Tag Archives: birds

Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula is the very best of boutique backyards! Part of Metropolitan Melbourne, this magical peninsula just over an hour south of the city centre is home to history (see: Point Nepean National Park), wild places, cool-climate vineyards, and countless farm-to-table restaurants.  Last winter I managed to squeeze a visit to the region between Covid-19 […]

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There is something magical about being on the water! I especially love the different perspective it give to an unfamiliar landscape when I’m travelling. The Nile River is the very heart of Egypt’s civilisation and history: when in Egypt, a boat trip on the Nile is a must. Tourist riverboats cruise between Luxor and Aswan, […]

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High in California’s Eastern Sierra – between 1945 metres (6,380 feet) and almost 4000 metres (13,061 feet) – the Mono Basin perches at the north end of the Mono–Inyo Craters volcanic chain. This endorheic drainage basin was created over the last five million years by repeated volcanic activity and the forces of tectonic movement on the […]

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They say that if you have too many lemons: make lemonade. So, it follows that if you have too much sugar by-product, you should make rum. That’s what happened in Bundaberg, a small city in coastal Queensland. Originally reliant on timber and maize, from the 1870s, sugar cane became the mainstay. With its humid subtropical climate […]

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Mark Twain described a “solemn, silent, sail-less sea” and called it “California’s Dead Sea”. Mono Lake is, indeed, other-worldy. The air is hot and still: July afternoon temperatures range from the high twenties (29°C; 84°F) into the mid-thirties (35°C; 95°F) – and rapidly drop into the single digits at nightfall. The waters are dense and […]

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