On March 25th, I promptly turned my car around and drove the 30-odd kilometers along Old Motu Road, back to the ocean and highway. My guide booklet had described the road as travelling "through some of the best rugged bush-clad mountainous country in New Zealand". Although I was retracing my tracks from the day before, I had driven most of it in ( Read more... )

You know how in tourism advertisements for warm places like Australia, they always show white sandy beaches, clear blue water, and girls in bikinis? And sure, you think, those things exist -- but surely that's an optimistic or idealistic view of the destination. Those places must be remote, or few and far between, or cost a pretty penny to get to ( Read more... )

New Years resolution #1: Catch up on the blog! At least this is the last post about Cairns... this one is lots of text and only a few photos, for a change ( Read more... )

On the morning of Friday the 21st, I took the free hostel shuttle to the Brisbane transit centre to catch my train to Rockhampton... my first time ever on a long-distance train (it so happens that this very train company had a terrible mishap a week later, in which a train collided with a semi truck and killed both conductors). A fellow traveller ( Read more... )