Check Out My Other Blog

I had originally thought that this blog would be all I’d need—that I’d share other travels and interests here. However, this is pretty clearly a travel blog, with most of it’s focus on Australia, so I decided to start another blog for my equally serious food interests. That blog is The World’s Fare.
The original idea [...]

Pavlova for the Holidays

The holidays seem to be all about eating—so I thought I’d offer a recipe to enjoy during your festivities. While traveling around Australia, I had several encounters with a really lovely dessert called a Pavlova, named for the great ballerina.
While Pavlova is massively popular all across Australia, where it is viewed as a fair dinkum [...]

Dining Down Under

Those who know me well are probably wondering why I’ve said so little about Australia’s food to this point. (Well, I do talk about it in the book, but haven’t said much on the blog yet.) Actually, I have written a lot, it has just been other places. For example, I did the piece below [...]

Fascinating Figs

One of my stops on the Atherton Tableland was at Yungaburra, to see the famous Curtain Fig (a section of which is pictured below). While the premature death and fall of the host tree made this ficus particularly interesting, all figs are pretty intriguing.
• Ficus (the botanic name for figs) is a group of about [...]

Australian Tea

While visiting the Atherton Tableland, I was delighted by the sight of some of the region’s glorious tea plantations. Blankets of emerald tea bushes swept across landscapes and up mountainsides. It was simply gorgeous. I had been drinking Australian tea for a couple of weeks already, and it was wonderful seeing it growing.
The first tea [...]

Prawn Trawlers

Cooktown was a delight on many levels, with intriguing history, exotic natural beauty, and lots of sensory input—light, fragrance, heat, color. I already included a book excerpt about Cooktown on March 20, and on May 17, I showed you one of my favorite photos of Cooktown, so you’ve gotten a little taste of the town. [...]

Now For Something Completely Different

While the main focus of this site is pretty clearly Australia, including my adventures in and writing about the sunburnt country, I also want to share other destinations and interests. I travel a fair bit, and have seen some things I hope to share. I also write about food: primarily food history, but also food [...]

Rum Rebellion

While in Queensland, I visited the Beenleigh Rum Museum. I guess it’s not too surprising that, in a country that cherishes its convict heritage, people would commemorate a bootlegging past.
The Rum Museum was filled with artifacts and displays detailing the part rum played in the early days of colonial Australia. It was a more significant [...]

Anzac Biscuits

Well, I’ve done five excerpts from the book, so I thought it might be time for a “detour.” Aside from travel, one of my great interests is food — primarily food history and food as it relates to culture. If you click on the link to Hungry Magazine, at right, you can see a lot [...]