Training run in Samoa. Image Cam Cope Photography camcope.com
A blank look and extended silence is all I got when I told my Mum I was going to run a Half Marathon. The Solar Eclipse Half Marathon in Port Douglas no less. She didn’t get it. And quite probably thought it was just one more half-baked idea from a middle child who’s m [...]
Posts in category Australia
Run a Half Marathon in Port Douglas: ...
Training run in Samoa. Image Cam Cope Photography camcope.com
A blank look and extended silence is all I got when I told my Mum I was going to run a Half Marathon. The Solar Eclipse Half Marathon in Port Douglas no less. She didn’t get it. And quite probably thought it was just one more half-baked idea from a middle child who’s m [...]
View from the Village
PNG villager in traditioal dress
Sylvester is looking for a wife. Sort of. Chatting in his Grandmothers kitchen, as other family members lurk inquisitively in the shadows, he tells me he’s single. I get the impression he’s pretty happy about it. Tradition, however, dictates that he find a wife to bear his children who will in turn care for t [...]
Revisiting The World’s Most Liv...
Lately I seem to have become a tourist here in my own town… yes, the one which styles itself The World’s Most Liveable City (even if recent events have sorely tested that smug assertion).
Having the company of two young Japanese house guests, one after the other, has taken us out and about to see the local sights through fresh eye [...]
Art of Arnhem Land
Morning Star Pole Dancer, Elcho Island Northern Territory Aust
Fiona Harper travel writer/photographer cruised remote Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory with Orion Expeditions on an Art of Arnhem Land tour. Voyaging between Darwin and Thursday Island, she visited Tiwi Islands, Maningrida, Elcho Island, Wessel Islands a [...]
Indigenous tours share Mossman Gorge ...
Indigenous performer Robbie on Dreamtime Walk
The official opening in September of the swanky new $20 million Mossman Gorge Centre eco-tourism business north of Cairns has turned a 20 year dream into reality for the Mossman Indigenous community of the Kuku Yalangi people.
Indigenous Land Corporation Chairperson Dr Dawn Casey said construction [...]
Coconut Odyssey – AustraliaR...
At Thala Beach Lodge near Port Douglas on the north east coast of Australia, where the Coral Sea meets dense forest and foliage-covered mountains, you can learn all about the humble coconut .
The ‘Coconut Odyssey’tour is the only one of its kind in Australia. It’s led by passionate coconut advocate Carl Johanson, who was once listed as one o [...]
Trekking the northern NSW coast
The Yuraygir Coastal Walk is a 32km easy trek, best tackled over around four days, between Coffs Harbour and Yamba. With strong connections to indigenous traditional lands, and home to the rare and endangered coastal emu, the trail runs through Yuraygir National Park.
Formerly widespread in north-eastern New South Wales, coastal emus are now [...]
Reverse travel: a visit to Villawood
Those of us privileged to travel overseas and enjoy the hospitality of others should spare a thought for those for whom travel is not a luxury but a necessity. I refer to those called “asylum seekers” – refugees from conflict, war and civil strife.
Virginia Walker, 73 years old and still a dynamo of determination, has become [...]
Home exchanging allows you to live li...
Living rent-free in London… too good to be true?
“Yes, I would be interested in an exchange… our two-bedroom apartment is less than a mile east of Tower Bridge. The Tube station is opposite – one change gets you into central London within half an hour…”
The novelty of driving in snow…
Jack, a retired motor company executive, meant busin [...]
Do travellers need to take lessons?
Seen the TV series An Idiot Abroad? It makes me cringe – but only because I know this is exactly the way I’ve behaved in the past.
I remember arriving at the ferry terminal in Surat Thani, in Thailand. I thought I’d walked into a time-warp. Here were a whole bunch of “freaks” looking as I had been trying to look twenty year [...]
Dispatches from the Red Centre
After heavy rains in February-March and again in early July 2011, Central Australia is carpeted in wildflowers. Bushwalkers in the “Red Centre” are now rewarded with a vista of brilliant cobalt skies over flower-studded oxide-red earth, the air redolent with the honey-sweet aroma of Pukara (Desert Heath Myrtle) and a vast nature-bouquet of ot [...]
Cruising the Great Barrier Reef
After five days at sea exploring the outer Great Barrier Reef north of Cairns, I’m heartened to see that the reef is indeed alive and well. Thriving, even. Having snorkelled much of the Queensland coast over the years, I’ve been fortunate to witness the underwater world in scores of locations from Fraser Island to Torres Strait. [...]
Halfway to the Antarctic
Who amongst us is not tempted by the mystique of remote islands? Last November I joined a voyage down through New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic islands to Australia’s own Macquarie Island and back. Heritage Expeditions operates this expedition cruise using a Russian research vessel.
Inhabited only by a few transient – and dedicated – researchers, t [...]
