AUSTRALIA | Sunday, 1 Apr 2012 | Views [788]
Laughing kookaburras, those kingfishers on steroids, are Australia icons. It is common to awake to their "koo-koo-ka-ka-ka," the sound effect often heard in WW II movies set in the Pacific. They eat mice and lizards and snakes. And ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Friday, 30 Mar 2012 | Views [724]
Not every day is filled with adventure, revelations and new discoveries. Some, like today, are just ticked off the calendar, another 300 kilometers of Australia's back roads. The kookaburras and colorful parrots near Lake Clifton were replaced by ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 28 Mar 2012 | Views [913]
If she could drive across the Nullarbor Plain from Melbourne to Perth, the least we could do was travel the 200 km from Margaret River to meet her. Granted, she was delivering a friend's car, not making a special trip to see us. But Emma is worth ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Sunday, 25 Mar 2012 | Views [815]
When it comes to Australians, "friendly" is an understatement. They always have a "G'day, mate" for you and often lift a finger in greeting as they pass on the deserted roads. I am convinced that the introvert gene has been selectively ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Thursday, 22 Mar 2012 | Views [1729]
The Aborigines who have called this place home for thousands of years would probably disagree. After all, they have lived off the land, they can identify the medicinal plants and know which are edible. They can appreciate the endless blue sky and ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Monday, 19 Mar 2012 | Views [954]
Philip is at Shark Bay waiting for the wind, so he can go kite surfing. Sometimes he waits for it to power his 45-foot catamaran where he has lived for the last six years. Michelle, his main squeeze, is waiting for her broken leg to mend, broken while ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Sunday, 18 Mar 2012 | Views [946]
Every time you take a breath, thank a stromatolite. These microscopic cyanobacteria dominated in the earth's shallow seas 3.5 billion years ago (Sorry, Creationists, but that's the way it is!) and are responsible for putting oxygen into our atmosphere.... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Friday, 16 Mar 2012 | Views [1686]
I expected Coral Bay, just a bit north of the Tropic of Capricorn, to be a glitzy resort town. It is, after all, the entry point to
Ningaloo Reef, one of the newest World Heritage sites and, if you believe
everyone in Western Australia, better ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Tuesday, 13 Mar 2012 | Views [876]
There isn’t
much to see north of Cervantes on the Indian Ocean Highway except the
Australian version of wheat farms and infrequent glimpses of the ocean. Connie’s constant vigil for birds
provided the only diversion; a black kite, a brown goshawk ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 10 Mar 2012 | Views [946]
What a difference a few nights of sleep and a couple of lazy
days make. I feel almost human
again. All of our chores are
completed, taxes filed and we are getting back into the rhythm of camping - our
first time since we returned from the ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Thursday, 8 Mar 2012 | Views [828]
Karrinyup Waters Caravan Park near Perth, Western Australia,is literally a world apart from Italy, a land of shorts and sandals, warm sunshine and screeching parrots, where English (sort of) is the lingo and we can read the signs, where we no longer ... Read more >
AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 7 Mar 2012 | Photo Gallery
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ITALY | Sunday, 4 Mar 2012 | Views [987]
We left Sicily at nine last night on the overnight train from Palermo.
It was a debate right until the last minute whether we would take the
train or the ferry. The train won out more on logistics than on
comfort. Neither the ports of Palermo ... Read more >
ITALY | Friday, 2 Mar 2012 | Views [1244]
It sounds so beautiful in Italian - see-cheel-ya. From the Malta ferry, Sicily looks like a pancake floating on the sea; from Catania like a snow-capped breast; and from the car, it is a three-dimensional maze of hills, valleys and winding roads.... Read more >
MALTA | Tuesday, 28 Feb 2012 | Views [1867]
It is more British than Italian and it is nearer to Tunisia than to Rome. English vies with Maltese as the main language and Big Macs are as common as pasta. The first settlers came from Sicily but it has been occupied by Arabs, Normans, Spaniards ... Read more >
MALTA | Monday, 27 Feb 2012 | Photo Gallery
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MALTA | Sunday, 26 Feb 2012 | Views [3110]
Mt. Etna loomed steaming above Catania, which may, or may not, be a World Heritage site. We didn’t have time to explore. We had a bus to catch, a ferry to board and as it turned out, a date to meet Francesco in Pozzallo, though neither ... Read more >
ITALY | Saturday, 25 Feb 2012 | Views [1344]
It is a strange trip indeed from Sorrento to Sicily. We began by traveling north on the Circumvesuviana line to Naples. Then we boarded the southbound train, first-class was all they had available, to Reggio Calabria on Italy's tippy-toe where, like ... Read more >
ITALY | Saturday, 25 Feb 2012 | Photo Gallery
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ITALY | Friday, 24 Feb 2012 | Views [829]
The road along the Amalfi Coast is so narrow that drivers are
advised to fold in their side mirrors and many cars bear scars on the driver’s
side. The locals speed into the
turns and drift across the center line, scaring the daylights out of us
tourists.... Read more >
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