We caught up to the couple from Melbourne at the end of the track, while they stretched their muscles and pondered the trail map. We had just walked for three hours through bushland and forest…
A naked man comes up to you and invites you to join in the action. Two other naked men and a woman have already appeared in the half-light across the room, standing expectantly. He hands…
Footy. That’s what the locals call Australian Rules Football. And the game was supposed to be a good one. We’re not talking some pickup game in a nearby weed patch; we were going to the big…
Melburnians love chocolate in all its forms. We’ve commented on the coffee-mad culture of Wellington, where you can hardly turn around without bumping into a busy café with patrons spilling onto the street. Melbourne offers…
In January, we uprooted ourselves from Wellington (see The Move, Part 1); here’s what it took to replant ourselves in Australia. We had become quite familiar with Wellington and how things work in New Zealand.…
Tree specialists know that uprooting and replanting a tree can put great stress on it, endangering its viability. We like to think of ourselves as more resilient than that, but the stresses are there when…
Many of you have had the experience of coming from the United States or continental Europe to England, New Zealand, Australia (and astonishingly around 75 other countries), and finding yourself driving on the other side…
About four hours drive from Hobart, the very civilized capital of Tasmania on the east coast, or a couple of hours from bustling Launceston at the midpoint of the north coast, you can delve into…
As a tourist from outside Australia, you can often feel you are skating over the surface of the country even if you take the time to walk curiously through it, explore off the beaten track…
One of the great pleasures of hiking in the woods (or bush, as they say in Oz) is coming upon elusive wildlife. Anyone who has visited Yellowstone or seen deer grazing in Colorado knows this…