I must admit that I have neglected this annual photo update for the past couple of years. But I’m hoping to get back into good habits starting with 2024!

I’ve clocked up a total of over 28,000 photos on my Flickr account stretching back over a decade. I hope to continue adding many more. There is a large but slowly shrinking backlog which can be hard to whittle down.

To start 2024 in January I was back working at the Australian Open tennis tournament for another year. As usual I took a bunch of photos to document the event.

One particular day on my way back I happened to come across the source of a major disruption – an E class tram had flipped its pantograph right in the middle of the turn from Batman Avenue into the dedicated right of way on the north side of Melbourne Park. I’d never seen this before in person so it was a good opportunity for an unplanned but interesting series of photos!

The front end of 2024 also saw a lot of disruptions as usual, with infrastructure maintainers taking advantage of the slump in overall travel demand to carry out upgrades and repairs. This always makes for interesting photos with unusual routings of trams down La Trobe Street and this eerie scene of Swanston Street without a single tram (due to the reconstruction of tracks at La Trobe Street and Swanston Street).

Despite the heat that we get in late summer there are plenty of festivals in Melbourne. One of the events that I visit each year is the Antipodean Festival which celebrates all things Greek. This closes down sections of Lonsdale and Russell Streets in the CBD to traffic and opens them up to people, complete with stalls, stages and seating.

Although the variety of food is limited to some variety of meat, “Greek salads” and fried things (a topic I will write about some day), it’s still well worth going.

Taking advantage of cooler weather I went on several suburban walks and suburban explorations. One of these was a trip from Macleod to Upfield via Reservoir.

This part of the world is a great journey to experience what are truly some of the most ‘suburban’ parts of Melbourne. The classic mid-century buildings still make up the vast majority of architecture in both residential and commercial settings with brick and concrete everywhere.

In April I was off on a holiday to Singapore and Malaysia. Other than riding on the fastest narrow-gauge passenger train in the world, other highlights included the food and drink, natural landscapes and the beautiful coastal city of Melaka.

I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed exploring different areas of both countries. They are both definitely on the list for me to go back one day!

One day in May I was walking past the second-hand equipment display of a camera shop in the city. As usual, I glanced at what was available and noticed a very handsome Canon EOS 90D sitting in the window. At the time I had been researching and considering a new camera to replace my trusty but long-in-the-teeth EOS 600D – my very first DSLR.

Like many others I was on the fence about taking the plunge into mirrorless cameras. While I could see many advantages I was still unsure but then this 90D seemed like something of a sign!

I returned the next day and inspected the 90D, having a good chat with the always-excellent staff (I’d been here several times before). For $800 – including the original case, box and accessories – it seemed like a steal. And so in mid-May I became the proud owner of a new Canon EOS 90D.

Having used it for over six months now I can say that it’s a fantastic camera. Maybe one day I’ll be forced into the mirrorless camp on account of the rapidly-diminishing number of DSLR models, but for now I’m very happy to stick with this well into the future. I won’t make this into a detailed camera review but if you do get the opportunity to give on a test run you won’t be disappointed!

I gave it a couple of test runs on some familiar subjects – mainly in and around the city.

In June I continued trying out the new camera, with the low winter sun helping get some nice lighting conditions.

This included photos of the shared tram-bus stop at Queens Bridge Square…

…interesting doors in Carlton…

…and this unstaged aesthetic lineup of VLocity trains during the evening peak at Southern Cross Station.

I went out to the suburbs with my drone for the first time in a while, getting some interesting shots in and around Box Hill showing both the older suburban scenes and the new development that is happening nearby.

14 July also saw the Crowdstrike outage that took down thousands of systems across the world. This included Melbourne where supermarkets and other shops could not accept card payments making cash. This resulted in long queues and abandoned shopping trolleys as people were forced to use the few cash-equipped payment counters and self-serve checkouts, as seen in this photo at Coles supermarket in Richmond.

Amongst other things I’m a fairly active Wikipedia editor. I noticed this year that many railway station articles for Melbourne need some updating. In particular, many were missing recent photos. So I made it my mission to go out and take some.

This resulted in a couple of trips along the Belgrave / Lilydale Lines. It’s most easily done on a weekend because there are consistent 10 minute headways at all stations west of Ringwood across most daylight hours, compared to weekdays where there are very confusing stopping patterns and frequencies.

Speaking of the Belgrave / Lilydale Lines, in September I went back to the Yarra Valley and Healesville for a short trip. I managed to fluke the Walker Railmotor that operates on the heritage railway while also doing some walks in the surrounding hills.

In October I received an invitation to visit Anzac Station, part of Melbourne’s soon-to-open Metro Tunnel. Along with many others we toured the underground station from the concourse to the platforms which was a very interesting experience.

I also took a trip interstate up to the Gold Coast in Queensland. Stage 3 of the G:Link light rail looks well under construction and the 50 cent public transport fares were a handy bonus to catch the train up to Brisbane for the day. I haven’t finished uploading all my photos yet but they will be coming soon.

Other than gunzelling the local public transport one of my other favourite things about this part of the world is the unique architecture of many of the shopping centres. The semi-open air design maximises air flow while providing shade and protection from the random deluges of the tropics and subtropics. The Gold Coast has many examples of this.

One of the big transport news items for the end of the year was the somewhat-confusing and meek announcement that Doncaster Park and Ride will close for three years to make way for a temporary on-ramp for cars to access the Eastern Freeway during construction of the North East Link.

With this in mind I rode over to get some final photos and videos before it closes for good in mid-January 2025.

I also brought my drone along to get some aerial photos from the other side of the Freeway near Winfield Road in North Balwyn.

Happy 2025!