‘Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.’ J.Lennon The last night before we were due to leave Broome we went to the pictures, not because there was anything terribly good on, but because the cinema itself was a marvel. Sun Pictures is the oldest continuously-operating outdoor garden cinema in the world, a somewhat convoluted claim to fame, more than made up for by its charming wooden indoor/outdoor arrangement, full of old Hollywood memorabilia and quaint touches, like seating entirely in old-fashioned deck-chairs. Now some might say that going to a [View Full Entry]

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Coming out of the Kimberley into Broome is a bit like emerging from an all night shift down a Yorkshire coalmine to found you’ve somehow taken the wrong elevator and emerged squinting into the bright lights of a swanky Parisian boutique on the Champs Elysee. The two are clearly completely unsuited as close neighbours. It’s as if someone has suddenly pulled a stunt straight out of Mr Ben: as if by magic, a five star tourist paradise has appeared. As you wander past the swanky restaurants and expensive jewellers of the main street you’re eternally wary that the Shopkeeper might [View Full Entry]

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A unique feature of the Australian mainland is that a hefty chunk of the country apparently does not really exist. Only a tiny fraction of the population lives in The Real Australia, the remainder happy to inhabit an imaginary wonderland which lies in a narrow strip between The Real Australia and the sea. Presumably sometime soon some bright-spark will have an Emperor’s New Clothes type revelation and the rest of us will come to regret forking out quite so much of our hard-earned on real-estate in Never-Never land, as the whole edifice evaporates and we tumble into the ocean. Come to [View Full Entry]

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A particularly endearing aspect of some aboriginal languages is their habit of naming things twice, just in case you didn’t catch it the first time. Thus Australia still has a smattering of towns with such unlikely names as Wujal Wujal and Wagga Wagga, a sort of built-in acoustic action replay for the hearing impaired. Generally folks these days are way too lazy for any of that sort of nonsense and just call them Wujal or Wagga, literally losing half their appeal in the process. Our first destination after entering Western Australia was a region with the wonderful title of the Bungle [View Full Entry]

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It’s pretty hard to get worked up about a place when even its own tourist brochures describe it as ‘desolate’. At least you know in the Northern Territory, they pull no punches. This is typical of the straight-talking Territorians, rough-as-guts, uncomplicated, hard-working types who drink Piss and shit in the outdoor dunny. Even most of the women round these parts look like the sort of blokes who’d have to fly-in a wife from the Philippines. Some of em probably do. There’s only two places visitors generally head for in the Territory, Ayer’s Rock (some [View Full Entry]

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After the rigours of the Cape we completely spoiled ourselves on our anniversary by checking in to our original honeymoon spot at Crater Lakes Rainforest Cottages in the Cairns Highlands. A more idyllic place you’ll struggle to find and it never fails to get me extra brownie points as Debbie has fallen completely in love with the place to the extent that she’s sworn to buy it if it ever comes on the market. Its the kind of spot where the most taxing thing you’ll do all day is pour yourselves a double spa bath, pop open a bottle of champagne, [View Full Entry]

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Now, you know you’re something really pretty special when folks start referring to you by just the one name. Thus we have such luminaries as Madonna and Kylie, The Queen, Britney and Elvis, doubly special as he’s also simply The King. No-one ever interrupts mid-sentence to ask “I’m sorry, Jesus Who?” And then there’s the Big Man himself. As far as I’m aware, God doesn’t even have a second name, making his initials simply “Gee”, particularly apt if you happen to be from the Bible belt. Such was the case with the first destination on [View Full Entry]

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