Category: Andernorts

  • Townsville + Magnetic Island

    Townsville + Magnetic Island

    Townsville is a hate-it-or-think-it’s-not-THAT-bad kind of place. I had heard horrible things, but totally came around to thinking it wasn’t all that bad (I have yet to meet anyone who thought Townsville was fantastic). With the lowest of expectations, I intended spending my time recuperating after a really long train journey (30-odd hours with just…

  • Noosa and the Sunshine Coast

    Noosa and the Sunshine Coast

    In between visits to Fraser Island, I spent a fair bit of time in Noosa. I didn’t DO a whole lot – Noosa isn’t really a doing stuff place – but I the things I did do, I wrote about already here: Things to do in Noosa and Free things to do in Noosa. It’s…

  • Up Eli Creek Without a Paddle

    Up Eli Creek Without a Paddle

    Spend three weeks (give or take) on Fraser Island, and you start wondering… what’s does the other side of Lake McKenzie look like? How different is the scenery at the northern tip, beyond Indian Head? And how far up Eli Creek can you go? Everyone who visits Fraser Island strolls up the board walk and…

  • Canberra

    Canberra

    Why is Canberra the capital of Australia? If you only visit one sight while in Canberra, make it the Old Parliament. More specifically take the tour explaining the history of the building and the city. It raises a lot more questions than it answers, like Why did anyone think this was a good idea? or…

  • Uluru

    Uluru

    After leisurely making our way up the entire East Coast over the course of a month, the last few weeks were a sudden blur of flights, trains, with a rushed visit to Uluru squeezed in between. When planning a trip around Australia, that big red rock seems to sit there like the proverbial elephant. You…

  • Kakadu National Park

    Kakadu National Park

    Kakadu National Park was the first place in Australia where we got a feel for and an appreciation of Indigenous culture. The whole topic of colonial history, Aboriginal relations, land rights and restitution is a minefield and I know better than to comment extensively on matters I only have a vague understanding of. Suffice to…

  • Darwin

    Darwin

    Many people enjoy Darwin, but I failed to see the appeal entirely. Hot, humid, swarming with disease-bearing mosquitoes. While Northern Queensland also has all of the above, at least Cairns and Port Douglas have a few things between them to recommend the towns. Darwin is architecturally unattractive, and entertainment largely consists of the kind of…

  • Port Douglas

    Port Douglas

    Six of us checked in to a beautiful three-bedroom holiday home in Port Douglas, 10 of us stayed for a week. After some complex calculations involving the number of nights slept in a bed, number of nights on floor or couch, number of days in a car per person, and individual travel budget restrictions, we…

  • Cairns

    Cairns

    Once we got to Cairns, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, I was well and truly out of my comfort zone. At 34°, it was hot and humid, and I was wilting. As is the case along most of the Queensland coast, swimming in the ocean is not a good idea, with sharks, crocodiles and…

  • Airlie Beach

    Airlie Beach

    Our two days in Airlie Beach were made memorable mainly by the amazing group of people who coalesced there. It was as if all the silliest planets had aligned for a full goon party that ended up lasting over a week, taking us from Airlie to Cairns, Port Douglas and beyond. Barely an hour after…