“I hope you don’t mind having a corpse in the back of the van,” Wendy said in her ever-cheerful demeanor. She was loading the body of a pademelon (a small kangaroo from the looks of it) wrapped in her raincoat onto the back seat. It had been hit by a car, and when we came [...]
Caravans (meaning trailers in Australian) and caravan parks are everywhere in Oz.Trailer Parks. Tornado Bait. Trailer Trash. Drunks on welfare raising families of six kids born from three different fathers (or mothers). Lots of stained white tank tops with beer bellies poking out and LOTS of scratching. There are any number of negative connotations associated [...]
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));Evans Head (about an hour south of Byron Bay) was a surprising treat and a little sample of absolute paradise. Knowing we would be kayaking the following morning, we pulled into the nearby caravan park. We were surprised to [...]
As with Edmonton, Hawaii, and Thailand, we are always on the prowl for little differences and idiosyncrasies that add character to a place. And Australia is home to many such charming qualities.
I remember reading a book that described Australia as being “almost home” (the author was American). They speak the same language, but [...]
“Be careful of the crocs,” Sergio says as we steer our kayaks up a small creek deep in the mangroves.
“Really? There are crocs here? Cool!” I say, feeling only a little nervous with scenes from Crocodile Dundee flashing through my memory. I didn’t really think that there would be crocodiles in this part of [...]
Here’s how Lonely Planet primed us for the town of Nimbin:
Landing in Nimbin can be like entering a social experiment, particularly at noon, when Byron day-trippers arrive en masse and find themselves hectored by dreadlocked, tie-dyed pot dealers on the main street. This is the stereotype, of course (not all pot dealers wear tie-dye), and [...]
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In researching our World Nomads Ambassador trip in Australia, we knew that we would be charging headlong into winter. And after having avoided the frigid winter of mainland North America by being in Hawaii, I had started to think that [...]
While walking through a dense sub-tropical rainforest:
Nora: I wonder how many snakes are in this park.
Kelly: Don’t be silly. It’s winter. They’re all hiding. Hibernating probably.
Nora: Hibernating? Do snakes hibernate?
Kelly: Not sure. But if they don’t hibernate, they certainly hide in holes somewhere.
Nora: You know, Australia is home to the [...]
Kelly loves cheeseburgers. And we have both missed them since we left our home in Canada almost a year ago. But cheeseburgers do something for Kelly that goes beyond simple fondness. In fact, when asked, Kelly will cite his all-time favourite food as not lobster, not fillet mignon, but yes – cheeseburgers.
So it stands [...]
“We have to what? Drive a what? Where? And how?” was along the lines of what I said as the reality sank in of having the World Nomads van in our possession for the next six weeks.
I had spent the last few months in Asia studying the intricacies of driving on [...]
