Category Archives: Slow Travel

Lazy Summer Days

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Black Point, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

The Christmas New Year period provides a time for relaxing and resetting. Work, or in my case my PhD, is the last thing on people’s minds and it’s usually hot!

It’s a time to go to the beach and we were very lucky this year to be invited by our daughter, her partner and our new grandson to spend New Year with them at my daughter’s partner’s family shack at Black Point on the Yorke Peninsula.

Black Point is about a two-hour drive from Adelaide if the traffic isn’t too bad. We were lucky and the traffic was light.

Although Yorke Peninsula is one of South Australia’s favourite summer holiday spots, we don’t visit often. So it was delightful to be invited.

As kids, my favourite person and I had trips to Yorke Peninsula and my favourite person had lived there for a short time when she was little – the joys of being a minister’s daughter.  In my case, my last visit was to James Well for a Partner Retreat which proved to be the catalyst for a move to the firm that sustained me for the remainder of my working life, although through the raging argument that ensued at the retreat I certainly couldn’t have foreseen it.

The drive out of Adelaide took us through North Adelaide and onto Port Wakefield Road. The terrain is so different from our usual drive to our holiday house on the Fleurieu Peninsula. It’s a straight drive just a couple of turns at the top of the peninsula and then we were there. It’s flat and dry, quintessential Australian countryside.

Port Wakefield

Following the rule of not driving for too long in any one stint, we stopped at Port Wakefield to stretch our legs. It’s a typical country town. It’s just the right distance from Adelaide to stop and refuel both yourself and the car. It’s the staging point for trips north or west in the state and the turnoff to Yorke Peninsula just out of the town can bottleneck but we weren’t held up at all.

Through Port Wakefield, we headed down the other side of Yorke Peninsula past Ardrossan and then onto Black Point, which for most of the year would be described as sleepy. At this time of the year it’s a lively delightful little beachside town.

As we pulled into our accommodation we were greeted by the neighbours apologising for the noise they’d planned to make for New Year, and our daughter’s partner setting up the boiler so he could cook ups the crabs he’d caught in the morning.

Black Point used to just be shacks on the beachfront but today there is a little more development with more modern beach house built behind.  Our daughter’s partner’s family shack fronts straight onto the beach. It was once just one room and a verandah although today it’s been made a little more modern with separate bedrooms and an indoor bathroom and loo! It is the verandah that is the focal point. It’s right on the beach. I have photos of my daughter’s partner fishing off the verandah but the tide was out so there was no chance of that on this occasion.

What could be better for enjoying this lovely location?

Our view from the verandah

The beach and the ocean are the focus here. Continue reading →

Standing Stones and Burial Chambers, The Orkney Islands

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Ring of Brodgar

I caught up with a former colleague recently who was just back from a cruise that included a day in the Orkney Islands, a place we’d had the pleasure of spending a week last year. With such a short time in the Orkneys he’d only had the opportunity to see some of the many spectacular sites including the Ring of Brodgar.

My colleague said that his guide had said it was extraordinary how those standing stones were exactly as they were at Stone Henge. This was something I had not heard before.

We too had been to the Ring of Brodgar and that certainly was not mentioned by our tour guide.

It’s not surprising that he’d heard a different story to us, as they are just stories about seemingly random locations where a group of stones were placed a few thousand years ago.

So what of standing stones? Continue reading →

Nhill, Victoria – a place to stop for petrol or a destination?

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The talking draft horse – Nhill, Victoria

Nhill is about 350 kms from Adelaide, just over the border into Victoria. It is a place we’d driven through many times, heading to Melbourne or other parts. If we’d stopped it had only been for a comfort stop and petrol.

Not this time. My favourite person and I had driven across to NE Victoria so I could collect data for my research.

This would be an out and back trip. The 800km plus trip each way meant we were looking for the quickest route so it would be straight through and when I say straight I mean it. The GPS barely comes to life on these types of trip. Often its silent for a couple of hours before piping in with taking the second exit of a roundabout in 270 kms – that means slow down but keep going straight.

As we drove we mused over driving holidays of days gone by as children with our parents, in our early years of marriage, just the two of us and then with children. Oh the country towns and dodgy motels! These trips had made us appreciate just how big Australia is, something lost when you are 30000 feet up flying between capital cities. Country Australia and the capital cities are different worlds these days, more is the pity.

The drive through the Adelaide Hills and then on through the south east of South Australia saw the countryside quickly change from the greenish brown tinge of late summer to the straw brown of the flat quintessential South Australian countryside.

On the way over we’d stopped at Bendigo, a historic gold rush town. Stopping in Bendigo meant we’d only have a half day drive to meet my interviewees the next day. Bendigo is synonymous with the 1850s gold rush and has buildings that are reminiscent of a bygone and wealthy past. Today its home to about 100,000 people and is typical of a large country centre with all the mod cons. It’s also home to a lovely local hotel, the Bridge, which we were lucky enough to strike on T-bone Tuesday! A large steak, fresh vegetables, salad and a glass of wine for under $20. A perfect way to break our journey on the way over.

The next morning it was a 3 hour drive onto the winery I was visiting. My interviewees were a delight providing me with much rich data, for my research. Our time there enabled us to take a tour of the winery and conduct my interviews enjoy a lovely ddinner with on e of the family member and then set off on the return journey.

On the way home, we decided that we’d break the journey in half and settled on Nhill, Victoria. Continue reading →

Sydney by Ferry

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The Harbour is what makes Sydney, as everyone knows, and so what better way to get around it than by ferry?

We’d taken the ferry to Balmain on our first day in Sydney and so as the clouds cleared on our second morning, we grabbed our Opal Cards and set off. This time rather than getting in the ferry at Pyrmont Bay we decided to walk across the Pyrmont Bridge and walk around to Barangaroo.

Barangaroo is a new trendy mix of business and hospitality. Being a Saturday morning it was not particularly busy and so rather than stopping for a coffee, we decided to hop on a ferry and head to Circular Quay. I thought we’d have an early lunch at Cafe Sydney, but it was closed and with the weather still a bit dodgy we decided to have a light lunch at one of the Harbourside restaurants. I was surprised how pleasant the meal was given these are so often straight tourist traps! We were able to sit and watch the people and ferries go by as well as look across to a large passenger ship moored at the International terminal. Looking at the ship again reconfirmed why I remain not that keen on a cruise – all those people and nowhere to hide!!

As we sat the weather cleared and we decided we head into Watsons Bay, not for lunch as we had originally planned but for a glass of wine.  It’s about a half hour trip via Rose Bay. This ferry ride gave us a great chance to see the Harbour in all its glory.

Once at Watsons Bay, we headed for the Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel and it’s 800 seat bar and dining area, known as the Beach Club. How can anything that seats 800 be boutique? Continue reading →

Sydney – The Naval Museum and Balmain

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We travelled to Sydney with our daughter who had a convention to attend. Her conference was at the New Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour giving us an excuse to stay somewhere we’d not been before.

We chose to stay in an Airbnb apartment in Pyrmont. Very convenient to our daughter’s convention and opening new places for us to discover and visit.

With our daughter off at the convention, our first stop was breakfast at the Social Brew Cafe. It was busy. I can only imagine that it would be frantic on a Saturday or Sunday. The coffee was great and the eggs excellent. It provided a good base to start our day. Continue reading →