling

The Windshield Factor vs The A Team battling it out over thin ice.
Fortunately, this deathmatch ended in a tie, so both teams had to purchase
the proverbial beer.

Country

"Johnny let's go out riding
to a place outside of town
i go there every sunday
to watch the sun go down..."

D. Jurado

Waitin' for 5

Sortie

Viva La Bamba

good times last saturday, lots of this stuff. i think i am still paying for it today.
photo by marc-andre.

Rosebowl Sunday

The Champ

Sam won every single game...

Marc

for those of you interested, i am back at work, at Guez Communication & Design thus ending a 7 month period where i had no job. it is nice to be making $$ again. thanks, marc, for the pic.

Sam saw a recipe in Gourmet at p's a few weeks ago and made it her mission to make it. Here is the result.

ah, halloween...

Back In Montreal

And it has been raining for almost 2 weeks straight. good thing i got a job two weeks ago...

The End: Sydney

gone full circle, back to where we started. sydney was us playing the waiting game now, waiting to get on the plane, waiting to sell the car, waiting to pack and get rid of the stuff we accumulated during a year here. we kept most of the camping gear. we stayed at Ben & Bree's (thank you so much guys...) and watched footy and aussie movies. and then it was time to go.

and that's it mate.

The Last Leg

during the last three months of our trip, we traveled i don't know how many thousands of kilometers and camped the whole time. the longest we went sleeping in a tent was 9 weeks straight. it was weird to have a real roof and four walls around us when we decided, "fuck it, let's get a cabin", in Wagga Wagga.

the one person who kept me going throughout this whole crazy year. sam. thanks.

ps: sorry for posting a picture of you before you did your hair...

good old bert, where are you now, i wonder?

and then we were back in civilization...and the leaves were falling. i can't believe we drove 60 000kms around this whole continent. i will never get over it. driving back to sydney, leaving the outback and that whole crazy world was rather depressing, as most real-life endings are.

nothingness.

leaving coober pedy.

this is as autumn-ish as it gets.

driving to Port Augusta

Bert Breaks Down But We Survive

so our deal old bert ended up breaking down, just once, but once is enough. we broke down 50 kms outside Coober Pedy, otherwise known as the middle of nowhere. it is one of the only places in australia with absolutely no phone reception WHATSOEVER. the rest of the country gets satellite phone coverage, if not regular phone coverage. not where we were though, nope. the highway would indicate the next land line about once every 70 or 100 kms. so there was no way of calling for help. how great. thankfully, i had passed a 4x4 on the highway about 25 kms back and so when this guy drove by sam and i waved our hands and did everything we could to make him stop for us. he didn't. but then 1 km down the road, perhaps noticing that sam and i were still waving and screaming our heads off, he decided to stop, turn around and come back. you have no idea how thankful we were. we told them what had happened and they said they would drive into coober pedy and call someone as soon as they had phone coverage. then they left. we were left with only the hope that these complete strangers would fulfill their promise and that help would come. the following hour and half were the longest of the whole trip, or so it seemed. eventually, a tow truck showed up on the horizon and sam and i stopped praying (HA!). the man at the garage told us our battery was completely dead because the alternator was not charging it and so the battery had just exploded. it ook a few hours to fix everything and we were ready to hit the road the next day at noon. i have to congratulate the NRMA here (aussie auto insurance) for their speed and professionalism. if you ever plan to travel extensively by car in oz, be sure to get at least their minimum insurance coverage, it's worth every penny.

this is what the odometer read, at the moment the car broke down. 666. need i say more?

this is what surrounded us, as we waited in the car for help to come. huge eagles feeding off dead kangaroos and rotting cow carcasses. it was all very surreal and a little unnerving.

underground church.

can you see the chimneys sticking right out the earth ? that's because a large portion of this crazy town lives underground, in what they call dugouts. we visited the underground church, it was the only place open to the public that was free...

Coober Pedy is like nothing else.

she's a shiela mate !

Kata Tjuta, aka The Olgas

kata tjuta are like uluru little sisters, although they are by no means "little". i'd say this site is just as interesting and dumbfounding as uluru, really worth the 50km drive, even in the dark, just watch out for them roos mate !

miss moon

this gives an idea of the scale.

way to the kata tjuta gorge walk.

Hi

ULURU

uluru is stunning. it's all hyped up everywhere and everything, but once you are there it is just better than all the hype. it's incredible and everyone should go once. but they shouldn't climb it (sorry gab), it is against everything the aboriginals believe and i personnaly am not the kind of person to go abroad and shit on the customs and culture of the people whose country i am visiting. it's like taking off your shoes in your neighbour's house, ya know, you wouldn't walk in with big muddy boots and drag them all around the house, would you.

following are the different shades of Uluru.

here is something you don't expect to see in this part of the world: water. aboriginal people were pros at finding it.

wounded monolith

alexi vesus uluru.

red red red