To survive, most country towns need just one point of difference. One often seemingly crazy idea can save a community. It may be a different crop like drying kelp from the ocean and exporting it to the other side of … Continue reading Every town needs an angle

I’m surprised at the amount of wool cleaning we’ve come across in our travels. In Mudgee, NSW the museum guide showed me a box that the poor old sheep would be put into. Only his head would be poking out of the wooden box while he was rigorously scrubbed of dirt and burrs. In Blackall, Qld we toured the Wool Scour a building where fleeces were washed and cleaned by machine. Thankfully without the sheep in them. In Robe, SA we camped beside Lake Fellmongery, a place where wool was scoured and where wool was removed from sheep skins. Not … Continue reading Washing Woollies

Feb 2020, Colac, Vic Continue reading A labour of love

Life on the road is as social as you want it to be. We find that during our winter trips we often catch up with friends who’ve moved north for good. We also run into mates who are on a different timetable and maybe heading south as we’re going north or vice versa. That planned catch up over a bowl of noodles in Glen Waverley becomes Korean in Canberra instead. Then there are the folks that we’ve met during our travels and who are as peripatetic as we are, if we’re lucky we can meet up in a little town … Continue reading The Social Set

Sometimes we forget that this country could quite easily have been claimed by another nation and perhaps it was a quirk of fate that the English desperate for land and riches chose to stake a claim. We know that of … Continue reading Saw your light on, thought we’d drop in

A long time ago I got into a habit of naming our ‘long’ trips and somehow, they took on a musical theme. First there was “It’s a long way to the top” (AC/DC or Acca Dacca to most Aussies) on … Continue reading Naming trips? It’s a song