White Wallabies, Wind, and Way Too Much Food, A Day on Bruny Island
Visiting Bruny is part wildlife documentary, part history lesson, and part long lunch with attitude. We sampled honey, cheese and chocolate
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Aboriginal art and party time
After our wonderful visit to the Desert Park at Alice Springs our coach driver took us on a short tour of Alice Springs (commonly abbreviated to “The Alice”). Alice Springs lies almost exactly in the centre of Australia, midway between Darwin and Adelaide. Surrounded by desert ranges and ancient landscapes, it began as a telegraph…
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Ah, the memories
The world is a scary place at the moment and it’s likely to get scarier. So this week I’m going to share some of the happier times, leafing through the photograph albums of our travels. I blog all our trips so I’ll put a link to the relevant page for each entry. Just click on…
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The 200th anniversary of hell on earth
When I signed us up for this trip to Norfolk Island I suppose I had a fond notion that the advertised 200th anniversary was for the arrival of the Pitcairn descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty. Silly me. Elementary research would have shown me that 2025 was the anniversary of the establishment of Norfolk’s…
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The group you’re in when you’re not in a group
Norfolk Island. It’s a speck in the South Pacific about 1,600 km east of Sydney. At about 8km long and 5km wide, the island is an erosional remnant of a once-larger volcanic structure sticking out of the sea. It enjoys a sub-tropical Goldilocks climate, beautiful scenery and a laid-back lifestyle. Perfect for a week of…
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Uluru in context
On our last tour day at Yulara we were treated to a helicopter ride so we could see Uluru from the air. It stands out, a huge rock in a red desert, as though some God had plucked it out from somewhere else and placed it on the plain. Kata Tjuta looks like a pile…
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Out and about at Alice Springs
The first day of our actual tour was very busy. Our group of fifty was divided into the reds and the yellows and each group set off in a bus big enough for everyone to have a window seat. Our driver, Roger, a knowledgeable Kiwi who’d been around the Red Centre for many years, was…
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A mooch around Alice Springs
Alice Springs is often seen as simply a jumping-off point for tourists heading for Uluru and Kata Tjuta but there’s actually rather more to it than that. It was the site of the Telegraph station that connected Australia to the rest of the world via Darwin. The Ghan railway line has run from Adelaide to…
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A short stay in proceedings
Quite a few months ago, before we decided to sell our house and move to a smaller property, Peter and I booked a short holiday to Alice Springs and Uluru. It had been many years – in the last century – since we’d been there and that had been with FILM cameras. Positively archaic. The…
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The Last Hurrah
When we returned from our lovely excursion to Coburg cruise director Alex informed as that Scenic had conceded that the cruise was effectively aborted. At that stage he was out of options for doable day trips. We would (hurrah) be leaving the safe and comfortable confines of the Frankfurt industrial harbour and heading back the…
