Look, up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a Lear Jet of Hollywood types arriving to make a blockbuster. According to a story in the Radar section of the Sydney Morning Herald, written by Garry Maddox and Joel Gibson, Superman Returns is as much a tribute to Sydney [...]
A fish cannery in Esperance (WA) has been converted into an art gallery. Mind you, aside from the gallery’s tin-can logo, you probably wouldn’t spot the makeover. Wander the water colours on Norseman Road – just past the Tanker Jetty – and see if you can smell a frightened tuna in the joinery. The Cannery [...]
Simpson and his donkey are coming to a suburb near you. The legends of Gallipoli, in league with the entire Turkish peninsula, is slated to set up shot on Point Nepean, some 100kms south of Melbourne. Or that’s if Danna Vaile wins out. The former Minister for Vets Affairs aired the brainwave this week, giving [...]
Fossil Bluff in Wynyard (TAS) seems more bluff than fossil. A big claystone sandwich, with tillite and basalt for its bread, the clump is slowly being eaten by Bass Strait. But, the bluff is bizarre for two reasons. One, our oldest marsupial fossil was found here, a huge devil-like character named Wynyardia bassiana, dating back [...]
Almost three tonnes of grapes per acre are crushed at Train Trak Wines – but not by the train. The loco ran out of steam in the early 1900s. Though the Healesville Line (which officially shut in 1980) stills winds through the winery. Which could make you question the unique ‘oak flavours’ of Train Trak [...]
Tunbridge has one bridge of historic curiosity. Built by convicts in 1848, the sandstone eye-catcher is the oldest single-span bridge in Oz, and last night may have disappeared. Of course, that’s the alarmist view. Hardly Hurricane Rita, a hairline crack in Blackman River Dam, upstream of tiny Tunbridge, began weeping on Thursday, October 13, causing [...]
KATHERINE, NT – Biscuit zebra is a rock, not a macaroon. Another type of sandstone called Ning-Bing comes from Ning-Bing Bore, on Kerry Packer’s station north of Kununurra and nowhere else in the world. Both bits of odd geology feature at Rare Rocks, as well as leopard stone from Timber Creek, and the surreal rainbow [...]
On March 30, 2004, a blonde girl walked into a Coen pub in far north Queensland. Tanned, bright-eyed, she told the drinkers in broken English her name was Anna, a backpacker from Germany, and she wanted to hitchhike up the cape to Weipa. To give you a mud map, Weipa is the last skerrick of [...]
Popeye has left the cliff top. Popeye, in fact, was never on the cliff – so just ignore the glitch the Cassowary index that tells you Popeye and Olive Oyl are standing above the Jamison Valley in Leura (NSW), in Sydney’s Blue Mountains. Olive Oyl IS there, with a wind-gauge in her hair to avoid [...]
EXMOUTH, WA – Axel and Eske Passeck, both born in Germany, run Australia’s only hotel inside an active naval base. Though the word ‘inside’ can be argued. Their Best Western Sea Breeze Resort shares a cyclone fence with the Harold E Holt Naval Communication Station. Parking facilities, however, overlap with the navy’s own Base Bar [...]