Having completed one long road trip up the Northern NSW coast (and loved the travelling), we thought we’d take in the other half of coastal NSW and head south in our trusty Suzuki Swift, Boswell. Actually, we were bound for Melbourne and beyond – driving across the border into Victoria and down to the East…

The ‘Pockets’ are a group of small bucolic hamlets tucked away in the lush rolling hinterland of Northern NSW, just a few k’s back from Brunswick Heads and nestled in the foothills of the Mount Jerusalem ranges. There’s ‘The Pocket’ and ‘Inner Pocket Reserve’, but if you had to pick a pocket, it’d be ‘Middle…

It’s shocking to realise that during the ‘Black Summer’ of 2019-2020 more than 80% of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area was ravaged by ferocious out of control bushfires, covering some 1 million hectares. Over the past 2 years or so since the fires were finally extinguished, we’ve been regularly heading up to the…

From up high on Mount Wellington you can see right across the Derwent and out to Storm Bay, with South Arm and Opossum Bay fish-hooked around to face back towards the city. Beyond lies Bruny Island, separated from ‘the big island’ by the d’Entrecasteaux Channel, and further across to the east coast are Eaglehawk and…

It’s a sign of the times when you get to the airport at 5.45am to find total crowded chaos – thousands of frustrated sleep deprived people snaking and pooling around the domestic terminal for ridiculously slow security and, worse, dozens of cancelled flights. Welcome to travel mid 2022.  Thankfully, our early morning Jetstar flight to…

It’s good to be home after almost five months of travelling – though from what we’re told, we didn’t miss much beyond the endless torrential rain, all thanks to the intense La Niña event that has saturated the east coast of Australia for months now. We got back to a week or so of heavy…

We spent a lovely couple of days with my family down in Bournemouth on the ‘English Riviera’, basking in the warm, albeit brief, spring sunshine. So, where better to go for a ramble with Rupert (the oh-so-gorgeous Cockapoo) than Hengistbury Head, a site that’s been occupied since the early hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age, but…

Could there be more of a contrast than tropical Mérida one day and an English royal stately home in springtime the next? And not just any old stately home, but Eltham Palace, once the playground of Henry VIII, one of only six royal residences large enough to accommodate and feed the entire Tudor court. But…

Sadly, it’s time to leave glorious Mérida. We’ve had the most wonderful time here over the past few months, but we feel it’s more ‘see you later’ than goodbye, as we’re sure we’ll be back someday – who knows, could be sooner rather than later… Living here in Mérida was always going to be a…

A short drive from the Xtampú Salt Mines lies the ancient Mayan site of Xcambó, a small group of low-lying pyramids, temple complexes and stone structures that would have once been a thriving and important commercial port – exporting what else but salt – and one of the few Mayan sites built on the coast. …