New Zealand. Our next destination lies some two thousand kilometres away across the Tasman Sea. Australia seems far enough from home already, but this three hour flight emphasises quite how isolated New Zealand is from the rest of the world. It really is a long, long way away. We arrive in Auckland - New Zealand's biggest city by far, and home to a quarter of the entire country's population - in the mid afternoon, and once again first impressions are not entirely overwhelming. Many, if not most, of New Zealand's visitors come here for the country's extraordinary landscapes. Having watched Peter Jackson's masterpieces (not in a nerdy way, mind) goggle-eyed many a time, we are no different. At first sight, however, Auckland seems pretty unprepossessing, a mixture of nondescript buildings, bad traffic and a slightly dodgy ... read more

We're back in Melbourne for a couple of nights. Just enough time to do two things. First to go back to Fitzroy, Melbourne's answer to Soho, full of cafés and independent shops. We find it impossible not to pay a visit to a fantastic little place on Brunswick Street, the Chocolatería San Churro, which does plates of delicious fresh Spanish churros served hot with a big bowl of melted chocolate. Heaven ! Well, we need something to fuel all our walking... The second is something so natural, so obvious for any visitor to Melbourne that I hardly need to even say what it is. Which of Melbourne's cultural sights is so magnetic that it would be anathema not to visit it ? Which attraction draws all but the most philistine of visitors ? Of course, it's ... read more

Tasmania’s west coast is at the heart of the state’s mining industry. Unlike mainland Australia, Tasmania didn’t see much of a gold rush, but what it lacked in gold it more than made up for in other - perhaps less exciting, but arguably more useful - metals. Zinc, iron, tin, copper…As a result of this, this part of western Tasmania is crisscrossed - rather incongruously - by a freight rail network that was (and occasionally is) used to transport ores to the coast, from where it was shipped to the rest of the British Empire. This part of the state is as physically beautiful as any other - the green, forested hills and distant mountain peaks haven’t vanished by any means - but western Tasmania certainly seems to bear the marks of human activity more than ... read more

A drive north from the Tasman Peninsula, stopping briefly to pick up some tasty local smoked fish, takes us through an uncharacteristically dry part of Tasmania. Brown, not green. After nearly a week in the green south of the island the change is quite striking. National park to national park. Peninsula to peninsula. Our destination is the Freycinet National Park, which occupies practically the whole of the Freycinet Peninsula, itself named after yet another French navigator, Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet - two names were just never enough, were they ? The peninsula offers several walking tracks, many of which take days to complete - instead we are here to walk a short loop, about fourteen kilometres long, which links two of the National Park's most famous features. The track, which starts not far from ... read more

For such an awkwardly positioned, small island, Tasmania has had a remarkably cosmopolitan history. The island was discovered - "discovered" by the West, that is, since an Aboriginal population had thrived there for centuries already - in 1642 by a Dutchman of all people, a certain Abel Janszoon Tasman. Tasman may have given his name to the island, but not until several hundred years later. For over two hundred years until 1856, the island was known as Anthoonij van Diemenslandt or Van Diemen's Land. This name, although pretty much unknown nowadays, certainly was not unknown in 19th century Britain, where it surely sent a shiver down the spines of the country's more, let us say, unsavoury characters. More on that in the next entry though. Between being discovered by a Dutchman and settled by Englishmen, Van ... read more