kristinrepsher

The Waterfalls Walk snaking through the myrtle forest in Cradle Mountain/Lake St Clair National Park.

A cicada, whose voice can be heard all over Queensland announcing that it's summer, resting and letting his wings strengthen after he crawled out of his old skin.

Waves crashing into the rock pools at Currumbin on the Gold Coast just after sunrise. Further out to sea, paddleboarders are following the whales that came in incredibly close to shore.

The rock pools at Point Cartwright slowly filling up as the tide creeps its way back in under a gorgeous dawn sky.

The gorgeous village of Reine, bathed in the blue of winter twilight. This image was captured around 9.15am; the sun wouldn't peek above the horizon until 11am.

You wouldn't have thought you'd see much when you arrive late at night in the Arctic Circle -- but you'd be wrong! Even in the pitch black that coats the islands for most hours in early January, the scenery around us as we drove south into the islands was stunning -- so much so that we had to pull over and see what we could capture. We were both pretty happy with what we got!

My Danbos arrived! For those that don't know, Danbo is a character in the manga Yotsuba&! that Amazon decided to adopt as its unofficial mascot in Japan. The figures are absolutely adorable! Little Danbo needs to learn about the world from his mother, so where else to start but with Apple? :-P

Elsewhere on Johnson Lake, the ice was thick enough to run across in snowshoes. Here, near the bridge, the water had other plans and had done its best to break free of the ice despite the -20ºC temperatures. Unfortunately, those plans also included inundating one of my boots when I stood in an area that was a bit deeper than I expected. Luckily the car and its heat were closeby!

I was lucky enough to see the northern lights many times while I was in Finland last year. One of the most memorable nights I had was the one I spent in a glass igloo at Hotel Kakslauttanen in Finnish Lapland. Not only did I not have to go outside in the -38ºC temperatures, but I could just adjust my bed to the perfect angle and watch them from bed! Read more about my night in the glass igloos on my blog at: http://www.bootsandabackpack.com/dozing-off-under-the-northern-lights/ Camera: Nikon D700 w/ 24-70mm f/2.8 lens

At the end of my walk through the Isokuru Gorge area of Pyhä-Luosto National Park, I came across a small herd of reindeer that had found the last snow of the season to lounge on -- apparently the 15ºC that it was outside was just too warm for them! This guy was the only albino reindeer in the group, and I found his pink fuzzy antlers to be very impressive (even if his molting fur was a little less so)!

The sun sets behind a man in an akubra at the Queensland Instameet in October 2014.

We got very excited on the last night of our recent trip to Lofoten because it looked like everything was coming together. The sky was clear, the northern horizon was starting to glow green...and then this happened. Luckily we got a few beams before the clouds completely covered them up again!

This is yet another scene that shows the drastic changes of the seasons in the Rockies. On my previous visit to Emerald Lake, people were out in canoes in the same place I stood to take this photo!

Pylons standing in the bay near Shorncliffe Pier early on an autumn morning.

They say there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so what's at the end of the aurora? Because I reckon it's just over that hill in Fludir, Iceland...

A tantalising hint of the aurora behind the clouds on Flakstadøya in the Lofoten Islands. Unfortunately these clouds were an ever-present part of our trip there so this was just about the closest we got to seeing the aurora. That said, there's no way we could complain, because Lofoten in January is one of the most stunning places in the world.

Waves swirl in front of Cathedral Rocks, near Kiama on the NSW South Coast. I was happy to finally get a non-rainy sunrise here on my third day of trying!

The sun rises over the Santuário de Santa Luzia and the city of Viana do Costelo in the valley beyond. I captured this view from the patio area of the gorgeous pousada where we had spent the night. What a place to start the day!

The Bay Bridge in San Francisco on a foggy September night. While other icons in the area were totally obscured by this fog, it was bright enough to shine through.

Sometimes you can just tell that the sun's had it after a cloudy day. I could almost hear it yelling from behind the mountain, "let me out! I just want to light up the sky once today!"

I thought I'd point out the Milky Way to everyone, just in case they couldn't find it :) Location: Somerset Dam, Queensland, Australia

The lookout at Kaunispää hill, just outside the town of Saariselkä and at the top of one of their many ski runs. It was a lot quieter here than in winter, when snowmobiles were constantly whipping by on the track below!

Since we didn't have any set plans for this day -- except for driving to our next apartment -- we took the long way around, meaning we took a random road we found up the east side of Lake Pukaki (the main road to Mount Cook goes up the west) and drove until we felt like turning around. We found plenty of isolated spots along the lake and only had to share them with a few other people. This view was my favourite, even if it meant climbing up a large boulder with a bunch of rather worried family members looking on!

I was really happy that my colleagues in Skellefteå (Sweden) told me that I should visit the old church village near the county church. This collection of rickety old buildings--where people used to come into town to stay on weekends so they could go to church--looked lovely in its healthy covering of snow!

I couldn't get over how gorgeous the light was all day in the Arctic. This photo looks like a sunrise over the myriad islands and fjords of the Lofoten Islands -- but it was actually taken at 10am!

Location: Surprise Corner, Banff, Canada The sun rises over the foggy valley behind the Fairmont Banff Springs, as seen from the lookout at Surprise Corner on the other side of the (very frozen) Bow River.

Waves swirl around the black volcanic rocks of Kellys Beach at Bargara, near Bundaberg on Queensland's central coast.

Natural Bridge is a favourite of photographers across South East Queensland. This difficult-to-shoot scene, found in the Natural Bridge section of Springbrook National Park, is part of a very short bushwalk through the area, which takes you along Cave Creek, into the cave, and then up and over it. It's best seen when there has been a lot of recent rainfall; otherwise, it can slow to a faint trickle.

All I can think of when I see this photo is how cold my feet were when I took it! I decided not to inundate my boots, so instead waded into the glacial Matukituki River barefoot. The pins and needles had me dancing on the bank for minutes afterward!

Into the yellow-ringed vortex...or playing on a children's jungle gym?

The Milky Way stretches across the sky, high above Lake Wyaralong and the setting, nearly-new moon. The moon was actually only a tiny sliver, which is why its light didn't hide the stars.

The incoming tide rushes past the wreck of the SS Dicky as the sky explodes into colour above. What a sunrise -- especially since it was on a morning where we thought we'd get nothing!

One of my favourite shots from a helicopter ride up Franz Josef Glacier and around the Southern Alps. Mighty Aoraki/Mount Cook looks impressive no matter whether you're floating in the clouds or firmly rooted on the ground!

The night I spent wandering around the snowy outskirts of Skellefteå was full of gorgeous winter scenes like this one. It was hard to even know what to look at -- did I look at the tracks that seem to have been impossibly laid down in the snow given the massive snowdrift blocking me from them, or the sky, which seemed to be continually moving through the colours of the rainbow? First it was a deep orange, then a strong blue, and now an interesting shade of maroon.

The rocks and the waves glow gold in the early morning light at Snapper Rocks, near Coolangatta on the southern Gold Coast.

The remnants of the SS Dicky, which has been very quicky disintegrating in the last few years, underneath a jaw-dropping summer sunrise. What a morning!