go-see-do guide for adventurous travellers
I had no idea that at 747 metres (2450 ft) above sea level Tom Price is the highest town in Western Australia. I also had no idea Tom Price is at the foot of the highest Western Australian mountain with a summit accessible by road. And I had no idea that the town was named for American geologist Thomas Moore[…]
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It’s the bird du jour around almost any given sub-tropical picnic area and car park, so it should have been easy to get a good shot. However, my shots of Australian Brush-turkey in the dark depths of Natural Bridge*, part of Springbrook National Park’s lushly magnificent rainforest, all had something missing. Clarity. We’d driven up the impossibly steep Border Ranges from[…]
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Australia Telescope Compact Array At the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the future of Southern Hemispheric radio astronomy was in my hands, at least for the next 30 minutes or so. Staggering advances in technology channel radio signals from deep, DEEP space through the 6-Dish Australia Telescope Compact Array. The dishes work together to simulate a much larger antenna. However, the[…]
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Being a drama queen is a good thing, right?? So the naturally monochromatic landscape of a stormy day on Australia’s east coast where an offshore low made mountains of the waves and piled the sky high with clouds thrilled my little DQ soul to bits. And has given me a rare opportunity to silence those who, based on my photos, ask if[…]
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Risking it all at Sawn Rocks! ‘You’d be REALLY unlucky to be underneath when a rock column fell,’ the Grey Nomad to his wife as I stood, camera pointed up at the rock face directly above me, waiting for the sun. They laughed merrily. While the notoriety of being the first person killed by a falling organ-pipe column in living[…]
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1 The Gun Birder* Driving a bouncing 4WD with 4 passengers along a rough station track in search of Australia’s rarest bird wasn’t cramping the gun birder’s style one bit. All I could see were the vast, rolling plains of grass and samphire stretching to the horizon against an endless blue sky. But our driver and guide on the Broome[…]
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I was 4 – nearly 5! – the first time I crossed the Nullarbor. Christmas day, and we were on the Indian Pacific* heading for Adelaide. We’d spent Christmas eve in a pub somewhere in rough as guts Western Australian gold-mining town Kalgoorlie, but I don’t remember that. Maybe I had blanked it out … Many years later, I made[…]
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‘Now we’ll see some REAL scenery!’ Doug announced, herding us away from the spectacular outlook from Coulthard’s Lookout towards our convoy of two vehicles. The Arkaroola Ridgetop tour was well underway. But I was sceptical. The ragged mountain ranges (yes, I’m channelling Aussie poet Dorothea Mackellar*) glistened and glowed in a glorious 360° panorama in the perfection of a clear Outback[…]
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Watch your coincidences, the writers manual said. Spread them out, with no more than three or you’ll lose readers. So just WHAT was I supposed to do about all the Carnamah coincidences? We arrived in Carnamah on Mum’s birthday. Coincidence #1. A distant relative I’d never met before was staying in the caravan park. Coincidence #2. The Carnamah Historical Society[…]
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With Australia’s 25,760 km (16,000+ mile) coastline, more than most other countries, you’d think it’d be easy to find enough distinctive spots for photos with a unique and unmistakeably OZ flavour, right? So why do I repeatedly find myself with shots that could have been taken … well … ANYWHERE?? See if you recognise any of THESE! 1 The Fishing[…]
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