A blissful three whole days of no driving whatsoever under any circumstances was our reward for the arduous - by our standards, anyway - road trip from Brisbane to Sydney we'd just done. We were staying in Kingsgrove, inland of Botany Bay, on the edge of Wolli Creek; not that we were ever aware of … Continue reading A Fish called Stargazer
Author: Ralph Lavelle
The Road to Sydney
Day 1: Brisbane to Coffs Harbour Christmas was but a distant memory when we set off early on Boxing Day on a long-planned road trip subsequently dubbed ‘Australia: it’s a bloody long way’ after a fridge magnet we bought in - spoiler alert - the souvenir shop at the base of Sydney Tower on this … Continue reading The Road to Sydney
Cobá
I want to tell you about a trip we did during our seven-week sojourn in Mexico to a Mayan ruin site, a site that for all its magnificence you've probably never even heard of even though you may well have heard of some of the big-name sites, places such as Palenque, or Chichén Itzá. We … Continue reading Cobá
Wildlife in Mexico
After the Mayan ruins, the comida, the música, and the artesanía, one of the things we wanted to pay attention to on our Mexican trip was the wildlife. As much as we could, anyway, not being up to hacking our way through the dense selva of the Yucatán. No, we would take our opportunities to … Continue reading Wildlife in Mexico
A taxi into the Mayan jungle
We're on the second leg of our Mexican trip now: the Yucatán leg. We've called it that, knowing - now, at least, unlike when we planned it in the middle of last year, when such subtleties were lost on us - that Yucatán is only one state among the five we'd be in when we … Continue reading A taxi into the Mayan jungle
The Pyramids of Teotihuacán
There are some things that are so beyond the range of your normal tourist sightseeing that it's hard to do them justice in a blog post. Of course, experiences like swimming under a two-thousand-year-old Roman aqueduct spanning the river Gard near Nîmes in southern France, or emerging from the labyrinthine arches of Córdoba's Mezquita into … Continue reading The Pyramids of Teotihuacán
Ciudad de México, the town they call CDMX
Well, we flew in on a redeye from LA, having spent three days in the Californian desert, and were met by our friend Luis's dad, Luis, at Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de México (the city goes by the abbreviation of CDMX nowadays more than the older 'DF', which stands for Distrito Federal. And yes, it's usually … Continue reading Ciudad de México, the town they call CDMX
Guanajuato, city of Don Quixote
Guanajuato twists and turns, soars and plunges. Callejones empedradas - cobblestoned laneways - descend into plazuelas and teatros. Tunnels, once rivers, convey the newly-arrived visitor on an old green boneshaker from the bus station through improbably narrow calles, past a statue of what looks like Don Quixote, and into the crowded pavements of the centro historico. … Continue reading Guanajuato, city of Don Quixote
The Mountains on the Way Up
The Ivory Curl trees were in full bloom the day we drove to the mountains. Other than Milano's on the Mall after work on a Friday, the loose scattering of odd-shaped volcanic plugs called the Glasshouse Mountains are one of my favourite places in Queensland. Driving up to the Sunshine Coast these past few weekends, Mt. Tibrogargan always catches me … Continue reading The Mountains on the Way Up
Sunday morning, Alexandra Headland
Walking over the rocks that separate Alexandra Headland from Mooloolaba I nearly stood on a sea snake. I made sure it was dead before inspecting it closely. It was silver, with dark bands, and up close you could see it had non-overlapping hexagonal scales. They weren't perfect, however; it was as if they came from the … Continue reading Sunday morning, Alexandra Headland
