Blinman
It’s only about 75 kms from Wilpena to Blinman but there are plenty of things to do on the way. The town was founded by a one-legged shepherd named Robert Blinman who discovered copper here while looking after his sheep. in 1855, the town had a population of 1500 but today there are just 18 […]
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Wilpena Pound
It was a very cold night last night. The temperature was forecast to get down to -1C and I don’t think it had any trouble doing so. I was awake at 3.30 am feeling cold so I turned on the heater in our cabin and turned up my electric blanket. In the morning, I discovered […]
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The Southern Flinders Ranges
Today, we finally made it to the Southern section of the Flinders Ranges. This series of mountains form the biggest mountains in South Australia and were named in honour of Mathew Flinders (by some of his party). He was the first man to circumnavigate Australia in 1802. The first settlers arrived here in 1845. We planned to […]
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Peterborough
Tonight, we have reached the South Australian outback town of Peterborough on our way to the Flinders Ranges. We began our day in Mildura (420 kilometres away) with a visit to the Murray River and the lock / weir in the city. By international standards, the Murray River is tiny, but it is our biggest […]
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Mildura
Tonight, I’m in Mildura in the far north-west of Victoria. I’m with three other friends travelling to the Flinders Ranges in outback South Australia. Mildura is a city of about 60,000 people and situated on the Murray River,. It has a long history of irrigation and is famous for its oranges, dried fruits, grapes and […]
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Wirrawilla Rainforest Walk
I’ve had two occasions to visit this beautiful area of rainforest over the last month. The first was with my friend John, when we went for the purpose of photographing some of the fungi that appears there in winter. The second was with a family of German visitors who stayed with us for a few days […]
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African Women
On our recent trip through South Africa and Zimbabwe, I found African women to be enchanting. I was especially fascinated with the way that they were able to style their hair into so many forms of creative ‘hair dos’. I asked some of those who we met in restaurants, shops, hotels and on the street […]
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Visiting Van Gogh
Last week, we visited another superb exhibition at the Victorian National Gallery in Melbourne. This is one of the regular art exhibitions organised by the Gallery of famous works from around the world. The last time we visited the Gallery was to see the David Hockney Exhibition. This Van Gogh exhibition is about the life of […]
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Dark Tourism
I was listening to the radio yesterday, when, on a travel program, the subject of ‘Dark Tourism’ came up. A man who was being interviewed was talking about his recent experiences in visiting Chernobyl. I had never heard this term before, so when I got home, I looked it up via ‘Tour Guide Google’ to […]
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We Just Missed a Disaster
Barbara, one of the people who regularly follow my blog alerted me, yesterday, to a severe weather incident that has caused destruction and devastation in many areas of South Africa. We visited the same places just two weeks ago. It’s so sad to see some of the areas that we most enjoyed visiting being devastated […]
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Soweto
We left Johannesburg on Saturday night but before we departed in the evening, we had some time to do a morning tour of Soweto. Soweto (made up from the initials of the English name, South West Territories) is the black township established by the Apartheid regime in South Africa. In 1948, South Africa’s National Party […]
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Victoria Falls by Helicopter
Before leaving Victoria Falls to return to Johannesburg, I had time for one more activity. We had a booking for the first helicopter flight of the day over the falls. We left the hotel at 7.30 am and by 8.30 am we were weighed and checked in for our ride. Our pilot was a spunky […]
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