Australia - Travels with Verne and Roy

QLD Odyssey – Part Six: The Whitsundays, 17-19 June

Bundaberg – arguably missable; rum from a dark Satanic mill; cane for the pain: spook and diesel; 1770 and Agnes Waters; 8 hours to Airlie Beach; Flaggy Rock – best pies on the planet; Tracy saves the day; ZigZag Whitsundays Day Tour – best beach in the world; Sorrento sundowners and dinner at The Rocks

The main reason to stay at Seventeen Seventy / 1770 or its immediate neighbour Agnes Waters – another memorable name, if not place – is that it’s a three-hour drive from Hervey Bay when heading north to Cairns. And a three-hour stint is, in my opinion, the perfect amount of driving time; four hours is OK, too. Anything longer becomes tiresome.

Goodbye to the Whitsundays – one to tick off the bucket list

QLD Odyssey – Part Five: Fraser Island, Hervey Bay & Maryborough 15-17 June

Cold comfort in Hervey Bay; grilled fish and no chips; Fraser Island Day Tour: the wonderful Wayne and his whopping 4X4, horrible history, Central Station, Eli Creek, 75 Mile Beach drive and the Maheno shipwreck; a tale of two Marys – Maryborough and Mary Poppins

I’m being consciously strategic with this order of events. Maryborough came first; then Hervey Bay, the launchpad for Fraser Island. But an island is always going to be sexier than Mary Poppins – and Fraser Island was what we’d come here for.

QLD Odyssey – Part Four: Noosa

From Craftsville to Glossville; coffee and a rare gelato; not-so-rare bush turkey sighting; a peach of a beach; kraken good salad at Peregian Beach; Bistro C review

With the prospect of sunshine and a predicted midday high of 22 degrees Centigrade – in the middle of one of the coldest spells seen in these parts for a very long time – we headed for the famous seaside town of Noosa*.

Beach bunny Verne in her element – and Roy? Not so much

(* Properly pronounced by locals in a faux-posh accent as Nyooosa, with a pinched nose – or so I am reliably informed.)

Noosa is less than half an hour northeast by car from Eumundi, the crafty hinterland haunt where we were spending three nights. But these two towns could not be more different.

QLD Odyssey – Part Two: Beenleigh Rum & Gold Coast

Yo, ho ho! – and a bottle of rum; Gold Coast in mid-winter – not too shabby; seagulls at Surfers Paradise; terrific lunch at Tropic; Tommy Bahama, sashimi and sushi; new jacket – spoiler alert!

QLD Odyssey – Part One: Brisbane, 7-11 June

Queensland’s coolest couple; on the road again: back in the travel saddle; pre-Plague pics; Are You Sleeping, Big Brother?; Like a Virgin; sightseeing synopsis; next-level street food – Luke Nguyen at Treasury Casino; trivia and pulled lamb at the Powerhouse; George’s ginormous soles

Maxine and Trevor are two of our Singapore expat friends. Culture vultures, foodies, and probably the coolest couple we know, they’ve also lived in Saudi, in Dubai, and in China for many years.

Max and Trevor – two decades on, they still like a G&T or two, but now they’re based in QLD, it could just as well be rum

We met them nearly 20 years ago, not long after we arrived to live in the city state. The circumstances were unforgettable: on the initial night of our first Star Cruise, we bonded with Max, Trevor and their friend Susan Beard over copious G&Ts in a private karaoke room. I seem to remember the staff evicting us at 3am.

This is the House that Roy and Verne Built: Part 1 – Breaking Ground

Boeries, bangers and snags; sangas, sarnies and sarmies; building malarkey background; turfed from the nest; Cyclone Seroja and quo vadis?

Here we are, celebrating the breaking of ground this week at 543 Burns Beach Road, Iluka!

Child labour is allowed in WA – breaking ground at 543 Burns Beach Road with Sam, Mia and Holly

Surrounded by the family – son Carl, Carrie, Mia and Holly; daughter Blaire, Colin and Sam – we broke ground today, Sunday the 17^th of April 2021. Son Carl brought the spade, son-in-law Colin furnished the Weber BabyQ, and we supplied the snags* and the mimosas. Only Daughter #1 was missing, sadly – cheers, Wendy!

Camping at Coogee, WA: Snorkelling the Omeo Wreck, March 2021

Day-tripping to Coogee Beach; Roy’s first first sea dip in seven years; gratuitous Maldives flashback; back to Coogee; history of the shipwrecked Omeo; where to stay – then and now; feeling disloyal (again)

Is there no end to the magnificent beaches of Western Australia? I’d never even heard of Coogee Beach until a week ago. What’s more, this is supposed to be autumn – yet here we are, frolicking in the surf and bronzing our bods on the very eve of the annual collaboration between Lindt and the Easter Bunny.

Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees, 1-14 February – Part 3: Denmark & Augusta

Cabins and kangaroos in Jerramungup; power (and coffee) to the people; weather philosophy and the rejigging of Roy’s internal thermostat; Denmark’s tradie tavern; pelican brief and apostrophic catastrophes in Augusta

Esperance to Jerramungup

“We have a nice caravan park,” the cashier at the local IGA supermarket had said, when we stopped in on our way east to Esperance. And it is nice, as far as caravan parks go – it’s spacious, has plenty of shrubbery, and when I went for a walk around the perimeter I had my first-ever encounter with wild kangaroos.

Wild kangaroos – but I confess to having taken this particular picture a week later in Yallingup, not in Jerramungup

Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees 1-14 February, Part Two: Esperance

Jerramungup, a toddlin’ town; getting lucky at Lucky Bay; there’s a tavern in the town (of Condingup); Cindy Poole, heart of a glass artist; I say Esp-eh-rance, you say “Esprintz”; three firsts in one day; reviews and summation

This trip was all about Esperance, a destination that boasts some of WA’s – or even Australia’s – best beaches. Albany, Denmark, Augusta and Yallingup were lovely to revisit, but we’d been there before.

Preview: Lucky Bay, Le Grand National Park

Why am I still Down Under? – travel is just so 2019; a mani-pedi moment; fleeing Perth – lockdown narrowly averted; York (again); sheep-centric Wagin; Durban and Umhlanga, the end of an era; Elliot House, Albany – any port in a lockdown

While much of the world has been in crisis, Roy and I have been living the good life in Western Australia. Aside from several months of restrictions from March 2020, it’s been relatively normal. (Relative, that is, to the questionable dismissal of basic human rights, albeit in slightly different ways and to varying degrees, in most parts of the world.)