Places: Hobart

The first thing you notice is that the sun slants in at a flat angle, no matter where you are. It drills into your retina leaving a ghostly green afterimage and a cramping headache as your optic nerve spasms in shock.The sun knifes between buildings and surprises you coming around a corner when you least expect it

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Canberra

Canberra gets a lot of bad press. Some of it is deserved, but less that you might think. Being the capital of Australia, it suffers the same curse which afflicts Washington DC and Brasilia; namely that it is an invented settlement which has been located for reasons of politcs rather than practicality. In the case…

8 things not to do in Melbourne – a guide for visitors

Melbourne is a tricky place for a tourist, as there are few flashy tourist attractions and a visitor usually has to spend weeks or months to really get under the place's skin. If you happen to be visiting Melbourne and Google what to do, you'll be met with a dizzying array of highly repetitive suggestions.…

The Gold Coast

I came to the Gold Coast like everyone does – because I had some business to attend to and it seemed like a pleasant escape from the gloom of the southern states. “Australia’s Gold Coast” is the claim, a somewhat redundant effort to differentiate between Queensland and Ghana. Actually it’s Queensland’s Gold Coast, judging from the self-promoting hoarding slapped up everywhere. If you can’t advertise to the tourists, advertise to the locals I suppose.