Tag: Humour

Vic, When Things Just Go Wrong4 Comments

What Seniors Get Up To In Cars These Days

Itching for Hitching

We’re heading to Mildura in Victoria’s northwest. By lunchtime we leave the Sunraysia Highway at Ouyen, because we want to try the Mallee Bakery’s famous award winning vanilla slices. The pies are excellent but the “snot blocks” are pillows of ecstasy and gooilly delicious but bloody difficult to eat whilst driving. Brian has large globs of soft white icing dripping from his fingers and a mouth filled with crunchy pastry as he asks me to mop up the custard that has landed in big dollops in his lap. All too soon I realise that I’m tickling his unmentionables while wiping … Continue reading What Seniors Get Up To In Cars These Days

Point of Interest, WA, Well Bugger Me!2 Comments

The Waterwheel at Cape Leeuwin

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Not far from the Western Australian town of Augusta, at the very south west corner of Australia called Cape Leeuwin, there is an old water wheel that once provided spring water for the Cape Leeuwin light house keepers. It is now calcifying and turning to stone. The water still flows and drips over the waterwheel. The water is sweet. Continue reading The Waterwheel at Cape Leeuwin

Why CaravanningLeave a comment

Another Thing the Salesman Won’t Tell You

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Friends invited us to their place for New Year’s Eve. All of our club members were invited and to take the worry out of driving we were told to bring our vans as there is plenty of room. Now that’s an offer that we couldn’t refuse, because as all RVers know, there is no finer place to sleep than in your own home on wheels. Many is the time that we’ve happily given our bedroom to house guests while we’ve snored our heads off out in the drive way. We have friends who spend Christmas each year snoozing out front … Continue reading Another Thing the Salesman Won’t Tell You

Why CaravanningLeave a comment

Lookin’ Out My Back Door

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A few years ago friends were contemplating buying a caravan. I suggested that the best thing of all is that each morning when you look out your door you see a different view. For this the final post of 2015 I was going to put up my favourite photos of the year, but hey you can see those in the Photo Gallery any time. So here are some of our ‘Window Views’ of the year. I like to show some of the window or doorframe where possible, sometimes I forget to take a shot out the window, other times I … Continue reading Lookin’ Out My Back Door

Point of Interest, QldLeave a comment

The Gulflander

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As the wet season begins once more in northern Australia, I’m reminded of our visit to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the dry season of 2014. We assemble at the Normanton railway station in Far North Queensland at 8:00am to board the Gulflander train to go to Croydon 150kms away. The Gulflander is also known as the train that goes from nowhere to nowhere. The pretty little wooden station is all gussied up with flowers in pots and railway relics. In Queensland’s colour of maroon the diesel rail motor has three carriages. The 3ft 6inch wide line was opened in … Continue reading The Gulflander

Places, QldLeave a comment

The Isa

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Mt Isa in Queensland is not an old town but a fascinating one. Lead was discovered here in 1923, so there aren’t the heritage buildings and traditional outback pubs that define other towns. Surprisingly the City of Mt Isa actually includes the ‘suburb’ of Camooweal, 188 kilometres away. The road connecting the two towns is locally known as the “longest main street in the world.” The mine provides a dramatic backdrop to the city and the view of the city lights from the lookout is a treat at sunset. We spend the morning driving around Mt Isa’s residential streets looking … Continue reading The Isa

NSW, PlacesLeave a comment

Sofala

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We leave the Castlereagh highway at the tumbledown town of Ilford, NSW and head off through the hills on what is unromantically named Tourist Drive 4. TD4 is a hilly road winding through brown farmland with sheep and the gum trees are adorned with mistletoe. We drop down a steep hill and find ourselves in the village of Sofala, it is Australia’s oldest surviving occupied gold mining town and there is still a little prospecting done here. It was also used in the 1974 movie “The Cars That Ate Paris”. We park the rig and walk as the street is … Continue reading Sofala

Qld, WildlifeLeave a comment

Wet Emblems

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It is winter 2014 and we’re in Longreach in Western Queensland, there are clouds gathering, rain is forecast but the locals are reluctant to talk about it. They’re in the midst of the worst drought in 100 years. Overnight it starts raining and hasn’t let up all day. The red dust has turned to slippery, sticky mud. I can now see how the unmade roads around here quickly become impassable. Any wonder it was the birthplace of Australia’s iconic airline Qantas. Just turning the car around at the end of a residential street we churn up ruts in the mud. … Continue reading Wet Emblems

Farm Stays3 Comments

Farm Stays

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There are so many options when caravanning and camping, Caravan Parks, National (& State) Parks, Free Camps, Showgrounds and Farm Stays. There is nothing quite like a Farm Stay. For a reasonable fee hundreds of farmers across Australia offer basic camping facilities and provide city folk with an insight into what life on the land is like. Or more specifically what life in their part of the country is like as conditions vary so much across Australia. Every property is as different as the farmers themselves and the facilities they offer vary too, but that is part of the experience. … Continue reading Farm Stays