Australia
A Wonderful Weekend in Wollongong
Taking the prize for unexpected pleasure is the town of Wollongong. We were looking for somewhere to spend a couple of days outside Sydney. To the north we couldn’t find anywhere to stay within our budget, but Wollongong offered plenty…
A whistlestop visit to Sydney
There can be few more famous sights worldwide than Sydney harbour, the opera house and the bridge, while cruising into the harbour on the ferry. As we made our day trip from our temporary home with good friends in Manly…
Exploring The Blue Mountains
The Blue Mountains – they can’t really be blue, can they? Intrigued, we took the train from central Sydney out west in search of blue mountains and all the wildlife and fresh air that we hoped would come with them.…
Aussie road trip part 2: Tingles and ANZACs
And so we left the South Western tip of Australia behind and travelled east. We were not long into the drive before we had a classic Australian experience. Realising we only had 120Km of petrol left, and the nearest town…
Delights of Perth, Western Australia
After an outstanding day on Rottnest Island with the quokkas, we took time out to enjoy some relaxed days in Perth. We very much liked Perth, the relaxed feel of the city, how easy it was to get about and…
Aussie road trip: Roo with a view
Kangaroos. Real. Live. Roos in the wild! If the kids remember one thing about this part of the journey, my money is on seeing kangaroos bounding around in the unusual way that they do. We set out from Perth heading…
The Giants of Mandurah
Update: We have now also found Ulla, the Giant of Santiago! Mandurah sits some 70km from Perth, south down the coast. There’s a beautiful harbour area as well as marinas and plenty of chic and expensive looking waterside properties with…
Perth, Western Australia: Freeo
Freemantle is inexplicably known locally as Freeo. Surely it would shorten to Freemo? Anyway, Freemantle is the traditional coastal port to Perth’s inland city. It continues to fulfill this role today as a significant global commercial port reaching out to…
Perth, Western Australia: The Quokkas of Rotto
There’s nothing to see or do in Western Australia! A good friend of ours from Queensland, with a wry smile Loving nothing more than a challenge, we set out on a mission to test this assertion. Perth was anyhow a…
