After my serious dose of nature in Sherbrooke Forest, and my communing with my first-ever lyre bird, I headed up the Tourist Road to Mt. Dandenong and the William Ricketts Sanctuary.
Continue reading “William Ricketts Sanctuary Dandenong Ranges Melbourne”
Just 30 kilometres out of Melbourne’s city centre are the Dandenong Ranges. The Dandenongs are a set of low mountains, their valleys and hills covered in thick, temperate rain forest. Scattered throughout are walking tracks, magnificent gardens and pretty villages, with names such as Ferny Creek, Gembrook, Sherbrooke, Sassafras and The Patch.
The Melbourne Comedy Festival runs from 23rd March till 17th April. It was launched in 1987 by Barry Humphries, Peter Cook and John Pinder, and so is now celebrating its 30th year. Comedians come from Britain, Canada, America, New Zealand and, of course, from all over Australia.
The trouble with writing about travel is that you tend to concentrate on places elsewhere, rather than on your own. And so, I’ve decided to become a tourist in my own town.
If you want to know what heaven is, indulge yourself with hot chocolate made in a chocolate factory: pure liquid chocolate. Anvers Chocolate Factory is situated in a beautiful Californian bungalow, surrounded by cottage gardens, on the outskirts of Latrobe, in the north of Tasmania. I sat next to a window. The room was cold but the light morning sun shone through, emulating warmth. A waitress approached and I ordered my liquid heaven.
Continue reading “Anvers Chocolate Factory Latrobe Tasmania”
One of the places on my Tassie bucket list was the Styx Valley, near the entrance to the Southwest National Park. The car rattled along the last of the gravel road into the car park of the Styx Valley Reserve. I parked beside an archway created by giant ferns, seducing me to peek through.
The Edge of the World. That’s what the sign said and, standing on the hill looking out to sea, that’s how it felt. Untamed and untameable: Arthur River, North-West Tasmania. If you sailed from where the river enters the sea and kept going, you would hit South America without touching land. This accounted for the vicious wind ripping through me and I was grateful for the knitted beanie a caring friend gave me on my announcement that I was exploring Tassie in the depths of winter.
At the end of July, I headed north to the township of Airlie Beach, on Queensland’s famous Whitsunday Coast, to escape Melbourne’s winter for just a week. I needed some sunshine to get my brain working again, and some warmth, to release my body from the five layers of clothing it had been carrying around for what seemed months.
From Airlie, ferries take tourists to explore the islands around the Great Barrier Reef.
I left Hobart and headed up the east coast to Swansea and the Freycinet Peninsula. I was sick of just looking at photos of Wineglass Bay; I wanted see it for myself.
A must, when visiting Hobart, Tasmania’s capital city, is Salamanca Market, sprawled between historic warehouses and the waterfront, famous as the finishing line for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, held every year on Boxing Day.
Planning to the Nth 