Australia People & Culture

Barkers Creek is located in Victoria, Australia. Famous as the site of the first discovery of gold in the district. Barkers Creek is now a place where people live surrounded by the re-growth box ironbark forest. The cricket ground is notable in that it is the earliest cricket ground still in use in Australia. Essentially Barkers Creek is a lovely, quiet spot with a fascinating past. Skydancers Orchid and Butterfly Gardens in Barkers Creek is Australia's only temperate butterfly house. I just love butterflies. They're so delicate beautiful... There is also an extensive orchid display, a native plant garden, a nursery and a licensed BYO restaurant which serves home-style lunches where i enjoyed myself more than any other place in Barkers Creek. Please note this place is closed in July. Lucky for me i visited Barkers Creek in March. Barkers Creek Reservoir, is a good spot for those who like some peaceful country fishing. I have no time for fishing though because i was on tour :( Another tourist spot which i recommend is at Mount Alexander. There are excellent views from here. A short distance away is the so-called 'Koala Park' (well-signposted). There are picnic facilities, toilets and a fencing path. If you wander around and look at the tree branches you will see one or two of the elusive and adored marsupials. Don't missed out this three places.

I love the city, nice people, good nightlife, St.-Kilda beach

Love Coolangatta! Nice people with a fun party!

One of the stops on the train journey across Australia. Only a shop and a toilet there, apart from abandoned school, hospital and jail buildings. In 2003 the population was 2 and the day I was there those 2 people were gone on holidays and another 2 people were standing in for them!

For the quintessential Aussie experience, head to Manly and northern beaches...the types of people you'll meet and the lifestyle here is all Home and Away...

The city of shopping, the famous cuckoo clock that plays Waltzing Matilda and Mt Dandenong which makes for a nice day trip. Don't drive unless you are very brave. The trams and traffic have an uneasy set of rules. The Melbourne Tennis Center is home to the Australian Open and of course this is the home of Aussie Rules. Lots of great Greek and Italian restaurants and a thriving metropolis of cultures.

Let's start with Hobart...
Tasmania's capital city with an intriguing blend of heritage and lifestyle,scenery and vibrant culture. Hobart is warm sandstone, bright spinnakers on the River Derwent, fish punts at the docks, the slap of halyards on masts, coffee under the striped sun umbrellas of Salamanca, an occasional frosting of snow on Mt.Wellington, bush tracks and birdsong. Hobart is a city of history, with gracious homes and buildings, colonial cottages and warehouse,heritage parks and gardens.

Trust me..it's the best destination in the world.
Hobart is a city of bustling markets, fun, a flourishing arts scene,festival, and entertainment, and of fine restaurants. Savour Tasmania's superb cool-climate wines,famous beers, and delicious, fresh foods.

And it's a must for chocoholics! Check out the famous Cadbury World Chocolate Factory Tours at Claremont.

Melbourne is Australia's second largest city. Attractively located on the the banks of the Yarra River and the shores of Port Phillip, Melbourne is characterised by a sophistication and a certain solidity of purpose. The essence of the city was forged in the 1850s when it was the largest, and most affluent, settlement in Australia as a result of its proximity to the vast goldfields of Ballarat, Bendigo and literally dozens of other smaller mining settlements in Victoria. Although Melbourne was to experience depressions in both the 1890s and 1930s it was basically a prosperous and successful city. Its vitality and dynamism of the state continued after World War II when, as a result of Australia's active attempt to attract migrants from Europe, large numbers of non-English speaking settlers (particularly from Italy and Greece) arrived. It is often claimed (not entirely accurately) that Melbourne is the second-largest Greek city in the world (it has recently been changed to third largest city) and the largest Italian city outside Italy. Certainly Lygon Street, famed for its international cuisine, is a symbol of the cultural diversity of the city. Exploring Melbourne
It is quite impossible to list everything that is available to the visitor arriving in Melbourne. However, in the larger context of the city, here is a fairly comprehensive list of the attractions all within walking distance of Flinders Street Station which is the psychological centre of the city. Opposite is Federation Square. The heart of the city. Below is an extensive tourist information centre.

Liverpool is situated in Sydney's inner south/west area. With a culturally varying population and a large Westfields shopping centre Liverpool might well be the place for you; whereas at Bankstown you might get shot, at Liverpool you're much more likely to be stabbed.

Blessed with a sunny climate, Berri is located in the Riverland, South Australia, two and a half hours drive from Adelaide and is an ideal location to spend time with family and loved ones, whether it be a short break or extended vacation.

Berri has floating wharf platforms for boat and houseboat mooring. A public marina (not suitable for houseboats) is also located on the Riverfront in Berri. Small boats can access Lake Bonney and Barmera.

You'll never be short of things to do… Find your own secluded place to admire the views and indulge in a gourmet picnic, complete with local wine and produce purchased earlier in the day at the cellar door and roadside stalls.

Take a leisurely walk through a national park, paddle a canoe in the backwaters or steer your houseboat into a bay. All of these places are alive with native wildlife for you to see.

Step back in time to follow in the steps of explorers, overlanders, pioneers and bushrangers at the many historical attractions, and appreciate the indigenous cultural heritage of the region.

If a more action packed itinerary appeals, a choice of water-skiing, swimming, sailing, canoeing, windsurfing, jet-skiing and fishing beckon. If land action is more your style, the district has a recreation centre, extensive playing fields, courts, bowling greens and golf courses.

if your coming to bungendore defintely stay at the carrington and there is a great music festival for country music every february

visit for country music festivals and general camping in what i affectionately call Gods Country!

Check out Campbell Arcade - the subway running under Flinders Street from Degraves Street to Flinders Street Station. Local artists exhibit in glass display cases set into the walls, and there are interesting shops selling clothes, jewellery, books and music.

Warwick is one of my fave places to visit but you have to go when Warwick Rodeo is on. It's one of the biggest in Aus and even if your not into the rodeo part the entertainment makes it great. They had the best music, everyone was friendly, everyone was blind, everyone was dancing on tables and there were dogem cars as well. We stayed at the Horse and Jockey and I consider it to be a good motel. During the day we cooled off at the Aqutic Centre. 6/10

Known as 'The Country Music Capital', Tamworth is thought of as a sort of Australian equivalent to Nashville in the United States, albeit on a far more modest scale. The focus of this self-promotion is the Australasian Country Music Festival, held every January. However, Tamworth is also the commercial and administrative capital of the New England region. It functions as a retail and service centre to the surrounding district which produces wool, dairy products, eggs, fat livestock, poultry, wheat, tobacco, lucerne and honey. There are a number of cattle, horse and sheep studs, a large dairy factory, a flour mill, an abattoir and a large industrial estate at Taminda. Tamworth also boasts several important agricultural schools. It is situated 390 m above sea-level on the Peel River and 412 km north of Sydney at the intersection of the New England and Oxley Highways. Its population is around 40 000. Prior to white settlement the area was occupied by the Kamilaroi people who knew it as 'Calala', thought to mean 'place of battle'. The Tamworth Agricultural Show is held in March. The Tamworth Country Theatre, a live radio-broadcast concert, is held on the third Saturday of each month.

Let's start with Hobart...
Tasmania's capital city with an intriguing blend of heritage and lifestyle,scenery and vibrant culture. Hobart is warm sandstone, bright spinnakers on the River Derwent, fish punts at the docks, the slap of halyards on masts, coffee under the striped sun umbrellas of Salamanca, an occasional frosting of snow on Mt.Wellington, bush tracks and birdsong. Hobart is a city of history, with gracious homes and buildings, colonial cottages and warehouse,heritage parks and gardens.

Trust me..it's the best destination in the world.
Hobart is a city of bustling markets, fun, a flourishing arts scene,festival, and entertainment, and of fine restaurants. Savour Tasmania's superb cool-climate wines,famous beers, and delicious, fresh foods.

And it's a must for chocoholics! Check out the famous Cadbury World Chocolate Factory Tours at Claremont.

Located on the central east coast of Tasmania, Australia. Population 700 swelling to a few thousand during the summer months. Famous for it’s clean beaches, c rystal clear water and beautiful scenery. Local Attractions include:
Fishing - on/offshore.
Bushwalking - Foreshore footway, Whalers Lookout, Apsley Gorge Nat Pk, Freycinet Peninsula at Coles Bay.
The Blow Hole
The Gulch - jetty
Governors Island
Diamond Island - walkable sandbar usually on spring low tide
Vineyards
Scenic flights – Freycinet Bicheno Golf Club
Bowls
Diving - snorkelling, scuba
Aquarium
Glass bottom boat
Gallery
Penguins
Bird Animal Park
Surfing
Swimming
Wildlife
Penguin tours

A variety of accommodation styles to suit everyone.
Motel, BB, Self-contained, Cabin, Chalet, Backpackers, Holiday Unit, Villa, Cottage.

2 licenced Clubs
2 licenced Hotels

Restaurants -licenced byo
Cafes Other tourism areas close by:
Coles Bay 25 mins drive, SE
Swansea 35 mins drive, S
St Marys 35 mins drive, NNW
Hobart 2 hrs 15 mins drive, S
Launceston 2 hrs drive, NW

Barkers Creek is located in Victoria, Australia. Famous as the site of the first discovery of gold in the district. Barkers Creek is now a place where people live surrounded by the re-growth box ironbark forest. The cricket ground is notable in that it is the earliest cricket ground still in use in Australia. Essentially Barkers Creek is a lovely, quiet spot with a fascinating past. Skydancers Orchid and Butterfly Gardens in Barkers Creek is Australia's only temperate butterfly house. I just love butterflies. They're so delicate beautiful... There is also an extensive orchid display, a native plant garden, a nursery and a licensed BYO restaurant which serves home-style lunches where i enjoyed myself more than any other place in Barkers Creek. Please note this place is closed in July. Lucky for me i visited Barkers Creek in March. Barkers Creek Reservoir, is a good spot for those who like some peaceful country fishing. I have no time for fishing though because i was on tour :( Another tourist spot which i recommend is at Mount Alexander. There are excellent views from here. A short distance away is the so-called 'Koala Park' (well-signposted). There are picnic facilities, toilets and a fencing path. If you wander around and look at the tree branches you will see one or two of the elusive and adored marsupials. Don't missed out this three places.

when in Ballarat just go and see 'Sovereign Hill'! It's an authentic gold diggers camp with loads of interresting stuff to see and do!

Try going around the city by bike. You can go with a group bike tour (complete with a rented bike, helmet and tour guide) or you can rent your own bike. Its safe, it affords you to see much more of the city, its environment friendly and its good for your health.

The best city in the world.

use the public transport!!

The city of shopping, the famous cuckoo clock that plays Waltzing Matilda and Mt Dandenong which makes for a nice day trip. Don't drive unless you are very brave. The trams and traffic have an uneasy set of rules. The Melbourne Tennis Center is home to the Australian Open and of course this is the home of Aussie Rules. Lots of great Greek and Italian restaurants and a thriving metropolis of cultures.

Trams are the best way to get around Melbourne

If you're interested in film, make sure you get along to the australian film museum in Federation Square...there are great interactive pods where you can watch Australian short films for as long as you like, free of charge.

Ballarat
Historic gold mining city of great elegance and charm.
The blue-and-white Southern Cross flags which flutter throughout Ballarat symbolise the strong association of the city with the Eureka Rebellion - an event with great resonance in Australian history - and thus with its goldmining past. Ballarat is a very major provincial centre located 110 km west of Melbourne via the Western Freeway and 441 metres above sea-level. The current population is 83 000, making it Victoria's largest inland city. Tourism, retail, manufacturing and community services are now the city's major industries. Visually, Ballarat creates an impression of stateliness and grandeur by virtue of its magnificent wide thoroughfare, the Victorian and Edwardian architecture, tree-lined avenues, parks, gardens and statuary, and its substantial educational institutions. The town's name derives from the indigenous occupants of the area (said to be the Wathawurung) who called it 'Balla-arat' which is said to mean 'a good resting place'. This is thought to be a reference to the fact that they formed a camp here by Lake Wendouree (then a swamp). Ballarat is a beautiful and historic city with wide, tree-lined streets that are replete with elegant heritage buildings. Thankfully the Tourist Information Centre have put together a detailed and excellent self-guided Heritage Walk which covers the history of the inner city's streets, buildings and sites. It is not to be missed. The Eureka Trail was developed in 1996. It is a 3.5-km walk which retraces the route taken by the police and soldiers from the government camp to the Eureka Stockade in 1854. The intention was to take the miners by surprise so they followed an indirect path through gullies, rivers and hills which is now denoted by directional bollards and interpretive signs. It takes in the fine Victorian architecture of Lydiard St (the site of the original government camp), the Eastern Oval, bluestone channels, the banks of the Yarrowee River, the Black Hill Lookout and Reserve and old miners' cottages in Ballarat East and it provides linkages with the Yarrowee River Trail and the Great Dividing Trail. The trail starts at the post office in Lydiard St and concludes at the Eureka Stockade Centre. For further information contact the Information Centre, the Eureka Stockade Centre (03 5333 1854)or ring (03) 5320 5500. Sovereign Hill is the town's primary tourist attraction, drawing over 500 000 visitors a year. It is a 35-acre open-air museum established in 1970 near the site of the first gold strike at Ballarat and on the site of the Sovereign Quartz Mining Company which sank a shaft of 216 metres near the summit of this hill. This non-profit organisation seeks to recreate aspects of Ballarat as it was in the goldmining heyday of the 1850s. Thus each of the 60 buildings is a duplicate of an original structure, as photographed, drawn or painted at the time. 250 actors in authentic costumes populate the historical park on a rostered basis. They engage in activities appropriate to the era, employ 1850s technology and bespeak contemporary social values and attitudes. Even the sounds of Sovereign Hill are what you might have expected to hear at the time - working steam engines, stamper batteries, horses' hooves, passenger coaches etc. The complex is essentially divided into four parts - the Diggings 1851-1855, the Township 1854-1861, the Chinese Village 1859, and the Sovereign Quartz Mine, covering the period1861 to 1918. The Red Hill Gully Diggings reflect the earliest days when prospectors arrived from around the world to garner the alluvial gold. You can see the simple dwellings they lived in, the types of goldmining machinery they employed and the gold commissioner's camp. Visitors are encouraged to pan for gold in the creek. Gold can be purchased at the Waterloo Store and the Lemonade Tent sells old-fashioned lemonade on Sundays and on holidays in the summer. The Township is a recreation of the emerging city indicating the support services that emerged with the influx of people to the goldfields. The shops of Main St sell the types of goods that would have been available in the 1850s - ironware, tin and brassware, saddlery, pottery, woodworks, confectioneries, printed material, draperies and various grocery and toiletry items. You can take a ride on a coach from 10.30 a.m. daily, watch craftsmen working at traditional pursuits (such as sweet-making, baking, horse-shoeing, pill-rolling, coach-wheel making and wood-turning) with period tools, have your photograph taken in period dress at the Red Hill Photographic Rooms, and visit the stables, newspaper office, apothecaries, a period cottage, a slab hut, the tentmaker, the watch and clockmakers, the timber merchants, bank, gold office, mechanics' institute and free library, foundry, furniture warehouse and fire station. There are also free shows in the theatre on most days. At this time, between one-sixth and one-quarter of the population was Chinese although they were forced into six separate protectorates or villages from 1855 due to the hostility of the Europeans. Especially appointed government protectors determined that this was the best way to avoid the kind of conflict which generated the Lambing Flat riots (see entry on Young ). As the Chinese were forbidden from camping within 250 metres of a European dwelling the Chinese Village (a recreation of the original Golden Point Village) is at a remove from the main street of the complex. There is a Chinese store, a scribe, a herbalist, miners' tents and a Joss House (temple). TheSovereign Quartz Mine reflects the period when mining shifted from small-scale alluvial and shaft mining to corporate deep-lead mining aimed at extracting the gold which was buried deep underground in quartz reefs (c.1860-1918). The dominant feature is the enormous poppet head and opposite is a Mine Information Centre which can shed light on the fine collection of working steam-driven machinery such as the stamper battery, the engine house, the winder and the Cornish beam pump. You can also take a tour below ground through a 600-metre shaft. Here you will see displays and dioramas illustrating the chronological development of quartz mining technology and the conditions under which miners worked. When the underground tunnel was being dug the workings of the North Normanby mine were discovered and incorporated into the present mine display. The Secret Chamber offers a multimedia 10-minute special effects presentation to tell the story of the Chinese on Ballarat's goldfields (also available in Mandarin and Cantonese) and, at the Sovereign Quartz Mining Company Gold Smelting Works, visitors can witness molten gold being poured into a bar or ingot.

Our time on the Gold Coast went quickly, and we didn't really have much time to do more than see Wet N' Wild and DreamWorld before heading onward. Every time we returned to our hostel, it seemed as though someone was heading out to a party with a crate of beer, but we just wanted to relax for a few days before heading further north towards the rainforests of northern Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef. Before that, however, I had booked a couple of nights stopover in Brisbane. On my previous trip in 1998, I really hadn't seen much more of the city than the inside of the transit centre, and ever since people had been keen to tell me what I'd been missing. To be honest, I wasn't expecting too much as my experience of Australian cities other than Sydney and Perth are that they tend to be nowhere near on the scale of cities back home and not exactly hubs of activity - but I was more than willing to be proved wrong. As I often am. As you drive into Brisbane and follow a line of coaches up a dreary looking circular ramp into the Transit Centre, it's easy to wake up after a long journey, look out of the window at the featureless grey walls passing by and draw a hasty conclusion, as I did, that you're entering just another dismal city of square office blocks and grid-system roads. The Brisbane Transit Centre, which is about as much as I managed to see of the city the last time I was here, appears on arrival to be a multi-storey car park for coaches with a split level lounge and waiting area placed on top as an afterthought - from the outside, it certainly isn't designed to give the impression of a gateway into a vibrant modern city. Once you disembark from your coach and go inside, however, it suddenly seems as though you might have to think again. The centre comprises almost an entire city block and the lounge provides everything a tired traveller could possibly want while waiting for a connection - shops, fast food restaurants, an internet cafe, arcade machines, rest areas and televisions. In fact, if you travel down on the escalator below the two waiting levels, you'll find an entire food court and shopping centre. Anyone familiar with dingy coach stations elsewhere would almost certainly be slightly taken aback by the Brisbane Transit Centre - it's more like an airport than a glorified bus stop, complete with a separate level for arrivals and departures, monitors hanging from the ceiling with estimated times for all incoming and outgoing coaches, and ongoing announcements telling you when your coach is ready for boarding and through which gate you should go to find it! Believe it or not, you're even expected to check your bags in on arrival and have them weighed. Presumably, this is to make sure that the coach doesn't suddenly tip over at high speed through the combined weight of luggage in the hold - something which we all know is a real problem everywhere else in the world. There's that sarcasm again, did you get that? Only after your luggage has been checked, ticketed and taken away from you, and you've been subjected to questions about whether or not you packed your bags yourself as though you're getting on an international flight wearing a Tee-Shirt on which is written "Terrorists do it at 30,000 feet",can you think about going and getting a cup of tea and waiting for your, um, flight to be called. It's all quite surreal, terribly bureaucratic, and almost certainly totally un-necessary. It does, however, add something to the whole travelling experience in Australia. Also, of course, some people might miss the opportunity to give somebody a chance to lose their luggage for them, and at least this way you don't actually get to see your bags being loaded onto the bus. Adds to the excitement! It was fairly late when we arrived, and after collecting our bags we stopped for a bite to eat from the food court. There really wasn't much open at that time of night and the people serving at the remaining fast food outlets really didn't look as though they wanted to be there. Tanya, being a vegetarian, got to pig out on something delicious from the veggie stand while I, unfortunately, had to be served by the only person remaining at Kentucky Fried Chicken who was doubling as cashier and chef and was clearly unfamiliar with the art of cooking a chicken so that it didn't taste like a sock. Then, with Tanya going on about how full she was and me mumbling under my breath about humane methods of execution for fast food chefs, we set about trying to locate our hotel. As we were essentially just passing through on our way north, I had booked us into somewhere which looked as though it would be comfortable for a couple of days rather than being particularly over the top. Nevertheless, it turned out that we were staying just about opposite the City Botanical Gardens and only a couple of blocks from the shopping district - so we didn't have far to go to get to anything. Our hotel, in fact, turned out to be better than I had been expecting and was clearly meant for people passing through on business - it even came with free broadband internet access in the room. We had a separate bedroom and living area, and a distant view of the river over the Botanical gardens from our window. After our brief dabble into the youth hostel experience in Surfers Paradise, we had clearly gone up market again. Nevertheless, we had limited time in Brisbane so we just threw our suitcases in a corner and went to bed in order to get an early start in the morning exploring the city. The central pedestrian mall on the junctions of Queen Street and Albert Streetis the main shopping destination for Brisbanites.The city does a fairly good job of pretending to be a lot smaller than it is, and since we were staying quite close to the Queen Street Mall and spent most of our time in the general area, I actually came away with the impression that Brisbane isn't much more than a few relaxed city blocks containing a pleasant community square, the mall and the botanic gardens. Obviously, we didn't have a long stay in which to explore further, but it's only after getting home and looking on a map that I realise just how sprawling Brisbane and its suburbs really are. This small town illusion isn't a bad thing by any means, and is a good indication of just how "cosy" Australians manage to make their cities feel. Whereas Britain tends to cover its cities in concrete and ugly grey office blocks stretching up to the sky, and seems to love employing architects who seriously believe a building shaped like an aubergine to be a fantastic idea, Australia still very much goes for large open community spaces, lots of greenery and parkland, and long relaxing walks between different shopping areas. Of course, Australians do have a tendency to use the word "city"in the same way Americans do - referring to just about everything larger than a small car park - but Brisbane actually manages to be a well spread out metropolis and home to nearly two million people without actually giving the feel to a visitor of being more than a small community. I applaud this, and very much wish London was the same. One of the most forward thinking innovations I saw in Brisbane while we were there was that the local government had installed free wireless internet hotspots around the Queen Street Mall. Anybody could just wander down to the shops with their laptop, sit on a bench anywhere along the street, and surf the internet. I don't suppose this is such a radical thing now that everybody has broadband at home and at the office - why would you take your laptop down the street when you can stay at home or plug in at the office without wasting the batteries - but it's small ideas like this which other countries seem unwilling to adopt which set Australia apart. While we were out, we decided to buy a phone card from the kiosk at the junction of the two main streets on the Brisbane mall - mainly because we would need to start phoning ahead for accommodation at any moment and being able to use a payphone in the street was going to be slightly more convenient than spending much of our remaining budget calling from our hotel room. To this day, I have no idea whether somebody made a mistake, or whether phone cards in Australia are just extraordinarily good value - but we certainly weren't short changed. I settled on a five dollar card, since there were options from various telecoms companies and I thought it might be best to start with a low value, see how long the card lasted, and perhaps go for a card from a different company later in the search for the best value. Well, I needn't have worried - the first time I put the card in a payphone and keyed in the handy six thousand digit security code printed on the reverse, I was welcomed by an automated Australian voice which told me chirpingly: "You have seven hundred and eighty six minutes of call time remaining on this card." I fully appreciate that this was an estimate and that it was probably based on the assumption that I would be making mostly local calls, but even after several weeks of using the card to call ahead and book rooms, and phoning home a couple of times, I was still being greeted by a cheery Australian lady telling me that I had many hundreds of minutes left. I still have it somewhere, although I expect it's expired by now. The first time you use a British phone card, all you usually get is a voice laughing at you and asking sarcastically if you seriously expect to be able to make an entire phone call for the mere ten pounds you paid for it! My favourite destination in Brisbane is, by far, the City Botanical Gardens. Australia, as I have said previously, excels in maintaining its wide open spaces rather than covering them in office blocks, and seems to be just as good at maintaining them as genuine back to nature retreats in the midst of city life. Every major city in the country has a large area set aside as botanic gardens, and they are all justifiably proud of their own and keen to point out how much more spectacular they are than everyone else's! Now, I should point out here that neither Tanya or I are massive fans of the whole formal gardens thing - the idea that somebody has planted an area of grass several miles square and then dotted it with perfectly round flowerbeds connected with cute little cobbled paths seems to be a particularly British thing and rather makes us want to run screaming in the opposite direction. These places, it always seems to me whenever I'm forced to walk through one on my way somewhere, are mainly frequented by ladies in their eighties walking in pairs pointing at daffodils and saying "Oh look Mavis, isn't that lovely?" to each other at regular intervals. This is ironic as it's usually exactly these sorts of people who have trouble even getting out of bed in the morning without falling over, let alone being expected to walk around miles of labyrinthine pathways looking for pansies. I can't speak for Tanya, but personally my impression of city gardens was a bit clouded by this stereotype and I hadn't held up a lot of hope for the botanic gardens, so I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the ones in Brisbane. I then went on to be even more pleasantly surprised to discover over the following weeks that the Australians seem to guard their natural habitats very closely and would generally rather have a pointed stick rammed up their bottom and be shot out of a cannon than allow anybody with a degree in architecture to go anywhere near them! The City Botanic Gardens aren't, by any means, the largest in Australia. However, this less sprawling layout makes it easier to find your way around and to use the gardens as a place to relax and spend the day without having to wander around with a seventy page guidebook trying to work out where to go next, as you do in some of the larger ones elsewhere. Entering from Alice Street, you find the sound of the city vanishing surprisingly quickly. A path leads off towards the central rotunda which clearly acts as a meeting point in the park, and to the right there is a large ornamental pond around which Ibis and Lizards wander looking for visitors to feed them. Of course, as in all these places, feeding the animals is not encouraged, but nevertheless people still crowd around the pond and sit on the surrounding benches handing out bread to anything which seems interested. Which is to say, every living creature in the park. I'd only just got through the gate, and already I felt as though I really wanted a place like this near to my home in England. The nearest thing I had in London at the time was a small featureless park with a small duck pond, usually filled with obnoxious teenagers (the park, not the pond - we haven't begun drowning our troublemakers yet) throwing litter on the grass, wiping their noses on their sleeves and saying "Innit" to each other at regular intervals for no apparent reason. I've since moved. As with most botanical gardens in Australia, the park is divided into themed areas through which visitors can experience flora and fauna from different regions of the country. For example, a stroll along the path to the north of the gardens allows you to surround yourself with giant strangler fig trees (also known, less dramatically, as the Banyan Fig). This scary looking species, more prevalent in northern Queensland, looks like something you might expect to find in a haunted forest or a horror movie. The trees usually start life as a result of a seed dropped by a bird which lodges itself in a small hole in the bark of another tree. The strangler then uses this tree as a host, growing its roots downward toward the soil below and winding them around the host until it has literally sucked all the nutrients out of it. Strangler figs are usually found in dark woodland like that of the rainforests in northern Queensland, where there is limited space for new trees to grow and sunlight is at a premium under the dense canopy - stranglers often end up as circles of branches around a hollow core, where the host tree has died and rotted away. They really are something spectacular to behold, and tourism companies will often take groups out to see the larger ones which really do look like something out of a fantasy world and just have to be seen to be believed. At the centre of the gardens is a single wooden post sticking out of the ground, atop which is a metal date marker which reads 1974. This is a flood mark which was erected in 1999 to commemorate the many floods which have devastated the region over the last two centuries, and in particular indicates the high point of the great flood of 1974 when the water rose to a height of four and a half meters, destroying many of the most prized areas of the gardens and closing them for over two months. Many of the palm trees around the gardens still lean quite noticeably from the force of the flood waters, and various attempts to right them using pulleys have failed. I say just leave them alone - let nature design its own look! Close by, a grove contains a collection of around twenty five species of bamboo and this commemorates the loss of one of the gardens best loved early attractions, Fern Island, a small island in a lagoon at the centre of the park which was reached by way of wooden foot bridges. The lagoon was reluctantly drained and filled, and Fern Island removed in 1937 as a result of increasing complaints from locals about the swarms of mosquitoes it drew in. It would seem as though the City Botanical Gardens are keen to remind us that nothing lasts forever. One of the last remaining features from the original gardens, in fact, is its famous Tamarind Tree. Planted in the mid-nineteenth century to provide food for early settlers, it still produces fruit to this day. One of the most attractive things about the City Botanical Gardens is the fact that they are located right on the river front, and this, in itself, would be something which would be likely to draw me to the Brisbane area were I ever to be looking to relocate to an Australian city. By making your way through the park and past the restaurant, you find the trees starting to close in and begin to enter an area which feels altogether more natural and less and less as though you're in the middle of a big city. A little further on, you come out onto the quite amazing mangrove boardwalk. Built along the river front but also under a dense canopy of trees so that you feel mostly hidden from the city and more as though you're on a river in the forest than in a place like Brisbane, the mangrove walk really is something quite unlike anything I've seen before in any garden or park of any kind. Suddenly, the sounds of people disappear behind you, the densely packed trees acting as a natural barrier to much of the noise from the surrounding area. The only sound, apart from the occasional footsteps of your fellow visitors, is that of insects and birds in the trees or wading in the mud between the mangroves. What makes the mangrove boardwalk in Brisbane so special is that no attempt seems to have been made to make it at all touristy. Along a large section of the river bank mud filled mangrove swamps are surrounded by dense woodland and vegetation, and wooden boardwalks zig-zag across its surface, held in place only by the suction of the mud beneath. It's as though somebody has lifted a section of mangrove swamp from beside a river in a tropical forest somewhere and dropped it in Brisbane, sticking the odd wooden pathway across it so people can pass through without sinking up to their shoulders in mud! Australians are well known for their love of ecology and maintaining a natural environment, so much so that it sometimes feels as though taking a photograph of an animal out in the bush might result in a policeman suddenly appearing from out of nowhere and carting you off to jail for disturbing it (This is true of Aborigines, by the way. If you take a photo of an Aborigine without asking first, and he doesn't like it, expect to spend some time behind bars. Pretty much the same thing applies if you take a rock home or disturb the environment of Australia in any way - such is the Australian's all-encompassing wish to leave everything and everyone undisturbed.) This attitude to the environment definitely shows itself here, where virtually no unnecessary tinkering is done with the mangrove swamps other than to maintain the boardwalk from time to time. Stopping along the route and peering over the railings at the mud below reveals a plethora of swamp life, from minute crabs scuttling over the surface to wading birds who really look as though they shouldn't be able to stand on the mud without sinking. This is the nearest many of us will get to exploring a full-sized mangrove swamp without flying somewhere that requires a lot of injections - and on the way home, you can walk back along the river bank at the edge of the gardens and see some of the last remaining Australian Blue Gum trees in the area. Always assuming, of course, that you can avoid being run over by the cyclists who like to use the river path as a raceway. Our stop in Brisbane had only been brief, but enjoyable. Our next port of call was much further north, in Cairns. On my previous trip, I had been fortunate enough to go SCUBA diving on the Great Barrier Reef amongst other things, and was looking forward to introducing Tanya to some of the same experiences. Our ultimate destination on the east coast was the rainforests of northern Queensland, where I had already booked a hotel in the heart of the forest, but first we had to use our new super-value phone card to call ahead and book somewhere to stay on arrival in Cairns as the courtesy bus to take us to our rainforest retreat wasn't due to pick us up for a couple of days. Suitcases in hand, we headed back to the Brisbane Transit Centre where we booked ourselves in and spent our last hour in the city wandering around the shops on the lower level and looking through our guide books for things to do in Cairns. This was going to be our longest coach trip yet...My complete travel journals are at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and /globalwanderer2

It's been the season to be jolly for some time now, but the difference would seem to be that the Australians have noticed. Back in the UK, all the shops had already started selling Christmas cards before I left but The Thais, being mainly Buddhist, naturally wouldn't know Christmas if it came up and slapped them in the face with a wet fish. Hong Kong is slightly more prepared and already has all the buildings covered in neon greetings which light up the sky at night, but it's mainly the ex-pat community which celebrates it seriously. So it's really nice to find that Australia has the season's greetings coming out of its ears. It is, of course, slightly surreal that while the weather here at the moment is boiling hot and everyone is walking around in Tee shirts and with surfboards tucked under their arms, the shops are full of snowmen, reindeer and jolly old men in white furry beards and red overcoats. Australia strikes the visitor as a very different place as soon as you arrive. It appears to be full of places with wonderful names like (and I'm not making these up) Booby Island and Yorkie's Knob, to which tour guides called Kylie will gladly take you to watch real Aborigines doing traditional painting in the outback - Even though you know perfectly well that said natives are probably going to hop straight back into their Mercedes after you've gone and head back to their luxury homes in the Blue Mountains. This might sound slightly cynical, but I should point out that I came here once before on a coach tour in 1995 and learned a lot from speaking to local people - people, I should say, who have to be some of the warmest, most welcoming folks you are ever likely to meet. If there's one thing guaranteed to bring you back to Oz again and again (and there are many others, believe me), it's the people. Friendly doesn't even cut it - I'm sure it's the weather, but it really is so refreshing to be made to feel so welcome by a whole country full of people, especially when I come from the UK where you generally can't look at the headline on a newspaper on a street stall without being asked in a gruff voice "so you gonna buy that then, or what?". Australia is also full of wonderful creatures that don't resemble anything else on Earth, contains some of the most beautiful scenary you could wish for, and is a country where you have to drive for hundreds of miles to find another living being that isn't fluffy and doesn't greet you by going "baaaa". There is a town I came across on my previous trip which greets the traveller with a sign which reads " Population 250 (2 people, 248 sheep) ". They also have a sense of humour second to none here, and actually understand sarcasm as a form of wit which is always a bonus for us Brits. The Australian banknotes are colourful, to say the least. Each value is a different vibrant colour. Deep red, bright yellow, deep purple - buying something with cash is like an explosion in a paint factory. The notes are also made of a form of plastic with a transparent window in the middle to deter forgery, which is unique in any currency I've encountered but such a ridiculously good idea that I can't understand why nobody has borrowed the idea - screw a ten dollar note up into a ball and let go and it springs back to it's original shape and pristine condition, no dirty wrinkled money here. But of course, everything in Australia has to be slightly surreal in some way so a good idea like this has to come with strings attached. In the case of the Australian dollar (originally known as the Royal back in the sixties until this name proved unpopular), this string is the fact that there has been no coin to represent anything less than 5 cents since the beginning of the 1990s. Now, you might think that this would logically mean that retailers would price all the items on their shelves at values which divide into 5 cents, but no! You will still see items priced at 1.99 or 3.98 or whatever, amounts which you cannot physically pay - it is, believe it or not, left entirely up to the shop whether they insist that you pay more than you actually owe and keep the difference, or round down. Go into a shop, buy something for 4.99, hand over a five dollar note and stand there waiting for your change while the shop assistant looks at you as if to say "What?" I did, it's great fun. There's that good old British sarcasm again... Christmas in Oz is very tempting. As we flew in over glinting lakes and through clear blue skies, I knew that this was where I wanted to be at the start of the last year of the Millennium. England is on the other side of the world: I am going to get the chance to swim with Dolphins, refer to complete strangers as "Blue" with absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, and generally have a great time slapping shrimps onto barbies. In Sydney, I caught the free shuttle bus to my hotel, checked in and fell straight into bed. I hadn't slept for 48 hours straight, and the last time I was in Sydney I had managed to get up for breakfast at 6pm and baffle the waiter in the restaurant by eating Cornflakes while everybody else looked at me curiously over their three course dinners. In the evening, feeling refreshed, I thought I'd take a wander and get my bearings and discovered that my hotel is in Paddington and is just down the road from Oxford Street, Marylebone, Kings Cross and Bakers Street. I feel right at home. On my first trip to a local McDonalds, the woman in front of me asked for a McChicken Sandwich and I could swear the assistant asked her if she would like it to be made with real Chicken. I'm sure this must be some local expression which I do not yet understand, but exactly what the hell is an artificial Chicken? The traffic crossings in Sydney are interesting. After pressing the button and waiting something like 5 minutes for the lights to change, they give me about three seconds to cross before changing back, hardly enough time for the cars to actually stop. Little white images of people are drawn onto the road at all the pedestrian crossings, and I haven't yet figured out whether this is a helpful attempt on the part of the Australian government to tell me where to cross the road, or whether they are all chalk outlines drawn by the police whenever a tourist gets run over by a bus. During the night, all hell broke loose in the sky. Thunder and lightening like I'd never heard in my life kept me awake for hours. I was sure I would awaken in the morning to find myself on a different continent with a dog called Toto - when I dared to draw back the curtains to peer out, the sky was alight with the most incredible electrical storm and the road outside was awash. Come the morning, though, the roads were all bone dry, the sun was hot, and there was a bus outside waiting to take me on a complementary city tour for the day. That's one of the most remarkable things about this continent - if you're out and about and it starts to rain, don't let it worry you. The rain will probably be warm, and you'll probably be bone dry and steaming within two minutes of it stopping anyway! On my first full day in Sydney, I took an orientation tour which promised to briefly show me the sights and then leave me to find my own way back to anywhere I found inspiring. Our driver took us across the famous harbour bridge to Milsons point, from which panoramic views of the harbour and opera house could be seen, and across the Spit Bridge (which, disappointingly, was not crowded with people spitting over the side) to a small district called Seeforth. We drove through scenic Manly, where our driver thought it important to point out the Manly Girls School, which sounded to me like a finishing school for Tom-Boys, as well as showing us the surfing beach at Bondi.
I have to say that Bondi Beach impressed me a lot more than it did when I was here in 1995. For some reason, I remember being distinctly unimpressed after what everybody had told me about the place - but it's obviously been cleaned up quite a lot since then and was actually quite impressive. Nevertheless, it's still nothing like the huge mile long strip of golden sand covered in bronzed bodies and surf dudes that we are led to believe from well edited television, and in my opinion there are better beaches than Bondi even round the Sydney area, but nevertheless I had time to stroll along sweating buckets and doing some western style shopping which I haven't managed to do for a while. The orientation tour finished with a drive around the inner city including Kings Cross, the entertainment centre and casino at Darling Harbour, Chinatown and various other places which I made notes to visit over the next few days if I got the chance. The tour also included a harbour luncheon cruise at which the driver introduced me to another passenger called Monica (As in Monica from Friends, as opposed to Monica from the Whitehouse, she was keen to point out), with whom I shared a meal and discussed the best places I should see while I am here as it turned out that she had already done most of it and was on her way out of the country as I was on my way in. The captain, with only a massive amount of prompting from us, allowed Monica and I onto the bridge and probably broke every rule in the book by allowing us to take it in turns to sail the boat around for a bit. The captain seemed very much to enjoy us both having small panic attacks every time another vessel or the Sydney Harbour Bridge came anywhere within a mile or so of us! Yesterday, I wandered down to The Rocks , the old area of Sydney harbour front, to see if it was as I had left it. All the memories came flooding back as I walked along George Street, through the shopping district to the harbour - Circular Quay was unchanged, apart from a few new hoardings advertising the Olympic Games for Sydney 2000. Circular Quay is where all the ferries go from, backs onto both the Opera house and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and very much represents the modern waterfront entertainment and shopping side to Sydney. The Rocks , on the other hand, is Sydney's birthplace and as such is full of beautiful old buildings proudly displaying plaques dating them or showing off previous occupants. Most, of course, are now occupied by modern shops, chic boutiques and roadside coffee shops - but local planning rules don't allow much change here so the area retains pretty much it's original charm even if you know there's a McDonalds hidden away inside one of these old buildings. The Rocks is very much the side of Sydney that I would like to see more of, it represents the world that is being pushed aside and trampled upon by modern skyscrapers and high-rise apartment blocks. There is a square here, where a band plays at lunchtime to locals and tourists drinking Cafe Late outside coffee shops or browsing the shop windows. Even McDonalds has seemingly decided to pander to local sensibilities, and has opened up a McCafe here where you can buy French pastries and cakes so you can pretend to be posh for a moment while eating your Big Mac. There are only three places in Australia where you do not actually own the land you live on - The Rocks being one of them. Due to it's historical value, the government can technically come along and turf you out whenever they like in the interests of keeping the area looking the way they want it - so it's no good trying to turn your charming cake shop into a nightclub. There should be more places like this, more governments willing to think along these lines and keep these places from being lost - although it hasn't always been this way. It seems almost unthinkable now, strolling through the cobbled streets, that it was as recently as 1970 that the Australian Government were seriously planning to tear the whole area down and build office blocks - and only an outcry from just about everybody in the hemisphere caused them to instead declare the area as historically significant and move on to some other harebrained scheme. This from a government which, until recently, imposed a blanket ban on buildings over 4 stories within the city for aesthetic reasons. In fact, the famous Park Hyatt Hotel in The Rocks is only 4 stories high, can only accommodate a select few at a time, and will cost you several hundred dollars a night. So there go my plans for a night in the nice part of town! I strolled around the Quay in the afternoon and looked at the Opera House, although to be honest it does suffer rather strongly from the fact that its image is on every card and every picture of Sydney you are ever likely to see. Unlike the Grand Canyon or the Great Barrier Reef, it just isn't one of those places that looks that much more spectacular in person - you really can't say "Ah, but wait until you see the Opera House for real" because it pretty much looks exactly as you had expected it to and can be something of an anticlimax. In the typical surreal style I've come to expect from Australia, the Opera House was designed in 1957 by a Danish architect called Jorn Utzon, who made a few basic sketches, sent them in to a competition and was presumably totally blown away to find that he had won the opportunity to design what would become one of the world's most well known and photographed landmarks. The problem was that this all went to his head a little and his final design turned out to be far more complex than anyone had imagined - it was over two decades before the Opera House was finished, during which time those in power changed and Utzon found himself arguing about his designs with people who didn't like them much. As a result, and also partly because Utzon's original design was too costly and too complex to build as he had envisioned it, what we see today is an amalgam of his ideas and a total redesign of the inside which probably doesn't bear much resemblance to the original vision. I came back along George Street, crossing onto Liverpool Street and making my way to Darling Harbour. I hadn't realised how near it was to Circular Quay - about a ten minute walk. When I was here a few years ago, my hotel was so close to the Quay that I nearly always took the ferry. Darling Harbour was originally designed and built as recently as 1988, and is the ultra modern side to Sydney. This is where you will find a multitude of shopping opportunities in the Harbourside Centre, a behemoth of glass and metal that manages to dominate an entire side of the harbour and contains a whole level of little Cafes and restaurants, each representing a different country and cuisine. I had hoped to pop in for a Coffee and Croissant in a quiet corner of France, but for some reason the entire complex was closed off and covered in scaffolding and builders drinking tea as is so often the case when I really want to see something - so I strolled into the harbour front park and sat on a bench by a fountain in the middle of a lake, baking in the heat and watching people whiz by on roller-skates. Australia has an amazing way of making you never want to go home.
New on the harbour front since my last visit is the IMAX theatre, and apparently a new multi-million dollar Night-club which has just opened, but they've obviously spent so much money on the insides that they haven't thought to leave any over to make it visible from the outside in any way, so after spending an hour looking for it I gave up. The guy at my hotel reception - fountain of all knowledge - tells me that the club holds 2500 people and is the place to be seen in Sydney. Always assuming it wants to be seen itself. One thing I've noticed since arriving in Sydney is that the advertising on hoardings and bill-boards for the 2000 Olympics seems to have become a lot more low-key than it was the last time I was here in 1995 - rather strange considering just how close we're getting to the event. At the moment, most of the hoardings are advertising the upcoming Gay Pride Mardi-Gras, which will be happening at the beginning of February - there is very little mention of the Olympics at all. So, have I got anything bad to say about Sydney? Well, the only thing that has put a damper on my visit so far are the profusion of notices pinned hap-hazardly on every wall of every building around Paddington, Oxford Street and the outer suburbs which read " Have you seen this girl? Last seen vicinity of Hyde Park. Parents desperately worried. Please call… ".
This does bring me back down to Earth. For all its good points, in many ways Sydney is no different from any other big city the world over.My complete journals are at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and /globalwanderer2

One day in December 1967, while visiting Melbourne, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt decided to take a trip to his favourite local swimming spot, Cheviot Beach, with some friends. Cheviot Beach is well known for its strong undercurrents and riptides but despite attempts by his friends to dissuade him, Holt told his friends that he was going for a swim and headed off out to sea. Harold Holt has never been seen again. This is just one of the endlessly bizarre and fascinating stories that visitors to the New Parliament House in Canberra are regaled with on the tour of the facilities. Conspiracy theories exist to this day that insist that Holt was taken aboard a Chinese submarine and helped to defect, or that he was abducted by aliens. The fact that he had been suffering from ill health for some time, had been known to faint in parliament and was said to have had a heart problem which probably wouldn't have been helped by leaping manly into a strong current off a beach in Melbourne seem to be far too logical explanations to be taken seriously by many people. This is Australia, after all - nothing is straightforward. The old Parliament building was closed a few years ago when the new one was completed, and is now a museum. Tour groups are led around the shiny new building, which you might imagine would be about as exciting as watching paint dry if it weren't for the fact that our guide was a gloriously cheerful and excitable old-timer called Max who really wasn't so different from his namesake in the 70s TV series "Hart to Hart". Max kept calling everybody "Folks" and took great pleasure in responding to the slightest question with long, drawn out stories of Australian bizarreness which had us sitting around like schoolchildren eager to learn more. Apparently the captain of the Australian Cricket team, a man who essentially hits balls for a living, earns eight times more than the Prime Minister who does nothing other than run the entire country. We visited the Senate and the House of Representatives, learned the intricacies of the Australian political system which is at times just as odd as you might have come to expect, and discovered that there are two thousand five hundred clocks in the building just in case you don't have the time to turn your head to find out if it's time for lunch. Whenever it is time to vote for anything, these clocks all chime in unison to let MPs know wherever they are - which must surely cause something of a minor earthquake. Everyone then jumps up from whatever they are doing and runs like an Olympic athlete because they only have 4 minutes to vote before the doors are locked on the voting chamber and they get fined for not turning up. It all sounds like an interesting combination of total chaos and a task from Big Brother. Only in Australia. On the subject of voting, the electoral system in Australia is just as strange as I had expected. For a start Australia enforces compulsory voting, which essentially means that everybody in the country has to go down to the voting station and cast a vote for every local or national election whether they want to or not. For me, this rather removes the whole point of voting in the first place as many people who don't like any of the options are forced to vote for whoever they consider to be the best of a bad bunch - especially when you consider that this law was introduced originally because hardly anybody was turning up to vote, which does sort of suggest that nobody wanted the same things any of the politicians wanted and raises some interesting questions about democracy. Anybody failing to vote is sent a letter asking for an explanation, and if they can't give one then they have to pay a fine or go to court. Nevertheless, many still get around the system by taking advantage of the fact that ballots are secret - so as long as you turn up at the voting station, take a ballot card and then put it into the ballot box, there's nothing really stopping you writing "to hell with the lot of them" on the card as there is no way of tracing anyone who does so. The political system was explained in more depth in the House of Representatives by a cute brunette who was much more interesting than any of it, and everyone shuffled out whispering to each other furtively about their sudden deep understanding of politics and daring each other to ask for her phone number. One of the more laughable things I have discovered recently is that the rules state "if not enough members turn up for any parliamentary debate, there aren't enough people to make a decision and everybody should go home". In practice, however, the MPs usually agree to not notice that there aren't enough people present and press on anyway so a decision can be made even though there aren't enough people to make it properly. This doesn't come as a huge surprise to me - if you've seen the Aussie Parliament live on TV, you will fully appreciate the chaos that reins supreme. Parliamentary privilage means that Australian politicians cannot legally be sued for anything they decide to say about each other in parliament, which means that there's none of the "Right Honourable" mumbo-jumbo that you get in British Politics - Aussie Politicians seem to be allowed to say exactly how they feel in the house, and often turn the air blue questioning the Prime Ministers parentage and suggesting that the MP opposite might like to stuff his reform bill up his arse. It's great fun - many happy times can be had sitting, open mouthed, watching parliamentary TV. In theory, an MP can be arrested and tried for "contempt of parliament" if they go too far, but that's never happened. Australia really doesn't seem to able to put anything together itself, as the whole of downtown Canberra was designed in the same way as the Sydney Opera House by a bloke who won the honour in a competition. At the time, Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over which was more suited to be the Australian capital - so rather than actually having to commit to a decision on this important political point, the government simply decided to upset them both by building a new city somewhere in between, create a brand new state called the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) to put it in so that nobody could boast about living in the same state as the capital, and relegate Sydney and Melbourne to arguing amongst themselves. They then decided they'd done enough for the day and created a competition for somebody else to actually design the place. An American by the name of Burleigh-Griffiths put in a design that was so unlike the others that he won hands down; again without anybody apparently putting any real thought into how much it would cost to build. The winning design had all the consulates and Parliamentary buildings lined up around a neat central walk with gardens and memorials something like Pall Mall in London, and that's how it stands today with the old Parliament building and the ANZAC war memorial at one end and the gleaming new Parliament at the other. In between, there is a mile of fountains and gardens. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and the ANZAC monument stands as a memorial to all the officers and soldiers who lost their lives fighting the war of 1939-45, all of whose names are engraved on the walls around a fountain. At the far end is the tomb of the unknown Australian soldier as a figurehead with which to remember the loss of life and next door is a huge exhibition containing film and artefacts from the war and letters sent to relatives by those who died. This is a very morbid and depressing place to visit, and perhaps that is why it is full of tourists shuffling from room to room with solemn looks on their faces - I saw people sitting outside on benches with tears streaming down their cheeks. It has to be said that, apart from the buildings I've described here, there isn't a heck of a lot in Canberra. But then, it was only really built for political reasons anyway so they're hardly likely to fill it with theme parks and nightclubs. Taking a slow drive around the 60 Embassies and High Commissions is nevertheless quite good fun - somebody has actually built them to represent the countries in question so that, for example, the Japanese embassy is a pagoda. This gives the whole place a sort of Disney feel and is something worth seeing while in town. And in case you are wondering what the difference between an embassy and a High Commission is (so was I until I asked), it seems countries that are part of the Commonwealth, such as Canada and Britain, have High Commissions. Everybody else gets an Embassy. You learn something new every day. The National Gallery is also a cool place to visit, with it's collection of classic and modern art. The guides are so highly trained that they can describe each painting and sculpture to you in such a way that, for a very brief moment, you think you're actually starting to understand why a pile of bricks is worth fourteen million dollars. Then you shake your head and it becomes a pile of bricks again. Among my favourite art in the museum is a painting of himself by Rubens in which the skin tones are so lifelike that it really does look like somebody travelled back in time and took a photograph. There's also a modern painting which looks so much like a photograph that I would've sworn it was one if I hadn't been told otherwise. I'm told, in fact, that it is one of the worst insults you can give a painter to say that his painting looks like a photograph because you're not acknowledging the work that's gone into it, and I can sort of see the point.My complete travel journals are at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and /globalwanderer2

My coach to Townsville doesn't leave until tomorrow morning, so I decided to use my last free day in Northern Queensland by taking the Scenic Train to Kuranda. This, if you are just passing through the area on your way further north, is considered the traditionally touristy thing to do. The village of Kuranda is a small outpost at the northern end of the Atherton Tablelands which happily thrives on the influx of tourists to its Zoo, Aviary, Butterfly Farm and outback style pub. Upon arrival, I headed straight for the market which was overflowing with Aboriginal artefacts and souvenirs - this was probably the first time I'd seen a truly tourist oriented market since arriving in Australia and it was great fun to route around trying to separate the genuinely great finds from cheap tackiness. With it's wealth of touristy attractions and markets, Kuranda is the sort of place best enjoyed with company - when I returned here in 2002 with Tanya, we had a great time trying not to be pecked to death by birds in the huge dome aviary and walking through the butterfly house covered in tiny colourful flapping wings. On that occasion, we also discovered a market trader who really wanted to hard-sell us a Didgeridoo and spent a good ten minutes after finding out that I co-ran a website for unsigned bands in the UK explaining to me how much respect he had for British music. He was a really convincing salesman, too, until I figured out that his only knowledge of and sole basis for liking British music was that somebody had told him about Jamiroquai's "didge" player Wallis Buchanan. I really want to say that this logic sounded to me like virtual insanity, but I shall restrain myself. Despite all that Kuranda has to offer, it isn't initially the village itself which attracts people to it. A visit to Northern Queensland just isn't complete without riding the famous scenic railway out to Kuranda and returning via the Skyrail. The rail journey passes through some of the most incredible scenery the Atherton Tablelands have to offer, past towering waterfalls and across seemingly bottomless ravines. The Skyrail, on the other hand, is a cable car which passes right over the top of the rainforest and allows you to gain a perspective otherwise unavailable without chartering a light aircraft. In fact the Skyrail is something of a feat of engineering, being over seven kilometres in length and having an intermediate stop in the middle of the rainforest where I was able to jump off and take a walk. And when I say "jump off", I mean it quite literally - none of that stopping and opening doors rubbish here, just jump off as you sail through the station or don't get off at all. The outward train journey was the first route created between Kuranda and the coast during the Gold Rush of the 1880s when the miners found themselves blocked into the mountains by flood and in real danger of starving to death if a path wasn't cut to civilisation. It's hard to believe, riding the railway today, that it wasn't built with any regard to the view the line affords as it cuts through the rock face on the very edge of steep gorges and veers off suddenly at the very moment you expect to plummet over the edge. The rail link took decades to construct and was built in three stages by teams of labourers working around the clock to provide a viable route for food to reach the miners and gold to get back to the coast. Small towns sprung up at many points along the line to support the workers, and at the height of construction several of these boasted hotels and casinos. Phase two of the project was given to a contractor who gave it a brief go before shrugging his shoulders and announcing that it couldn't be done, at which point the project was handed over to a second firm who managed to stay on the job for three weeks before complaining that the forest was impenetrable and only an idiot would try to cut a railway line through it. The job was finally finished by the Government itself, who clearly had interests in the gold getting to where it needed to be as soon as possible, and today we have the Kuranda Scenic Railway to thank them for. Governments do, sometimes, get things in order. The Skyrail is also a truly awe-inspiring piece of engineering, although it's a much more recent addition to the area having only been in operation since the mid-nineties. Sweeping low over the tops of the trees, the cable cars all have panoramic windows which allow you to appreciate the rainforest without tramping all over it, although, as I mentioned earlier, there is a mid-way stop at Red Peak at which passengers can get off and either be escorted safely along a boardwalk by guides or explore under their own steam. The Skyrail is a very peaceful experience, and as I passed over the canopy this afternoon there was very little sound other than the calls of the animals below. The view is as spectacular as you could hope for and I could see nothing but trees in all directions as far as the horizon. It almost made me hope that the Skyrail would break down and leave me stuck up there overnight instead of having to return to civilisation at ground level, especially as the television news tonight is leading me to believe that the roads I was planning on taking westward from Townsville over the next couple of days are flooded and that continuing with this trip in the way I had planned may be a bit of a problem...

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2

Bendigo is a charming and elegant rural centre with an economy which is driven by a mixture of tourism, industry and servicing the surrounding agricultural district. The Bendigo Easter Fair, operating since 1871 and climaxing with a famous parade featuring historic Chinese processional dragons, is a popular annual event, as is the NEC Bendigo Cup in November. The Australian Sheep and Wool Show is held on the third or fourth weekend in July each year.

Cohuna is an immaculate and peaceful little town of some 2200 people situated on the Murray Valley Highway, 265 km north of Melbourne and 80 m above sea-level. Adjacent the main road is a portion of Gunbower Creek, an anabranch of the Murray River. Sandwiched between the creek and the main body of the Murray River, 8 km to the north, is Gunbower Island and Cohuna is the main access point to the island's many attractions. Cohuna is flanked by lush pastures which have been generated with the assistance of the Torrumbarry Irrigation System. They have been put to good use by the district's many dairy cows. Pigs, cattle, wool and timber also contribute to the local economy. The town has a caravan park attractively situated on the banks of Gunbower Creek. The area is thought to have been occupied by the Baraparapa people long before white settlement and prehistoric burials of world importance were found locally in 1925 and in the late 1960s.

West Wyalong is a transit town for those driving between Melbourne and Brisbane on the Newell Highway and for those travelling between Sydney and Adelaide on the Mid Western Highway. It is the major town of Bland Shire, one of the state's most productive agricultural shires, where wheat, wool, pigs, eucalyptus oil, sawmills, farm machinery, and a growing tourism sector are the staples of the local economy. The original occupants of the area were the Wiradjuri people. The West Wyalong Show is held in September and the biennial Festival of the Highways occurs in October of the odd-numbered years.

Mullumbimby is a quiet country township which was once a rural centre servicing the surrounding farms. In the late 1960s it became one of the great alternative lifestyle centres in the country. It carries this reputation with much more confidence than its more famous partner, Nimbin, which is only a short distance away. In the lexicon of names which can be used to conjure up images of hippies and psychedelic colours Mullumbimby is second only to Nimbin. Ironically today the town bears few signs of the lifestyle which invaded it in the early 1970s. There are no brightly-coloured shop fronts like Nimbin; there are no young kids up from Sydney looking for drugs and fun. Mullumbimby is located 4 km off the Pacific Highway, 798 km north-east of Sydney, 19 km north-west of Byron Bay and 165 km south of Brisbane. It is situated on the Brunswick River at 4 metres above sea-level and had a population, in 1996, of 2870 people. Tourism is important to the local economy in a region which is noted for its production of bananas, avocados, pineapples and other tropical fruit, dairy products, macadamia nuts, cattle, pigs and timber. The town's name is thought to derive from the language of the Bundjalung people with 'muli' said to mean 'hill'. The full name has been interpreted as meaning 'small round hill' - a reference to Mt Chincogan (309 m), beneath which the town is situated. The Mullumbimby Chincogan Fiesta, held each year in September, centres on a foot-race from the post office to the top of Mt Chincogan and back. The Mullumbimby markets are held in the reserve behind the Stuart Street Museum on the third Saturday of the month.

Murwillumbah is the last major town (apart from the urban sprawl of Tweed Heads) before the Queensland border. It is a substantial centre which is focussed almost entirely on providing services for the surrounding farmlands. The area is particularly rich and consequently is a mixture of cattle and sugar cane. Murwillumbah is a rather pleasant town of around 9000 people which spreads along the banks of the Tweed River by the foothills of the McPherson Ranges. It is located in a scenic area 848 km north-east of Sydney, 13 km south of the Queensland border and 132 km south of Brisbane. In recent times the Pacific Highway, which joins Sydney and Brisbane, has bypassed the town and consequently it has become rather more sedate. Murwillumbah is surrounded by sugarcane which is the major industry of the Tweed Valley. In fact, if the visitor travels through the region at the right time of the year, he or she will see virtual walls of sugarcane on either side of the road. Dairying and bananas also contribute to the local economy. Prior to European settlement the area was occupied by the Bundjalung Aborigines.