Category: Places We’ve Been

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Heroes of the skies

Alice Springs, NT, AU

There was one thing the camels, or the train that replaced the camels, couldn’t help us with.

Something that was a serious point of consideration for us when we decided to come out into the pretty much completely uninhabited ‘Red Centre’ of a country that takes a sense of personal pride from the fact that a swift and painful demise is never more than a few feet away even in the most urbanized of areas…

…oh lets not forget the ever present and very real threat of detesticulation…

And that thought was “Ok, so what happens if we’re a few thousand miles from the nearest hospital…

(because here, that actually happens somewhat often)

…and we end up getting detesticulated?  What do we do!?!

Continue reading “Heroes of the skies”

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Human Detesticulation and Baby Kangaroos

Alice Springs, NT, AU

One of our favorite stops in Alice Springs was the Kangaroo rescue center

kinda obvious why…

Where we learned more about the complicated relationship the people of Australia have with their semi-official national ambassador…

Continue reading “Human Detesticulation and Baby Kangaroos”

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Riding the Ghan

Enroute Alice Springs, NT, AU

They have trains that traverse Australia.  One of them, called “The Ghan” bisects the country running from Adelaide to Alice Springs to Darwin and when we bought the tickets online they charged us half of what the website said they would…

…kinda wish we knew that BEFORE our car broke down in the middle of the outback but hey, it’s a better story this way…

Continue reading “Riding the Ghan”

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Zombie Koalas

Adelaide, SA, AU

So after having our car break down in the middle of an Australian zombie outbreak and narrowly escaping with our lives it was time to seek alternate transport.

But at least now we understood why the koalas hang out it the trees. Apparently zombies can’t climb eucalyptus. Come on, have you ever seen a zombie Koala?

[fgallery id=18 w=450 h=385 t=0 title=”zombie koalas”]

Well, after spending a week with them in the wild as they laughed at our misguided attempt to repair our car we can confidently say that neither have we.

Continue reading “Zombie Koalas”

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Australia lied to us

The Great Ocean Road, VIC, AU

Australia has a lot of coastline.  It ranges from swampy marshes, to beautiful beaches, to craggy cliffs and everything in between.  Victoria, in the southeastern part of the country, has miles of land that meets water.  One of the most celebrated of those regions is the Great Ocean Road.  We first heard about it in a travel magazine a few years ago, and Tiffany thought it looked gorgeous so we decided to check it out (via wine country of course!  We’ll post more about that soon.)

Little did we know that this was…a thing…that one does.  Drive the Great Ocean Road that is.  It’s a thing…that Australians ask…if you’ve done.  So consequently….

Life Achievement Unlocked:
Drive The Great Ocean Road.

(Hey, who are we to say it’s not epic?)

Continue reading “Australia lied to us”

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Dumb ‘Roos

Snowy Mountains, NSW, AU

In Australia, they don’t call it a “bull bar.”  They call it a “roo bar”

And it seems like every vehicle over here has one.

And we wonder where they got the idea for Mad Max…

The first thing we did on our great Australian overland excursion was to (inadvertently!!) find out why this is so:

Continue reading “Dumb ‘Roos”

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Calling Home

Mt Kosciuszko, NSW, AU

Today we cover two interesting and mostly unrelated facts.

1) Though literally miles from anywhere even slightly resembling civilization, Mt Kosciuszko is probably the only member of the 7 summits that has mobile phone reception.

Yep, up there.  Best coverage in the area.

2) Greg’s self confidence most likely comes from his mother’s side of the family.

The last mountain we were on top of in the southern hemisphere had less cell phone coverage but more snarky commentary.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures.  If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out atwww.CoastGuardCouple.com!

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We feel like Pilgrims

Karumba, QLD, AU

For our Thanksgiving festivities in Australia Tiffany made pumpkin pie.

Which, is kinda not a big deal right?

…until you realize that Australians are not familiar with the concept of putting pumpkins in a pie one would eat for dessert.  That means no canned pumpkin to fill the pie.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic: They also don’t know what graham crackers are either so, consequently, no premade graham cracker crusts.

(how do you people LIVE!?!)

What this means is that in order to get to this:

a hallmark of American cuisine

 

Tiffany had to start with these:

an Australian pumpkin

And just kinda figure out the rest.

Continue reading “We feel like Pilgrims”

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Self-propelled ski lift

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Having developed a bit of confidence learning the fine art of falling down hills with spikes attached to our feet and discovering how much we actually kinda liked trudging over frozen tundra…

who knew, right?

…we decided it would make a lot more sense just to drag our snowbaords to the top of a mountain and slide down that way.

Continue reading “Self-propelled ski lift”

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Vegemite and firearms

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Being as Australia isn’t exactly known for its alpine ski industry pretty much no one outside the natives typically makes it to the slopes here.

The upside of this is that working at a ski resort in Australia enabled us to meet one of our main goals for our time down under: we spent 3 months working and living with actual Australians.  As opposed to our previous job where we spent the majority of our time around European cowgirls; here for three months we were immersed in a, granted atypical but nonetheless genuine, Aussie cultural experience.

This, inevitability, led to the conversation on Vegemite.

Because Vegemite in Australia is a lot like guns in America.

Continue reading “Vegemite and firearms”

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