byron pay.

byron bay is the quintessential hippie location on the east coast. scratch that: in all of australia. this place is so chilled time slows as you approach it. in our case we actually lost one entire hour coming from queensland, but that’s a totally different story. time is an illusion, my friend. i still remember…

70 kilometer beach.

that’s of course not it’s actual name; while australia joined the metric system decades ago (a very sensible move unless you like to count feet or stones to work out how long or heavy something is) beaches are still named in the old imperial system, which would make this the 43.49598 mile beach which just does…

endangered species.

kimberley kampers, the manufacturer of our beloved thorny, has gone into liquidation. the writing has been on the wall for a while; the company went into voluntary administration late last year, but everyone was hoping they would be able to get back on their feet. unfortunately it wasn’t to be. this doesn’t really have an…

takarakka bush.

we went for a long bush walk through carnarvon gorge today, a really long one. and i must admit, i’m unsure which one i liked better: the takarakka bush retreat or the walk through carnarvon gorge. both were great and are highly recommended. we had been told that the vegetation in carnarvon gorge is similar…

the amazing beaver duck.

turns out don is full of sh!t after all. the amazing beaver duck really exists, and we have reasonably blurry photos to prove it. actually we have a few rather good ones, too, despite the low light in the late afternoon. when early european explorers brought (presumably dead) examples of the platypus back from australia…

run!

we’re back in the cretaceous period, for the last time, i promise. imagine this: it’s a quiet day about 95 million years ago and a bunch of (about onehundredandeighty) little chicken-sized skartopus australis are just having a drink at the local river. a few wintonopus latomorum, slightly bigger, maybe the size of a turkey, have…

romeo and juliet.

it’s a true australian outback story and it does have a really tragic ending, too. the only thing i’ve been a bit ‘creative’ with are the names: they were actually called banjo and matilda. but it’s as true a love story as you could possibly get with dinosaurs (‘darling, i could eat you up …’).…