Category: Travels for Fun
-
FROM STREAKY TO BORDER VILLAGE
Padma and I slowed down our pace once we reached the Far West Coast of South Australia. We drove a mere 590 kms from Streaky Bay to Border Village on the SA/WA border as we didn’t want to miss the sights. From sheep grazing in sparse paddocks, to wide-open rangeland with no start or end, to the longest uninterrupted line of sea cliffs in the world and finally to a roadhouse with a giant kangaroo holding a jar of Vegemite. We detoured off the Eyre Highway to the Head of Bight…
-
THE STREAKS OF STREAKY BAY
In 1802 Captain Matthew Flinders sailed into a bay on the current day South Australian coastline and noticed how the light reflecting off the seaweed created streaks in the water. He named the place Streaky Bay. After driving all day from Adelaide, Padma and I arrived at Streaky Bay as the sun was setting. We were welcomed with abundant streaks of colour on an evening when there wasn’t even a whisper of a breeze. We stretched our legs and walked out to the end of the jetty and watched the final…
-
NORTH OF GOYDER’S LINE
Back in 1865 a surveyor known as George Goyder got on his horse and traversed 3200 kms across South Australia. When he got home he drew a line across the state. He figured to the south of his line farmers could get enough rainfall to allow them to grow crops. To the north, he felt it was just too prone to drought and you’d best stick to grazing animals. Just after Goyder drew his line, South Australia had ample rains and farmers said ‘bugger that line’ and started planting to the…
-
THE NULLARBOR CROSSING
While living in Europe, Padma and I missed one aspect of Australia: the emptiness. There is no emptiness in Western Europe, certainly not on the highways. So with the arrival of the cooler Autumn weather, Padma and I decided to experience some good old Aussie emptiness. And there’s no better place for that than the Nullarbor Plain of Western Australia and South Australia. So we packed our bags and loaded our Toyota Hybrid and started driving East … destination Melbourne (3500 kms) to visit our sons, Joseph and Xander. The Nullarbor…
-
ALL BY OURSELVES.
I finally got that long-awaited gin and tonic. Or rather three gin and tonics. The Qatar Airways flight attendant keep bringing them to me. Maybe he sensed the cloud of stress above me, the mild stench of anxiety surrounding me or the furrows of worry on my face. With each G&T all of those emotions were replaced with just one: relief. We are on our way home to Australia. After three months of living in limbo with the constant fear of not getting home as the Australian Government played with our…
-
THE BAVONA VALLEY
Nothing beats having a local guide and during our visit to Ticino, Switzerland’s southern Italian-speaking canton, Padma and I were spoiled by having our friend, Hans, show us around. Hans took us up north from his home near Locarno to the Bavona Valley and brought us to the base of the 100-metre Foroglio Waterfall. Padma and I didn’t object when Hans asked if we wanted to hike to the top of the falls. After some sweat and toil we reached the top and followed the crystal-clear Calnegia River through rocky terrain.
-
ON THE TRAIL OF MARTIN LUTHER
Padma and I look at a different kind of map these days when planning our travel destinations. Instead of maps with tourist attractions we look at the map showing the incidence of COVID. And after studying the map we could tell that the former East German states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt had very low rates of COVID infections. So we packed the car and embarked on a roadtrip. But we did have a mission in mind. We wanted to explore the old stomping grounds of arguably the most famous German –…
-
NEGATIV
‘Are we being responsible?’ Padma asked me on the first day of our journey through France and Spain. I thought for a long time and tried to spin it so that I could justify our travels during a global pandemic. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Responsible people would stay home.’ But like tens of thousands of other Europeans we were on the road for summer holidays. Non-essential travel. But does a global pandemic really mean we can’t have some vestiges of our former lives? Before leaving we consulted many friends who strongly encouraged…
-
PARTING SHOTS FROM ASTURIAS
In the end COVID won. We have returned home to Germany. We had hoped to keep travelling with no fixed return dates, but it wasn’t meant to be. When we started our journey during the first days of August, COVID was rearing its ugly head again but seemed somewhat contained. It certainly wasn’t stopping Europe’s August flood of holidaymakers … including us. At one point earlier in the summer Asturias had been the first Spanish province to be declared COVID-free. But a few cases were popping up when we hit the…
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.