Koala

koala

Every year it’s the same. As we enter early spring, we are also warned to be prepared for storm season. Storm season in Australia it seems is obligatory, mandatory, written in the diary in ink; it is unavoidable. And it’s already started. Each of our state and territory governments issue guidelines at around this time [...]

Fernvale

This is the Brisbane Valley Highway… Maybe you remember it, we have driven down it before, on Father’s Day in 2013. It is a road just west of Brisbane that links the Warrego Highway near Ipswich to the D’Aguilar Highway just past Harlin. It is a journey takes you through Fernvale… Esk… And past the [...]

Straddie

Yes, I know this sounds like an Enid Blyton book, but it really did happen. Five families did go camping on Stradbroke Island and for me it was a return. There’s probably nothing new I can tell you about Straddie that you didn’t find out in my posts from about four years ago: It’s North [...]

Surfing

Actually, not really things to do, but things that were done. Yesterday my daughter Elizabeth went back to school after having two weeks and one day off for the spring school holidays. The two weeks were for the spring school holidays, the one day was for Labour Day which was on Monday. Spring school holidays [...]

Lone Pine

Many years ago, 26 to be precise, The Sun ran a headline that said… “Freddie Starr ate my hamster” Freddie Starr, the comedian in question, got a pretty good boost to his career from that one. Of course, the story was completely untrue. Well, The Sun are still at it. On Saturday they ran with [...]

tree

It’s not been a good week, has it? It doesn’t get much worse than Mondays post, which involved a snakebite fatality. Wednesday’s post did nothing to cheer you up after that, it was about cockroaches. Both of these posts sit firmly under the category of “Australia’s Bad Things“, which is, of course, full of bad [...]

North Stradbroke Island: Day 3 I have often thought of myself as possibly the least observant person in the world. I never had the urge to take up train spotting, but if I had, I imagine I may have gone down as one of the only spotters to not notice a train go by. Which [...]

koala

My car breaks down. This is also a story of how helpful Australians can be. We spent the morning exploring the beach but for the afternoon, we wanted to explore “central” North Stradbroke Island. With all the kids and wives loaded up into our two cars, not a straightforward logistical achievement, we were ready to [...]