Tag: Humour

Places, Vic9 Comments

Port Fairy

Itching for Hitching

It is wintry and very cold and windy in Port Fairy on Victoria’s west coast. We rug up and walk around Griffiths Island which is only metres from the shore. This is a place that holds a special meaning to me as I once worked with a gentleman by the name of John Griffiths who was a direct descendant of the Tasmanian entrepreneur and sealer John Griffiths who established a sealing business on this island long before Port Fairy was established. There is lichen covered basalt, oyster catchers dart across small beaches and tiny turban shells called Italian White Snails … Continue reading Port Fairy

Qld, Weather10 Comments

Unseasonal weather

Itching for Hitching

We’ve been invited over to our caravan mate’s place for afternoon tea. They live in a seventy year old Queenslander housein tropical Mackay. Now I’ve been busting to see inside one of these houses forever so I’m just a little excited. The inside walls are of vertical timber boards that stretch up to a ceiling that is 14 feet above. The windows are shuttered and doorways are crowned with fretwork. We have tea on the wide teak verandah overlooking the garden and the rain that tumbles down unceasingly. This is the dry season. Our friends describe how they use the … Continue reading Unseasonal weather

Qld, Well Bugger Me!Leave a comment

Fish and Chips Anyone?

Itching for Hitching

Camped at Rollingstone, Qld we can clearly see the Balgal Beach fish cafe from our caravan window and it’s only a few hundred metres away, how good is that? We can see its lights blinking temptingly as we close our blinds at night. But it’s not good at all because it’s a fourteen kilometre drive to get there. Huh, 14kms? Well, thanks to the crocodile who just happens to live in the creek… between us and the cafe. Continue reading Fish and Chips Anyone?

NSW, The Pubs6 Comments

Grawin Opal Fields, Lightning Ridge

Itching for Hitching

Two out of three ain’t bad. There’s another opal field about 60kms from The Ridge and it is home to 3 iconic pubs. We set off in a convoy of 3 cars down a good bitumen road to the tiny town of Cumborah. A little further on we turn onto an appalling dirt road that our mate Vee rates as worse than the Birdsville Track. Outback Jack is in the back seat thanking God that Vee has offered to take us in her car! We bump along swearing and cursing the road and the dust and reading car door signs … Continue reading Grawin Opal Fields, Lightning Ridge

NSW, Places9 Comments

Car Doors and Castles

Itching for Hitching

Two streets down from the Opal Caravan Park is one of the famous Lightning Ridge Car Door Tours, the Red one. Thus we leave the bitumen to follow numbered red car doors to explore this town’s minefields and minefield is an appropriate description. Because people live on mining leases in Lightning Ridge their houses are as basic as possible. By order of law the land should only be used for mining not housing. The hillsides are littered with ramshackle dwellings, decaying caravans, tram cars, corrugated iron shanties and mullock heaps with rusting bucket structures atop that look like roller coasters, which … Continue reading Car Doors and Castles

NSW, Places13 Comments

Lightning Ridge

Itching for Hitching

Lightning Ridge is unique. Seven hundred kilometres from Sydney it feels like the outback but in Australian terms of distance it isn’t, really. An ironstone ridge rising from a floodplain it attracts lightning and thus the name.The Ridge is an opal mining town where people live above ground usually beside their mines. Unlike the opal towns of Coober Pedy and White Cliffs where they prefer to live underground because of the hot climate and the dry air in their mines. To the tourist it is a town of characters and eccentrics and never knowing whether the scruffy bearded guy in … Continue reading Lightning Ridge