Today I paid for my flights to Uluru, where I will stay for three nights in mid-October. I will be joining Simon and Nicole who fly in the day before, whereas I will overnight in Sydney. Ever since I saw photos of Ayer’s Rock in the 1950s, I yearned to see it up close. Other places, seen as a photo or a tv clip decades ago, have had a comparable impact. It has been my great good fortune to visit a majority of them since I moved to Australia over thirty four years ago. It’s just that they are all overseas. My travel in Australia has been limited, largely confined to coastal Queensland as far north as the Daintree, and to Longreach and Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.

This afternoon I got back from my annual visit to Simon, Nicole and their blue cattle dog Pepper. The timing of the return flight was ideal, as it enabled me to buy essential food items, including vegetables for tonight’s supper. I always love being in Longreach and staying with Simon and Nicole in their spacious, comfortable home. They are busy at work and continue to flourish. They have already had their first covid jab. Pepper, who has the silkiest coat, licked me to death whenever I allowed her to. Because of Longreach’s remoteness, all eligible adults who wanted the vaccine were given it. 

Whether seen from the air or the ground, the country looks green, but much of the tall vegetation is weed and not grass. Still, there was unusually little roadkill on the road to Ilfracombe and from Ilfracombe to the 12 Mile Stone Pitching, a noteworthy hydrological construction which we visited.

The bird life in town during my stay was plentiful, with flocks of kites, little corellas and galahs filling the sky. Regulars at the feeder and bath in the backyard included sparrows, apostle birds, yellow-throated miners and peaceful, diamond and crested doves. Unlike last… Read Complete Text

For someone who enjoys travel as much as I do, it was especially good, during these covid times, to fly to Tasmania on February 9, after too long an interval. Suellen met me at Launceston airport, an hour’s journey from her home at Clarence Point, as the light was fading.  The house Craig and Suellen have bought is even more beautiful than their mountain eyrie. Its Japanese garden, planted by previous owners, is widely known in the locality. It was overgrown and unkempt, when they moved in. Craig has spent months and a small fortune to resurrect its former glory and build a labyrinth of paths which must stretch for several hundred metres in all. They have been in Tasmania for just over a year and love living there.

The house is separated by a road and grassed area from the Tamar River, where it widens into promontories, that on the far bank concealing Bell Bay, Tasmania’s main commercial port, and the one on the near bank shielding Beauty Point from view. Beyond the river are ranges of hills and far-off mountains. The field behind the house was animated by sheep and the occasional rabbit. Flocks of masked… Read Complete Text

Jetstar sent me an email alert about changes to my flights to Launceston. Fearing the worst, I saw the travel agent who confirmed that the flight times had changed, but not the dates. Since I booked my flights, Brisbane underwent a 3 day lockdown because there was a covid transmission in the community by a cleaner who worked in a quarantine hotel. A consequence of this was that travellers to Tasmania from Brisbane were forced into hotel quarantine on arrival. PS The restriction was lifted on 22.1.21 because 14 days had passed without further community transmission.

I received the itinerary for my visit next February, to Craig and Suellen, old friends who moved from the mountain to Tasmania at the start of the year. I love Tasmania, but because it is never reliably warm, will only contemplate a trip in Summer. I visited Tasmania when the Alexanders rented a cottage at Paper Beach in the Tamar Valley downstream from Launceston. The last time was in 2007. Craig and Suellen have bought a river-side property nearer the Tamar’s mouth.

It was a good feeling taking flight again, Longreach bound, on October 8, after a prolonged interval due to the pandemic. My previous visit was in March last year. I miss my overseas travel, not having left Australia for three years. Several months ago,  someone asked me if there was anywhere else in Australia where I would be happy to live; my reply was, Longreach. I had last seen Nicole on her father’s 80^th birthday in June, and Simon when he visited his Mum and me in August. Pepper made up for lost time by licking me to death at every opportunity. Unlike other dogs, she would return the ball for me to throw. Simon and Nicole had planned a varied programme, including the light show under the Qantas Founders’ Museum’s splendid new roof, covering the aircraft in the outdoor display like a carport on steroids. The 20 minute show was brilliant. Earlier in the day I watched a family of brolgas walking down the street outside the house, quite a contrast to my first sighting at the far end of Lily Lagoon in 2012.

We spent a night in Winton to enjoy a sunset tour of a… Read Complete Text

The tickets for my covid-delayed flight to Longreach on October 8 were emailed to me by the travel agent. I’m greatly looking forward to the trip and the prospect of C40% dry heat. The price is $250 more than last year.

Have just got back from my annual visit to Longreach, staying with Simon and Nicole who are flourishing. For the entire flight, the ground was obliterated by clouds. Light rain was falling when I arrived. I have never experienced wet weather in 32 years of travelling to the town. The next day Nicole recorded 28 mm of rain and we heard two claps of thunder. We were all thrilled. I started the day going to the cattle sale, the second in a week after years of inactivity at the yard. We slopped through mire generated by hundreds of bovine hooves and had to beat a hasty retreat, ahead of a mob of steers on their way to being weighed, before we could get anywhere near the action. I counted myself lucky that my shoes hadn’t stuck fast in the mud.  

Poor Pepper, Simon and Nicole’s adorable cattle dog, had a dewclaw removed on the day of my arrival and stayed in the house overnight, while I was there. Yesterday the rain had gone elsewhere to be replaced by a dust storm blown in from New South Wales. The bird feeder in the back yard attracted numerous crested… Read Complete Text

Simon was in Brisbane for a week to spend time with his mum and celebrate her birthday with her. The idea of a whale watching jaunt to Hervey Bay, a 3 ½ drive from Brisbane, was proposed and I was eager to join in. Simon has been whale watching there five times. The first close to thirty years ago with me. The most recent with his wife Nicole, two years ago. I’m not sure if this was Kathy’s first trip. It was my second.

Humpback whales occur in the northern and southern hemispheres. There is even an isolated population in the Arabian Sea. When the Australian whaling  industry ended in 1963, it was thought that the east coast population of humpbacks had been reduced to a little over 100 individuals. Now it is reckoned that 20,000 or more migrate from their feeding grounds in Antarctic waters, so that the females can give birth in the tropical and subtropical waters of Queensland’s coast.

Hervey Bay is a whale watching hot spot. It is the home of a flourishing and valuable industry during a season which extends from late July to November. It is sheltered by Fraser Island, the… Read Complete Text

This year’s stay with Simon & Nicole,  brief as it was, had everything – inter alia, being licked and nuzzled by their cattle dog Pepper; a convivial gathering for Simon’s birthday dinner at the Wellshot hotel in Ilfracombe (a standout being the brilliant birthday cake featuring Shaun the sheep, a present from a professional baker friend of theirs); seeing the Qantas Founders Museum’s Super Constellation being restored, thanks to Nicole (the four impressive engines, lined up on pallets, looked brand new in their shiny grey cowlings, but are not airworthy); attending Pepper’s dog training class, which was a hoot and going on walks with her and swarming flies; binging on minced beef (a keema curry and spaghetti bolognese cooked by Simon) and watching the new 65” telly which was just brilliant. The weather was cloudy, with warm day and night temperatures. I couldn’t have envisaged a more enjoyable time.

The highlight was a grand day out organised by Nicole, touring Noonbah, a working cattle station 160 km south west of Longreach, the final 60 km on well-graded dirt roads. Even before we arrived, I was thrilled to see two wedge-tailed eagles at a road kill. The station is… Read Complete Text