Gotta love Australia. As much as we feel completely at home in this foreign land, every once in a while something happens – somebody says something odd, or we see a strange sign – to remind us that we are still oh so far away from our home country. Although we initially had a number [...]
“We’ve died and gone to Kingbilli,” I said to Kelly, as we gazed in awe at the place we are to call home for the next six to ten months. The Drive We had just spent the last two hours driving northeast from Melbourne to our own little paradise near a town you’ve probably never [...]
Having come through sub-tropical rainforests, learned to drive on the other side of the road, squished squeaky sand between our toes at beach towns, slept in the chilly high-altitude tablelands, fossicked for treasure in opal mining towns, driven through the great outback, and hiked through yet more national parks, before seeing the ocean again along [...]
As the road south from the climbing and trekking Mecca of Grampians National Park spilled out onto the ocean a few hours later, we knew our World Nomads Ambassador adventure was coming to an end. But it wasn’t a sad moment, because we plan to go out with a bang! Australia’s Great Ocean road meanders [...]
Being from Canada, we feel right at home in Oz. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Everywhere we turn, we see more and more similarities between Australia and Canada, and are amazed that two countries so far apart geographically can share so many commonalities. One such common bond, and one neither country [...]
Pursuant to my earlier post on caravan parks, we have become quite acquainted with the likes of these travel stops as the weeks have progressed on our World Nomads Whirlwind Trip. And no two parks are the same, which is part of the charm of such travel. When you check in at a big name [...]
A long blare of a not-too-distant horn echoed throughout Broken Hill around 6:30pm, while we were preparing dinner. Shortly thereafter, a short blare of the horn followed. Being of a volume and pitch similar to what we heard in Hawaii when the tsunami warning system was tested each month, we wondered what these horns meant. [...]
For once, this isn’t a story about Kelly needing medical assistance (as he did in Thailand and Hawaii)!No, instead, this is about an incredible tour we did of the Royal Flying Doctor Base in Broken Hill. Australia is big. Really big. And although Broken Hill is known as the “accessible outback”, most of the outback [...]
When people told us about the colours of the outback – the stark contrast between the red of the dirt with the blue of the sky, and the silvery green of the eucalypt trees that dot the landscape – we were somewhat blasé about it. We knew it would be beautiful, but really. And when [...]
“When I close my eyes, I see opals,” said Kelly, shaking his head.It seems he has a touch of opal fever. Lightning Ridge and the surrounding areas are famous for its abundance of opals, and in particular the black opal, which can basically only be found here. For decades, people have visited, and never left. [...]
