In March 2024 I finally walked part of the ancient Kumano Kodo, a thousand-year-old World Heritage pilgrimage trail linking the three great shrines of Kumano through the forests of Japan’s Kii Peninsula. Dreamed up during Melbourne’s lockdowns, the quiet journey from shrine to shrine felt like stepping into a living spiritual history.

After my Nakasendo hike I raced to Osaka for a whirlwind visit to see a Sumo tournament, relying on a ticket service to secure a seat while I was stuck on a shoot. Four hours, three trains and a very welcome hotel shower later, I made it to Edion Arena just in time to settle into a western-style seat and soak up the drama of Japan’s most iconic sport.

The Nakasendo Way is a beautifully preserved historic route linking old Edo to Kyoto, where towns like Magome and Tsumago still feel frozen in time, especially at dawn and dusk.

This route was recommended to me for for its mix of stunning scenery and atmospheric Edo-era villages that promised incredible photographic opportunities.

This was my second trip to Mt Fuji after a first visit lost to rain and fog, and countless fleeting glimpses from the Shinkansen. This time I reshuffled my itinerary to end my Tokyo stay in Kawaguchiko, chasing the only window of clear weather I could find from Australia.

On my fourth visit to Tokyo in July 2024, I ditched the sightseeing checklist and let solo travel and photography guide me to entirely new corners of my favourite city in one of my favourite countries. Free to follow my intuition, I lingered where the light was right, stayed longer when a place felt alive, and discovered a new side of Tokyo.

In June 2019 I joined an educational, government-supported tour into Fukushima’s exclusion zone to better understand the 2011 nuclear disaster and its ongoing recovery. Guided by a local resident, the experience balanced powerful history with strict respect for safety and privacy, revealing both the human cost of the evacuation and the careful, measured steps toward renewal.