My blog has been quiet for a long time. After discovering an issue with photo sharing being blocked by Photbucket and with WordPress having very limited bandwidth, I lost the heart to continue blogging. I’d rather spend money on travel than blogging so I won’t pay to blog. Besides, I never go back and read…
Australia / Car touring / Family / Tasmania / Travel
Paul has gone home and I’ve been joined by Mum and her friend R. Together we will walk the Three Capes Track from Port Arthur. But first, we have the pleasure of taking the 1.5 hour drive from Hobart to the Tasman Peninsula where we will spend a night preparing for our hike. The drive…
Australia / Cycle touring / Tasmania / Travel
I’ve brought my bicycle with me on this trip. On Tuesday I cycled around Sheffield. Today I’m taking on the challenge of Mt Wellington. While Paul sleeps in I set off from the harbour to really make the most of this 1,270m climb. There are no flat sections. Leaving the harbour the road ascends immediately…
Australia / Car touring / Tasmania / Travel
It’s grey and drizzly when we leave Ross for Hobart. This weather is more like what I experienced on my previous two trips to the island. It doesn’t dampen our spirits though. Oatlands is our first stop. The Callington Mill is prominent and makes a natural stopping point. We tour the grounds (free) and buy…
Australia / Car touring / Tasmania / Travel
We arrive in Ross late in the afternoon. Fortunately, the sun doesn’t set here in Tassie until about 7:30pm in October so we have plenty of time to explore. Ross is situated in the Central Midlands. The surrounding landscape is distinctly agricultural and the towns are tiny. Ross is old. By modern Australian standards it…
It was difficult to say goodbye to M&K after our visit. We enjoyed two wonderful nights of brilliant company, lengthy conversations and delicious food (K is a brilliant chef). We even learned some tips for feeding our worms and growing compost at home in our vegie patch. But say goodbye we eventually did. We cruised…
We’d heard about the tulips at Table Cape being in bloom for the spring. Despite being born in Holland, I have never seen tulips. Not en masse anyway. So we drive over from Cradle Mountain to see this spectacularly colourful display. It’s a little early in the season for the tulips to be covering the…
I’ve heard that Cradle Mountain only receives fifty days of sunshine each year and over 290 days of rain. So when we wake to sunshine in Sheffield our destination seems predetermined. It’s about an hour to the mountain from Sheffield and the drive itself is as stunning as the end goal. We rise from green…
I look out the plane window and am struck by how green the landscape is below me. Farmland stretches to the coast. As a Brisbane boy I am struck by how rural it looks. There’s no urban sprawl like around Brisbane. It’s all green pastures and patches of trees. I am excited about the coming…
We visit Da Nang a few times over the course of our final week in Vietnam. Firstly as an evening out and a day trip while we are staying in Hoi An, and we then stay two nights in Da Nang before our flight home. I like Da Nang. It is equal parts fishing village,…
Riding north east out of Hué we are headed for the narrow strip of land between a long lagoon and the sea. Fish farms line the north western banks. We watch children play in long boats from a road bridge. Agriculture and fishing are the main industries here. Wooden fishing boats are built by hand…
We only have time for one night in Hué as our time in Vietnam is coming to a close. The city is part of the popular tourist route that includes Hoi An, Sapa and Halong Bay so the menus are all in either English or Korean, and there’s certainly no lack of foreigners wandering the…
Neither words not photos can do justice to the bends, views and road quality of the ride from Prao to Hué. For the first hour we follow a river that cuts a swath through the mountains. Wide at first, it becomes gradually smaller as we ride ever higher. Enterinf the Vietnam-Laos border region the road…
Leaving Hoi an we wriggle our way west through dusty townships. Quiet mountain roads beckon but first we must battle roadworks and road users who scored highly on the “drive without looking” exam. It’s all worth it. QL14 is an amazing mountain road with almost no traffic. It winds effortlessly upwards into and through jungle-clad…
After being out in the mountains, Hoi An is a shock to the system. When we arrive the ancient town is wall to wall tourists. A tiny cup of iced coffee costs as much as at home and the dual pricing system is thriving. Avoid the crowds Avoid the crowds by exploring this famous yellow-walled…
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