My next stop in Tasmania wasn’t very far away at all. It turns out Tasmania isn’t really that big. So, after the animal sanctuary up near Hobart, I also had time for a short hike to see the Tessellated Pavement. I didn’t fully understand it all, but silt flows from the rivers and collects and hardens near the ocean and over time, it dries and salt dissolves at varying rates and you get these bread loaf looking formations. I thought…
From Sydney I hopped on the train for a short ride to the airport and then jumped on a plane headed for Australia’s southernmost state, Tasmania. I’ll be starting this part of my adventure in Tasmania’s capital, Hobart. Hobart seems like a fairly quiet seaside town. If you like to eat seafood (yes I most certainly do) then this is the place. Yummmm! After getting a new rental car and checking in at the hostel I had just enough time…
G’day and welcome to Sydney, the capital of New South Wales and what is probably Australia’s most famous city. I arrived into the city late afternoon and discovered that driving in downtown Sydney is not fun at all. After missing one turn, several inconvenient one way roads, and a couple of no right turn here intersections, I suddenly found myself driving across the Harbor Bridge and having to make a ten mile loop around the outskirts of the city before…
I left the Snowy Mountains that didn’t have any snow yet and headed northeast through some really beautiful grassland until I reached the Australian Capital Territory. It’s a smallish territory created specifically to encompass Australia’s capital city, Canberra. I wanted to see the capital, of course, but I was most excited about all the museums. I started at the main one, the Australian National Museum. Right in the lobby was the Muttaburrasaurus, Australia’s own native dinosaur. They named it that…
After Mungo National Park the next closest stop on my itinerary is clear on the other side of Victoria, a really really long drive. So I decided I needed to add a stop in between to break up that drive… and now I’m in Bendigo. I picked this place because I wanted to see the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion. Even though it’s a big modern construction, this place was pretty amazing. The main structure is modeled after the 15th…
I left Grampians and headed due north all the way to Victoria’s northern border. About half way there, I broke up my drive with a quick stop to see a pink lake, Lake Tyrell. Turns out, it’s a dry lake most of the time, but it did have a distinct pink hue. It’s part of an ancient basin that later became a salt lake when the ocean receded about a gazillion years ago. When it does get water, it quickly…
Greetings from my latest adventure Down Under! That’s right, not only am I visiting the next country on my list, Australia (just in case you didn’t figure that out), but I’m also adding another continent to my tally. So let’s dive right in, since that’s pretty much what I had to do. After flying twentyish hours across the Pacific, my flight arrived into Melbourne at 8am. Which meant I had to try and stay awake all day so I could…
Believe it or not, that whole long thing is the actual, official name of the city that we all know as Bangkok. It’s the longest city name in the entire world. There are different stories as to where the name ‘Bangkok’ (Village of the Wild Plum) came from, but no one is really sure. The locals refer to their city as just ‘Krung Thep’. Here’s a pic of the city’s official name on a monument outside of the city hall….
South from Khao Sok National Park is Phang Nga Province. Phang Nga is a really quick stop for me, but it was jam packed with some really awesome sites. Lucky for me there were a ton of waterfalls to stop at along my route on highway 4, so I had a waterfallapalooza on my way to the next hotel. First up was Sai Rung. The main tourist season is obviously kicking in and this southern part of Thailand is the…
I think Thailand is one of the oddest shaped countries in the world. After leaving Kanchanaburi I made a hard right turn and now I’m heading south down the thin sliver of land between the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, the Malay Peninsula. My first stop on this part of the journey is the quiet town of Phetchaburi. There’s only a small handful of things I wanted to check out here, so let’s get started. My hotel doesn’t…