Travel blog?

I've been asked to give the world some information about Australia. Fair enough, I suppose. If I want an international audience, as it were, I should say something about my little plot of the world. I'm not much of a travel writer - for that matter, I'm not nearly as well travelled as I'd like to be - but I'll give you my point of view.

Australia is bone bloody dry - especially my bit of it, South Australia. We're getting water restrictions in Adelaide at the moment. Don't use sprinklers between 8am and 8pm - don't use them at all on certain days of the week. Don't empty and refill your pool. Wash your car with a bucket, not a hose. That sort of stuff.

I'm not trying to put people off coming here by telling you about the water problems. It's just the way it is. We have plenty of water at the beach - you just can't use it for gardens and drinking. We could have massive desalination plants to resolve our problems, but for some reason, we don't seem to.

Coming back to the beaches - we really do have some great ones. I haven't been to the Gold Coast or anything like that, so I can't comment - though I think it'd be way too crowded for this little loner. Back in my old stomping grounds around Ceduna, though, I know the beaches are awesome, and there are very few people to spoil it. Cactus beach is a pretty well-known surfing beach. I'd watch out for sharks, though. Otherwise, there's the shallow but peaceful water of Decrees Bay, or the great, rolling sandhills of Davenport Creek.











Cactus Beach (on a calm day)


I can't really comment much on tourist destinations. I'm a local and I see things from a local perspective. Social commontary, though - I can do that. Go to somewhere like Ceduna, and you'll find most of them live (and drive) at a somewhat unhurried pace and are happy to say g'day to a new face. Good place to be a tourist. As a place to live - well, I don't live there anymore. Then again, I'm a progressive, intelligent female, and there's not real much for my type to do, there.

So, about Adelaide. Nice, quaint little city. The architecture, especially in the city centre, is really something. Well, it is to me. Mainly because it's not all the modern crap that looks like no effort's been made on it. I'm talking about the old churches and stuff like that, and even the railway station. Adelaide is called the City of Churches, and so it is. I'm not much of a religious type, myself, but I do appreciate the buildings.

One of the aforementioned churches

The people here are a mixed bag. Mostly, we're pretty friendly, but there's the rude and stupid ones as well (as you will find pretty much anywhere). Adelaide has more relaxed laws than the other states on vehicle registration - this means no-one really checks up on the condition of our vehicles (unless you count being defected by cops now and then), so we have a lot of old cars on the road. Not classics, really, just old cars like my beaten up old Galant. Most of us in this country seem to drive Holden Commodores or Ford Falcons. Don't ask me if I'm a Ford or Holden girl, 'cos I've owned - and enjoyed owning - both. Though it's been said that the Aussie dream is to own a Commodore (or a Monaro, for the showy types) and a big-arse TV... which even this broke grunt can do (well, the Commodore, not the Monaro). We're easy to please.

The coveted Holden Monaro