Pompoota

Our beloved sister Colleen and her lovely husband Graeme live in a little oasis, Pompoota, out Mannum way. “Where” ? We hear you cry. “ Mannum,” we reply, and when you continue to stare blankly we helpfully add, “You know, out Murray Bridge way.” “Ahhh”, you respond, and settle back comfortably in your chair, confident […]

Adelaide…The “Rad”.

Adelaide, dear readers, the Queen of the South, the Athens of the Antipodes, the Paradise of Dissent. It was here that my ancestors toiled, span and weaved, punched and ducked, danced and drank, plowed and plunked, they squeezed accordions and strummed guitars, broke horses and ran bars, sat in Parliament and stood at sit-ins. Adelaide […]

Outback Scenes

Its mind bending, life changing, immense, immeasurable and amazingly impressive. One small suggestion though, hire a car and give it several days. 2 nights on a Greyhound Bus is not only bum breaking and soul destroying and neither is it the quickest route to matrimonial happiness, as the last photo on this post shows, in […]

Jimmy

A slice of Alice on Anzac Day. We emerged from the lovely Diplomat Motor Inn, we’d missed the Dawn Service but comforted ourselves with the thought that the ANZAC’s would have rather been in a comfy bed too. Still, we might get a glimpse of the March ? So out we trundled when suddenly with […]

Out your Northern Terri-tree

Gee but it’s great to be back home. Characters everywhere, home of the brave, land of the free. Here’s some of them. We’re still feeling Asian at the moment, (as we are and should, they are our very dear brothers and sisters,) so the little red sand ant hills in the NT desert remind us […]

Up the Guts on a Greyhound

It’s 3 am in Tennant Creek, there are very pleasant feral guys talking about dogs and goats and bows and arrows. It’s like a dream being back in Oz, mostly a very pleasant one. But as every Australian knows the Northern Territory is like the past as observed by LP Hartley, they do things differently […]

Kuta…the Curate’s Egg

Kuta, Perth’s northernmost suburb, has been a happy playground for Aussies this last half century gone. It started to go off full tilt about the time the Americans landed on the Moon. Now the Jews have crashed onto the Moon and the Chinese are up to something inscrutable on the dark side and still the […]

The Boat to Bali

Banyuwangi, unlike Krakatoa, actually East of Java….well…..Far eastern Java anyway. Let’s see, our last sight of Java was Ronnie, the Sunglasses King. Nice guy. The Customs Guy gave us a cheery thumbs up, though arguably technically not. More a fist really. Yes. Let’s face it. He was giving us the fist. I looked deeply […]

Beautiful Boat People

The glamours of the KM Kelud on parade for you.

Singapore ? We adore !

Back in Singapore after almost a year’s staggering about in the near, and distant, north. All of Asia is beautiful, the people extraordinarily enchanting, decent, kind, civilised and friendly. But Singapore is something special. We all remember reading about powerful city states in ancient times, Athens, Thebes etc. Singapore is the spiritual descendant of these, […]