So here I am in Siem Reap and the first order of the day was to visit Angkor Wat, the reason most people visit. Most people apparently do some research beforehand and visit in the dry season. However after I booked my tickets in what is considered the wettest month of the year I optimistically thought it wouldn't really matter because it would be low season for tourists, and the previous times I'd experienced rainy seasons it rained ferociously but only in the afternoon and only for about an hour. Everything I thought I knew about monsoons turns out to be wrong. I had booked a "Sunrise Discovery" bike tour which was to start at Angkor Wat for the sunrise, then bike through the jungle to Angkor Thom (or Bayon), and then onwards to Ta Prohm, ... read more

As is often the case between two major cities, there's been ongoing rivalry between Sydney about which city is the best place to live. At the release of every international survey: the best city to live in; the friendliest city to visit; the world's best restaurants; which are Australia's most popular tourist destinations .... whatever the topic may be, either Sydney or Melbourne leaps to proudly proclaim its superiority if it was the best represented, or bemoan the biases and injustices of the verdict if not. I confess that Melbourne wasn't a city that I immediately warmed to. I fell for Sydney's flashy charms almost immediately, however when I first visited Melbourne in 2001, it didn't have the same instant hook. Call me shallow, but Sydney's in your face beauty had me at "harbour". Melbourne's been ... read more

Lunch was a kale salad, mixed with other greens and superfoods. There was the widest selection of tie-died clothing I had ever come by. I nearly got blown away by incense smells, and I've never seen so many indian feathered dream catchers in one place. On the one side was the beach, on the other hippies. Dreadlocks and tattoos rule here. I could be nowhere else but Byron Bay. It was a three day weekend for both me and my travel companion, Bernadette, so we had selected Byron Bay as the destination of choice. A relaxing and chilled out place on the coast, just south of the border with Queensland. It really is a beautiful spot, and I made the most of the sunshine on our first day, walking the coastal walkway up to the lighthouse ... read more

For the first official weekend in winter I made a quick visit to New Zealand, which was unseasonably warm. By unseasonably warm I mean that I didn’t need to wear more than one jersey and I could still feel my fingers and toes. It was Rod's first ever visit to New Zealand and I was trying to fit a lot in to a weekend visit. We visited Wellington, Martinborough, not to be confused with Marton, which we also visited to see family, before a quick visit to Kai Iwi beach just out of Wanganui, and finishing up back in Wellington just in time for the plane ride back to Sydney. Arriving in Wellington on a Friday afternoon it seemed very quiet after the hustle and bustle of Sydney. However Wellington’s windy reputation was nowhere in sight, ... read more

From the comfort of my local cafe, I had stumbled across a camel trekking adventure in the Flinders Ranges while reading the Sunday travel section. My interest was immediately piqued, I rounded up some other intrepid adventurers, and before you knew it, the trip was booked. Months then passed.....then, finally it was April and I was Adelaide-bound, and quite apprehensive about the prospect of spending spending three days on a camel. What had I been thinking? I certainly wasn't having second thoughts about my travel companions, I was really looking forward to our girls' own adventure! Lucy and Stella had come over from NZ, and Lisa, a friend from Sydney, came too. Our first happy discovery was that to get to the Flinders Ranges it is necessary to drive through the Clare Valley. Well in truth ... read more