The last few weeks end up being like a holiday at the end of the trip – moving from Melbourne along the South Coast of New South Wales to Sydney and eventually to my family’s home in Scone. We drive through an endless pall of bushfire smoke, with much of the south east of Australia …
Tag Archives: camping
Aireys Inlet, Great Ocean Road, Victoria
The contrast is absolute. Today we walk through a fecund eucalypt forest in the Otway National Park. It’s a sharp, winding 500-metre climb through grand, goal post straight gums, dotted with occasional grey bulges that sporadically stretch a rear leg and scratch behind a furry ear. They are koalas, still electrifying to witness in the …
Mildura, Victoria
You can’t live without hope that things will change for the better You can’t live without the dream of someone reading your letter – Colin Hay, Next Year People ‘It’s a dust bowl.’ These are the parting words from our host in Adelaide when we mention we are heading to Mildura that day. I only …
Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand National Park, Western Australia
The morning opens heavy and grey. Dark smudges of cloud fill the sky, thick and stagnant, lighter in the east where the morning sun is filtered and confined to a dull constant. There is a sense of the suns presence, but the dense blanket has defeated the raging luminosity. All is damp with an enveloping …
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Carnarvon, Western Australia
The four of us are lying on our backs, with our legs on a shelf so that our calves and feet are above our heads. Eddie is on one side of me, Sandi to my right and Frank next to her. Eddie and Frank are dressed in astronaut suits. It’s a very small space, and …
Point Quobba, Western Australia
Little patterns have settled as we move across the country. I wake first and get coffee, the boys stretch and groan and creep up to where Sandi still lies and crawl in around her. Little patterns. We have sandwiches for lunch and Frank doesn’t have tomato but Eddie does. Little patterns. We do a grocery …
Cape Range National Park, Ningaloo Coast
The exquisite Ningaloo Coast. The flour-white sand is littered with tiny shells of intense complexity and colour that softly crunch as they give way to your feet. The translucent, invigorating salt water swirls softly in the bays, with Dotted Darts and Blue Snapper lazily swimming in a few feet of water beside the shore. The …
Eighty Mile Beach, Western Australia
It’s mid-afternoon and we are all lazing under the shade of the tent awning that staves off the intense West Australian sun, reading or dozing, after a morning fishing on the brilliant white beach. For the last few hours we have been baiting up lines with inch long silver slices of pilchard, the red innards …
Gnylmarung, Dampier Peninsula, Western Australia
Twice now we have stopped for longer periods and stayed with generous friends, once Darwin and now in Broome. Twice we have spilt from the car, initially with whatever was in hands reach, pillows, keys, books and shoes and then slowly adding more as things are pulled from the trailer. We create little piles of …
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Big Country 