go-see-do guide for adventurous travellers
Blowering Dam The chances of the overly excitable, imaginative and paranoid of finding their Blowering Dam Wall public amenities experience a little stressful are better than average. Answering nature’s call in this relief station’s picturesque setting in the heavily wooded Tumut River Valley is a positive pleasure. But its placement is a potential death trap. And while the possible perils[…]
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A Taste of the Paranormal Magnetic Hill South Australia promised to be a little bit weird. Up to now, my discovery of the Daleks of Khancoban in a remote Snowy Mountains hideaway had been the pinnacle of my paranormal participation in the world of real-life Australian sci-fi. Now, the sign in front of me detailed a strange and bizarre extrasensory[…]
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So what creative uses are there for a whacking great hole in the ground? A hole 3.8 km long, 1.5 km wide and 600 metres deep that can make a 680 tonne shovel look like a kitchen utensil?? Or a 166 tonne truck like a Matchbox toy??? A hole so large it’s colloquially known as the Super Pit Kalgoorlie? That’s[…]
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‘Good on ya, love,’ a bloke sang out, one of a trio of pensioners trotting past me as I trudged wearily up the last slight steady impossibly steep incline before the Mt Kosciuszko lookout. Leaving the summit behind I only had 2km of the 13 km (8 miles) round trip summit hike to go, and altitude sickness was kicking in.[…]
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Living in a landscape populated with giant fibreglass representations of fruit and animals is quite normal to many Aussies. Irrespective of whether or not such objects are in good taste! Commemorating criminals by building statues and devoting whole tourism campaigns to the bushrangers who dominated the early days of colonialism is also an intrinsic part of Aussie-dom. Irrespective of whether[…]
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Who needs a traditional Northern Hemisphere White Christmas when we’ve got the 12 Days of Christmas Aussie Style! In the Twelve months of this year, Australia gave to me: Twelve Sunset Fishers Eleven Kayaks Paddling Ten Tathra Wildflowers Nine Outback Sign Words Eight Devils Marbles Seven Rainbow Bee Eaters Six Loo Languages Five Mulla Mullas Four Awestruck[…]
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The ubiquitous Kangaroo is such an integral part of the landscape downunder that its iconic silhouette universally symbolises Australia. Yet to many of us Aussies they’re so commonplace we no longer marvel at the amazingly intricate biological system within this unique and oddly shaped animal. AND we roll our eyes at the tourists who gleefully pose for kangaroo souvenir shots.[…]
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Anything RED will catch my eye. An interesting history will hold my attention. But it takes more than hue and back story to boggle my mind! And this ordinary looking 1942 truck sitting inside an old shed behind a Yorke Peninsula country town museum with magpies roosting on its rusting railing delivered that boggle in spades. Because this ex-army, transport[…]
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The 4000 km drive from east to west is such a LOOOONG way even getting halfway across Australia is an achievement. Kimba, South Australia The small town of Kimba, deep in the South Australian Outback on the Eyre Peninsula, leaves cross country travellers in no doubt that they’ve reached halfway mark. If you don’t feel a photo coming on when[…]
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The superb double entendre of 70’s conservation poster slogan ‘Save the Poor Bustard’ gave my childish mind what I can now identify as a salacious thrill. It could actually be repeated without the speaker being accused of swearing!! All the same, it shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise when, after testing the slogan out once or twice, I was[…]
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